Whistler Biathlon Experience

Last weekend I was in Whistler for the Easter long weekend. After downhill skiing on Friday and Saturday we did something entirely different on Sunday. Eight of us headed to the Whistler Olympic Park in the Callaghan Valley to participate in their “Biathlon Experience.” The temperature was hovering around zero and there was wet snow falling when we arrived. We picked up our rental classic cross-country ski equipment and then skied out to the 2010 biathlon shooting range. Our instructor Raphael gave us a lesson on the history of biathlon and a tour of the shooting range. There were three 22 caliber rifles set up for us but they were locked down so they could only be shot from the prone position (i.e. lying down on a mat on the snow) and only directed within the shooting range.

We each got a brief lesson in using the rifles and took a practice round of five shots. For many of us this was our first time ever shooting a rifle. Because we were beginners we used the larger targets normally only used in competition when shooting from the standing position. Most of us were soaked through at this point so it was time to get moving and get the competition on. We elected to run a relay race with the boys facing off against the girls. Each person did a 500m ski, took their five shots and then did a short penalty lap for each target (if any) missed before handing off to the next team member. The challenge is to get your heart rate down after skiing to the point where you can effectively aim the rifle.

Matt and Cecilia face off in the second leg of the relay race

The relay race was a ridiculous amount of fun. The boys ended up beating the girls by about 30 seconds. When you consider that the race took about 30 minutes to complete that margin of victory is really small. It was a lot of fun cheering on our teams and smack talking our opponents. All in good nature of course. The quote of the day goes to Allison. After I shot a perfect round (I just had to get a mention of that in) Alli asked Mom “Why didn’t you ever put us in weapons sports when we were young?” Awesome. After the race several of us skied another lap and took another round of shots. Then we skied back to the lodge to warm up, dry out and eat lunch.

With our new found love of Biathlon we started searching for online biathlon videos after dinner that evening. If you want to see how the professionals do it check out this webpage. If you want a laugh, we quite enjoyed this video of Rick Mercer trying the biathlon with two Canadian national team members in Canmore, Alberta. Finally, if that wasn’t fun enough for you check out this one.

I have resisted the temptation to post every photo of the relay up here but they’re available in my Whistler Biathlon Experience on flickr.

“Team Biathlon Experience” at the end of the morning