Biathletes of all ages and skill levels took in a friendly competition Sunday at the annual Slush Cup.

The event was held at Biathlon Yukon's shooting range on Grey Mountain Road and featured 28 participants in total.

"It went great," said Biathlon Yukon coach Judy Hartling.

"We had tremendous weather and we had a very large turnout.

Not only biathlon team members that practiced, but their parents and friends."

The Slush Cup is open to anybody interested in taking part and the purpose of the event is to officially end the winter season for the sport.

There was no cost to participate and since it is more of a fun competition, no prizes were awarded.

Biathlon Yukon held a barbeque at the conclusion of the event.

Participants at the Slush Cup had the option of using the skating or classic style for skiing and could even use snowshoes if they preferred.

Individuals who participated were divided into two heats and were given their own shooting lane on the range.

Each heat had 24 minutes of race time, which was divided up into two styles of shooting.

The first technique was the prone approach, where biathletes had to lie down and shoot at a 45 millimetre target.

After 12 minutes, a change was made to the standing technique, which because it is more difficult a bigger target of 115 millimetres is used.

In total, there were five targets that could be hit in a single shoot.

Each target hit was worth one point. Participants had only five shots before they had to ski the loop again.

Each time a biathlete completed the loop it was worth one point as well.

There was a certain amount of strategy involved, depending on where the strengths of a specific biathlete lie, to accumulate the most points through skiing or shooting.

Rests were also used at the shooting range for all individuals in the Bears program, which are biathletes who are nine to 12 years old.

First-time biathletes also had the option of using a wood block to help with the shooting.

A buddy system was also used to help the shooters by refilling the clips.

Each rifle holds four clips and each clip can carry five shots.

Since the biathletes at the competition did more than four loops, they needed their buddies to fill their clips while they were skiing the loop.

The buddies also helped when shooters switched to the standing position, regarding handing them the rifle, so they didn't have to bend down and try to it pick up in their skies.

Additionally, since some people were shooting for the first time at the competition, it helped to have some assistance with an experienced partner who can help out by giving advice on technique and strategy.

Ryan Burlingame won the event with 42 points, which just edged out second place finisher Jeremy Johnson, who won 40 points.

Burlingame finished with an impressive 12 laps, which was two more than any of the other participants did at the competition.

The most targets he hit was four and Burlingame did that on three occasions.

On four occasions he hit three targets.

Johnson also did very well, finishing with 10 laps.

He hit five targets on his fourth and sixth lap at the range and managed to hit four on one occasion.

Nat Rodden rounded out the top three with 39 points.

He finished with 10 laps and hit four targets on his first three laps. Rodden also hit three targets on four occasions.

Erin Oliver-Beebe was the top female athlete, finishing in fifth place overall with 37 points.

Beebe completed 10 laps and her shooting was highlighted by hitting four targets on three occasions.

Hartling also took part in the competition and finished with 27 points.

She said it was a lot of fun to participate with the other biathletes.

"It's just so good to get out there because when you coach, you just don't get out to do it yourself when it's biathlon because often you have to be in the range," she said.

"Not all the time, but pretty well you find it ends up being a lot of range work, rifle work and planning. So was it fun for me? You bet."

This was Emile St. Pierre's first year as a member of Biathlon Yukon and it was the first time he took part in the Slush Cup.

He said it was lot of fun at the event.

"I knew there would be a barbeque after and it was just a big event," he said.

"Some of my friends are here, so you can play around and stuff and it's not only our group, it's anybody else that wants to try."

St. Pierre, 11, had an amazing performance finishing fourth overall with 30 points and eight laps.

He hit all five targets on three occasions and hit four on two occasions.

St. Pierre also hit three targets on two occasions.

St. Pierre said he got into the sport after watching it on the Olympics.

He was also interested in both skiing and shooting.

He said he liked the smaller course and that being in a competition was more enjoyable than just practicing.

"More people are involved and you just have fun with people," he said.

"I knew I would be against all of the taller people and better people than me.

Then when it was a short track and I said I can just beat them with my shooting today. It was just for fun."

St. Pierre was hoping to ski nine or 10 laps, but he said he was happy with his his performance, which involved shooting at a more relaxed pace.

He plans on continuing the sport next year and hopes to improve for the 2009 Slush Cup.

Claire Lindsey was in the junior age group this year and this was the first time she competed at the Slush Cup.

She said she was happy with how it went.

"I thought I could have done better, but I did pretty well considering this is my first time doing ski biathlon in a while," Lindsey said.

"I thought it would be more serious and I was a little nervous, but when I got there everybody was having fun. it's great."

Lindsey, 13, competed at this year's Arctic Winter Games in the snowshoeing category and finished sixth in the first two races.

She also had a fifth and fourth place finish at the event.

She said she was happy about choosing to ski at the Slush Cup.

"I just thought that it might be the last time I could ski this year and I thought I might as well do it in biathlon for the fun race," Lindsey said.

"I just wanted to make sure I had fun and try and get some targets down and I did both of those.

I really enjoyed it, especially because my dad raced beside me, he was making fun of me while I was shooting. It's lots of fun."

Lindsey said she plans on taking part in a few more serious races for next season.

"I really enjoy it because it is a multi-task sport," she said.

"It's not just one. If you get tired of skiing you can go shooting, if you get tired of shooting you can go skiing."