It wasn’t a Battle on Snowshoes, but it did involve tromping in the snowy woods and burning gunpowder.
I’d been hoping all winter to have a chance to snowshoe in to our range at Zimmerman Butte. While the Cascade Crest has received a pretty fair snowfall this winter, we just haven’t gotten any sustained build-up lower down. A bum knee means Lady Marilyn requires flat going, and not too much of it. We got just enough snow late last week to ramble about a bit on an absolute bluebird Saturday. It amounted to a minor excursion, but Lady Marilyn was most pleased to finally get out on the snowshoes she got herself for Christmas. We rambled, we burned powder — and nobody ambushed us…
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If you WERE to get ambushed on the snow, you would want Dorothea Wierer in your company. The Italian World Champ Biathlete almost retired after last season. Bet she’s glad she didn’t. She’s on a late season tear, winning both the 15km individual and the 12.5km mass start at Oestersund in Sweden. She shot clean — that’s 40 shots without a miss. And she skied exceptionally fast.
From Biathlon World:
Wierer, after shooting clean and winning Thursday’s women’s 15 km individual, did the same (Saturday). However, this was the Italian veteran’s first time to close all 20 targets in a mass start.
“In the warm-up like always, I felt so bad. Finally, it was not so bad…My main goal was to shoot like in the individual race and it worked out. Twenty hits was just perfect for me.”
She again had a very fast ski time, especially when she pulled away in the last loop, showing her best form of the season.
“I do not feel like that; I just focused on myself. I was really afraid of the French girls because they are really fast. So I just pushed as hard as possible…It was just perfect conditions for my skiing…I think I like Oestersund!”
Captain Schwertfeger, who follows biathlon closely, as one does in Texas, notes that the ’24 Olympics will be in Italy. Does that mean we’ll get one more year out of the magnificent Ms. Wierer?
Paul McNamee says
(Snow) ramble on!