By Kevin Mills,Staff Writer

NEW GLOUCESTER – You won’t find a low-carb diet of any kind with the United States Biathlon Team.

The sunshine and high temperatures may not be biathlon-friendly conditions, but that doesn’t mean the hopefuls for the 2006 Olympics in Torino, Italy, aren’t hard at work.

“Carbohydrates are very, very good,” said James Upham, the development coach for the USBA. “When you’re burning that many calories, it’s got to be pure carbos.”

Upham, a Farmington native and Mt. Blue grad, says his athletes burn as many as 5,000 calories per day – and that’s just from their workouts.

Members of the U.S. National Team are wrapping up a brief training session this week at Pineland Farms. Among the athletes participating were former Bates College skier Haley Johnson and Yarmouth native Walt Shepard.

After a four-week break at season’s end in March, the team resumed preparations for the 2006 games. The workouts this week have included roller skiing, sailing, cycling and mountain biking. The athletes even had an orienteering session for fun Tuesday afternoon.

“It gets us closer to the four-legged animal in the end,” Upham said of the intensive training. “That’s where we need to be. You always have to think of a horse or a sled dog or something like that.”

The U.S. team has reason to hope it has the horses to be competitive in Italy. The USBA is starting to see results, especially compared to its European competitors.

“Last year was our most consistent year ever, probably our best year ever, in terms of overall team results,” said Upham. “I think we had 38 top 30 performances last year. Top 30 is sort of a benchmark, and you get World Cup points. We actually had athletes that had never scored World Cup points, but were really close and were in it but couldn’t carry through, but I think we are closing the gap.”

Jeremy Teela was 14th at the 2002 Olympics, considered one of the best-ever performances for a young U.S. biathlete. Because biathlon, a combination of cross country skiing and target shooting, is a sport where the prime age is the late 20s or early 30s, the recent success is partly due to the maturation of the current team.

“You’re always building your knowledge,” said Teela, an Anchorage, Alaska, native. “Biathlon is really a sport where after 10 years of training, you’ll see your potential.”

Upham says the fact that drug testing has helped clean up the sport, has help give the U.S. team a better chance.

“It’s a level playing field,” said Upham. “For the most part, the sport is clean, from what I’ve seen. Whatever questions we had in the past, those questions aren’t there anymore. So I think the clean American team that we have now has a chance.”

Teela says you can see a change in attitude from when he began in 1996.

“Every race we enter, it’s exciting because there’s the possibility of having a top 10 finish and eventually a podium finish,” said Teela.

The biathlon is the only Winter Olympic sport headquartered in New England, anchored in Portland with its training facility in Fort Kent.

Upham says the team has a three-week training camp coming up at the Maine Winter Sports Center in Fort Kent. There will also be two three-week sessions in the mountains of Utah, where altitude training will play a significant part in preparing for the mountainous conditions in Turino.

“If I’m expecting anything out of them at the Olympics, they’ll have to do altitude training,” said Upham.

Though the European teams have an advantage when it comes to producing competitive biathletes, Upham says the U.S. team is getting closer.

“If you look at the resources that the Germans, the Norwegians and the Russians have and the number of athletes they have, right now, we’re definitely over-achieving,” said Upham. “In terms of finances and the number of athletes we have, this organization is doing much more than it is supposed to be doing right now.”