Darcie Morton is the only Australian biathlete at the World Cup – Sport

They started this World Cup with start number one, at least when the countries marched in. They called out A for Australia first, so that the Australian delegation could go onto the stage. The flag-bearer answered the call first, followed by her staff: not a group, but a man. Moments later, this very small representation of Australia now stood in front of the stage without a flag; the athlete was shivering, she was dressed only in a thin jacket.

Two days later, biathlete Darcie Morton is sitting in a warm breakfast room wearing a fleece sweater and playing with her fingers. The 23-year-old seems almost a little nervous, about whom there is not much to be found on the internet. As well, she says, so far only the occasional local newspaper back home in Victoria has reported on her. The thin clothing on opening night? “It’s my only jacket that looks a bit Australian,” she explains. A good 850 people follow her on Instagram, which is unusually few because Darcie Morton runs and shoots in the World Cup. On Friday she will start in the Oberhof World Championship sprint. “My goal is to finish in the top 60.”

Biathlon is about as big and well-known in Australia as “Aussie Rules Football” is in Germany. Close to non-existence. In the high-performance area of ​​Australian biathlon, Darcie Morton is far and wide the only one, the country has eight young adult athletes and a total of around 30 young people. There is also only one facility in Australia where biathletes can shoot their small bore rifles. But, says Morton, nothing helped. It had to be biathlon.

Her father, Cameron Morton, is partly to blame for her tendency towards sporting exoticism. He is considered a pioneer of Australian biathlon and took part in the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. His daughter Darcie was already on skis by then. “Ever since I could walk, I’ve been able to ski,” she says. And yet she could have had it easier.

Two people, one passion: Darcie and Cameron Morton.

(Photo: Detlef Eckert/oh)

Morton was one of the best table tennis players in the country in her youth. She was in the Australian national team and in the Oceania selection, played internationally. The “quick eye-finger coordination of table tennis” definitely helped her in the rifle shooting sub-discipline, where similar qualities are required. However, the combination of the two sports got along less and less in terms of dates. At 15 she had to make a decision: biathlon or table tennis? Morton laughs. “What a question?”

She has managed to place a few places just behind the top 80 in the World Cup, but a long-term lung disease recently threw her back. She’s fine now, little throat clearers, the cough’s gone. That’s why she’s here at the World Championships in Oberhof with the best biathletes in the world, few of whom know her name. And sits in the cheapest hotel on the outskirts of Oberhof. That too has a reason.

Financially, so-called exotics are usually not very well equipped. In Darcie Morton’s case, that’s obviously true as well. She is mostly supported by her parents. There is also a ski pole manufacturer, a ski manufacturer and the Austrian municipality of Obertilliach, on whose biathlon facility she trains – when she is not studying. The 23-year-old has just completed her bachelor’s degree in medical science in Canberra. This is possible because the winter competitions in Europe take place during their semester break. Between lectures, seminars and exams, she has been seen waiting tables in Canberra’s cafés in recent years. “I always have to save a lot in Australia,” she says, “so that the season can be financed.”

A good 300 athletes are at the start in Oberhof, not all of them are fully funded professionals. But very few of them will be waiters, maybe nobody else. In this respect, it’s not quite the same competition for Morton, as if the second team of FSV Schmalkalden were challenging FC Bayern’s Champions League squad. However, the Australian has one quality to offer that can definitely be helpful in this business: 154 centimeters of ambition and affection. Why is she doing all this? So much time, energy and money in this sport? “I’ve been training for it pretty much my entire life,” Morton said. “It enabled me to get to know new cultures and people and to speak German.”

Few know her here in Oberhof or even know about her dream of qualifying for the pursuit race for the first time in the World Championship sprint on Friday. “That would be easy,” says their coach Joe Obererlacher, who has sat down. The Austrian used to be her father’s competitor on the cross-country ski run, now he has prepared his daughter for the World Championships. It would be possible with the pursuit, there was only one problem. “Darcie always runs at full throttle for the first two laps – and in the third she breaks down,” says Obererlacher. Guilty grin at the other end of the table.

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