After almost two years of travelling and honing her skills, Australian biathlete Darcie Morton followed in her father's footsteps by making her Olympic debut 20 years to the day after he made his own.

The 26-year-old sharpshooter debuted in the women’s 15km individual race on February 11, mirroring her father Cameron 20 years earlier when he made his maiden race at the Torino Games in 2006.

“Dad’s here cheering for me as well, and for him to have competed in the Olympics in Italy and then me 20 years later, it’s pretty amazing,” Morton told Reuters after competing in Saturday’s women’s sprint.

Morton’s Olympic debut is the culmination of a two-year period of intense hard work during which she only spent a month in her native Australia; the rest of the time was spent training in Norway, Austria and Italy’s South Tyrol region, where the biathlon competitions at the current Games are being held.

Morton’s father was one of only a handful of Aussie Olympic biathletes 20 years ago and the sport in Australia remains small.

“Biathlon is a very small sport in Australia, and not many people even know what the sport is, compared to Europe where it is the biggest winter sport, so it’s really difficult,” Morton explained.

"It's really hard being away from home for so long, and obviously the funding of the whole campaign is really difficult too, but this all makes it worthwhile - when you're here and racing for your country and everyone's cheering."

Funding hurdles

However, even a sports-mad country like Australia has a limit to the amount of resources it can pour into minority pursuits, and the International Biathlon Union's "Closing the Competitive Gap" programme has provided Morton with a lifeline in terms of financial and practical support.

"We're very, very lucky that the IBU has so many great development camps and funding for developing nations," she said.

"I think that's the one reason why a lot of the smaller nations which are really close with Australia, like Croatia and...Denmark, we all work together, and we all have that funding so that we can continue to do the sport that we love to do, and that is because of the IBU," Morton said.

A reservist in the Australian military, Morton will head home after the Milano Cortina Games for a six-month stint of duty, and though she hopes to resume her biathlon career when she's done serving her country, she does not yet know if she will have the resources to do so.

In an ideal world, she would get enough funding from the IBU, the Australian Olympic Committee and private sponsors to get herself back to Europe and training with Greenland's brother-and-sister biathlon team of Sondre and Ukaleq Slettemark. Morton has trained with the siblings at their base in the town of Geilo in Norway.

"They're like family to me," Morton said shortly before Ukaleq, who is competing in the Olympic biathlon competitions for Denmark, appeared beside her to give her a sisterly hug.

"You can tell why Norway are so good, because they've got such good facilities, such good funding for the teams, so many athletes training there, and lots of forward progress with their education and the training programme."

Two decades after her father's Olympic debut, Morton wants to keep flying the flag for the sport in Australia, inspiring young people to take it up and maybe one day bring an Olympic biathlon medal back to Australia.

"It's amazing to train with the best in the world and also to compete with them ... this is the sport I love to do, it's so cool," she said.