Mainers to compete in national biathlon Junior championships in Fort Kent

FORT KENT – Eight Maine youngsters will be competing in their first U.S. Junior National Biathlon Championships that will be held for the second straight year at the Maine Winter Sports Center here Feb. 24 through March 1.

They will be among 80 of the country’s top junior biathletes, 20 years old and younger. Along with biathletes from Alaska, New York, New Hampshire, Utah, Vermont, Minnesota, Montana, and Colorado will be some juniors from the Province of Quebec.

Running concurrently with the junior men and women pursuit competitions will be the 10th Mountain Division Junior Nordic Competitions for Maine athletes. The first Maine finishers in the junior men’s and women’s pursuit competitions will receive $1,000 college tuition scholarships.

The Maine teenagers are: Blake Sherwood and Kelsey Bouchard from Fort Kent, Michael Berube of Madawaska, Anna Sprague of Stockholm, Jeff Allen and Cindy Warwich of Caribou, Robert Underwood of Presque Isle and Walt Sheppard of Yarmouth. They have been competing for the last six months. Sheppard has also competed in Sweden, and three participated in the U.S. Biathlon training last spring.

Last year, the Verizon U.S. Junior National Biathlon Championships came to Fort Kent because there was not enough snow to hold it at Lake Placid, N.Y.

“We are excited about being able to host the championships again this year, especially since we have had a few months to plan instead of less than a week,” Carl Theriault, co-chair of the event, said Monday.

“The trails are in super condition, and volunteers are ready in all aspects of the competition,” Max Saenger, chief of competitions, said.

“We are 100 percent positive that we will have great events for these young athletes,” Saenger said. “They will go from here floored by the levels of competition and readiness of volunteers.”

Theriault added, “It’s amazing the number of volunteers it takes to run these competitions. It is almost one to one to the number of athletes involved.”

Opening ceremonies will follow the biathletes zeroing in of rifles at 9:50 a.m., Monday, Feb. 26. The first contest, the sprint competition, will begin at 10 a.m. with the junior men racing 10 kilometers, the junior women 7.5 kilometers. The shorter youth boys and girls races will follow.

Feb. 27 is a training day.

Championship action will resume at 10 a.m., Feb. 28. Junior men will race 12.5 kilometers and junior women will race for 10 kilometers. Again, youth boys and girls races will follow.

The final day of competition, March 1, will feature the relay competitions for junior men and women. The top relay teams will be honored following the competition.

A flower ceremony follows each competition for the top three winners in each division at the Maine Winter Sports Center’s new lodge. A medal ceremony will be held at 5 p.m. Wednesday during the dedication of the Fort Kent venue’s new lodge.

The dedication will be one of the highlights of the week. The lodge will be named after the 10th Mountain Division, an army division specializing in combat on skis. Veterans of the unit will be on hand, including Andre Benoit, the father of Maine’s marathon sensation, Joan Benoit Samuelson.

The dedication is to old warriors who do a lot of military training in Colorado. They became famous during World War II fighting in the mountains of Italy and Germany.

An athletes banquet will round out the junior championships at 6 p.m. on March 1 at the Lonesome Pine Ski Lodge.

The lodge, architecturally based on Fort Kent’s Blockhouse, is about 80 percent complete. The essentials needed for the competitions will be done.

The junior nationals will be the third major competition held in Fort Kent since the MWSC biathlon venues opened last year. In addition to the junior nationals last year, the center also hosted the 2000 North American Biathlon Championships last March when the event was moved from Val Cartier, Quebec, because of a lack of snow there.