National Sports

US Biathlon may merge with US Ski & Snowboard

U.S. Biathlon is poised to move under the control of U.S. Ski & Snowboard, a rare merger of two Olympic sport organizations that officials say is necessary to boost biathlon’s revenues and performance but athletes worry will hurt the sport.

U.S. Biathlon Association’s board of directors were set to vote on the plan Wednesday. It began working on the proposal in March after the U.S. again failed to win a biathlon medal at the Winter Olympics, and told members in May.

U.S. Biathlon CEO Jack Gierhart told members that the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee is cutting 22% of its funding and sponsors are pulling back. That led the board to consider an offer to join USSS, where biathlon would have access to more money and could add athlete services and expose more skiers to biathlon.

“We feel that we can help take biathlon to the next level,” USSS CEO Sophie Goldschmidt told the AP.

But the effort has sparked pushback and ethics complaints from longtime biathletes and supporters, who spoke out during town halls and started an opposition website, saying the board has fast-tracked a plan that threatens the sport’s future. Biathlon would get lost among larger, more popular sports like Alpine skiing, they said. Decisions would be made by people who don’t know the sport and many fear losing financial support for the national team.

“I don’t want to see biathlon disappear into another organization,” said Art Stegen, author of the book, “Unique and Unknown: The Story of Biathlon in the United States.”

Merging Olympic sport organizations is rare. Goldschmidt tried to take over USA Surfing last year but dropped the bid after opposition from members. She’s now in talks with USA Skateboarding, she said.

Gierhart said USBA worked carefully to comply with federal law and ensure US Biathlon’s independence while taking advantage of a USSS collaboration.

Opposing opinions

USSS is a powerhouse in winter sports, overseeing 11 sports and 250 elite athletes, including Alpine ski champion Mikaela Shiffrin and snowboarding superstar Chloe Kim. They have a budget of $70 million and 40,000 members, compared with biathlon’s $4 million budget and 1,407 members. Biathlon, which combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting, has never won an Olympic medal for the U.S. It’s wildly popular in Europe.

Cross-country ski Olympian Kikkan Randall, who’s on the USSS board, said the collaboration would benefit both groups.

“There’s a recognition of how big biathlon is in Europe. Being able to tap into that popularity and marketability is really intriguing,” Randall said.

But some biathletes fear USSS would cut the sport’s funding, as it did for U.S. Ski Jumping in 2010 and Nordic Combined in 2014. Longtime biathletes Jon Schafer of Colorado and Marc Sheppard of Montana conducted interviews with people in biathlon and cross-country ski communities and produced an analysis of the merger that concluded working with USSS should be a “last resort.”

Potential obstacle

Steven Bank, a law professor at University of California, Los Angeles, who specializes in sport law, said USSS has more diversified revenue sources, so it’s not surprising that the USOPC would want biathlon connected to it.

But a federal law could be an obstacle, he said.

Under the 1978 Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, a national governing body, like USSS and U.S. Biathlon, can’t be overseen by multiple international federations. USSS is under the International Ski and Snowboard Federation, while biathlon is under the International Biathlon Union.

___

EDITOR’S NOTE -- Martha Bellisle is an amateur biathlete who has won several U.S. national and world championship gold medals in the master’s division. She is a member of the U.S. Biathlon Association.