Like Cool Runnings, but on skis: Mexican biathlon team wins hearts at Canmore competition

In just a few short years, Mexico's Christopher Gomez has gone from not knowing how to ski, to competing alongside some of the world's best biathletes at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) Cup finals in Canmore, Alta. 

How'd he do it? 

Like many good stories, it all started at a county fair. 

Gomez and his now-coach and teammate, Raul Antonio Figueroa, were at a fair in Austria — where they both live — trying to win teddy bears in a shooting game. The man running the game noted they each had a knack for shooting, and suggested they team up to start a Mexican biathlon team. 

"We had absolutely no clue what biathlon was," said Gomez, 38. 

Interest piqued, Figueroa took to the Internet to figure out, first of all, what biathlon meant, and if any team from Mexico existed already.

"I'm a person that, when something pops into my head, I just can't let it go," he said.

Figueroa found the answer to the first question, and no evidence of the second. And though neither one of them knew how to ski at that point, he started the paperwork to launch both a sport federation and a team, with he and Gomez as its first two members.

Once accepted, "I told [Chris], 'Hey, I have good news and bad news,'" said Figueroa, 34. 

"The good news is that we are now accepted … The bad news is we have 10 months to prepare ourselves [for] an international competition, in a sport we've never practiced before."

What followed was an underdog training montage straight out of a sports movie. The pair watched YouTube videos to learn technique and cross-country skied through farmers' fields, thinking the term "cross-country skiing" actually meant skiing across the countryside. 

In practice races, they found themselves outmatched by both children and the