Anchorage Daily News

Emerson Conger doesn't make it to many biathlon competitions, but when he does, he finds that everybody seems to know him.

Just not by name.

"I'm known as the Nomer," Conger said. "They say, 'Hey, look, it's the Nome kid!'

"I have a name too."

Conger, 16, was the only racer from Nome -- heck, he was the only racer from rural Alaska -- entered in the World Youth/Junior biathlon team trials that concluded Tuesday at Kincaid Park, where the weather continued to make things interesting, this time by throwing fog into the mix of subzero temperatures.

No one was more suited to the unforgiving weather than Conger, who has lived in western Alaska his entire life.

Born in Brevig Mission and a resident of Nome since he was 2, Conger knows cold.

Minus 20 is common in the winter, he said. So are strong winds that batter the tree-barren town.

"We get 20 mph winds at least twice a month, so we don't shoot that often," he said. "Once this (race series) is done, I won't shoot that much anymore -- just dry-fire and focus on skiing."

Conger wasn't the fastest skier or the surest shot at Kincaid Park this week, but he was quite possibly the most resourceful racer there.

He and his dad, Keith Conger, have devised a no-frills training system in a distant place where almost every biathlon necessity must be ordered online or purchased in Anchorage, a $400 to $500 plane ride away.

Nome's shooting range closed two years ago, Keith Conger said, and since then Emerson has shot laser guns at spinning targets on the frozen Norton Sound beach. When the father and son arrived at Kincaid this week and got a look at the new, 30-target shooting range, it looked like the Taj Mahal to them.

"This is amazing," Keith Conger said.

The Congers have a deal with the Nome Kennel Club that allows them to use the club's groomer on the town's three ski loops (7 miles, 3 miles and 1.1 miles) as long as they help groom the sled-dog trails too.

"We just follow the snowmachine trails with the groomer," Keith said. "There's no trees and Nome is such a wind-blown place that sometimes we have to run a snowmachine across first to loosen up the snow for the groomer."

Emerson was shuffling around on plastic skis by the time he was 2. He applied for, and received, a loaner rifler from the Anchorage Biathlon club two winters ago and has been competing in both skiing and biathlon since.

Only problem is, there are rarely any biathlon races anywhere near him. He competed in this year's Arctic Winter Games for the first time and is the two-time defending champion at the annual Western Interior Ski Association championships, held annually in Bush Alaska the last 29 years.

Even so, he's very much a rookie biathlete. This week was the first time he competed in races where he carried his rifle on his back -- at the Arctic Winter Games, junior racers leave their rifles in the range. And it was the first time he shot from the standing position in a race.

"Every day I'm here, I learn something new," he said.

And he's learning from peers -- kids his same age doing the same thing he does. That's something he seldom experiences in the Bush.

"We have the Nome Biathlon Team, and we're growing, but nobody's at my level yet," he said. "All the villages are into basketball and very few kids stay with skiing."

His most frequent training partner is his dad, who grew up in Wisconsin and has participated in snow sports his whole life. This year Emerson started beating his dad in skiing, so sometimes Keith will skijor so he can keep up with his son.

"The hardest thing for Emerson is he really is on his own -- no peers to ski with, and he skied past his dad this year," Keith Conger said.

"He's by himself on the tundra."

Youth vs. experience

At 44, Ed Soto was the oldest racer at the biathlon trials.

He's 24 years too old to make the U.S. youth and junior teams most everyone else was trying out for, and he knew he'd get schooled by racers less than half his age. He signed up anyway.

"It's a world-class event right here in our back yard," Soto said.

His presence provided some historical context. Soto is a major in the Alaska Air National Guard and is the base civil engineer at Kulis Air National Guard Base. Biathlon's history is entwined with the military, especially the military presence in Anchorage.

For two decades or so, many of the country's top biathletes were Army soldiers at Fort Richardson. Among them was Dick Mize, who raced at the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, Calif., and remained in Anchorage after his military career to become one of the city's biggest influences on skiing and trail-building.

The military continues to work in tandem with biathlon. A number of Olympic athletes, including Anchorage's Jeremy Teela, are National Guardsmen who belong to Guard programs that provide full-time training opportunities.

Soto, who picked up biathlon about eight years ago, is the state coordinator for the National Guard's biathlon program.

As for his races, Soto secured last place each day -- and yet he was the best shooter on two of the three days. In Sunday's sprint race, he had the best shooting performance by anyone, hitting eight of 10 targets. In Tuesday's relay-format race, he was one of a dozen racers to shoot cleanly on both the prone and standings stages.

The youngest racer this week was 14-year-old Jake Prince, a sophomore at Service High. He started biathlon a couple of years ago, and unlike many biathletes who come to the sport from skiing, Prince has a background in shooting sports. He won an age-group shotgun competition recently at the national sporting clays championships.

Tuesday's winners

Same old, same old. Wynn Roberts of Battle Lake, Minn., and Grace Boutot of Fort Kent, Maine, won for the third straight day.

Both hit all 10 of their targets and both won with ease. Roberts won the 7.5-kilometer boys race by more than 90 seconds in a time off 22 minutes, 29.5 seconds and Boutot won the 6-K girls race by more than a minute in 21:02.8.

Both were named to the U.S. team headed to the World Youth/Junior World Championships next month in Canmore, Alberta.

Roberts is on the junior boys team (ages 19-20) along with Leif Nordgren of Minnesota, who pre-qualified for the team and didn't race at Kincaid this week.

Boutot is on the youth girls team (ages 17-18), along with Addie Byrne of Bovey, Minn., and Hilary McNamee of Fort Fairfield, Minn. The youth boys team includes Ethan Dreissinggacker of Craftsbury, Vt., Nick Michaud of Fort Kent, Maine, Raleigh Goessling of Esko, Minn., and Preston Butler of Marion, Mass.

No junior girls competed this week, so the U.S. will not field a junior girls team.

Find Beth Bragg online at adn.com/contact/bbragg or call 257-4309.

World Youth/Junior biathlon team trials

Tuesday's races (relay format)

6-kilometer girls (two shooting stages, 1 prone, 1 standing, 5 targets at each) -- 1) Grace Boutot, Maine Winter Sports Center, 21:02.8 (0 misses prone, 0 misses standing); 2) Addie Byrne. Mt. Itasca, 22:28.4 (1-0); 3) Hilary McNamee, MWSC, 22:53.4 (1-0); 4) Andrea Mayo, MWSC, 23:12.3 (0-0); 5) Sarah Cresap, Alaska, 23:16.4 (0-0); 6) Mary Bernard, MWSC, 24:50.1 (2-2); 7) Stephanie Dow, Alaska, 25:33.3 (0-0); 8) Mackenzie Wonders, Alaska, 27:18.7 (2-1); 9) Jessica Caron, MWSC, 27:50.9 (0-1); 10) MollySusla, MWSC, 28:48.1 (0-3); 10) Kelly Kjerlien, Mt. Itasca, 29:43.3 (2-0); 11) Jenna Ruzich, Nisswa, 33:25.4 (1-2).

7.5-kilometer boys -- 1) Wynn Roberts, Mt. Itasca, 22:29.5 (0-0); 2) Ethan Dreissingacker, Ethan Allen (Vt.), 24:01.2 (0-0); 3) Nick Michaud, MWSC, 25:07.5 (0-2); 4) Preston Butler, Green Mountain (Vt) 25:17.7 (0-1); 5) Wayne McClure, Alaska, 25:34.3 (0-3); 6) Matthew Coleman, Methow Valley, 25:40.7 (0-0); 7) Ray Wonders, Alaska, 25:42.5 (0-2); 8) Raleigh Goessling, Duluth, 25:50.4 (0-2); 9) Kelsey Boyer, Fairbanks, 25:59.2 (3-0); 10) Conrad Roberts, Nisswa, 26:11.7 (0-2); 11) Travis Mann-Gow, Nisswa, 26:19.4 (0-2); 12) Nick Peterson, Vermont, 26:33.9 (0-2); 13) Sam Dougherty, Alaska, 26:52.1 (1-1); 14) Willie Neal, Sun Valley, 26:54.0 (2-3); 15) Michael Gibson, Jericho (Vt.), 26:55.1 (4-0); 16) Ben Greenwald, Twin Cities, 26:56.2 (0-2); 17) Casey Smith, Methow Valley, 27:53.2 (2-3); 18) R. Eliot Neal, Sun Valley, 28:17.5 (2-4); 19) Jared McClure, Alaska, 29:05.1 (1-1); 20) Jack Novak, Alaska, 29:21.7 (2-2); 21) Willie Devin, Methow Valley, 29:32.3 (4-2); 22) Remington Roher, Methow Valley, 36:30.5 (2-3).

6-K youth boys -- 1) Sam Humphries, MWSC, 24:08.5 (0-0); 2) Emerson Conger, Nome, 25:52.8 (0-1).

7.5-K master men -- 1) Seth Downs, APU, 24:32.3 (0-0); 2) Zeke Maamori-Cortez, 30:03.9 (2-4); 3) Ed Soto, Alaska, 36:50.0 (0-0).

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