Elite Team Named for 2024-25 Season

Crosscut Announces 2024-2025 Elite Biathlon and Para Nordic Team

Crosscut Mountain Sports Center is honored to announce its Elite Biathlon and Paralympic roster for the 2024-2025 winter season. Since 2019, Crosscut has cultivated and trained elite competition-level athletes from across the nation to compete worldwide in biathlon and para Nordic sports.

Among the selected team this season, para Nordic athletes Dani Aravich, Michael Kneeland, and Nicole Zaino have been named to the 2024-2025 U.S. Paralympics Nordic Team. Nik Burkhart and Vincent Bonacci have been named to the 2024-2025 U.S. Biathlon Team. Amanda Kautzer has been named to the National Development Group this year.

Crosscut’s Elite Team is unique—both biathlon and para Nordic athletes are part of a single program. This single-team approach reflects Crosscut's growth and development in connection with its partnership with the U.S. Paralympics Nordic (USPN) program. The combined Elite Team embodies Crosscut’s philosophy of inclusivity.

This year’s Elite Team is capitalizing on a successful 2023-2024 season where two athletes competed in IBU World Cups, two athletes competed in IBU Cups, four athletes competed in IBU Junior Cups and World Youth or Junior Championships, two para athletes competed at World Championships, and five para athletes competed at World Cup Finals. Regarding national team naming, two athletes were named to the U.S. Paralympics Nordic Teams, and two were named to the U.S. Biathlon National Teams & National Team Training Groups.

Athletes will call Crosscut Mountain Sports Center in Bridger Canyon their home training facility for the 2024-2025 season and receive world-class coaching from Crosscut’s staff, including biathlon coaches Seth Hubbard and Sydney Michalak, as well as coach Nick Michaud, who has a joint appointment with U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing and Crosscut.

The full roster is listed below:

Amanda Kautzer (Plymouth, MN)

Anna Marino (Canmore, AB)

Ben Sites (Bozeman, MT)

Brenna Barton (Bozeman, MT)

Cale Woods (Bozeman, MT)

Dani Aravich (Boise, ID)

Emma Pearson (Casper, WY)

Ian Burgess (Bozeman, MT)

Michael Kneeland (Bozeman, MT)

Nate Livingwood (Maine)

Nicole Zaino (Brookfield, CT)

Nik Burkhart (Olympic Valley, CA)

Tim Cobb (Westford, VT)

Ty Wiberg (Chippewa Falls, WI)

Van Ledger (Lake Placid, NY)

Vincent Bonacci (Salt Lake City, UT)

Elite Team Named for 2023-24 Season

Crosscut Announces 2023-2024 Elite Biathlon and Para Nordic Team

Crosscut Mountain Sports Center is honored to announce their roster of Elite Biathlon and Paralympic athletes for the 2023-2024 season. Since 2019 Crosscut has cultivated and trained elite competition level athletes from across the nation to complete world-wide in both biathlon and Paralympic events.

Elite Team Named for 2022-23 Season

Elite Team members training outside Bend, OR in May 2022

Crosscut Announces 2022-2023 Elite Biathlon and Para Nordic Team

Crosscut Mountain Sports Center is honored to announce their roster of Elite Biathlon and Paralympic athletes for the 2022-2023 season. Since 2019 Crosscut has cultivated and trained elite competition level athletes from across the nation to complete world-wide in both biathlon and Paralympic events.

Vincent Bonnaci Checks In With an IBU Cupdate (cup-update!)

Written by Vincent Bonnaci, Team Crosscut Athlete

This December, I was selected to race on the IBU Cup for the US Biathlon Team, and I just wrapped up the first two rounds of racing in Arber, Germany. This year, the participation quota for IBU Cups was increased so each country could send more athletes to the races, making these some of the biggest races I have ever done; some of the races have more than 160 competitors, making the experience that much more fun. I have been focusing on learning as much as possible from each race, and slowly trying to make improvements from day to day. I was incredibly happy to cap off my time in Arber with my best sprint race to date, hitting 8/10 targets and skiing smoothly, but I still know I can definitely improve in some areas which gets me excited for the races to come. 

The next round of racing is the Open European Championships in Duszniki, Poland, and so far I am loving the course and range here. The snow is fast, the terrain skis very well, and everyone is psyched to be here.  The first race is the 20k individual, which is by far the longest biathlon race I have done, but I am going into it with no expectations and just a few simple focuses and I will see how it goes.

If anybody has any questions they would like to ask me about biathlon, I can be reached easily through my social media channels, ig: @vbonacc, or just Vincent Bonacci on Facebook.