Biathlon: It's Snow Joke for Army Game

Past eight o'clock on a Friday evening in Ruhpolding and Gunner Stuart Paine, Highlander Barry Hamilton, Lieutenant James Allen and Gunner Kevin Kane ski up to the range, fall on their stomachs, compose themselves and start shooting. To complete the event they need to hit five targets the size of golf balls 50 yards away. It is beyond cold. To the right is the almost vertical slope of a ski-jump and every so often a blob lands and descends at breakneck speed. To the left, the odd lone skier with a light on his forehead makes his quiet way through the forest.

Ruhpolding is the home of biathlon. A winter Wimbledon constructed in a valley where the sun never shines so the snow never melts. An all-ski town in the way Newmarket is all horse.

The BBU Team Challenge is being covered by Soldier magazine and The Observer, two of the more gung-ho publications on the market. The Highlanders complete their targets first. They go up to meet General Sir Michael Jackson, Chief of General Staff, to applause from other members of their regiments. There is an element of a school prize-giving to the proceedings. The Ski Sunday anthem is played. Trophies are awarded. Points are given, pictures are taken, €400 are handed over to the Highlanders - not an inconsiderable amount in a sport where the best British contestants are locked in negative equity.

It is thought that biathlon derived from the Finnish penchant for skiing long distances cross-country, shooting a Russian and repeating the process until they, or the number of available Russians, were exhausted. Seemingly a bizarre conflation of two rather unfashionable sports, it has its own curious logic. It is not enough to be able to ski well and shoot well, you have to be able to shoot well immediately after skiing well and vice-versa. It combines an aggressive pursuit with a passive activity and the challenge of switching from one to the other tests the competitor's recovery rate like no other sport. Biathlon has long been held in high regard by the Army for the emphasis it places on endurance and courage in less than helpful conditions.

Biathlon is enjoying something of a boom across Europe. At the world championship, 30,000 people will attend for each of the 10 days. Sponsors are taking note. If you are Norwegian, German or Russian there is money to be made.

But not in Britain. The sport receives zero funding. It is supported by the Army allowing soldiers the time to train and to attempt to compete. Yet, as the sport becomes more professional, such a benevolent approach may no longer cut enough ice. The squad need a coach. The squad need a focus. The squad need funding.

At the last Winter Olympics, Jeremy Hopwood travelled to Salt Lake City to see how the British biathlon relay team were doing. They were last. He determined to see whether it would be possible to create a British biathlon team that might make the podium in 2010. A far-fetched ambition but, having left the Army, Hopwood has specialised in unlikely projects, helping to found EuroDisney and advising Hollywood on the necessary constituent parts for a blockbuster.

The biathletes who might be part of such a team competed yesterday in the British National Inter Service and Army Nordic Ski Championships (Ex-Rucksack) Men's 10km Biathlon Sprint. Second only to a Canadian was Corporal Tom Clemens, the son of a soldier whose father is bemused that his progeny is spending his time skiing rather than soldiering.

He missed one target out of five on each visit to the range. 'That's OK,' Clemens said. 'Ninety per cent is good. One hundred per cent is excellent.' Both times he missed with his fourth shot. If you miss you are required to do an extra loop in punishment, rather like an errant schoolboy might be ordered to complete a circuit of the outer field. Each time Clemens steadied himself for a few seconds before hitting the final target. The gamble of wasting a slither of time just paid off.

A hundredth of a second behind Clemens was Corporal Marc Walker. His best finish in a biathlon tournament came the day after he was ordered to prepare to pack his bags for the Gulf. Thinking his season was over, and no longer under any pressure, he skied well enough to qualify for the world championships.

In fourth place was Corporal Mark 'Fred' Gee, who on Thursday came out of retirement to give his successors a beating. Along with team captain Corporal Jason Sklenar, he has provided the backbone of the British team, the pair of them dragging Britain into the top 20.

Before them, there was six-time Olympian Mike Dixon, who is the Sir Steven Redgrave of the sport, his eleventh place in the Olympics being the best yet by a Briton. That may not sound Redgravian, but where the rower had the Thames on his doorstep, Dixon had to go looking for snow.

Farther down the list of finishers yesterday came a couple of young hopefuls. Corporal Simon Heard stands out because he is not attached to a regiment but the Territorial Army, which to some traditionalists is barely a hop, skip and a jump from civvy street. After studying modern languages at Exeter University he spent six months with the Marines before deciding there were other things he wanted to do with his life.

'I wanted some kind of challenge in my life,' he said, 'and, while deciding what that might be, biathlon struck me.' He had experience of shooting but, like most British biathletes, only took up skiing at18, a decade or more after most of their international competitors. His commitment has seen him arrange to spend the past two summers training in New Zealand. Part-time work for the TA earns him less than £5,000 a year and Heard spends more than that competing in his chosen sport. He can't earn more without short-changing on his training regime.

Another with financial constraints is the junior champion Gunner Stuart Paine. 'I need to take a couple of months away from the sport in order to get promoted,' he says. 'I can't afford to do the sport on a gunner's wage. I either take a few months out now and then train full-time or I'll have to stop halfway through my training.'

The event is surprisingly watchable and there can be no doubting the effort put in by the competitors as one after another they drop to their knees on finishing, faces covered in spittle.

The Army presence is ubiquitous. Before the event You're in the Army Now and Bob the Builder are played over the PA. Overheard conversations include: 'Iraq nearly killed me. Five and a half months stuck in the desert doing nothing.' People call you 'Sir'.

Against this backdrop I chat to Claude Prica, a highly successful French coach. He talks about the Zen of biathlon. 'The more you think about hitting the target the more you miss,' he said. 'The black point has to come to you. If you go for it you will miss.' Prica explains that calming yourself to be able to shoot after the exertions of skiing is 'like threading a needle while wearing boxing gloves'.

He says that all the great biathlon champions stand out for their humility. British biathlon is currently in a humble position but if somehow a slice of pie could be directed towards it, then a measure of success might not be out of reach.