American Tracy Barnes Wins World Biathlon Shoot-Out
Tracy Barnes of Durango, Colorado beat the very best biathletes in the world in the Shoot-Out phase the Veltins World Team Challenge in Schalke, Germany. The World Team Challenge, held annually in the Veltins Arena, is the equivalent of the SuperBowl of Biathlon. Tracy grabbed top honors in the prestigious Shoot-Out event, a shooting competition for the top 20 biathletes in the world. In this invitation-only event, 10 women competed head-to-head in a four-stage shooting event duplicating the format for a regular biathlon race (two prone, two standing). In the final round of competition, the top three ladies from the preliminary round face off with the top three men from the mens’ first round. Tracy came in 1st for the women’s round AND 1st in the final competition!
Laser Rifles Used in Shoot-Out
This year, the athletes and the 50,000 spectators at the Veltins Soccer Stadium had to adjust to something new — this was the first time that laser-rifles replaced the traditional .22-caliber rifle. The athletes received their laser-rifles on Saturday and had only one day to practice before the World Team Challenge. Tracy and her U.S. teammate Tim Burke finished 9th in the pairs mass start and 10th in the pursuit race held the same day. Tracy’s personal support team (her husband Gary and her Dad) accompanied her to Germany for this major biathlon event. [Editor’s note: While we don’t want to diminish Tracy’s accomplishment in any way, we think it is unfortunate that event organizers mandated laser guns instead of .22 LR rimfire rifles. Biathlon started as a military training competition. To change from actual shooting to “lasering” is a step in the wrong direction in our opinion.]
Lanny Barnes Stars in Mammoth Lakes Biathlon Festival
Meanwhile, back in the USA, Tracy’s twin sister Lanny Barnes traveled to Mammoth Lakes, California on friday to help with biathlon clinics for several hundred new biathletes ages 10+ and competed in a race at a new biathlon course in Mammoth Lakes on Sunday. Due to the town receiving close to 10ft of snow during the week, flights were canceled and Lanny wasn’t able to make it in for the clinic. She helped with the kids, adults, wounded warrior, and disabled skier biathlon race on Saturday and competed in an elite race on Sunday. She won the race on Sunday that was filmed by Versus and Outdoor Channel and American Trigger Sports Network. Tracy was impressed by Mammoth Lakes — she says it is evolving into one of the best high-altitude biathlon venues in the country. With over 200+ volunteers that dug out the range buried by mountains of snow, the Mammoth Lakes crew put on one of the most professional and exciting biathlon events ever run in the United States.
Twin Biathletes Continue Training for Next Winter Olympics
The twins ended their seasons after those two events and will now take a two week break before starting up their training again for the 2011/2012 season. With three short years until the next Winter Oympics, the twin will be training hard in hopes of winning gold in Sochi, Russia in 2014.
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Tags: Germany, Lanny Barnes, Mammoth Lakes, Tracy Barnes, Veltins Team Challenge
The Barnes Twins are using the StraightJacket Barrel System on their rifles you can see it in most of their photos from this year!
“Laser Rifles Used in Shoot-Out
This was an exciting competition for the athletes and the 50,000 spectators at the Veltins Soccer Stadium as it was the first time that laser-rifles replaced the traditional .22-caliber rifle.”
Wow. This was reported like it was a good thing. Soon shooting sports will completely disappear from the Olympics.
Emil,
You raise a good point. I didn’t want to diminish Tracy’s accomplishment, but you’re absolutely right. Lasers are replacing arms in the modern Pentathlon and one has to be concerned about the use of laser rifles in this large event if it was conducted successfully for six previous years with .22 LR. Aiming a laser is definitely not the same as shooting a rimfire rifle.
I believe the main advantage of using the laser system was to allow more spectators to enjoy the venue. It opened up a lot of seats that were closed off in previous years. It was, however, lame to hear electronic “rounds” go off and hit imaginary steel targets.
It was mentioned that the laser systems are too sensitive to weather conditions to ever be used in the world cup. Let’s hope it stays that way!
On a side note, this event is not on par with the Super Bowl!(Olympics, World Championships and the Biathlon World Cup are more important) It’s really just a lot of fun in Gelsenkirchen!
http://www.biathlon-aufschalke.de/
This was the first and only event where laser rifles were used in biathlon. All of the athletes hope that it will be the last. There is little support for it. In this case the athletes were given the laser rifles the day before the event and most of them had never even shot the contraption before. All athletes agreed that the laser was not nearly as exciting or difficult as the normal 22. Preference is still with the 22.
You are absolutely right. There is no comparison between a laser and a 22. It is a shame that we had to use the laser. I’m sure all of the athletes, including myself, would have preferred to use our 22’s. It changes the whole sport. But I am confident that biathlon will remain unchanged and lasers will not have a presence in our sport. It’s sad to hear that pentathlon is using lasers. Because we used the lasers we didn’t have to deal with recoil, wind, etc. We all had questions about the lasers i.e. diameter of the laser vs a bullet width, speed of light vs speed of bullet, etc. We found that this shooting event was based more around speed of shooting and dealing with the pressure/adrenaline of shooting in front of such a huge crowd. You are right also in saying that this would have been more of an accomplishment had it been with a “live fire” rifle, but as a biathlete you cannot turn down an opportunity like this to compete in such a unique and exciting event. It is definitely one of a kind, and hopefully will return to normal .22LR next year.