Teela, Krause-Beste win again Biathletes won’t rest on laurels

FORT KENT – The top finishers on the first day of the U.S. Biathlon World Team Championship Trials at the Maine Winter Sports Center’s 10th Mountain Division Center did not even need the wins, but they took them just the same.

Jeremy Teela and Jill Krause-Beste had already earned spots on the 2005 U.S. team before they grabbed the top times at Wednesday’s sprint races.

Teela did it in style, shooting clean – hitting 10 out of 10 targets – and completing the 10-kilometer course in 24 minutes, 52.7 seconds. Second place went to Tim Burke, who trailed Teela by 2:41.5, with Kevin Patzoldt in third place 2:51.9 behind.

“I had taken some time off for Christmas and felt kind of sluggish,” Teela said after the race. “I went into this [race] as a training race, but anytime you can shoot clean, that’s a huge mental barrier to break through.”

Teela, who trains in Jericho, Vt., and is a member of the U.S. Army team, said it had been six or seven years since he last shot a clean race.

Army teammate Krause-Beste posted a winning time of 23:33.8 in the 7.5-kilometer sprint, shooting at 80 percent (eight of 10 targets). She finished 45.5 seconds and 01:47.5 ahead of twin sisters Lanny Barnes and Tracey Barnes, respectively.

“It was a good course today, hard-packed course,” Krause-Beste said after the race. “Today was good for my confidence, especially for shooting, and I’m proud of how I shot today.”

The St. Cloud, Minn., native said she has been a little shaky on her standing position shooting, but she is very pleased with her skiing times this season.

“I skied a lot faster than I thought I was going to at this race,” Krause-Beste said.

So fast, in fact, she was able to hold on to the lead over Lanny Barnes, who was perfect on the shooting range Wednesday.

In the sprint competition, biathletes complete three loops of the course with two stages of shooting, first in the prone position and the second standing.

For each missed target, the biathlete must ski once around a 150-meter penalty loop, which normally adds 20 to 30 seconds to a skier’s time.

Participants this week are competing for the remaining open slots on the U.S. Biathlon Senior Men’s and Women’s World Cup teams. The trials had originally been scheduled for Lake Placid, N.Y., but weather and deteriorating conditions forced the last-minute move to Fort Kent.

The Barnes sisters live and train year-round in Fort Kent as members of the Maine Winter Sports Center’s team, and even though there were nowhere near the number of spectators that came by the thousands to the Biathlon World Cup in March, it was still a hometown crowd on hand.

“It was really exciting to see and race in front of all the people I know and have seen all summer long,” Tracy Barnes said. “People are really excited about biathlon around here.”

Her sister agrees.

“It really is like having a home court advantage here,” Lanny Barnes said. “It’s always really tough skiing here, but really fun.”

Stockholm, Maine, native Russell Currier finished the day in 15th place, 5:24.4 off the leader, in his first competition at the senior level.

“I skied well, but my shooting was not all there,” the Caribou High School junior Wednesday afternoon. His six misses earned him six trips around the penalty loop.

“I paced myself well, but when I came to the range, I tended to forget all the things I should have been thinking about,” he said.

Members of the Maine Winter Sports Center team posted solid times Wednesday, with eight top-10 finishes.

Their standings as of the end of competition on Wednesday for the women were Lanny Barnes, second; Tracy Barnes, third; Annelies Cook, sixth (26:31.2); Haley Johnson, ninth (26:52.9); and Beth Ann Ellington, 11th (28:39.9).

On the men’s side it was Tim Burke, second (27:34.2); Brian Olsen, fourth (28:07.4); Bjorn Bakken, fifth (28:17.8); Walt Shepard of Yarmouth, eighth (29:19.7); Currier, 15th (30:17.1); and Nathaniel Rogers, 19th (32:07.2).

Competition resumes today at 10 a.m. with the pursuit competition, and wraps up Friday at 10 a.m. with the final sprint races.