Altenberg, Germany – Most of Europe has been experiencing unseasonably warm temperatures through the month of December, but a new front moved in on Sunday and has brought enough snow to bring winter sports back to life. It was just in time for Olympic Biathlon Team Trials, which start on Thursday, January 7th at 4AM EST.br /br /The Maine Winter Sports Center is well represented at these trials, with six of the twelve athletes having come through our programs. They are looking to join Tim Burke, Jeremy Teela and Jay Hakinnen who have already been named to the Men’s Olympic Team, and Haley Johnson who has already been named to the Women’s Team. Those competing at Trials are vying for two available spots on the Men’s Team and three spots on the Women’s Team. br /br /The Trials will start with a time-trial Sprint race Thursday at 4AM EST. That first race will be contested just between the U.S. Team, and will be scored using percent-back. It is a formula in which the three top times are averaged together to get a base score. All the competitor’s times are then compared to that base. In this system at least one racer will typically wind up with a score of 100 or better. The racing continues on Saturday with another Sprint race, also scheduled to start at 4AM EST. There are estimated to be close to 300 competitors combined in the Men’s and Women’s races, so it the competition should last for a while. br /br /The top 60 Men and Women from the Sprint will qualify for the Pursuit on Sunday. The athletes will keep their two best scores and the top two men and top three women will be nominated to the U.S Team, to be made official by the US Olympic Committee on Monday the 11th.br /br /The IBU is promoting live streaming coverage of the races at: http://services.biathlonresults.com/DataCenter_IBU.aspxbr /In any event, we will post results at www.mainewsc.org as soon as they become available.div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6813061107698506856-1466059182832311524?l=mwscbiathlon.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div
