Zach Hall (NIKISKI, AK) was nominated to the U26 Championship Team. The U26 Championships will be held in conjunction with the European Championships in Otepaa, Estonia. This is the inaugural year for a championship for U26, and will be a great opportunity for the top young seniors to compete on the international level. It will be a very full schedule with all 5 Olympic formats being contested: Sprint, Pursuit, Individual, Mass Start and Relay.
Zach qualified for the U26 team by ranking first of among those not on the Olympic team in the percent back scoring in the IBU races in Altenberg, GER and Nove Mesto, CZE. As he did in the first round of the IBU cup qualification races at Mt Itasca, MN in December, Zach was able to be very consistent in the shooting range and on the ski tracks. In Nove Mesto CZE, he recorded his best international results, placing 36th (80% shooting) in the 20km Individual, and 29th (90% shooting) in the 10km Sprint against and very large and competitive field of 118 starters from 27 countries.
Up to 2 additional men and up to 4 total women will be added to the U26 WCH team based on results from the Olympics, as well as results from the North American Cup biathlon races in Jericho, VT on Feb 6-7, and Lake Placid, NY on Feb 12-13.
Source: USBA
2 comments
2PACmosDEF
January 21, 2010 at 7:00 pm
What is the point of having a U26 world championships? I’m not trying to take anything away from Zach Hall, he’s a great skier, I remember when you used to race for Dartmouth, he was fast. But having a U26 championship seems a little extreme, especially when the best guys in skiing (Northug, Cologna) are only 23.
Cory Salmela
January 21, 2010 at 10:27 pm
I think the European Championships have been U26 for a couple years. The US and Canada and other non-euro countries would always send their B-Teams so I think the IBU just decided to make them a U26 Worlds. B-Teams compete in the IBU Cups and Euro Champs, which tend to be younger. IBU juniors are up to 21 years old, so there is a 5 yr pre-World Cup/A Team development program built into the system. It can take this long for some to make an A-Team with the competitive team like Germany, Norway, and Russia. Michael Gries (3 Gold Medals in Torino) spent 4 years at the IBU Cup level before he advanced to the German A-Team.