Zina Kocher

Do not despair, I have not been swallowed by snow demons. I did attend World Championships, and then Whistler, Trondheim and Khanty-Manyisk World Cups. Life seemed to have consumed me and blogs forgotten about. Much apologies!

2009 Pyeongchang World Championships, (South Korea), were a good experience. Pyeongchang is a county in Gangwon province, in the Taebaek Mountains region and about 180km east of Seoul. Everyone, as in athletes, coaches, support staff of all the Nations stayed at a huge apartment building called Green Pia, located right at the base of the YongPyong Ski Resort. This is very different from other World Championships and World Cups because teams are usually scattered in different hotels with maybe 1 or 2 other teams. So it created an athlete atmosphere similar (yet on a much smaller scale!) to that of Olympic Games.

Our competition venue was a short 10 min drive away. Pyeongchang lost bids for 2010 and 2014 Olympics but they are bidding again for 2018. Because of this, they have a World Class biathlon facility, and a Cross Country facility and ski jumping (still in building phase) all in the same area.

Right before the competitions began a number of misfortunes arose. One being a terrible rainstorm destroying the fairly thick layer of manmade snow. The day before the sprint, no one was allowed to ski on the icy remains besides 400m around the stadium. Most athletes chose to go for a run in the rain and dry-fire in the athlete room (as we were also unable to shoot). In Korea, all of our rifles stayed in a locked room at the venue when not in use; therefore, there was a specific room on site for athletes to practice dry shooting. I don't think I have ever been in such a busy dry-fire room with the chaotic noise of click, click, click!

I did not have the results I was hoping for finishing 30th in the Sprint, 24th in the Pursuit and 35th in the Individual. However, we had a good relay placing 9th. The stadium is plagued by a lot of wind gusts and therefore, many athletes (unfortunately including myself) had difficulties in shooting... but really, one cannot have excuses in biathlon. Biathletes have to be able to master difficult conditions in order to succeed!

Leaving Seoul, our team took the opportunity to do a half day tour in Seoul. We visited a beautiful Buddhist temple and museum, a market street, enjoyed a traditional Korea meal... kimchi anyone?, saw a sea of identical high rise apartment buildings, highways with 10 lanes across, crazy candy makers and many other aspects of daily Korean life. The food was definitely an experience, but being adventurous I tried it all. (and yep... still not a fan of kimchi!)

Then we took a long flight back home to Calgary....

After a little over a week in Canmore it was off to Whistler for World Cup #7...