Photo credit: Christian Manzoni

AU student Zina Kocher has earned her spot on Canada's Olympic biathlon team and will compete in Vancouver 2010. As the veteran on the women's four-member team, one news report has called her "Canada's best chance at a biathlon medal."

She strapped on her first skis when she was four years old and at 15 she was introduced to the sport of biathlon. She hasn't looked back. After graduating from high school, she moved to Canmore and started training full-time. In her first world junior championships she earned a 14th place finish, plus two top 20's. She has been on the national team since 2001, has been named Biathlon Canada Female Athlete of the Year three times and competed at the 2006 Olympics.

"I love to learn and wanted to continue some education while pursuing sport. I could not have attended another institution in the traditional sense due to our travel, training and competition schedules. In order to be a member of the national team, we must be present at either the Canmore or Valcartier training centres for at least 75% of the training and competition year, which makes attending a university somewhat a challenge."

In this all important training year "every workout has been very focused on what I need to do in order to be the best that I can be on February 13th - Day One of the Olympic Winter Games. Every shooting session and every ski specific workout was focused towards perfection with the Games in mind."

"My dream is to place on the Olympic podium during my career, and I am aiming for a top 10 at these Games. For this current season, my goal is to place on a World Cup podium again. Most likely I will continue for the next Olympics in Sochi 2014. With that in mind, over the next five seasons I would like to win a World Cup, a world championships and an Olympic medal."