Australia’s two biathletes, vying for the one spot at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, will contest the first 20km distance event of the season tonight in Ostersund, Sweden - after solid 10km Sprint performances in their first races last weekend.

The two athletes, Mark Raymond, 30, and 19-year-old Alex Almoukov are battling hard for the one qualified spot for an Australian athlete and on recent form can barely be separated.

In Idre, Sweden over the 10km sprint distance last weekend Raymond from Alexandra in Victoria beat Almoukov from Berridale in NSW on the Saturday, only to have the tables turned on the Sunday.

In race one, Raymond was 103rd from 159 starters with 3 penalties for missed shots (2-1), to be 4.01 minutes behind the winner. Almoukov missed the same shots and was 4.41 minutes off the leader in 116th. Frode Andersen of Norway with just one miss (1-0) won in a time of 24.38 minutes.

The race began in -2 degrees Celsius, on manmade snow with no breeze. Fresh snow began to fall in the middle of the race, and it continued to race end.

Nick Almoukov, Alex’s father and coach, reported after the event: “Mark started in the first group, with bib number 29. He raced strongly. Alex started 89th, in the second group, but felt he wasn’t quite in form yet. Both Mark and Alex made qualifying time for the World Cup, which is good and both of them are happy, especially considering the large field. The results were very tight, with 3-4 people in the 1 second and some 10 people sitting in the 10 seconds behind group. Vinzent Iliev, IBU representative, congratulated our qualification to World Cup events in the Olympic Year.”

On Sunday, Raymond missed 5 shots (2-3) to be 6.04 minutes behind the winner slipping to 112th spot from 133 starters. Almoukov however improved to finish in 99th spot with 4 missed shots (2-2), 5.03 minutes behind the winner. The gold was won by Klemen Bauer of Slovenia, who didn’t miss a shot, in a time of 25.43 minutes.

Selections will not be finalised until the end of January with both athletes looking to make their Olympic debut.

Biathlon Australia