FORT KENT – After receiving more nearly three feet of fresh snow over the past week, trail conditions were soft and slow on Saturday, the first day of competition at the International Paralympics Committee’s Nordic World Championships.

“It’s like skiing through mashed potatoes,” one competitor told a coach after completing his race, probably not realizing that in the St. John Valley, comparing anything to the region’s top cash crop is likely to be taken as a compliment.

The weekend was filled with biathlon competitions – a short-course 7.5-kilometer race on Saturday and longer races of 12.5 or 10 kilometers on Sunday – and a fluctuating crowd of a few hundred attended the day’s six races.

In short-course biathlon competitions, Vladyslav Morozov of Ukraine won the men’s sit-ski division, touring the 7.5-kilometer course in 29 minutes, 13.3 seconds, while Irina Poliakova of Russia was the first woman in 34:16.

In the standing category, Thomas Olsner of Germany (24:09.8) and Yuliya Batenkova of Ukraine (31:17.0) were champs, and in the visually impaired class, Brian McKeever of Canada – accompanied by his guide, brother Robin – shot clean and clocked a time of 22:27.9. Verena Bentele of Germany and guide Franz Lankes were top in the women’s visually impaired class in 28:23.0.

On Sunday, in the long-course biathlon (12.5 kilometers for all racers except those in the sit-ski women’s class, who race 10 kilometers), Morozov again won the men’s sit-ski division in 48:54.2. Lyudmyla Pavlenko of Ukraine topped the women’s field in 48:52.5. In the men’s standing division, Valerie Daroskykh of Russia was victorious in 43:26.0. Katarzyna Rogoweic of Poland won the women’s standing event in 54:31.1, while American Kelly Underkofler finished third to win the first U.S. medal of the games. Underkofler’s time was 55:31.2.

In the men’s visually impaired division, Irek Mannanov of Russia won in 37:45.8. The women’s results will not be available until Tuesday, pending the outcome of a protest after the apparent winner was disqualified for skiing off the course and returning to the course in a different spot.

Underkofler, a senior at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, was pleased with her performance on Sunday.

“It felt great. The snow was way, way better than yesterday, nice and firm, so that was awesome, and I shot well,” Underkofler said. “It was fun.”

Underkofler said she trains as much as possible while attending classes, then travels to the relatively infrequent paralympic events. Training has been a particular problem this year as she has had trouble finding snow. On Saturday, Underkofler struggled to an eighth-place finish in the short-course biathlon and said the snow conditions played a role.

“With the soft snow I have trouble with one pole,” said Underkofler, who was born without most of her left forearm. “You get into that soft, mushy mashed potato snow and it’s tough. But today was a lot better and was really fun. It’s a great course.”

Spectators who were among those who flocked to the 10th Mountain Nordic Ski Center in Fort Kent for last year’s World Cup biathlon knew most of the basics of the weekend’s events, but the IPC World Championships are different in several ways, most quickly found out.

One major difference: While only a single men’s race and another women’s race are held each day during last year’s World Cup, a day of racing at the IPC World Championships entails six different races in three categories.

Public address announcers made a considerable effort to educate the fans, explaining the differences that exist at paralympic competitions.

Joe Walsh, the managing director of U.S. Paralympics, a division of the U.S. Olympic Committee, outlined the system in place at the IPC World Championships and other paralympic competitions worldwide.

“It will break down into three major groups for each gender,” Walsh said. “One is the sitting classifications. Second is the standing classifications with physical disabilities. And third is the visually impaired and blind.”

Athletes in each of those three classifications compete against others in their category – sitting, standing, and visually impaired – despite disabilities that vary greatly.

Walsh explained that each athlete has been classified according to their capabilities, and a numeric multiplier has been assigned to each.

As a result, watching the clock and keeping track of your favorite skier or biathlete’s progress can be a bit misleading. In IPC events, a time is not really a time – until the athlete’s multiplier is taken into account.

But it’s not really that confusing, Walsh said.

The least disabled in each class have a rating of 100 percent, Walsh said. The time that shows up on the scoreboard for those athletes is their actual time. Athletes with a higher level of disability may have a rating of 94 percent, or 90, or 85. When they finish, their time is multiplied by that rating, and a new, adjusted time is created.

“The easiest group [to explain] is the visually impaired group,” Walsh said. “Those folks with the highest amount of vision, the 3 category, the high partial vision, race at 100 percent.”

“The athletes who are totally blind may be rated at 85 percent. So a totally blind racer may go out and race that same race course in 35 minutes, but then that 35 minutes is multiplied by 85 percent,” he said.

Blind skiers compete with a guide who offers verbal instruction during the race.

In each of the other two classes, similar distinctions are made during the classification process for each athlete, Walsh said.

“The 100 percent racers in the sit-ski are those with the most function,” he said. “They are almost exclusively amputees who are seated. So they have full stomach function, full hip function, they may have good leg anchors that they can pull against. So they’ve got a lot more function in terms of using their shoulders, their arms, their stomachs, their hip flexors to move them.

“The bottom classification there, the LW-10s, who are racing at 85 percent or something like that, have a spinal cord injury and may not have much, if any, use of their stomach muscles. They’re strapped upright and they’re using just their shoulders and chest and arms. So obviously their ability to propel themselves is much slower,” he said.

In biathlon events, each division shoots at targets 10 meters away. The sit-ski and standing classes use air rifles, while the visually impaired rely on technology to knock down virtual targets.

“The visually impaired system is an audio-feedback targeting [system],” Walsh said. “The blind skiers will ski into the range, lie down on the mat for prone shooting, and they’ll put on a set of headphones. The headphones are connected to the sight on the rifle. There’s a laser sight on the rifle which is detecting the electronic target at the other end. As the racer moves the rifle onto the target, the audio feedback on the headphones will change. The frequency will change and the pitch will go up as they get closer to the center of the target.”

And when the athlete is satisfied with the tone, he or she pulls the trigger.

“There’s a second laser, which is the actual ‘bullet,’ if you will, that will be detected [as to] whether it hit the target or not. And that will give an [immediate] audio feedback as well, [so the athlete can tell if the shot was a hit or a miss].”

After athletes take a day off from competition on Monday, racing resumes with 10-kilometer freestyle races on Tuesday, short-distance cross country on Thursday, long distance on Saturday, and relays on Sunday.

Crowds are expected to swell on Tuesday and Thursday, as more than 500 schoolchildren from across Aroostook County will be bused to the venue on each of those days.