FORT KENT – The competition jury for the U.S. Olympic biathlon trials decided Thursday afternoon to start Friday’s sprint races an hour later because of the poor weather forecast.

The men will start at 11 a.m., instead of 10 a.m., with the women starting at approximately 11:30 a.m. Racers leave at 30-second intervals.

The weather forecast calls for a half-inch of ice with a switchover to snow at about 6 a.m., with up to 7 inches of snow expected, said Max Cobb, the technical delegate for the trials.

“Basically, we wanted to ensure people were on the roads when it was safe to be on the roads,” Cobb said.

Should the sprint competition be called off Friday, the sprint races could be moved to Saturday, which was supposed to be a training and testing day for the athletes.

The competition jury is made up of Cobb, chief of competition Paul Grant, and coaches Art Stegen, Algis Shalna, and Vladimir Cervenka.

Schedule information will be broadcast by WAGM-TV in Presque Isle and on 103.1 FM on Channel X radio.

Timing is everything

Grant, speaking at Thursday’s 4 p.m. captain’s meeting, pointed out that there is a plan for grooming the trails, which will take place early in the a.m.

“We’re looking to try to groom as close to the transition time [between ice and snow] as we can. … [We want to] get the ice chopped up and hopefully have some snow on top of that surface. We can then run the groomer over and just surface that.”

Fort Kent athletes shine

Minnesota native Brian Olsen lives and trains at the 10th Mountain Ski Center. His familiarity with the trails, gained on training runs around the grounds, was a big help, said Thursday’s third-place individual finisher.

“I thought I had a big advantage on the downhill because they just came so quickly and it was split-second timing with where you put your feet,” Olsen said. “If you really risked it, you could gain, I think, some speed into the uphills that came after the downhills. … I had visualized that over the summer and over the fall and I thought that living here was helping me.

The Maine Winter Sports Center and Fort Kent were superbly represented in Thursday’s men’s and women’s individual races. Five of the top six men’s and women’s finishers, including women’s winner Denise Teela, have some sort of ties to either the club or the town.

“I think we’re all really excited to race here,” said Tim Burke, who competes for the MWSC team. “We’ve been training here all year, we know the course, we know all the volunteers here, and we wanted definitely to have a strong showing for the community.”

Teela is sponsored by the Army’s World Class Athlete Program, but lives in Fort Kent with her husband, fellow biathlete Jeremy Teela, and trains with national development coach James Upham.

Second- and third-place women’s finishers Bethann Chamberlain and Lanny Barnes, respectively, are MWSC skiers.

“For a lot of us, this is kind of our home base and I think for a lot of us, if it wasn’t for the Maine Winter Sports Center, we wouldn’t still be doing this sport,” said Barnes, whose twin sister, Tracy, also competes for the MWSC and finished sixth Thursday.

Shepard a fan favorite

No one got a bigger reception from the crowd than Walt Shepard, a Yarmouth native who now lives full-time in Fort Kent and is the son of Andy Shepard, the MWSC president and a U.S. Biathlon official.

The small group of spectators in the stands, which included members of the Yarmouth High School ski team, cheered on Shepard after each shot he made. His father was waiting for him at the finish.

Shepard wound up in ninth place. He had five penalties and was 4:48.5 behind the winner Beste.

“A lot of fans, a lot of positive energy,” he said after finishing. “I’m really psyched for that. … Shooting and skiing, I’ve got better places I can be, I think. But I expected today to go like this, and I’ve got two more races.”

Olsen sees the other side

Things came full circle for Olsen Thursday. The Minneapolis native, who finished third in the men’s individual, was the one being interviewed for a change.

When the World Cup was held in Fort Kent in March 2004, Olsen was a junior-level skier and was actually a working journalist, conducting interviews for his biathlon Web site, www.frozenbullet.com.

But finishing third meant he had to take part in a postrace press conference. He likes being able to see all angles of a big competition like the Olympic trials.

“When you’re skiing and competing, you see the back side of it, how athletes can get stressed out by the little things like drug testing and press conferences,” he said. “But being here at the World Cup, I wasn’t competing, and I saw that if you just relax, this is just a place. The people, the course, the shooting range, it doesn’t change.”

Olsen, who lives on the second floor of the 10th Mountain Ski Center lodge, split his time this winter between Fort Kent and Heber City, Utah, where he lived with a host family and did altitude training.

“I went there specifically to work on my shooting and get a good feeling before the races start,” he said.