Walt Shepard steps up for sick U.S. teammates Yarmouth native competes on world level

It took some unfortunate circumstances, but a teammate’s illness provided Yarmouth native Walt Shepard with the experience of a lifetime.

Shepard, who competes for the Maine Winter Sports Center biathlon team in Fort Kent, recently competed in the biathlon world championships in Hochfilzen, Austria.

Although the final results weren’t what Shepard would have wanted – more illness would strike the team once it got into the competition – the experience was valuable for the up-and-coming biathlete.

“I had been to three junior world championships, but the senior level is a different thing,” Shepard said. “It’s the top competition, other than the Olympics. It was definitely a huge step for me.”

Shepard had finished fifth in the qualifying for the U.S. world championship team, which meant he was the first alternate. But when Jacob Beste of Minnesota got sick, Shepard was called upon to join the team.

Shepard had already planned to compete in two European Cup competitions, so he flew to Germany as scheduled and instead of going to the races in Germany and Switzerland, he jumped on a train to Austria for the world championships.

Shepard competed in the 10-kilometer sprint race, finishing 97th overall, 5 minutes, 29 seconds behind race winner and biathlon star Ole Einar Bjoerndalen of Norway. But poor fortune struck the U.S. team – Shepard started to feel sick, plus the region was hit with several feet of new, unpacked snow in three days, so he decided to sit out of the 20k individual race to gather his strength for the relay.

But another teammate got sick, so the U.S. team didn’t participate.

The world championships drew about 20,000 spectators because of its proximity to Germany, where biathlon is a huge draw.

“That amount of people made me a little shakier than normal on the shooting range,” he said with a laugh, “but I think it was just the excitement of being there.”

Now that the competitive season is over, Shepard is spending some time with his family in Yarmouth and skiing at Pineland Farms in New Gloucester, which is just nine miles away and has a system of cross country trails Shepard said are “world class.” He plans to return to Fort Kent at the end of April to start training.

The offseason could be particularly important for Shepard this season with the 2006 Olympic Games on the horizon. The U.S. team trials will be at Fort Kent next December.

Each country can bring at least four biathletes and can earn more starting spots based on the nation’s finish in the previous season’s World Cup. Shepard said the U.S. men are hoping they’ll have performed well enough this winter to earn a fifth starting spot for the Olympics, which will be held in Turin, Italy.

Shepard, remember, was fifth overall in the world championship team trials.

“This gives me huge motivation for qualifying for the Olympic team,” he said.

Youth/Junior worlds

Four Aroostook County residents and biathletes who live and train at the Maine Winter Sports Center traveled to Kontiolahti, Finland, for last weekend’s Junior/Youth World Championships.

Newt Rogers of Fort Kent and Russell Currier of Caribou competed in the youth men’s catagories, while Bjorn Bakken of Duluth, Minn., competed in the junior men’s group and Annelies Cook of Saranac Lake, N.Y., was in the junior women’s group.

Currier was 35th in the 12.5-kilometer individual, 52nd in the 7.5-k sprint and 54th in the 10-k pursuit. Rogers came in 63rd in the sprint and 67th in the individual, while Currier and Rogers competed on a 3-by-7.5 relay team that was 17th.

Cook took 33rd place in the individual, 32nd in the sprint, 29th in the pursuit and was on a 13th-place relay team. Bakken was 72nd in the 15-k individual, 77th in the 10-k sprint, and 13th on the U.S. 4-by-7.5 relay.

New biathlon trustees

In a move to add more of a Maine flavor to the U.S. Biathlon Association, two Mainers have been named to the USBA’s board of trustees.

Lawrence Pugh of Yarmouth and William Haggett of Bath will join the board of the USBA, which announced in January it is moving to Portland from Colchester, Vt., in the next year.

Pugh, who is currently a trustee of the Maine Winter Sports Center, is the former chairman and chief executive officer of VF Corporation, an apparel company.

Haggett is the chairman of the Commission to Study Maine’s Hospitals. He the former CEO of Bath Iron Works and a former partner of Sugarloaf/ USA Ski Resort in Carrabassett Valley.