The U.S. Biathlon team has already announced their 2018-19 team nominations, and there is a local athlete on the list.
Indeed, Eagle County ski and shooting fans now have an athlete to watch as 17-year-old Marcus Gore will join the U.S. Biathlon Junior Development Team in 2018-19, in what promises to be a rebuilding year for the program.
Gore is a junior at Vail Ski & Snowboard Academy and was the national champion in the under-19 biathlon category in 2017-18. He trains 11 months per year, taking April off and starting again last week.
“He didn’t join us for our family vacation so he could train,” Theron Gore, Marcus’ father, said on Monday, May 7.
Theron Gore said Marcus Gore competed first in alpine skiing, then in Nordic before discovering biathlon. He discovered the sport in the same way as many young Nordic skiers in the West, through the West Yellowstone biathlon clinics hosted by Marc Sheppard.
“We’re not Nordic skiers or biathletes,” Theron said of the Gore family. “But Marcus did a try-it biathlon series up there a couple years in a row and saw that he had a talent for it.”
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