FORT KENT – Rachel Steer went about testing and training for the U.S. biathlon Olympic trials in a businesslike fashion Wednesday morning. She kept to herself, skied and shot, firing off a few rounds and then striding back to the scope behind her to make adjustments.

Steer is at the 10th Mountain Ski Center in an attempt to qualify for her second Olympic Games, scheduled for February in Turin, Italy. But by her own admittance, she’s not pleased to be here or eager for the competition. That’s because she feels she shouldn’t have had to make the trip in the first place.

“The organizing committee, the people in this club, they’re great,” said the 27-year-old Alaska native, sitting on a bench in the lodge. “Everyone is amazing when you consider what they’ve built up here in such a short amount of time. I’m envious because we don’t have anything like this. … But everybody knows I’m not happy to be here.”

Steer, the top-ranked U.S. female biathlete for the past four years, filed an appeal with the U.S. Olympic Committee after the 2004-05 season in an attempt to prequalify for the U.S. Olympic team, which would mean she wouldn’t have to be in Fort Kent for the Olympic trials. The appeal, and a subsequent second appeal this fall, were denied.

In her appeal, the Anchorage resident claimed the prequalification criteria set by the U.S. Biathlon Association two years ago were unfair to the women competitors. According to the criteria, any U.S. male athlete ranked in the top 40 of the World Cup standings or who had two top-15 World Cup finishes in the 2004-05 season would qualify, while a U.S. woman had to be ranked in the top 35 or have had two top-10 finishes.

Steer was ranked 36th at the end of last season and had two top-15 finishes in addition to 11 top-20 finishes in her World Cup career. She was disappointed to finish just beyond the criteria, but she doesn’t agree with the USBA’s standards.

“Stupid me, I just assumed the people who make those decisions see the things I see because they’re at the competitions too, and they see that the men’s and the women’s fields are on a par with each other,” said Steer, who has spent almost $3,000 of her own money to attend the trials.

Although she hesitated Wednesday to make a connection between the traditional male dominance of the shooting and skiing sport, which has its roots in the military, and any mentality that men are stronger than women, Steer said the top-35 number was “totally arbitrary.”

“I think it’s one of those things that, this is how we’ve always made the criteria,” she said. “And 10 years ago, it was true, the men and women were different. The women’s field was not as deep and talented. If you’re looking at sheer field size, the men’s field will always be about 10 people bigger. But that’s because countries like Lithuania and Macedonia and New Zealand don’t have women [competing].”

Now, according to the research that Steer said she did to prepare her appeal, the overall strength of the women’s field is close to that of the men’s field.

The differences in qualifying standards for men and women had been discussed among team members, Steer said, and she thought about her own situation during the 2004-05 season. Wanting to concentrate on the season at hand, she put off an appeal.

Last spring she sat down in front of a computer and started to analyze results of World Cup races using the USBA’s percent back system, which compares an individual’s time to an average of the top three times in an event.

In April, Steer filed her appeal, complete with the data she compiled, with the USBA, which then submitted it to the USOC.

“I came up with pretty accurate numbers to prove my point,” she said. “I believe that data shows that sometimes it’s even harder to make it into the top 15 for women, but it’s certainly on a par.”

Her appeal was denied at the end of May.

“We rely on the [national governing bodies] to determine the appropriate qualification standards and procedures for their respective sports,” USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel said in a USA Today story Wednesday. “Once these standards are submitted to the USOC and receive approval, it is highly unusual for there to be a change. Changes could seriously complicate – and even confuse – the process.”

The prequalification criteria were put together two years ago by a USBA committee and were based on results from the previous two seasons.

“Historically, there was a difference in the percent back between the men and women, so we were trying to equalize that,” USBA marketing director Max Cobb said. “That was the concept. … But today, it doesn’t look the same. Rachel built her case and we supported that, but the Olympic committee didn’t feel like they could make a change.”

Just how close was Steer to that 35th-place ranking? Russia’s Joulia Makarova scored 127 World Cup points to finish in 35th place. Steer tallied 123 points.

“Actually it came down to the last race of the year,” she said. “I was in Russia, I got to race in the mass start, and it came down to a sprint to the finish between 10th, 11th, and 12th place. I lost a sprint, and 10th place would have gotten me enough points to be top 35.”

Steer sent in a second appeal to USOC Chief Executive Officer Jim Scherr in August. After not hearing back from him, Steer ran into Scherr at a USOC media summit in October and “cornered” him in a hotel lobby to talk about her second appeal. She was invited to meetings and she spoke with lawyers, but felt it was the USOC’s way of passing her around.

“You know in the end they just didn’t want to get into a lawsuit,” she said.

Steer’s second appeal was denied as well.

The U.S. had one athlete prequalify for Turin. Jay Hakkinen, also of Alaska, had two top-15 finishes in World Cup events last year and finished the season with a ranking of 31.

Although Steer is the top U.S. female, she’s had disappointing results in World Cup races so far this season. Regardless of what happens when the team is announced next week, Steer won’t be back for the 2010 Vancouver Games, or even next year. She plans to retire when the World Cup season ends in March, go back to Anchorage, and focus on an undergraduate degree in journalism and wedding Toby Schwoerer.

“It would be a really bitter end to my career,” she said of the possibility that she should miss out on the Olympic team at the trials. “Am I going to keep spending my money and dealing with this? I am so unhappy. This is not why I do biathlon. I love biathlon, but dealing with all this stuff is not why I do biathlon. I feel like I can do better things with my life.”

AT A GLANCE

WHAT: U.S. Olympic biathlon trials

WHEN: Dec. 29-Jan. 3

WHERE: 10th Mountain Ski Center, Fort Kent

TODAY: Women’s Individual 15K, 10 a.m.; Men’s Individual 20K, 10:45 a.m.

ADMISSION: Free to public; Free shuttle bus service from several sites, including the University of Maine Fort Kent, starting at 9 a.m.

INFORMATION: www.10thmtskiclub.org