Six athletes competing at the 2022 IBU Youth and Junior World Championships in USA

The IBU Youth and Junior World Championships (YJWCH) are being held In Solider Hollow, Utah, USA from 21 February until 2 March 2022. This is the first time the event has been held In the USA since 2014, when Australia’s Damon Morton raced to a fantastic 11^th in the Youth Men’s Sprint. 

Introducing our athletes:

In the Junior female category, our representative is 2020 Youth Olympian Chelsey Johnson (19 years). The Championships will be Chelsey’s return to racing after a hiatus of nearly two years due to COVID19, where she finished Year 12 and commenced University studying Sports Science.

In the Youth female category, we will be represented by Ally Sydun-West (15 years) and Rhiannon Castle (16 years). Both are members of the Australian Biathlon Development team and have just completed their first overseas training season with Biathlon East Australia, achieving strong results in a number of Alpen and Austrian Cups which qualified them to attend YJWCH. Rhiannon was also selected to attend the IBU’s Martell Athlete Development camp in November 2021, which upskills both athletes and coaches from developing nations such as Australia.  

In the Youth male category, there is some strong talent developing with all three biathletes being selected to the Youth Junior World Championships team after competing a season of training and racing in Europe.  Phoenix Sparke (15 years) has been in Europe since late November 2021 and also attended the IBU’s Martell Development camp and has been posting some solid results particularly with his skiing. Noah Bradford (18 years) completed Year 12 in 2021 and then jumped onto a plane for his first European season of training and racing. Going from strength to strength as he put his HSC studies behind him, Noah achieved some significant personal bests including a top 20 at Alpen Cup No 3. Boris Stanish (16 years) has spent his season in Europe competing on the IBU Junior Cup circuit and mixing it with the Europeans alongside participating in regional ITA Cup races. Boris has finished his 2021-22 IBU season with some great experiences and notable race results.

Our Australian athletes will be supported by 2014 Sochi Olympian and high-performance coach Lucy Glanville alongside Coach Luca Bormolini, in what will be Luca’s final coaching role with Australia.  

The event will feature 325 athletes from 27 countries and our athletes have arrived a week prior to the commencement of competition to acclimatise and train.

The racing schedule (Australian time) is as follows:

You can follow their progress and results on the IBU data centre – click on the link below and select JnrCups/YJWCH  select Solder Hollow, click on the events for start lists and results and Add Content to follow the event live.

 https://www.biathlonresults.com/

 And, make sure you follow our social media for all the latest updates.