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Vancouver, British Columbia » Call the U.S. men's relay team the group that couldn't shoot straight. The biathlon team also didn't ski well, and could not overcome a poor performance at the shooting range, finishing 13th Friday in the final biathlon competition at Whistler Olympic Park.
After experiencing some ski problems, the U.S. team, featuring Jeremy Teela of Heber City, finished 6 minutes, 20.2 seconds behind the Norwegians, who took the gold medal at 1:21:38.1. Silver went to the Austrian team who beat the bronze medal-winning Russian team on the last meters.
With four penalty loops overall, the U.S. relay, including with Lowell Bailey (Lake Placid, N.Y.), Jay Hakkinen (Kasilof, Alaska) and Tim Burke (N.Y.), was the only team with more than two penalties that managed to finish in top 15.
"After that race the only thing you can do is to move on to the next ones," Teela said. "It will take some time to review all that happened but I think we will come out of it stronger. We certainly have to make some adjustments in skiing and shooting but we learned from the mistakes we made here. I am certain that U.S. Biathlon is on the right way."
Overall, the U.S. team came into the competition well prepared. They just couldn't translate that into a good performance.
"I think I wanted too much," Hakkinen said.