FORT KENT – For biathletes, all the green grass and blue sky in the summer only makes them anticipate a time when the ground will be covered in snow. And in an Olympic training year, that anticipation strikes even sooner.

As members of the U.S. senior and developmental teams gathered Wednesday morning to kick off their preparations for the 2006 Olympics, they’re grateful to be training at the site of the U.S. trials, the Maine Winter Sports Center’s 10th Mountain Ski Center.

“I think there’s an advantage and not just an emotional advantage or a personal advantage,” said Denise Teela, an Alaska native and world championship team member. She is married to Jeremy Teela, also of Alaska, a member of the 2002 Olympic team and a regular on the World Cup circuit.

“We’re familiar with the community, it’s not going to be a big surprise when we hear all the fans and the crowd,” she added. “We’re familiar with the range and the loop. It’s our town. It’s the same thing as when a football team plays on its home field.”

Although many of these athletes have been thinking about Turin, Italy ever since the new training season started in April, many of them are back together for the first time as they build toward the Olympic trials in biathlon, a sport that combines the endurance of cross-country skiing with the marksmanship of rifle shooting.

There are now 11 biathletes in and around Fort Kent. Haley Johnson of Lake Placid, N.Y., is living at the MWSC’s facility in Presque Isle. The Teelas are bunking with U.S. coach James Upham in his house near the 10th Mountain Lodge; Tim Burke of Paul Smiths, N.Y., and Yarmouth’s Walt Shepard share an apartment in Fort Kent; five other hopefuls are rooming at the lodge itself.

There are three other athletes training at a center in Vermont and at least two in Europe, but everyone will converge on Fort Kent for the U.S. team trials Dec. 28-Jan. 2.

The U.S. team has a rare opportunity for strong finishes in the only Olympic sport in which it has never medaled. Thanks to 38 top-30 finishes by six different athletes in World Cup competition this winter, the U.S. has qualified five-person teams of men and women for the Feb. 10-26 Winter Games in Turin.

It has been at least a decade since the U.S. has sent five men and five women. There were three on the 2002 Salt Lake City team and two or three on the 1998 Nagano, Japan squad.

“That’s happened because we got great results [at the World Cup],” said Upham, a Farmington native whose father, an Auburn native, was a women’s cross country ski coach at the 1976 Olympics and competed on the U.S. Nordic combined team at the 1968 Olympics.

Each nation can enter only four athletes per event, but with five competitors in Turin the U.S. coaches will have flexibility with which athletes they can enter in each event and can also tweak the four-person relay teams. Powerhouse nations such as Germany and Norway send five or six athletes but can still only enter four per event.

The U.S. Biathlon Association board of directors will determine final arrangements for the fifth competitor at an upcoming meeting in Portland.

One of the spots on the U.S. men’s team has already been reserved for Alaska’s Jay Hakkinen, who earned his Olympic berth thanks to several top-15 World Cup finishes. Rachel Steer of Alaska had the top U.S. women’s finishes but didn’t qualify automatically. Thanks to her No. 1 ranking in the nation, she is a likely favorite to make the team.

cCmpetition for the other four men’s spots will be fierce. Burke and Teela, regulars on the World Cup circuit and members of the world championship team, will be in the mix along with Yarmouth’s Walt Shepard. He rallied from a bout with mononucleosis two years ago and is ranked fifth in the country. Shepard was an alternate for the world championship team and eventually competed in that event when Jacob Beste got sick.

The group gathered in Fort Kent this winter is particularly strong on the men’s side. Neither Hakkinen nor Beste are based here, but second-ranked Jeremy Teela, third-ranked Tim Burke and Shepard are. So is Lowell Bailey, a 2003 national team member who took some time off to attend the University of Vermont and compete on the Catamounts’ cross country ski team. Minnesota native Brian Olsen, who has made several World Cup appearances, is also at the lodge.

“To know [an Olympic team berth] so close is very motivating,” Shepard said. “It is [competitive], but I don’t look at that. As an athlete it’s counterproductive to count heads. It’s up to each individual to do their best.”

Even though the hopefuls are training under one roof, they’re still pretty close.

“We’re all friends and I’ve never been on a team where that’s the case,” said Bailey, who is from Lake Placid. “It’s really unique. … I’m totally excited about being with this team and traveling, because it becomes like a family.”