Sara Studebaker Hall: World Championship TD Heartbeat: US Biathlon podcast

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Sara Studebaker Hall: World Championship TD

11d ago 35:42

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The opening of the BMW IBU World Championships Biathlon in Lenzerheide will mark another milestone in a campaign to recruit more women into coaching and officiating. U.S. Biathlon’s Sara Studebaker-Hall, an Olympic veteran, will serve at technical delegate for the prestigious event. Heartbeat spoke to Studebaker-Hall as she prepared for the Championships, which begin Feb. 12.

An impactful advocate for women in officiating, Studebaker-Hall has spent the last few years working her way up the officiating ladder, eventually becoming an IBU referee and passing her technical delegate exam. She made a big step a year ago by serving as a referee at the Hochfilzen IBU World Cup. This past December, she had her first TD assignment at the Junior Cup in Ridnau, Italy.

Serving as technical delegate at the World Championships is clearly a major assignment. Studebaker-Hall had been in Lenzerheide last summer for a workshop, and received the news of her prestigious assignment on her way back to the USA.

She was humbled by the role. “The IBU has a lot of female technical delegates at this point, and many who are more experienced than myself,” she said. “I'm very honored to fill this role.”

Thanks in part to Studebaker-Hall’s advocacy the past few years, there is a growing number of women in officiating in America. But her passion still runs deep. “Without the officials, without the volunteers, you can't do the sport,” she said. “It doesn't work. And so being part of that and making sure that the races go off according to the rules and according to what the athletes are expecting is is really gratifying.”

Studebaker-Hall goes into detail on her role at Lenzerheide, and the steps other can take to follow in her footsteps as a biathlon official. She also dives into the qualifying criteria for the 2026 Winter Games in Milan-Cortina.

PAST EPISODES WITH SARA STUDEBAKER HALL
Achieving IBU TD Certification - S3 Ep1 - Sept. 2022
Bringing Life Experience to Biathlon - S1 Ep - S1 Ep2 - June 2020

S5 Ep9 - Sara Studebaker-Hall - TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Tom Kelly: Welcome to Heartbeat, everyone. Today we have someone who actually, I think, is the most frequent guest on Heartbeat, Sara Studebaker-Hall. Sara, thank you for joining us once again.

[00:00:13] Sara Studebaker-Hall: Yeah, Tom, it's always a pleasure to be here. I love talking with you.

[00:00:15] Tom Kelly: And we're going to talk about a couple of different things today. We're going to talk about the World Championships. Sara will actually be serving as the technical delegate at the World Championships. World championships in Lenzerheide that start on February 12th. And we're going to also take a few minutes at the end to talk about the Olympic selection criteria. Qualifying criteria, as we are now literally just one year out. Actually just under one year out when this podcast comes out to the start of the games in Milan-Cortina. So, Sara, when are you heading over to Switzerland?

[00:00:51] Sara Studebaker-Hall: Yeah. So I head over on Friday, so the seventh of, of February. So, um, just a few days before the event starts, but trying to be there enough ahead of time to kind of check things out before everybody gets on the ground.

[00:01:05] Tom Kelly: Well, the last time we had you on, actually, no, I have to go back two times. Last time we had you on, it was a preview of the World Cup. And then two years ago, we had you on to talk about, uh, how you have been climbing up through the ranks of biathlon officials worldwide. But you will be the first female in IBU history to be the technical delegate at the World Championships. Congratulations.

[00:01:27] Sara Studebaker-Hall: Thank you. Yeah, it's kind of a funny thing. I didn't quite believe it when. When someone told me that that was the case.You know, I know IBU is they've got a lot of female technical delegates at this point, and many who are more experienced than myself. But, of course, I'm very honored to fill this role and be that person.

[00:01:48] Tom Kelly: If you look back, though, over the last few years, I know that you have been very active in this area, encouraging other women to get into coaching, to get into officiating. So, do you find that there is now a fraternity of sorts of women officials growing up within the international biathlon community.

[00:02:09] Sara Studebaker-Hall: Yeah. For sure. You know, there's the group that I took my technical delegate test with included several women, and we've remained pretty close, and I've been lucky enough to serve with several of them and several of the other women who have more experience, as well as some women who are more new to the technical delegate pool. And in the other events that I've I've been an official for with IBU and it's it's really fun to see and I think it helps a lot. It helps the athletes to see more diverse faces out there officiating. And I think it helps, you know, within our community in the US, women who are wanting to become officials, to see that there are other female officials out there in other countries that are serving as technical delegates and serving as referees all around at different levels at the different venues.

[00:03:00] Tom Kelly: You are qualified as a referee in your sport, and I'm going to turn it over to you to explain that you will be working with other referees over in Lenzerheide, but you will be the technical delegate. So give our listeners a sense of how that process works. What does it mean to be a referee and then what does it mean to be the technical delegate?

[00:03:21] Sara Studebaker-Hall: Yeah for sure. So I think, you know, we gave a general overview of the process and one of the previous podcasts I've been on. But you know, generally you're coming up educated as a basic official within your governing body. So we have a level one and two officials status in the US. And after you've served in, you know, volunteered in as an official domestically for 3 or 4 years, then you can be eligible to take the international referee exam. And that's an exam that's run through the EBU. You have to be nominated by your federation. So by the US Biathlon Association in order to take that. So we have several referees in the United States who have that international referee distinction. And then once you've been in that position for a couple of years, you can be eligible to take the technical delegate test with EBU. And then once you pass that, you can be assigned as a referee. So even though you're a technical delegate, you're assigned as a referee to all the different levels of EBU events. So EBU World Championships, World Cup, IBU Cup, Junior Cup, junior Youth and Youth and Junior World Championships. Um, you know, even the Olympics. So those people are all technical delegates, even though they might be assigned as the referee for the start finish, for example. And all of those people are serving together with and underneath a technical delegate who has the same level of education as as they do, but is serving as the technical delegate for the event. So is technically in charge of those referees.

[00:04:52] Tom Kelly: When you're in Lenzerheide at the World Championships, you will be working with a number...

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