Photo by LTC Hank McIntire SPC Drew Gelinas, left, and SPC Brandon Adams approach the firing range during the Military Patrol race at Jericho, Vt., March 6.

JERICHO, Vt. — Bringing together a team of seasoned athletes and new-to-the-sport competitors was the order of the week for the Utah National Guard at the Chief of National Guard Bureau Biathlon Championships held here March 2-7.

Six athletes with .22-caliber rifles, alternating cross-country skiing and firing at a series of 100-yard targets, three races and temperatures ranging from single digits to nearly 50 degrees, all combined to give these Utah Guardsmen one thing at the Vermont National Guard’s Ethan Allen Firing Range:  Experience.

Coming off a gold-medal team finish at the Regional Championships in Minnesota in January, the goal and the expectation of second-year coach CPT Jason Elphick was that his Soldiers had a real shot at finding themselves in the center section of the medals stand on awards day.

“Going into Nationals, I’m really optimistic that we’ll make a strong showing with the combination of our experience and new talent,” he said.

With the CNGB Championships as their first competition as a team, each athlete brought a unique skill set to the mix:

Photo by LTC Hank McIntire The Utah National Guard biathlon team and coach pose for a photo at Ethan Allen Firing Range during the CNGB Championships.

• MSG Doug Bernard, Bravo Company, 1-19^th Special Forces Group (Airborne), of Park City, senior team member with 14 years as a biathlete, four years on the All-Guard team

• SFC Shawn Blanke, also of the 19^th Special Forces, a Highland resident, three-year team member, team captain

• SSG Ben Dahl, Retention Noncommissioned Officer at the University of Utah, of Lehi, with nine years in the Guard and four on the team

• SPC Brandon Adams, Alpha Company, Recruit Sustainment Program, of Heber City, heading to Basic Training in April and then directly to Officer Candidate School

• SPC Drew Gelinas, Surry, Maine; skied cross-country for St. Michael’s College in Burlington, Vt.; race technician for U.S. Nordic Combined Team; headed for the 19^th Special Forces after Basic Training this summer

• MAJ Eric Petersen, JAG for 97^th Aviation Troop Command, of Salt Lake City, eleven years in the Utah Guard, second year on the biathlon team, eight years on the marathon team

Over the course of the week, which would consist of a 10K sprint, 20K individual race, 15K military patrol race and a 30K relay, athletes settled into a routine on race days: team breakfast at the chow hall, then up to the course where some sought pre-race solitude, as others talked smack with teammates and competitors in the lodge while listening to My Chemical Romance and other ‘inspirational’ music on their iPods.

Photo by LTC Hank McIntire SFC Shawn Blanke prepares his skis for the 20K individual race March 4 in the team's 'spacious' wax hut.

All eventually converged on the team wax hut, a small six foot-by-eight foot plywood shack where skiers worked the waxed surfaces of their skis, sanding off old layers and applying new ones according to the outside temperature and snow conditions in a sort of “half-science, half-voodoo” ritual, according to Blanke.

This was one area where Bernard’s and Gelinas’s experience and expertise came in handy, making last-minute adjustments such as putting small grooves in the wax the length of team members’ skis to take advantage of the hard and icy sections of the course.

“That’s where waxing comes in,” said Blanke. “It can save you 50-60 percent in effort going up a single hill.”

Aside from knowing the personal preparation and equipment adjustments made by team members, Elphick’s horse sense gave him a pretty good idea of how his guys would fare in a given race.

“Bernard: Strong. Dahl: Talented. Gelinas: Fast. Technical. Adams: Up-and-comer. Petersen: Great engine, attitude. Blanke: Lifeblood of the team,” he said, rattling off the strengths of each team member as he looked through a spotting scope, gauging the accuracy of his Soldiers’ marksmanship before a race.

Photo by LTC Hank McIntire SSG Ben Dahl eyes his targets from the prone position during the 20K individual race March 4, where four team members finished in the top 20.

Once on the course, the Utah biathletes did their final warm-ups, and stripped down to their matching red racing suits and made their way to the starting gate with teams from Vermont, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Nevada and Oregon.

While an experienced Nordic cross-country competitor, drawing bib number 1 in his very first biathlon race was ironic for Gelinas, who just a month ago traveled thousands of miles from his home in Maine to be sworn in as a member of the Utah National Guard at Draper headquarters by the adjutant general himself, MG Brian Tarbet.

“Even though I live 2,400 miles across the country, it just seemed like the right fit for me in terms of personality and professionals that I want to surround myself with and build my military career around,” said Gelinas, citing Blanke’s four-year association with him through their common interest in biathlon as the catalyst in helping him make the decision to join the Guard.

Adams, another Utah Guard newcomer, will leave his civilian job as a biathlon instructor at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah, to head to Basic Training in April.  Adams admits that it took “a few encouraging words” from his father, CW2 Lynn Adams, a longtime member of the biathlon team, to persuade him to enlist.

Photo by LTC Hank McIntire MSG Doug Bernard, senior member of the Utah Guard biathlon team, heads toward the finish line of the 20K individual race March 4.

Both Gelinas and Adams were recruited into the Utah Guard by Dahl, who credits Blanke with referring them to him.

“Biathlon is a huge recruiting tool,” said Dahl with a grin. “There aren’t a lot of jobs out there where you go ski for two weeks and get paid for it.”

As athletes entered the course at two-minute intervals, they skied a lap or two and then headed into the firing range to shoot at targets from either a standing or prone position. The goal wasn’t just speed, however; athletes had to slow down their heart rate enough so that it didn’t affect the accuracy of their shooting.

Depending on the type of race, athletes who missed targets incurred either a 150-meter penalty loop or an added minute to their overall race time.

For Monday’s 10K sprint, four Utah Soldiers finished in the top 20, and the results for the individual 20K race on Wednesday saw Bernard finish ninth, with Gelinas, Blanke and Adams landing in the 13, 15, and 18 spots, respectively.

The smackdown, begun before the 20K race, continued at the team lunch afterward, with Blanke giving Dahl a hard time about his accuracy with the rifle.

Photo by LTC Hank McIntire MAJ Eric Petersen, right, oversees the shooting of his composite Utah-Montana team March 6 during the 15K Military Patrol race.

“I liked the shooting part,” said Dahl, emphasizing his marksmanship over his longer-than-hoped-for race time.

“Well, let’s put you on the FATS (Firearms Training Simulator) team,” smiled Blanke.

“There’s a lot of healthy competition,” added Dahl later. “It’s constructive criticism, but it helps with team building.”

Following an off day, teams reconvened on Friday for the 15K military patrol race. For this event, teams start and finish together, and the patrol leader leads the other three team members and supervises the lone round of prone shooting.

Elphick assigned Bernard, Blanke, Adams and Gelinas to compete for Utah, and Dahl and Petersen skied on a composite team with Montana.

Patrol leader Bernard led the Utah team and supervised the shooting, while Petersen captained—or in this case, majored—the composite team. The Utah team had virtually the same ski time as powerhouses Minnesota and Vermont, but their marksmanship was not as accurate as the competition, dropping them to fourth place in the event.

Photo by LTC Hank McIntire With near-perfect precision, SPC Drew Gelinas, SPC Brandon Adams, SFC Shawn Blanke and MSG Doug Bernard enter the range area.

“Minnesota brought their ‘A’ game today,” Elphick told the team after the race. “You were all in sync with each other; you looked like a machine.”

“Well, we do synchronized swimming in the off season,” quipped Blanke.

“It doesn’t matter how fast you are,” observed Gelinas as he summed up the day’s race. “You really need to perfect the art of marksmanship. You need to put it all together, and that’s not easy when your heart is beating 180 times a minute.”

Following the disappointing finish in the military patrol, the Utah team was confident they could gain enough ground in the final race, the 30K relay, to make the podium. But overnight temperatures in the 40s left a slushy course that no amount of snow-making technology could fix Saturday morning.

Race officials decided to cancel the relay due to the conditions, eliminating any possibility that Utah would come away with a team medal.

At the awards ceremony Minnesota claimed the gold, followed by Vermont and South Dakota. Utah finished fourth overall with two bright spots for the team: a fifth All-Guard selection for Bernard, and Adams just missed the same honor by a few percentage points in his first national competition ever.

Photo by LTC Hank McIntire Utah Biathlon coach CPT Jason Elphick, right, gives some post-race guidance to SFC Shawn Blanke at a team lunch March 6.

“Of course, we’re disappointed about not having that last race,” said Blanke. “It was our best chance to be on the podium and the other teams know it. They’re all laughing and elbowing me in the ribs, [admitting] ‘Yeah, we got away with something.’”

“The results don’t reflect how good the team worked and skied together,” added Gelinas. “We caught a lot of teams on the climbs [during the patrol race]. Nobody other than Vermont on those moves stood a chance with us.”

Other takeaways from the experience included reminders of how grueling biathlon can be, even for hard-core athletes.

“These guys are active on their own all year round,” said Bernard. “Biathlon shows you that you’re not as fit as you think you are.”

“You dig down deep and mentally prepare yourself for the next loop,” said marathoner Petersen, “and it’s amazing what your body can do. You incorporate the core aspect that you don’t necessarily use in running. You use arm and leg muscles to a much greater extent, and your body is getting much more of a workout skiing a 10K in biathlon than in running.”

Photo by LTC Hank McIntire SSG Ben Dahl awaits the signal from a race official before the start of his 20K individual race March 4.

Despite the grueling challenge of strapping on skis under such conditions, what is it that keeps these athletes coming back year after year?

“[Biathlon] gives me an excuse to maintain my physical fitness level,” said Dahl. “I haven’t found another sport that compares to it. It directly relates to my job as a military member and it pulls me out of my comfort zone.”

“If I were ever going to be in harm’s way, who would I want to be with?” wondered Gelinas aloud. “These are guys I have a lot of respect for; they have the mindset of ‘Soldier First.’ The combination of the 19^th Special Forces and biathlon is a very attractive package.”

And to a man, team members agree that one collateral benefit of the sport is that it produces a better Soldier.

“Combining intense physical training and developing superb marksmanship challenges athlete-Soldiers to put those two together,” observed Blanke. “That is what combat is all about, and biathlon does that in a winter Nordic setting.”

Photo by LTC Hank McIntire Utah Biathlon Team members work their way up a long hill near the end of the 15K Military Patrol race March 6.

“Soldiers should be in top shape; you just never know what you’re going to experience in a wartime environment,” said Petersen. “The better in shape you are, the more prepared you’ll be to react in a wartime situation. Every biathlete will become a better shooter, which translates to the battlefield where you’ll have a better chance of hitting your target.”

“Biathlon has [direct] applicability to our wartime mission,” said Elphick. “It meets two of the three of the Army imperatives of shoot, move and communicate. We move and shoot.”

“The mental toughness to get through a 20K race is one of the great things about the team,” he continued. “Hitting silver dollar-sized targets at 100 yards with a .22 is quite the talent. Marksmanship, mental toughness and athleticism all directly relate to what we do.”

The future does look bright for the Utah team, and local Guard leaders have long been champions of the program.

“The senior leadership in Utah is very well known in biathlon circles as being one of the most supportive states,” said Elphick.

“We have gotten great support from the State, G3 and the adjutant general,” added Blanke. “This program is a force-multiplier in a big way. What a great opportunity to showcase our talent all around the world. Leaders need to come to see some of these events to see what the Soldiers are doing.”

“Biathlon events aren’t simply ski trips; these guys are professional athletes,” said Elphick. “Not in how they get paid but the amount of time and dedication they put into this.”