A biathlete from Kenai received a post-summer promotion that will put him on the World Cup tour for the second season in a row.
Travis Cooper, 23, was named to U.S. Biathlon’s B team in the spring but recently was bumped up to the World Cup team. The move came after strong showings at the U.S. national rollerski championships in Vermont in August and the U.S. Biathlon team trials in Utah earlier this month.
Cooper collected three wins in a total of five races at the two meets, including back-to-back mass-start wins in Utah, where he shot cleanly to win the 10-kilometer race and missed one shot to win the 13.5K race.
Cooper made his World Cup debut last season. He’ll return to the sport’s biggest circuit for the first three competition of the season — a November race series in Sweden followed by December races in Austria and France.