I nordic raced in high school, and toyed around with doing biathalon as my coach was ex-olympic biathalon-er. We talked about setting up a course, and then I moved across the country, and that was that.
It's certainly true that most of the biathaloners are folks who are a few nano-seconds off of a spot on the primary national team. That makes them, like 11th in their nation (or in the Fins case, the world) instead of, oh, 3rd.
Typically the US is good in shooting and sucks in skiing. Just like in Modern Pentathalon, only instead of sucking in one other event, we suck in 4.
But we make up for it in curling.
2520