Hakkinen claims 18th in Sweden

Hakkinen placed 18th in the first race of the World Cup season, shooting cleanly in the first three of four shooting stages to give the U.S. two racers in the top 20 in a 20-kilometer race in Ostersund, Sweden. Lowell Bailey of Lake Placid, N.Y., finished ninth to lead the Americans.

"It was a really important result to show the work I have done over the past year is paying off, and that I have the ability to be competing with the best again," Hakkinen said in an email. "This race showed there is really good potential for this season, so now I can be quite ambitious about my goals.

"Plus, it is always fun to be scoring World Cup points."

Hakkinen, who made his Olympic debut in the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, has been one of the nation's top biathletes for nearly 15 years. The United States has never had a five-time Olympian in biathlon, and the next Winter Olympics are two seasons away -- 2014 in Sochi, Russia -- but Hakkinen appeared ageless in the first distance race of the season.

He skied well and missed two of 20 targets in an event where every miss adds a minute to a racer's final time.

"It was great to be competing with the best," Hakkinen wrote. "With one less penalty I would have been fifth place, with clean shooting second, but that is biathlon.

"It does show that there is potential to keep doing well, so I am looking forward to the next race on Saturday."

France's Martin Fourcade won the race in 53 minutes, 29.8 seconds, missing one target. Bailey missed two targets on his way to a 56:27.2 finish and Hakkinen posted a time of 57:02.4. Both of the Americans missed two targets on their final stop in the shooting range.

"Both of us had a reminder of what biathlon is today," Hakkinen said in a press release from the U.S. Biathlon Team. "With one more shot, we both would have been top five."

On Sunday, Hakkinen earned the fourth and final spot on the U.S. World Cup team by placing 27th in an IBU Cup sprint race is Ostersund -- the first time this season season he raced on real snow.

"Prior to this I was in the Oberhof Ski Hall, skiing on stored snow from last year in Ostersund, so it was great to see the real snow the way nature intended it," he said on his website after that race.

Making a fifth Olympic team would make Hakkinen a true rarity.

Fewer than 500 athletes worldwide have qualified for five Olympics, and at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the American team featured three athletes competing in their fifth Olympics -- Todd Ludwig in nordic combined, Mark Grimette in luge and Casey Puckett, a former alpine skier whose career was extended by the introduction of ski cross.

Reach Beth Bragg at bbragg@adn,com or 257-4335.