2022 Biathlon By The Numbers

2022 U.S. OLYMPIC BIATHLON TEAM STORYLINES

Seventy-five percent of the eight-member U.S biathlon team skied collegiately.
The U.S. biathlon team has the broadest collegiate representation on the 2022 U.S. Olympic Team: all three NCAA divisions are represented and not a single school has more than one student-athlete on the team: Dartmouth (Susan Dunklee); Wellesley/New Hampshire (Clare Egan), Colorado (Joanne Reid), St. Scholastica (Paul Schommer), St. Olaf/Northern Michigan (Jake Brown) and Michigan Tech (Deedra Irwin).
This winter in Beijing, U.S. biathletes are seeking our country’s first Olympic medal in the sport. In 2018, the men’s 4x7.5km relay team had its best finish in Olympic history, coming in sixth place.
One-hundred percent of college athletes on the U.S. biathlon team participated in the NCAA tournament – the only sport on the full 2022 U.S. Olympic Team that can claim this feat.
The average age of the U.S. biathlon team is just over 31. The oldest athlete to have skied collegiately is 36-year-old Susan Dunklee (Dartmouth) and the youngest athletes to have skied collegiately is 29-year-old Joanne Reid (Colorado).

This winter in Beijing, St. Olaf will celebrate its third Olympian in Jake Brown; with this honor, Brown joins Oles Andrew Erickson (1998/biathlon) and Lloyd Ellingson (1932/skiing) – both of whom wore skies for Team USA.
Beijing will mark the fourth-straight Olympic Winter Games that Dartmouth will have a biathlete competing for Team USA.
St. Scholastica will celebrate its first-ever U.S. Olympian as Paul Schommer takes the course.
Of the more than 80 U.S. Olympians who were student-athletes at the University of Colorado, Joanne Reid remains the only Buff to compete for Team USA in the sport of biathlon.
Wellesley’s ski team was started by none other than 2010 graduate and two-time Olympian Clare Egan.

Two U.S. biathletes have Olympic genes in their families: Susan Dunklee’s father and uncle were U.S. Olympic skiers, while Joanne Reid’s mother and uncle were U.S. Olympic speedskaters.
Deedra Irwin (Michigan Tech) is a member of the Vermont Army National Guard.
Jake Brown (St. Olaf/cross-country, track and field, skiing), Susan Dunklee (Dartmouth/cross-country, track and field, skiing), Clare Egan (Wellesley/cross-country, track and field, skiing) and Deedra Irwin (Michigan Tech/cross-country, track and field, skiing) were all multi-sport athletes in college.
Studying languages is a hobby for Clare Egan (Wellesley/New Hampshire); she got her masters’ in linguistics from New Hampshire and can speak six languages. She often speaks Italian with her coach.
In college, Paul Schommer (St. Scholastica) was coached by former U.S. national team biathlete Chad Salmela – who spent 1990-1998 with the national team.
Entering Beijing, Dunklee, Reid, Irwin and Egan are coming off a recent fifth-place finish in the women’s relay at the 2022 IBU World Cup.

Biathlon shooting coach Matt Emmons was a rifle shooter at Alaska Fairbanks; he is a four-time U.S. Olympian and three-time Olympic medalist (gold, silver, bronze) in the sport of shooting.