Prince George, B.C.-  The North American Biathlon Championship that was supposed to be held at the Otway Nordic Centre  March 6-12th, has been forced to move to another  venue .

In a release issued today, the organizing  committee of the Prince George Biathlon Nationals an North American Championships   said it  was  very disappointed to announce the competition has  been moved to Canmore Alberta because of  the lack of snow in Prince George.  “The competition  committee, chaired by Deputy Chief Vernon Neill, has met exhaustively over the past few weeks to make contingency plans for the low snow challenge” reads the  notice.  The Committee says  because  athletes  were expected to be traveling to Prince George from  all over Canada and the United States,  the decision to  change the event’s location has to  be made in order to allow teams to rebook  flights and make new travel arrangements.

The event  was expected to bring about  200 athletes, plus coaches, team managers and waxing technicians to Prince George.   More than 150 volunteers had stepped up to assist in all aspects of the competition.

The local committee had been  working for more than a year on the  event,  officially announcing in November of 2015  that  they had  been chosen to host the 2017 event,  and received  a $10 thousand  dollar grant from  the Province’s Hosting BC program  for the event.