The Zone 5 Biathlon Team had a strong showing at the 2024 Alberta Winter Games in Grande Prairie, which ran Feb. 16 to 19.
The team won 16 medals out of 54 over the three-day weekend competitions.
The team was made up of eight members of the Hinton Cougars, four from TNT Biathlon near Devon, one from Battle River Nordic and one from Edmonton Nordic. Five of these athletes were from Jasper.
“Our crew from Jasper has really helped build our numbers, as well as our talent pool,” said Robin Hengel, head coach of the Hinton Cougars Biathlon.
Hengel attributed this strong showing to the work with the young athletes at the Hinton Nordic Centre.
“We've had some good coaches to work with, guest coaches as well as the regular coaching with our club, so they get exposed to a lot of different ideas,” he said.
“It doesn't hurt to have David Leoni working with our young guys as well. He's a former Olympian and so he's helped out with our club as well this year.”
The biathlon is a winter sport that combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting.
Hengel said combining the two sports creates its own challenges, mainly how the elevated heartrate from skiing makes it difficult to shoot accurately.
Although this winter has had a severe lack of snow, Hinton has been one of the few places to get any of the white stuff, giving local athletes a leg up over competitors from central Alberta.
Hengel noted the commitment that Jasper parents had to make by driving their children up to Hinton so they could practice.
The Hinton Cougars were represented by Alexandre Vriend, Harlow Wilson, Mia-Jane Fernandez, Ellaka Wallace, James Handerek, Sullivan Ruddy, Quinn Wilson and Sam Walsh.
Besides Hengel, the other coaches for this team were Suzanne Stevenson and Robyn Williams.
Handerek led the Cougars in medals with two gold medals and a silver, Wilson won three silver medals and Wallace was a double gold medalist.
Ruddy finished the weekend with two silver and one bronze medal, Walsh had three fifth place finishes and Mia-Jane finished top seven or better in all her races, highlighted by clean shooting in both bouts of the Sprint.
Wilson and Vriend battled each other for position all weekend; Vriend had three top-ten finishes and shot clean in the Sprint.
Wilson had two seventh place finishes and was 11th in his third race.
This was the first multi-day multi-sport event for almost all of this group of young up and coming athletes. After a travel day on Friday, these athletes raced in a Pursuit, Mass Start and a Sprint over the next three days.
Coach Hengel acknowledged that the skiing conditions were made possible by the work of many volunteers hauling and making snow to ensure there were race loops available.
“Without their work our athletes would have participated in a run and shoot event rather than skiing,” Hengel said.
