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The U.S. has over 330 medals throughout the history of the Winter Olympics. None of them have been in the biathlon, a sport that combines the endurance of cross-country skiing with the precision of target shooting. NPR's Becky Sullivan reports that this year could be different.
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: The American team this year includes two of the best biathletes who've ever competed for team USA. Deedra Irwin came to biathlon in her 20s after chasing dreams of being a runner, then a Nordic skier. She joined the Vermont National Guard and learned a lot of marksmanship, and soon it all clicked into place.
DEEDRA IRWIN: When I got that little .22 precision rifle, I was just like, oh, this is easy. Plink, plink, plink (ph).
SULLIVAN: Her Olympic debut back in 2022 was a stunner. In the women's individual race, she finished in seventh, an Olympic record for the best individual finish by an American. In the shooting portion, she hit 19 of 20 targets. Just one more hit, and she would have ended up on the podium. That's how close she came.
IRWIN: Definitely knowing that, like, that one shot would have gotten us that medal, and that would have been history - that whole question, like, you know, it stings a little bit.
SULLIVAN: The other big contender for Team USA is Campbell Wright. He was born in New Zealand and competed as a Kiwi in the last Olympics when he was only 19. But New Zealand doesn't actually have a biathlon team. So since his parents are both American, he made the switch to Team USA.
CAMPBELL WRIGHT: Being part of Team USA, having training camps throughout the summer, not just going home to New Zealand for eight months and training by myself, it's been phenomenal.
SULLIVAN: Full-time training, full-time coaching, all of that is paying dividends for Wright. Late last month, he reached the podium in a World Cup event for the first time in his career.
WRIGHT: It felt super great, not going to lie. I feel like I've had a podium in me since the start of the season, and I've just - it hasn't come together like that. And it's nice when it does. It's a perfect time.
SULLIVAN: It's not only talent that makes this year promising for the Americans. U.S. Coach Armin Auchentaller grew up near the Olympic Venue. That matters, says teammate Joanne Reid.
JOANNE REID: It's not just that we have an Italian coach. Our coach lives literally five minutes down the road.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Laughter) Yeah.
REID: So he has been at this venue basically his entire life, and that in itself gives us an advantage at knowing the shooting range, knowing the course.
SULLIVAN: The other big factor is U.S. Biathlon is in its high-tech era. A few years ago, the team started working with folks at Montana State University, including kinesiology professor, Jim Becker. He and his team track the athletes with sensors in their boots, on their backs, and they collect all kinds of data - VO2 max, lactate profile, even motion capture.
JIM BECKER: We get basically a full 3D skeleton that moves exactly how that athlete moved. And we can break that down and look at - where are you positioning the ski? You know, how are you timing the compression of force onto the pole?
SULLIVAN: Then, last year, the Olympic venue held a World Cup event that was basically a dress rehearsal for the Olympics. Irwin and Wright and the rest of the U.S. biathletes all wore the sensors. Becker's team took a ton of video and did a ton of analysis.
BECKER: We were able to look at the data and really look at what sections of the course were they gaining time, and then how did that maybe relate to the techniques they were using?
SULLIVAN: Looking at all that data made him realize the U.S. biathletes weren't that far behind their international competition.
BECKER: We're just as good as everybody else out there.
SULLIVAN: Lowell Bailey, the high performance director at U.S. Biathlon, told me all this training, this data, this knowledge of the course, it's all led to the most important thing of all for the athletes - confidence.
LOWELL BAILEY: They believe that they can be there. They believe that they can be on those Olympic podiums, and we believe it. The staff believes it. Their whole community of U.S. Biathlon believes it, and I think that momentum is what you're witnessing.
SULLIVAN: For Wright and Irwin and the other U.S. biathletes, the men's and women's individual and team races begin tomorrow. Becky Sullivan, NPR News, Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.
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