Zina Kocher

0:28Well, Zina, thank you so much for being on the show. No, I appreciate it. So the biathlon is what it started as a military sport, maybe. It seems like it would have been an army kind of thing. Yes, it did start within the military. I believe that the Norwegians and Russians and us, Swedish men, they got that in that area. They controlled their borders with skis and rifles. Nice. So how did you get into it? Pretty coincidentally. But I got involved in it because of the 98 Alberta Winter Games, who were in my hometown. Oh, no way. Yeah. Very nice. What do you prefer? The cross-country or the shooting? I think it's kind of both. But I started out cross-country skiing. And so maybe that I love a little bit more because, yeah, I love pushing. It's kind of crazy.

1:13But I love pushing my body as hard as I can. And I also love going up for like an awesome recreational ski. And yeah, I love people. Well, that's great. Yeah, well, there's a couple events that involve cross-country ski. There's also the Nordica combine, which has a ski jump. And there's a biflon that combines the shooting. You chose to shoot guns as opposed to jump off a giant thing. Yeah, whatever. Anything you can do. Oh, it makes more sense. It's funny enough, the gun seems safer than jumping off a massive hill. Yes, it does. Explains if people have how the whole sport works, though. Because I know there are different variations of length of the course and how you shoot the gun, rather the target. And if you miss the target, there's different penalties. Yeah. So we have different distances. There's five events in the Olympics. One of those is a relay event.

2:00And all the events, except for one, use a penalty lap for every missed target. So if you miss a target, then as soon as you exit the range, then you do a penalty wave for those mistakes, which is 150 meters. And for the longest race, the individual, it's a one minute time penalty. So in that race, it's the most important to your shooting. Shooting is almost as important as a skiing. You have to be a fast skier, but you also have to shoot very well. And people try to shoot as fast as possible

2:45in order to save their time because it's a timed event as well. So there are some athletes out there that will shoot in 25 seconds. But there are also top athletes that will shoot in 30, 35 seconds. Wow. And the target says, as you can see, they're not very close. It's about what? 50 meters away? Yes, it's 50 meters. And when we're shooting laying down the prone, the target is maybe both sides of a tuning time. It looks like this is big. Is there a scope on the gun or anything? No. No, we haven't. And then standing, what you see is what we have to hit. And that's both sides of a CD. And what do you find easier for your prone or standing? It kind of switches. If it's very windy, both are very difficult.

3:30No, no, it doesn't. You have to do corrections on your rifle to hit the center. And when you're standing, you're less supported. So you can easily feel the wind a lot. But yeah, I don't know. I guess prone is the easiest because you're the most stable. And it's in the beginning of the race, we're standing. It's near the end of the competition. And you're a lot more tired. You have blacked in your legs and you're starting to shake. I can imagine. I hear in the summer, you need to watch out for bears when you're training. And then the bullets wouldn't even do it. They just bounce off the bear. Yeah, yeah, that's better that way. So the bullet, it's not like a full gun kind of thing. It's like it. It's a 22. OK. And that won't do anything to bear? Well, you probably would have to take crazy shots.

4:15I don't know. I'd never try. No, and you're trying. Punching bears is bad. It is bad. We don't usually have our rifles that would be sea bears, because most times when we see bears, we're up in highwood paths. And yeah, in the springtime, there's grizzly is all over the place. That's crazy. It's a very dangerous sport. So I know you were in Toreno in 06. What memory do you take away from that? It was a great first time experience. But I also had a satisfying race, but I also had a very disappointing race. So yeah, I guess I take with that thick experience of that feeling and wanting revenge, yes. Right, there you go. So what are you most excited for this time around?

5:01I'm most excited because it's a home game. I think any athletes dream to have to race in the home country. We don't get a lot of racing in our Europe. So that's really exciting. A lot of friends and families are going to be there supporting me. But I also, it's taken my first game's experience in the last 10 years of training and wanting to be. Besides competing, are you going to go to any other events, try and check some stuff out? Yeah, definitely. We finished on the 23rd. So then we'll have five days to live it up and go experience the Olympic life. Because yeah, we stayed outside of the village in Trino.

5:49So this time we're staying in the village. Oh, that'll be nice. Nice. But it's a village experience. Nice. Well, you're going to show me how to shoot a gun now, I believe? That's right. All right. I'm doing this. Then I'm lining it up. Yeah, you might want to move your body a little bit more to the. Yeah. All right. So where is that site? Oh, right through that little hole there. Yeah, that's it. Where's the trigger? All right. And then just fire when I'm ready? Yeah. Make sure you're lined up on 26. Yeah. 20. There we go. Did I get it? Nope. Take two. We're going.

6:44We got one. Oh, this is fun. And then push it forward? OK. See if we can get two. Oh, I've got this. Hang on now. Oh, this is awesome. And you have one more. Why don't you take the last one? I'll go show it you doing one. Oh, then I don't have my armband on. But I'll do it standing. OK.

7:31I missed it. That's it. I missed my first one too. Awesome. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, no problem.