For those of you who are not aware Stephen and Cathy Perry are currently based at Kinloss in Scotland where Steve is serving with the RAF. During his time in Scotland Steve has been busy. Firstly Cathy & Steve have produced baby Shona weighing in at xx Lbs - picture to follow. Secondly Steve has taken up cross country skiing with a measure of success as reported below in an extract from a recent issue of RAF News

While Alex Coomber of the RAF was flying the flag at the Winter Olympics the RAF's biathlon stars were in action - Sqn Ldr Gordon Seaton reports on a tough season

CARL CARRIER led the way with an astonishing burst of form as the RAF Biathlon Union's senior team battled to respectable results despite injuries and overseas commitments.

For the second successive year Cpl Carrier of 1 Squadron, RAF Regiment came third in the season's points league for the British Biathlon Union club championship. He also dominated the RAF Championship races - as previously reported in RAF News he is the service's biathlon champion for 2002 - and became the first athlete since 1995 to win all three RAF titles in a single season - biathlon, cross-country, and Nordic (biathlon and cross-country).

Carrier was also the powerhouse for the RAF's teams that formed up only a day before the national championships biathlon relay and military patrol. With several key athletes committed on operations, including both of last year's British club champions, it was to prove a demanding six-week programme of extreme snow conditions at Hochfilzen, Les Contamines and Ruhpolding in the Alps.

The military patrol is a tough military-style biathlon for four-man teams of officer, SNCO and two junior ranks, who race 30 km on cross-country skis while wearing 261b bergens. To shoot prone and standing on the range, they carry the standard 0.22 converted SA80 rifle. The conditions were so arduous that several teams failed to finish. The RAF's patrol completed the race in exactly three hours. The team originally broke into the top ranks at the nationals with an 11th place in 1996, followed by eighth in 1997, seventh in 1998; seventh again in 1999, sixth in 2000 and fifth last year, achieved with a powerful and experienced patrol drawn from a full-strength squad.

A major plank of RAF strategy is recruiting young men and women who are tough enough mentally and physically to compete in an elite sport - there are no `Sunday leagues' to serve as training and recruiting.

Fortunately, the RAF is mid-way through completing a new biathlon centre at Kinloss that will enhance recruiting and training prospects for novices to elite athletes, and be unique in the UK. Again, Kinloss proves to be the premier recruiting and training ground for biathletes.

New boys Cpl Tasker and JT Perry were under pressure to race hard and continuously over the six-week race tour. Both had earlier experience with the RAF's B team and, during the whole of 2001, had been training intensively with the aim of being selected for the senior A team.

Both athletes justified their call-up to the A team, and indeed helped carve a little bit of history of their own: the four-man relay team at the national championships was the only team from 36 to record a perfect shooting score. Each member of the team hit all targets in prone and standing shooting, never previously achieved by any RAF Team.