Heartbeat: US Biathlon Podcast

After several years of preparation, the IBU 2023-24 season will begin with a full ban on fluorocarbons, which have been used for decades. What will change for teams? How will IBU manage testing? U.S. Biathlon Team Manager Federico ‘Fede’ Fontana, one of the sport’s most renowned experts on ski preparation, talked to Heartbeat about the impacts and how U.S. Biathlon has been preparing.

Fontana grew up in Frassinoro, Italy, a legendary hotbed of modern ski preparation. In the interview he speaks to the history of fluorocarbons in ski wax, dating back to the 1980s, and the dangers they ultimately presented to both the environment and to technicians working in wax cabins.

Over the past years leading up to the ban, IBU has also worked in concert with the International Ski & Snowboard Federation (FIS), which is implementing its ban this season, as well, across all of its sports. At the first FIS Alpine Ski World Cup in October, the sport also had its first disqualification due to elevated levels of fluorocarbons in a ski.

A popular coach, manager and ski technician, Fontana has a great sense of history and perspective on the future that he shares on Heartbeat. He will also regale listeners with a rather incredible personal goal he achieved this summer.

Listen in to this important episode of Heartbeat, with one of the sport’s legendary figures.

What are fluorocarbons? Why are they bad?

Fluorinated waxes contain chemicals that are part of a group called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), among them are perfluorooctanoic acid and perfluorooctane sulfonate – more commonly referred to as PFOA and PFOS. These man made water repellent compounds were introduced in the 1950s and found their way into household products (think nonstick cookware). The chemicals found their way into ski wax in the 1980s with their water repellent properties equating to increased speed of skis.

Why are they harmful? Most notably, they simply do not break down in the environment ... ever. Studies have shown that they impact the ozone layer. In humans, research has linked them to respiratory ailments, cancer and other illnesses. In typical fine powder applications on skis, they are easily inhaled.

IBU Implements Full Fluoro Ban

The International Biathlon Union (IBU) announced that it will implement a full ban of ski preparation products containing fluoro at all its event series from the 2023/2024 season onwards. The IBU committed to banning fluoro products used in ski preparation in 2020 based on the apparent health risks and environmental concerns connected to fluorine waxes. Working with Bruker, a leading manufacturer of high-performance scientific instruments, while maintaining a close collaboration with the International Ski Federation (FIS) through a joint working group, the IBU has developed an effective testing method using the Alpha II device. The device provides reliable testing to ensure fluor-free biathlon competitions. IBU will test to ensure that skis are fluor-free at each IBU event, guaranteeing the integrity of competitions and a level playing field. More ...

FIS to fully implement fluor wax ban at start of 2023-24 season

The International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) announced that the fluoro wax ban will be fully implemented at the start of the upcoming 2023/2024 winter season. FIS has remained committed to banning fluor products used in ski preparation given the health risks and environmental concerns connected to fluorine waxes. Working with Bruker, a leading manufacturer of high-performance scientific instruments, while maintaining a close collaboration with the International Biathlon Union (IBU) through a joint working group, an effective and accurate testing method was developed. More ...

There are many routes into biathlon. Grace Castonguay is part of a new generation of athletes who are finding the sport and moving quickly up the ranks. A passionate runner, Castonguay only got into cross-country skiing when an injury curtailed her running. She loved it! Just a few years later, she made her World Cup debut in December 2023, racing in Hochfilzen and Lenzerheide.

When Castonguay first stepped onto skis during high school in 2019, she passionately embraced the sport. Together with her younger brother Theo, they traveled around the New Hampshire high school circuit. In her senior year, she helped the Kennett High School Eagles – Sean Doherty’s alma mater – win a state title.

The vital step in her storybook tale came when she accompanied Theo to a fall biathlon camp at Utah’s Soldier Hollow in October 2020. There, she caught the attention of coach Zach Hall, who invited her to the biathlon range. Now she was really hooked!

She progressed quickly. The next March (2021), she raced in her first biathlon event – U.S. Nationals at West Yellowstone. In October 2021, she was the second and third junior in races at the Soldier Hollow Schutzenski trials. While she failed to make the Junior Worlds team out of trials, she doubled down on cross-country, transferring mid-year to ski for St. Michael’s College.

That December (2022), she posted strong results again during trial races at Craftsbury, qualifying for the IBU Cup and eventually the IBU Youth and Junior World Championships in Kazakhstan, where she had the top U.S. women’s results in both sprint and pursuit.

Her success on the college carnival circuit and with biathlon has created a bit of a juggling act for Castonguay, which she is embracing. As the team captain for the Purple Knights, she’s committed to the college schedule in January and February. But she is also looking to take advantage of her biathlon opportunity, going to Europe for the first races of the second trimester before heading back to ski for St. Michael’s. In the back of her mind, she realizes that the NCAA Championships in Steamboat Springs overlap with the IBU World Cup in Soldier Hollow in early March.

Needless to say, it will be a busy season. But for a young athlete who only slid on a ski track four years ago, she’s anxious to embrace every single opportunity, be that as a member of the Ethan Allen Biathlon Club, the St. Michael’s Purple Knights, or the U.S. Biathlon Team.

Here’s a sampling of what you’ll learn in this episode of Heartbeat. This is a remarkable story of a young athlete’s passion for sport and the emotions that athletic success can bring.

So, Grace, that was a long road trip!

This was my longest span of time in Europe – my longest time away from home forever. It was about a month and a half on the road.

How did you originally get into skiing?

So the punchline of this story is that I actually did not learn to ski, or step foot on skis, until four years ago. So, I am pretty much a baby in this sport. I grew up playing soccer and running cross country. When I was 14, I broke my leg playing soccer, and that kind of switched me fully into the endurance mode or lifestyle. I ran high school cross country and was really into running. I wanted to run Division 1 in college. That was my big goal. And then, because of the lasting, effects of my broken leg – I broke my tibia and fibula, which caused my growth plates to close. – running just really did not suit my body. I broke down a lot. My mom became the high school Nordic coach for our team so my brother could enter races. My indoor track season ended a little early and she was like, ‘Come on. Like, don't you want to join the team? It will look good on college resumes.’ And I figured, hey, why not? I entered my first Nordic ski race about three weeks after I learned to ski. I looked like Bambi on ice skates.

What clicked for you when Zach Hall invited you to the range in Soldier Hollow?

I had shot a biathlon rifle before because my brother was a biathlete, but I hadn't really caught the biathlon bug at that point. So I figured, okay, why not? I'll go to this practice. I'm here. Something to do. And I went to that practice that day, and things clicked for me. I really started to see why people love this sport. One of the big things was that Zach identified that I am left-eye dominant despite being right-handed. And when I had shot a biathlon rifle before, I was shooting righty and I couldn't hit the broadside of a barn. So once we figured out that I was left-eye dominant, that made a huge difference to how I felt about the sport. And I also just really enjoyed the way he explained the process. Zach is a really phenomenal coach in a multitude of ways. He's really great at the mental aspect of sport. I remember going home that day from practice, and I said to myself, ‘I want to be...

Growing up on a fifth generation family farm in Topeka, Kansas was a long ways from the Paralympic ski tracks of PyeongChang. In 2018, Dan Cnossen became the first biathlete to win a Paralympic gold medal, earning a gold, four silver and a bronze in biathlon and cross country. Cnossen's story is remarkable - a decorated war veteran who lost both legs above the knee on a 2009 Navy Seal mission in Afghanistan. A year later, he was on cross country skis at West Yellowstone, Montana. Heartbeat explores his life, motivations and resiliency in an emotional hour long interview with Dan Cnossen.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Heartbeat Ep 3 - Dan Cnossen

Tom Kelly: [00:00:18] Biathlon is a unique Olympic and Paralympic event. It challenges participants with opposing athletic endeavors in a singular competition. It [00:00:30] combines the heart pumping Arabic aspects of cross-country skiing match with the intense focus of precision marksmanship. Two diametrically opposing forces testing every ounce of physical and mental strength of the athletes. Welcome to Heartbeat. The U.S. biathlon podcast. I'm your host, Tom Kelly, and I'm proud to bring you regular insights into this fascinating sport. Today's guest on Heartbeat is an amazing athlete and a remarkable American. Dan [00:01:00] Cnossen grew up on a farm outside Topeka, Kansas, an unlikely environment for a cross-country skier. In 2009, Lieutenant Commander Dan Cnossen, a leader of Navy SEAL Team One, lost both his legs in Afghanistan when he stepped on a mine. Undaunted, he found a pathway in sport from a hospital bed in Walter Reed Medical Center to the tracks and shooting ranges of Sochi and Pyeongchang. He became one of the most decorated stars of Paralympic sport, [00:01:30] winning six medals in South Korea, including a gold the first ever by a U.S. by athlete. And Dan, it's an honor to have you join us on Heartbeat, the U.S. biathlon podcast.

Dan Cnossen: [00:01:41] Thanks for having me, Tom. I'm looking forward to our talk today.

Tom Kelly: [00:01:45] So where are you coming to us from today, Dan?

Dan Cnossen: [00:01:48] Coming to you from Natick, Massachusetts, a suburb just west of Boston.

Tom Kelly: [00:01:52] A beautiful place. Is that your training base?

Dan Cnossen: [00:01:56] Yes, it is. For most of the year, minus the time that I'm away for [00:02:00] camps on snow or the occasional surf trip. Not happening this time of year. Right now, the coronavirus and everything going on.

Tom Kelly: [00:02:09] I want to get into talking surf a little bit later, but I know all of us are in kind of the same boat right now with Corona virus having dictated our life. And for athletes training and and your goal setting. What have you been doing over the last few months in Natick, Massachusetts?

Dan Cnossen: [00:02:27] Well, you know, we came back from our [00:02:30] world championships, which was prematurely canceled before the first race even began. This was going to be an Östersund Sweden and this was in early March. We came back, I believe, on March 12th. And and then since then, I've been readjusting. I'm thinking that it's not at all really appropriate to be complaining about my situation, cause I'm in a very fortunate situation where I can stay healthy and still get my workout worn outside. And a lot of people are in situations like that. So for the most part, I've been following [00:03:00] my training plan, not really going to the gym because gyms haven't been open yet, but that's OK. And I'm enjoying being outside and doing a lot of reading and maybe doing the occasional talk like we're doing and spending time with family, talking to family who are not co present. And also, I decided to start setting for the GRV again to have another test that I'll take in late September.

Tom Kelly: [00:03:26] Yeah, you know, I think like all of us, you have to improvise [00:03:30] a little bit without access to the gyms, have you improvise things around home, like for lifting weights or other kind of exercise?

Dan Cnossen: [00:03:39] Yes, I have done a little bit of that, but I just had no home gym equipment and it was in high demand. Hard to get a hold of. And I haven't really prioritized getting it. I can do some push ups and things like that and certainly can do core exercises. But really just looking at other ways of getting strength through my [00:04:00] training platforms, through hand cycling, maybe doing hills or through the prone paddleboarding that I do as another form of cross training. And that is certainly a strength intensive activity. So doing sprints and things like that. And it's just been a load for me, honestly, a nice little departure from the ...

Dickinson is a fascinating young athlete. She was just six when her parents followed family friends in a move to Winthrop, Wash. at a time when the community was starting to make a splash as a premier nordic center in America. Cross country skiing became a way of life, with junior racing and high school as she forged her path in the sport.

For Dickinson, her joy of shooting came early on an impromptu range. And while she followed her skiing dreams to Sun Valley after high school, she always kept biathlon in the back of her mind. She was recruited by biathlete and coach Chad Salmela to ski at St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minn. and quickly discovered another cultural hotbed of the sport in the Midwest.

Biathlon ultimately became her sport direction, moving her way up the ranks from biathlon Junior World Championships to becoming a regular on the IBU Cup. In early January, she'll be one of a select group of U.S. athletes battling for the final Olympic spots for a spot in Beijing.

One of the influencing factors in Dickinson's career has been women coaches, going back to her days in the Methow Valley and continuing on at St. Scholastic with Maria Stuber. She's channeled that passion into an organization, the Women Ski Coaches Association, which works to develop, retain, and advance women in ski coaching leadership.

The opening of the BMW IBU World Championships Biathlon in Lenzerheide will mark another milestone in a campaign to recruit more women into coaching and officiating. U.S. Biathlon’s Sara Studebaker-Hall, an Olympic veteran, will serve at technical delegate for the prestigious event. Heartbeat spoke to Studebaker-Hall as she prepared for the Championships, which begin Feb. 12.

An impactful advocate for women in officiating, Studebaker-Hall has spent the last few years working her way up the officiating ladder, eventually becoming an IBU referee and passing her technical delegate exam. She made a big step a year ago by serving as a referee at the Hochfilzen IBU World Cup. This past December, she had her first TD assignment at the Junior Cup in Ridnau, Italy.

Serving as technical delegate at the World Championships is clearly a major assignment. Studebaker-Hall had been in Lenzerheide last summer for a workshop, and received the news of her prestigious assignment on her way back to the USA.

She was humbled by the role. “The IBU has a lot of female technical delegates at this point, and many who are more experienced than myself,” she said. “I'm very honored to fill this role.”

Thanks in part to Studebaker-Hall’s advocacy the past few years, there is a growing number of women in officiating in America. But her passion still runs deep. “Without the officials, without the volunteers, you can't do the sport,” she said. “It doesn't work. And so being part of that and making sure that the races go off according to the rules and according to what the athletes are expecting is is really gratifying.”

Studebaker-Hall goes into detail on her role at Lenzerheide, and the steps other can take to follow in her footsteps as a biathlon official. She also dives into the qualifying criteria for the 2026 Winter Games in Milan-Cortina.

PAST EPISODES WITH SARA STUDEBAKER HALL
Achieving IBU TD Certification - S3 Ep1 - Sept. 2022
Bringing Life Experience to Biathlon - S1 Ep - S1 Ep2 - June 2020

S5 Ep9 - Sara Studebaker-Hall - TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Tom Kelly: Welcome to Heartbeat, everyone. Today we have someone who actually, I think, is the most frequent guest on Heartbeat, Sara Studebaker-Hall. Sara, thank you for joining us once again.

[00:00:13] Sara Studebaker-Hall: Yeah, Tom, it's always a pleasure to be here. I love talking with you.

[00:00:15] Tom Kelly: And we're going to talk about a couple of different things today. We're going to talk about the World Championships. Sara will actually be serving as the technical delegate at the World Championships. World championships in Lenzerheide that start on February 12th. And we're going to also take a few minutes at the end to talk about the Olympic selection criteria. Qualifying criteria, as we are now literally just one year out. Actually just under one year out when this podcast comes out to the start of the games in Milan-Cortina. So, Sara, when are you heading over to Switzerland?

[00:00:51] Sara Studebaker-Hall: Yeah. So I head over on Friday, so the seventh of, of February. So, um, just a few days before the event starts, but trying to be there enough ahead of time to kind of check things out before everybody gets on the ground.

[00:01:05] Tom Kelly: Well, the last time we had you on, actually, no, I have to go back two times. Last time we had you on, it was a preview of the World Cup. And then two years ago, we had you on to talk about, uh, how you have been climbing up through the ranks of biathlon officials worldwide. But you will be the first female in IBU history to be the technical delegate at the World Championships. Congratulations.

[00:01:27] Sara Studebaker-Hall: Thank you. Yeah, it's kind of a funny thing. I didn't quite believe it when. When someone told me that that was the case.You know, I know IBU is they've got a lot of female technical delegates at this point, and many who are more experienced than myself. But, of course, I'm very honored to fill this role and be that person.

[00:01:48] Tom Kelly: If you look back, though, over the last few years, I know that you have been very active in this area, encouraging other women to get into coaching, to get into officiating. So, do you find that there is now a fraternity of sorts of women officials growing up within the international biathlon community.

[00:02:09] Sara Studebaker-Hall: Yeah. For sure. You know, there's the group that I took my technical delegate test with included several women, and we've remained pretty close, and I've been lucky enough to serve with several of them and several of the other women who have more exp...