Syracuse.com - Syracuse biathlon club offers summer training and competition (includes video)

[HuntingNY-News]

A course at Pratt’s Falls Park in Pompey has hosted the summer biathlon national championships twice over the last 10 years. Members of the Syracuse Summer Biathlon Club train on the course. The club holds its next race 12:15 p.m. on July 14. Watch video

David Lassman/The Post-StandardMembers of the Syracuse Biathlon Club meet at Pratt's Falls Park for a practice session. On the firing range with 22 long rifles are from bottom of photo to top: Luke Dionne of Binghamton, Kathy Donath of Lafayette and Kate Stewart of Cazenovia.

By Jon Gagnon

Contributing writer

The cross-country skiing and rifle shooting of the winter biathlon is one of the Winter Olympics’ most popular events, with 37 nations competing the last time in 2010.

Fewer people have heard about the summer’s version of the sport – summer biathlon — where competitors run instead of ski the course. It isn’t an Olympic event yet, but it is becoming more popular in Central New York and nationally.

A course at Pratt’s Falls Park in Pompey has hosted the summer biathlon national championships twice over the last 10 years. Members of the Syracuse Biathlon Club train on the course. The club holds its next race 12:15 p.m. on July 14.

David Lassman/The Post-StandardNicholas Andrews of Manlius does a brief run on the course.

Luke Dionne, of Binghamton, attended a training session on June 28.

“I like running and I like shooting too so it kind of combines them,” Dionne said. “Trying to hit the targets, it’s a challenge.”

Summer biathlons peaked in popularity about 10 years ago, said Piotr Bednarski, director of athlete development of U.S. Biathlon Association, a group that supports development of biathlon and helps prepare athletes for international competition, including the Olympic Winter Games. The last couple years the summer sport has been gaining in popularity, he said.

The summer biathlon courses are shorter than winter courses. The “pursuit” and “mass” races are 5 kilometers (3.1 miles), and the “individual” race is 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). In a pursuit race athletes are started in intervals based on a previous race. In a mass race all contestants start at the same time.

Similar races are held during the winter biathlons, but they are about double the distances.

The race this month at Pratt’s Falls will be a “modified pursuit” 5-kilometer race, where athletes will start in 60 second intervals.

The basic rules of the summer and winter biathlons remain the same. The athletes run the course’s loop, arrive at the shooting range, shoot, and run the loop again.

David Lassman/The Post-StandardNicholas Andrews of Manlius returns to the firing range after a brief run on the course.

“As a kid I remember watching the Olympics and seeing the guys skiing and shooting and thinking that was just the coolest thing ever,” said Kurt Donath, president of the local club. “Sometimes after a while running can get really boring, (shooting) really spices things up, it adds a whole new dimension to it.”

In the summer biathlon events, athletes don’t carry their rifles on their back while running the course; they leave the rifles at the shooting range.

At the shooting range, each athlete has a clip of five bullets, and must shoot at five targets 50 meters away. Once they complete their clip, they run a penalty loop of 70 meters (76.5 yards) for every target missed. In some instances, depending on the type of event, athletes are assessed a time penalty instead of running a penalty loop.

The Syracuse Biathlon Club, which has 20 members, has been working to get more people into the sport through social media outlets such as, Facebook and Twitter, as well as an email distribution list.

“Our two main goals are to get more people into the sport and challenge those people that are already in the sport, and ultimately over the long term feeding into the national programs,” Donath said. “We like to see more people in biathlon, and that gets us more people at the national level and the international level.”

David Lassman/The Post-StandardMembers of the Syracuse Biathlon Club meet at Pratt's Falls Park for a practice session. Range Master Carl Snow (right, foreground) uses a scope to check the targets. Syracuse Biathlon Club president Kurt Donath (kneeling in background) gives some pointers on the firing range.

More on the Syracuse Biathlon Club

The club scheduled three practices and two competitions this summer. Two of the three training sessions have already been held. The next one is 4 to 5:30 p.m. Aug. 2 at Pratt Falls Park in Pompey. Cost is $5. The two competitions are slated for July 15 and Aug. Registration those days begins at 9 a.m. and ends at 10 a.m. Participants can either register online at www.skireg.com or on the day of the event. Cost is $20. Those individuals new to summer biathlon who aren’t sure if they can make a 5km race are welcome to form a relay team. For further information about biathlon events or the Syracuse Biathlon Club, visit the club's Web site.

View the full article on The Syracuse Outdoors Blog