The Polar Bear Biathlon Club hosted its final summer event for this year, a Sprint Biathlon Race, at Adirondack Wood-craft Camps on Sunday, August 24th. Although the field was small, a good time was had by all.
Seven racers started racing shortly after 10 a.m. and were finished by 11:30 a.m. All seven racers were entered in either a Sport Class or a Competition Class.
The difference between the classes is the size of the target. If you are racing in the Sport Class, you are shooting at large targets both times that you shoot, in the prone position.
If you are racing the Competition Class, you are shooting small targets in the prone position and large targets in the standing position.
All racers ran a 2 km loop and than came in to shoot. After running the penalty loop for all missed targets, they ran another 2 km loop and shot a second time.
Again, they ran penalty loops for each misssed target and ended the race with a third 2 km loop.
Our competitors came from New Hampshire, Syracuse and the area surrounding Old Forge.
In the Boy Class, that included male racers between the ages of 13 and 16, Tyler Rudolph had his best race ever.
He finished the Sport course with the fastest time of the day and missing only one target.
In the Competition Class, the fastest time was recorded by Eli Walker, a member of the Saratoga Biathlon Club who currently lives in New Hampshire. He missed three targets overall.
Other racers were former Polar Bear racer, Robert Winter, who was the only racer to shoot clean. Rob raced in the Sport Class.
Henry Uzdavinis raced his first Competition race. Although he is officially in the Boy Class, ages between 12 and 16, he elected to move up to the Youth Male class and shoot the small targets prone and large targets standing.
Henry will race in the Youth Class this winter and carry his rifle while skiing.
The final Competition racer was Lesley Leach who raced in the Women’s Class.
In the Sport Class the other racers were Janine Phaneuf in Sport Women, and Brandon Tibbitts from Syracuse in the Sport Men’s Class.
The Polar Biathlon Club would like to thank all of our hard-working support staff for their continued assistance in our races.
Sunday’s race had Joe Phaneuf as chief of range assisted by David Leach. Scott deCamp as Chief Timer was assisted by Barb Uzdavinis, Deb Fuge on Computer Timing and Michele deCamp as our Photographer.
Without the hard work of these individuals we couldn’t host our races!
Missing this race, but present for many other races, were Anne and Bill Greene, Jon Brosemer, and Sandy Tetreault.
We look forward to our winter races commencing on January 1, 2015. See you then!