Craftsbury GRP at the 2025 US Biathlon On-Snow International Team Trials
Craftsbury Outdoor Center hosted US Biathlon’s International Team Trials, December 17-21. During these trials, senior level racers could qualify to race for Team USA in Europe. The top finishers of both genders traveled to Europe to race and compete for the last Olympic spots.
The racing was planned to take place Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. However, due to predicted high temperatures and rain, Friday’s racing was pushed to Saturday. The first two days of racing were sprint races with the women competing over 7.5k and the men 10k, with a prone and standing shooting stage in each. The last day of racing was a mass start 12.5k and 15k with 4 rounds of shooting. The rankings at the end of trials were determined by each athlete’s best 2 out of 3 races in terms of percent back from the average race time across the top-3 finishers.
Sprint #1
Jackie Garso - Photo by Peter Morneault
Thursday morning had decent conditions with temperatures in the 20s and fast snow. Ex-GRP Grace Castonguay took the winout of a field of 20. GRP athletes Kelsey Dickinson and Jackie Garso finished 2nd and 3rd. Kelsey had a clean race to further her impressive statistics of hitting 77 out of 80 shots this season. GRP athlete Michaela Keller-Miller finished 7th. On the men’s side, Vincent Bonacci finished first after just returning from Europe. GRP Athletes Luke Brown and Tim Cobb finished 4th and 15th out of a field of 25. In addition, a 2-time Craftsbury U23 athlete and current senior at Michigan Tech, Sam Stertz finished 10th.
Sprint #2
Saturday’s women’s podium. Photo by Peter Morneault
Saturday racing challenged the skiers with a new course after the snow melt and rain on Friday. Despite the large amounts of snow melt, the weather was nicer with a clear sky, sunny, and not too cold. Kelsey took the weather changes and new course head on and crushed Saturday racing finishing 1st almost a whole minute in front of second place. Jackie stayed super consistent throughout the weekend finishing in 3rd. Michaela skied super well and finished in 5th. Vincent Bonacci took the win again for the men clinching the men’s overall for the weekend allowing him to skip Sunday’s race. Luke Brown had a fantastic day of racing and finished 2nd. Sam Stertz finished 10th and Tim Cobb 12th.
Mass Start
Women’s mass start, lead by Kelsey, Grace and Jackie (L-R). Photo by John Lazenby
Sunday racing was very exciting with a mass start as the final day of racing. Tara Geraghty-Moats was the fastest women of the day with Kelsey having another fantastic race and finishing just 8 seconds back. Jackie placed 5th and Michaela 14th out of the 22 person field. Luke Brown skied and shot super well on Sunday and finished 2nd. Sam Stertz finished 11th and Tim Cobb finished 16th out of 25.
Kelsey finished 1st for the women over the 3 days of racing and Jackie and Luke finished 3rd for their respective categories. Kelsey and Jackie flew on Christmas to Europe to compete in January for a spot on the Olympic team. Luke also heads to Europe to compete in the Open European Championships later in January. Kelsey and Jackie were able to reunite with teammate Margie Freed to watch another teammate, Jack Young race the Tour de Ski in Toblach, Italy. Margie has already qualified to race at the 2026 Winter Olympics. Check out the GRP Snow Season Preview article for the upcoming schedule of racing and links to watch and follow along.
Full results in the Craftsbury Biathlon events archive.
Thank you to the biathlon coaches, grooming and events team for setting up a wonderful racing environment for trials and all of the other COC members and community who helped make it a great event.
