Editor's note: this is part of a series of features being published over the next few weeks on the various sports which make up the 2007 Canada Winter Games, and the athletes who will be representing the Yukon in them.

You can't go wrong with guns, skis and spandex.

At least that's the opinion of 16-year-old Yukon biathlon athlete Jodi Gustafson.

'I think it's going to be a really high energy environment up here,' says Gustafson of the 2007 Canada Winter's biathlon competition that will take place at Grey Mountain.

'It's definitely going to be an exciting venue,' she says. 'There's going to be all kinds of spandex everywhere in every colour you can imagine.'

Gustafson first got involved in biathlon when she was 14, after her dad had told her she was a 'good shot' and suggested she combine her gift for shooting with her enjoyment of skiing.

'It's so cool just to hear the metal disc go down. I love that,' says Gustafson of the shooting aspect of the sport.

'I like that it's really hard,' she adds. 'It's a good challenge.'

The essence of the sport is rifle marksmanship combined with cross-country skiing laps ranging from two to 4 1/2 kilometres, says team manager Peter Staley. But what attracts a lot of athletes to biathlon is the psychology of it, he says.

'It's all mental capacity,' says Staley. 'It's more mental than physical strength and training.

'In cross-country skiing you would have a race and it's an all-out sprint. You'd psyche yourself up for that race. Here you have to almost psyche yourself up for each loop.'

Races can be up to five laps out on the course, he says, and for athletes competing it's very much like five individual races in one.

'It's so hard when you're right in the middle of the race to calm your heart rate right down to be able to shoot and then to be able to think positively, mentally if you have a crappy shoot to get back out and to look forward to a good one,' agrees Gustafson.

'It's mentally really hard. I think it's one of the hardest sports ever.'

Jeremiah Kitchen and Ryan Knight will also be representing Team Yukon in biathlon at the Games.

At 19 years old Knight is one of Yukon's oldest athlete to be competing in the Games. He agrees it was the sport's psychology that has kept him training since 2000.

'A lot of sports have psychology involved, but I found biathlon has a bit more. There's a lot more to think about during the race than just skiing hard.'

The biathlon competition will host four events: individual, sprint, pursuit and relay. The Yukon will not be entering a relay team this year.

Former Yukoner Sheila Serup has returned to the territory from Calgary, AB to guide the team through the last weeks leading into the competition set to begin on Feb. 26.

Gustafson says the team feels pretty lucky to have Serup back and in the position of head coach and to tap into her knowledge before the Games.

Arriving just last weekend, Serup spent Sunday training her team: helping them zero in their shots, keeping track of how many of the five shooting discs they knocked down after each loop and urging them on as they went back out to the trail.

'There's so many variations on the course, so many variations shooting on the range,' says Serup. A gusty day can change the entire outcome of the race if an athlete isn't aware of it and adjusting to it for their shooting, she says.

'You can be as prepared as you can and there will always be something new that you just didn't anticipate.

'In training, we try to give them a true picture of everything they could expect, that may happen.'

On the course, biathletes are just thinking about skiing, she says; how to get up a hill, how to take a corner, pacing themselves and figuring out how they can cut time. But coming into the shooting range their gears have to shift.

'They're thinking about controlling their heart rate, getting into a good position,' she says. 'They are thinking about their shoot. They are not thinking about what the others are doing or what's happening around them. They are just totally focused on their shooting.'

Shooting varies between prone and standing, and it's often beneficial for the competitors to spend a few extra minutes in the shooting range and to hit their marks, says Serup.

Depending on the event, they can end up having to complete a 150-metre penalty loop for each missed shot or have extra time tacked on at the finish.

'It's a real balance. You want to get all your shots, but you don't want to be too slow.'

The athletes have to have the ability to not let missed shots bother them when they get back out on the trail, adds Staley.

But, he says the Yukon team has a 'calmness' about them so far.

Knight and Kitchen have previously competed in the Canada Winter Games and Arctic Winter Games. They have also attended several national and regional competitions Outside already.

Knight has the most competition experience on the team and says he's looking forward to doing better at these Games than he did in Bathurst-Campbellton, N.B. in 2003. He was just 15 at the time and didn't yet have much experience.

'Now I've been to a lot more races and I've raced a lot of people that I will be racing here so I know their strategies,' he says.

He adds Team Yukon will have hometown advantage with having trained on the trails being used for the Games.

'We're memorizing them the best we can and how we feel in each spot,' he says. 'We're strategizing already. We've been strategizing for the last couple months for the trails and what we're going to be doing where.'

Staley adds the trail system on Grey Mountain is built to an old standard.

'There's quite a lot of hill climbing and a lot of the teams may not be accustomed to it so that might be a home advantage,' he says. 'It might be really interesting. So you never know. It's anybody's game.'

There are strong biathletes coming from every region, says Serup, pointing to Alberta as one of the strongest competitors. But she adds Yukon's team has 'tremendous potential.'

'I believe they all have the potential to get on the podium and that's what we're aiming for.'

Knight says he knows some of the athletes coming from Alberta and Quebec will be his main competition in the field, but he is still hoping he'll get into the top 10.

'I just kind of hope not to get hurt,' he jokes. Knight has previously got hypothermia while competing in biathlon and damaged his shoulders and ankles.

It will be Gustafson's first major competition, so she says she isn't expecting too much placement-wise.

'There's still tonnes for me to learn. I'm just new,' she says. 'I don't really have a goal on who I want to beat, I just want to do my personal best.'