BARRHEAD-It has been a difficult winter for the young athletes at Crazy Mare Ranch's Biathlon Club.
Like many youth amateur sporting activities, the club has been greatly impacted by COVID-19 and what seems to be an ever-changing set of public health restrictions and guidelines.
However, Ntala Quintilio owner, and one of the club's coaches said in many ways biathletes have been fortunate compared to other sporting activities, which take place mostly indoors, so the restrictions haven’t been too bad.
Biathlon is a winter sport that combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting disciplines and by necessity is an outdoor sport.
Quintilio and her husband Kevin started the club in recent years to help foster the sport and help young biathletes achieve their potential. The Quintilios are former national biathlon team athletes — Ntala for the U.S., Kevin for Canada.
"Our biggest challenge with the kids centre around the race season and the potential of it not happening at all," she said, adding, for the most part, the provincial sporting restrictions have allowed the Quintilios to put their students through their paces during practice sessions but not competition.
Biathlon Alberta, the sport's governing body in the province, sponsors a series of races called the Calforex Cup starting in November. However, so far, event organizers have cancelled the first four races of the season.
"Basically Biathlon Alberta goes by what [Alberta Health Services] allows," Quintilio said.
At first, biathletes were hopeful that meant many of the events would be able to go forward, especially when the outdoor gathering event limit was, for a period, extended to 200.
"We were all ready to race. We had protocols in place for sanitization, the wearing of masks and the running of races with 30 people at a time, but that changed on [on Dec. 1]. It might have been possible to hold races at that number but not at 10," she said.
The current restrictions were meant to be in place to at least Jan. 21 (and they have since been extended indefinitely). The limit of 10 people at outdoor social gatherings was put in place on Jan. 18 and was part of the loosening of the restriction the government put in place on Dec. 8, which prohibited outdoor gatherings altogether.
"Even though we have been able to get together and train, the kids really enjoy the racing side and when you don't get to do what you really love to do it's hard to keep them motivated," Quintilio said.
In a typical biathlon season, athletes use the summer to do dryland training and build up their endurance, while the fall and winter is the payoff — the time where athletes get to practice their sport with an eye on competing.
"Unfortunately this year, a lot of kids are not going to have that need to be involved in something competitive filled, at least by sports. One of my biggest concerns as a coach is we are going to have attrition in sports because of this," she said.
But Quintilio is hopeful that they will be able to salvage what is left of the competitive season.
As part of her Jan. 20, COVID-19 briefing chief medical health officer Dr.Deena Hinshaw said she was encouraged to see the positivity rate that peaked in December at over eight per cent was on the decline.
“I would say that the data that we have indicates that the restrictions put in place in November and December have achieved, so far, their intended outcome," she said, emphasizing the need for caution due to the high number of people being treated for the virus in hospitals and ICUs.
"We need to build on our collective success by going slowly toward allowing some additional activities and not experiencing a rebound if we open too quickly."
Quintilio said she hopes one of those additional activities will be biathlon, adding there are several competitions in February and March on the Calforex Cup schedule that have not been cancelled.
If the race season cannot be salvaged, Quintilio will have to continue to be creative to find ways to keep her charges interested in the sport, until the day where they can compete again.
Barry Kerton, TownandCountryToday.com
