Dear Nordiq Alberta and Biathlon Alberta Member Clubs,

On May 4^th, the Government of Alberta put additional health measures in place for high case regions in an attempt to slow the transmission of COVID19. Included in these new measures is the end of all outdoor sport and recreation activities unless they are taking place as a family or, in the case of living alone, your two close contacts. This will be effective as of 11:59pm on May 9^th, and will continue for a minimum of three weeks. We understand that this news can place challenges on clubs that are in the early stages of their spring training, but ask that we all do our part to help get this virus under control and keep our communities safe. During the time of the restrictions, clubs are not to travel to low-risk zones in order to continue training and instead we ask you to modify programming to allow for athletes to train on their own until these measures are lifted.

For a full list of affected regions, please visit: https://www.alberta.ca/assets/documents/covid19-restrictions-high-case-regions.pdf

Nordiq Alberta and Biathlon Alberta would like to thank you all for your perseverance, adaptability, and willingness to work with us throughout these difficult months.

Join us on May 19, 2021, at 7pm when we talk with Biathlon Canada’s Andrew Chisholm about the changes that we will need to make with ski waxing since the fluoro waxes are banned.

Andrew is a part of the Biathlon Canada World Cup wax team and you can learn from his experience and get a better understanding of how good ski selection, stone grinding, hand structure, and careful wax application will become more important in the future!

Please register HERE for the event on May 19, 2021.

We are hopeful that we will see our athletes, coaches, volunteers, officials, parents and friends of our sport later this year when the 2021-22 Calforex Cup is scheduled to start again.

The 2021-22 Calforex Cup will kick off traditionally in Canmore before having further stops in Hinton, Camrose, Grande Prairie and Edmonton. We also added one race to the schedule so that we have 7 cup weekends between November 2021 and March 2022.

We are happy to confirm the following dates and locations:

November 20 – 21, 2021, Canmore

November 27 -28, 2021, Canmore

December 11 – 12, 2021, Hinton

January 15 – 16, 2022, Camrose

Februrary 5 – 6, 2022, Grande Prairie

February 26 – 27, 2022, Edmonton

March 12 – 13, 2022, Hinton

(All race dates and locations can change on short notice)

We can’t wait to see you all again!

Biathlon Alberta invites all biathlon coaches to join our annual Professional Development Weekend. This will be a virtual event and is free for all coaches that are a member of Biathlon Alberta.

Join Biathlon Alberta for our Professional Development Weekend 2021! On May 29th and 30th, we will host a weekend full of important topics and valuable learning for biathlon and ski coaches from across the country. 

We welcome our exciting line-up which includes:

Matthias Ahrens, Head Coach, Biathlon Alberta Training Centre

Pavel Lantsov, Head Coach, Biathlon Canada

Justin Wadsworth, Head Coach, Biathlon Canada

Jodi Hawley, Podium Pathway Advisor, OTP

Alayne Hing, Mental Performance Consultant, CSI

Jason Sjostrom, Director of Coaching, CSI

Kelly Drager, Performance Dietitian, CSI

Nicole Bewski, High-Performance Specialist/Exercise Physiologist, CSI

The theme for this year is Planning for Success and includes a focus on topics specific to developing quality athlete programming between the ages of 12 to 17. The weekend will include a panel from the top coaches in the country and 7 presentations from experts in areas such as YTP Development, Coaching Effectiveness, Safe Sport, RED-S, Resilience, Growth, and Developing Athletic Abilities. Stay tuned for a schedule coming soon!

Cost: $100 for the full weekend. Cost is subsidized for Alberta Coaches.
Timing: To be confirmed. Expected 8:00am to 2:30pm. 
Location: All Virtual. Registrants will be sent a zoom link before the event.

Registration: Via zone4 HERE (The registration opens April 28th).

The Canmore Nordic Ski Club is looking for a new Development Biathlon Coach.

If you are interested in this role that will start mid- August 2021, please download the full job description below.

The ongoing health restrictions are not allowing the Organizing Committees to host events that are safe for its participants, volunteers and officials therefore both race weekends on March 6-7, 2021, and March 13-14, 2021 are cancelled.

Stay active, healthy and safe! We hope to see you soon!

The 2021 Youth/Junior World Championships will start this Saturday, February 27, 2021, in Obertilliach, Austria.

The athletes travelled this past weekend to Europe to climatize and get all the necessary COVID-19 testing done.

We are very happy to see a large number of athletes being nominated that are based in Alberta and/or grew up in the Alberta biathlon community. 12 out of the 16 athletes that have been nominated have ties to Alberta.

The Youth athletes from Alberta that are racing in the upcoming week for Team Canada are:

Claire Nguyen-Cao – Calgary AB – Biathlon Alberta Training Centre

Finn Berg – Calgary AB – Calgary Biathlon Racers

Jenna Sherrington – Calgary AB – Foothills Nordic Ski Club & Biathlon Alberta Training Centre

Naomi Walch – Calgary AB – Biathlon Alberta Training Centre

Pascale Paradis – Calgary AB – University of Alaska & Biathlon Alberta Training Centre

Simon Gauthier – Calgary AB – Foothills Nordic Ski Club

The Junior athletes that are from Alberta or are training currently with an Alberta club are:

Anna Sellers – Canmore AB – Team CrossCut

Benita Peiffer – Whistler BC – Alberta World Cup Academy 

Gillian Gowling – Calgary AB – Sea to Sky Nordics & Alberta World Cup Academy 

Haldan Borglum – Calgary AB – Biathlon Alberta Training Centre

Larissa Black – Squamish BC – Alberta World Cup Academy 

Reid Lovstrom – Calgary AB – Biathlon Alberta Training Centre

Further are our Biathlon Alberta Training Centre Head Coach, Matthias Ahrens, and Canmore Nordic coach, Jeff Lodge, part of the coaching team in Austria.

Congratulations to all the athletes and coaches! We will cheer loud for you and are looking forward to the days of racing!

Follow the Biathlon Alberta Training Centre and Biathlon Alberta Instagram accounts for updates and behind the scene training content!

You can find the full race schedule and all start times HERE

The Biathlon Alberta Training Centre (BATC) will be celebrating its 10th birthday this April and Biathlon Alberta is happy to now accepting applications for the BATC anniversary season!

We will be offering three different options for athletes to choose from.

Our Performance Stream will be for athletes that want to work with our Head Coach, Matthias Ahrens, full-time in Canmore to maximise their potential.

New for next season will be the BATC Summer Program. A biathlon program that is geared towards athletes that want to train fulltime between April and the end of August before starting a secondary education program in September.

Our partnership with the Alberta Insurance World Cup Academy will continue and grow and is for all athletes that plan to attend a secondary education program in Calgary. The Biathlon Academy program will run from September to March.

For more information and details, please visit the BATC page HERE!