Three Dartmouth Alumni earn spots on the U.S. Olympic Biathlon Team

Susan Dunklee

Hannah Dreissigacker

Sara Studebaker

Last week, the U.S. Biathlon team finalized its 10-person roster, its largest team in 22 years. Of the five women named to the team for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, three are Dartmouth graduates.

Hannah Dreissigacker ’09, Susan Dunklee ’08 and Sara Studebaker ’07 will be heading to Sochi, Russia to compete for a medal. Joining them will be Lanny Barnes and Annelies Cook.

The five men and five women on the U.S. Biathlon team will try to achieve a feat no other U.S. biathlon team has accomplished which is win an Olympic medal.

"I think that we have the strongest U.S. Olympic Biathlon team ever," Dreissigacker said. "Several of my teammates--Tim Burke, Susan Dunklee, and Lowell Bailey--have a good shot at medalling. I also think that both our men's and women's relay teams have a shot at fighting for a medal. That said, it can be really hard to guess who will be on the podium in biathlon. It is an incredibly variable sport--the shooting aspect really mixes things up!"

The best finish in U.S. Olympic Biathlon history is ninth place.

“I think that we’re poised to do really well,” Studebaker said. “But anytime you go into the Olympics, it’s really hard to say for sure you’re going to win a medal, especially in a sport such as biathlon. Anything can happen in biathlon. That’s what’s really great about it. On any given day, there are so many people that can win... hopefully we can come away from Sochi with the first US medal but it’s definitely going to be hard to bring one back.”

However, there is plenty of talk that 2014 could be the year of the first U.S. Olympic medal in the ancient sport with military roots that combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting.

The Sochi Olympic Games have attracted a lot of negative press with President Vladimir Putin's anti-homosexual propaganda laws, budget cost overruns and threats of terrorist attacks. Sochi is near the tumultuous region of the North Caucasus and recent suicide bombings that killed 34 people in Volgograd have heightened security concerns. Governing bodies like the USOC have recommended that athletes refrain from wearing the American colors.

“It’s something to be aware of,” Studebaker said. “As athletes, we’re really focusing on our competition. We’re there to compete and we have a lot of people there that are working for us to make sure that we’re safe. The Sochi Organizing Committee, the USOC, our governing body. They’re taking care of [security] because our job is to focus on competition, focus on doing well. That’s been my priority right now and I’m just trying to make sure I’m prepared to race well.”

Organizing Committee Chief Dmitrii Chernyshenko announced on Wednesday that Sochi will be the "most secure venue at the moment on the planet." Russia will deploy more than 50,000 police and soldiers to enhance security at the Olympics.

Although security concerns are high, according to Studebaker, it sounds like the concerns will be minimal for biathletes and cross-country skiers.

“We’re probably not going to be outside of the Village that much because where the Biathlon village is, we’re in the Endurance village with cross-country skiing and biathlon,” Studebaker explained. “We’re pretty isolated up there so it’s tough to get in and out with all the security there. We probably won’t have a ton of opportunity to be out of the village but it has been suggested and it’s kind of how it is whenever we’ve gone to Russia.”

Sochi will be Studebaker’s second Olympic appearance but it’s not the first time she’s visited Russia. Excluding a trip she took to Canada, Russia was her first international destination as a biathlete. She was visiting Siberia while a high school junior competing at the World Championships for Summer Biathlon in 2000.

Since then, Studebaker has visited Russia numerous times as her World Cup tours usually have a stop in Russia.

Her first Olympic experience was in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games. Studebaker had the highest finish among Americans in the 7.5-kilometer race, and she led the start for the team in the 4x6 kilometer relay.

“Vancouver was such a special experience for,” Studebaker reminisced. “Not only was it my first Olympic appearance but also being relatively close to home. I had so many family and friends able to come and watch me race and support me. I can’t pick one moment as my favorite. It was just really really special.”

After graduating Dartmouth, Studebaker earned a spot on the development team for U.S. Biathlon, essentially becoming a professional biathlete since 2007. After a year on the development team, she made the jump to the national team and it’s kept her busy since.

Studebaker credits Dartmouth for her professional athletic development.

“Any time you’re a student athlete, you have to juggle a lot of things going on at once and Dartmouth definitely gets you ready for that,” Studebaker explained. “I was lucky enough to have a lot of support from our team and our coaches were really excited to have students go on and ski and they supported that goal and they supported those that wanted to just ski in college.”

Studebaker has recently started taking classes with DeVry-Keller, utilizing the USOC’s partnership with the educational institution to pursue an MBA.

Dreissigacker also has strong Olympic roots. Both of her parents, Dick Dreissigacker and Judy Geer ’75, were Olympic rowers. So was her aunt, Charlotte Geer '80. Charlotte became the first Dartmouth woman to ever earn a medal after winning silver in crew.

"I'm really excited to be going to Sochi, and it has slowly been sinking in over the last two weeks that I'm actually going," Dreissigacker said. "But I don't think it will feel real until I'm actually there."

Dreissigacker majored in Engineering and studio art, and graduated from Thayer a year after finishing her Dartmouth undergraduate experience.

"My time on the Dartmouth Ski team taught me so much about what it take to be a good athlete, and also how to have fun doing it," Dreissigacker remembered. "And if you can be a good athlete while also juggling classes and labs and a social life at Dartmouth, then you can definitely be a good athlete after you graduate."

After Dartmouth, Dreissigacker joined an elite nordic ski team called the Craftsbury Green Racing Project based in Vermont. Her time with allowed her to train full time, with some interesting work on the side.

It also wasn't until after Dartmouth that Dreissigacker started training for biathlon. She had fired a biathlon rifle a few times prior but for all intents and purposes, she was a complete rookie compared to what she is now. For the next several years, she raced both cross-country and Biathlon races until she was named to the U.S. Biathlon team last year, at which point she shifted her focus entirely to biathlon.

Dunklee surprised onlookers when she missed a sprint medal by just six-10ths of a second at the World Cup in Italy two weeks ago. Her performance was only the third time than an American woman cracked the top four.

“The Olympics are something I have dreamed about for a long time,” Dunklee said. “My father was an Olympian and I always had him to look up to as a role model. However, my focus these last few years has not been so much about making the next Olympic team as preparing to be a strong contender once I get there.”

Dunklee explained that Dartmouth challenged her and taught her a lot about balance.

"I came out with a great work ethic, emotional resilience, mental focus, flexibility, confidence, and the ability to push through when tired," Dunklee said. "These are all traits that are essential to compete at highest level in biathlon. In addition, we had a very successful ski team during my years at Dartmouth and I had a lot of strong teammates that I looked up to and who pushed me to become a better skier.

All three biathletes competed on Dartmouth's cross-country ski team under Coach Cami Thompson Graves. Graves was very excited for her former student-athletes but she wasn't surprised when she heard they had been selected for the team.

"Sara is very goal-oriented," Graves elaborated. "She knew what she wanted to do and was more methodical about getting the job done. I think both Susan and Hannah had been successful in skiing and were pretty motivated to do well but were talented in a number of different areas. They needed a little bit of time to focus and explore their options."

In the end, Graves explained, each athlete found her way to biathlon by following their own respective paths.

Graves tries to encourage all of her skiers to ski outside of traditional collegiate events and thanks to Dartmouth's D-Plan, students are able to plan accordingly.

"Because of the D-Plan, it's a little easier to accommodate goals that are nontraditional, intercollegiate goals," Graves explained. "Someone can take the spring off and start doing more shooting if they're on the Biathlon team or maybe take the winter off and compete internationally."

Dunklee and Studebaker were on the 2007 National Championship squad and punctuated the phenomenal ski season with a trip to the White House where they met with President George W. Bush. A picture of them and the entire 2007 team is still hanging in 120 Robinson Hall.

Dreissigacker just missed out on the trip as she would've been an underclassman at the time. Regardless, the three of them are the latest in Dartmouth's long history of sending skiers to the Olympics.

"We look at the ski team as sort of bigger than intercollegiate skiing," Graves elaborated. "We really encourage our athletes to race outside of traditional college racing. Every year we take a team to the National Championships, we have people racing at the World Junior New-23 Championships and we're racing well into the spring. While our athletes are here on the team, they're also looking beyond being Top 10 in the next Winter Carnival."

Dunklee, a biology major with an ecology focus, and Studebaker, a government and Latino & Caribbean studies double major, highlighted the difficulties and challenges of biathlon as the reasons they compete in the ancient sport.

For Dunklee, she enjoys the added challenge of shooting.

“It adds an interesting psychological component to racing and makes things a lot more unpredictable,” Dunklee explained. “For example, if you hit the first 4 out of 5 targets you might think ‘oh, I only have to hit one more to "clean" and avoid the penalty loop.’ But the second you start thinking like that, it becomes nearly impossible to hit it because you are tensing up with anticipation, or you broke your breathing cadence, or your focus has drifted away from crucial things like having a smooth trigger squeeze.”

As for Studebaker, it’s the dichotomy of the physicality of cross-country skiing and the mentality of shooting that attracts her to biathlon.

“You have this really hard physical element of cross-country skiing,” Studebaker commented. “Out there you’re going as hard as you can and then you have to stop and shoot a gun. The mental aspect of shooting is so incredibly hard. It’s really cool when you try to get people to understand that you’re basically sprinting 100 meters then trying to thread a needle. It’s really difficult and I think just challenging yourself in that way is what I love about biathlon.”

Dreissigacker's love for biathlon can be traced to the suspense and excitement of racing, as well as the journey of learning how to shoot properly.

"It was fun to learn how to shoot and to see myself getting better at it, and it adds so much more of a mental aspect to racing," Dreissigacker exclaimed. "I also just think the races are more exciting--you could be winning, and then miss too many targets, and then you're not any more. And you can move up the results in the same way, by shooting well."

As biathletes, Dreissigacker, Studebaker and Dunklee train as much as six days a week and sometimes twice a day. The highest volume and most varied training occurs in the summer when they rollerski, bike, run, hike, row and swim.

“Biathlon requires two very different skill sets: striving to the utmost limit of physical endurance and staying mentally centered and relaxed under high pressure,” Dunklee explained. “You have to be able to switch between those two opposing modes in an instant... For the past five and a half years, biathlon training, racing and recovery have been my full time job. I train year round, with up to 25 hours of physical activity per week plus shooting."

However, the story behind how Lanny Barnes made the Biathlon team overshadowed the selection of three Dartmouth graduates.

Lanny had placed sixth in the qualifying races behind her twin sister Tracy. Lanny, a three-time Olympian, got sick during the final races and believed her Olympic dreams were over but thought that she would be watching Tracy compete in her instead.

Tracy then shocked the world by announcing she would give up her Olympic spot to Lanny.

“It’s a really interesting situation, one that I think no one can understand unless they have a sibling that they’ve raced with,” Studebaker felt. “I’ve personally had the opportunity to race with Lanny in Vancouver and I’m excited to have the chance to share this Olympic experience with her as well.”

In a statement released by the team, Tracy stated her sister had had a stellar season before falling ill and she wanted to give her a second chance. She also wanted to give her sister a final shot at a medal even though neither figured to come close to third.

The 2014 Sochi Olympics kick off on Feb. 7, and the first biathlon event will be the Men’s 10 km Sprint on the eighth. One day later, the women will compete in the 7.5 km sprint.