Dartmouth's Representation at 2014 Sochi Winter Games

Starting as early as the Opening Ceremony, Dartmouth athletes have been representing their countries, and their school, with extremely solid efforts as the 22nd Winter Olympics in Sochi hits its midway point.

If Fox Sports could declare a winner of the Opening Ceremony, Tucker Murphy ’04 would receive a gold. In temperatures below 40 degrees, Murphy, Bermuda’s sole representative, wore Bermuda’s iconic red shorts and blazer while carrying the nation’s flag, even temporarily trending on Twitter.

Once the actual events started, many Dartmouth athletes have experienced success as well as heartbreak.

Murphy competed in the 15-kilometer classic race and finished 84th, an improvement on his 88th place result in Vancouver.

Hannah Kearney ’15 was the favorite to win the gold in the freestyle moguls, and seemed prepare to defend her gold after earning the highest score during the qualification round. Had Kearney, considered the top-ranked and most consistent skier in the world since Vancouver, earned gold, she would have been the first back-to-back winner of an Olympic freestyle event.

Kearney, however, earned bronze after losing her footing temporarily at the start of her run. Sisters Justine and Chloe Dufour-Lapointe earned gold and silver ahead of Kearney.

Kearney, the next day, announced her retirement on NBC Sports in an interview with Lester Holt. However, after the interview, she clarified that she will compete in more World Cup events but her Olympic career is over, forgoing the 2018 Games in Pyeongyang, South Korea.

Representing Dartmouth on the Canadian women’s hockey team, Gillian Apps ’06 looks to earn a third goal medal. Apps, a three-time Olympian, considers Turin, Vancouver and Sochi as being incredible and unique in their own way.

“It's an incredible honor to have had the opportunity to represent my country at three different Winter Olympic Games,” Apps said.

Canada is the presumptive favorite and has won gold the last three Winter Games.

So far the Canadians have defeated Switzerland 5-0 and Finland 3-0 before clashing against an equally powerful American team that defeated Switzerland and Finland by a combined 12-1. Canada triumphed over America in a physical 3-2 win that featured the Americans outplaying the Canadians for most of the first two periods before a dominant third period performance that put Canada on top.

“Our team is still working on improving little parts of our game as we go through the tournament,” Apps said. “We're looking to be able to play a full 60 minutes as a group. If we can get to that point, that is where you will see us play our best hockey.”

In the Semifinal, Canada, and Apps, will face Switzerland on Monday in a rematch.

Apps has contributed seven shots on and 32 minutes on the ice in the three wins. Right now, Apps hasn’t made a decision about whether Sochi will be her final Olympic Games.

“I’m just focusing on the task at hand right now and enjoying my Olympic experience,” Apps said.

Sophie Caldwell ’12 surprised the world with a sixth-place overall finish despite falling during the final sprint when her ski tangled with another skier’s pole. Caldwell’s finish is the best ever for a U.S. female cross-country skier.

“I went into the Olympics without many expectations,” Caldwell said. “I know I ski the fastest when I'm happy and enjoying myself, so the best I could do to prepare was to soak up the experience. I definitely wasn't expecting that result going into the day, but I felt great and was so excited about everything.”

Caldwell finished second in her semifinal heat to claim the sixth spot in the six-person final, and was the only American to advance past the quarterfinals. Gold medal contender Kikkan Randall, who previously held the best Olympic mark before the race, Ida Sargent '11 and Jessie Diggins all missed out on advancing.

Sargent finished 19th in the event.

Caldwell, who came just short of becoming the second-ever American medalist in cross-country skiing since Bill Koch’s silver medal and the first in 38 years, has been enjoying every minute of her Olympic experience and doesn’t want it to end.

“I've received so many supportive messages from people back home and I think that's been one of the coolest things,” Caldwell said. “It's awesome to see people getting excited about the sport of cross-country skiing and I'm extremely grateful to have such a strong support crew!”

Caldwell and her teammates have also had a chance to enjoy the weather, which has been extremely warm for a Winter Games.

During some events, such the halfpipe, the snow has turned into slush, forcing the snow to be chemically treated until its hardened for snowboarders. And some skiers have been seen racing in topless or in t-shirts.

“We raced in tank tops yesterday because it was in the 50s,” Caldwell said. “It’s been so hot, but really beautiful weather.”

Susan Dunklee ’08 finished 14th in the 7.5km sprint to post the top Olympic sprint finish ever by a U.S. woman. Dunklee also ties Joan Smith, who finished 14th in the 1994 15km, for the best Olympic finish by a woman.

“I have never been so nervous before a race as I was yesterday morning,” Dunklee said. “However, once I started warming up and zeroing my rifle, everything felt very routine, which is exactly what you try to create on race day.”

Dunklee was 41.5 seconds behind first place biathlete Anastasiya Kuzima, and might have earned the bronze medal if Dunklee had not missed her final shot. Dunklee’s miss cost her 20 seconds as she completed a penalty lap.

“Missing my last shot was a little heartbreaking, but I was able to laugh it off, ski hard, and turn in one of my strongest performances of the season,” Dunklee said.

Sara Studebaker ’07 and Hannah Dreissigacker ’09 finished 44th and 65th in the sprint.

Studebaker had previously competed at the Vancouver Olympics, but for Dreissigacker, the sprint was her first ever-Olympic competition.

Understandably, Dreissigacker was nervous but not as much as she was during her trials races. In fact, she felt more excited and happy than apprehensive.

“I was thinking about my various goals and focuses for the race as well, and I definitely thought about how I wanted to do well, since so many people at home were watching and following me,” Dreissigacker said.

During the race, all Dreissigacker thought about was what she was doing at the moment and what she needed to do next. But after the race, she was mad and frustrated about how poorly she shot and, as a result, missed the cutoff for the 10-km pursuit. Dreissigacker had missed one shot prone and three standing.

“I haven't been competing in high-level biathlon races for that long, but I've been shooting well in practice, and I really expect better of myself than missing 3 in standing,” Dressigacker said. “I was really frustrated about that, and feeling a bit down, to be honest. But then I had to remind myself that I was at the Olympics, racing against the best biathletes in the world, and I was in a beautiful place having lots of amazing experiences, and so I had a lot to be happy about and couldn't give myself too hard of a time.”

All three biathletes agree that the biathlon course is challenging but the organizing committee has made the course safer after their test event by improving the banking downhill turns.

“Our course is hard, but really everything is great up here,” Dressigacker said. “Its not harder than other hard world cup courses. The stadium is big and really nice, and it’ss so beautiful up here! There's lots of snow, and it’s all very professional.”

Officials have been dealing with the warm conditions by salting the uphills to maintain firmness and prevent deterioration during the race. Competitors are then forced to ski in snow conditions, but conditions they consider normal for warmer weather.

The venue itself, according to Dunklee, suits her strengths as it’s loaded with hills.

Dunklee and Studebaker’s finish qualified them for the 10km pursuit two days later.

“I've felt very relaxed during these Games,” Studebaker said. “I feel well-prepared and confident and am really just enjoying the atmosphere of being at the Olympics. It's so exciting to see our team performing well and some of my teammates being so close to medals! I'm enjoying it and am trying to transfer that excitement and relaxed energy into my races.”

Dunklee continued to perform strong, moving up to the top-5 before she missed three shots, dropping her to 18th in the spring. Studebaker missed five of 10 shots as she finished 51st.

After the sprint, Studebaker was excited to have shot well and qualified for the pursuit, and was happy with her effort as it was her best result all season. But following the pursuit, she was disappointed because she had skied well and registered three solid rounds of shooting, but her first attempt went badly.

Dreissigacker had the best result of U.S. women in the 15-km Biathlon women’s individual, finishing 23rd with two penalties. Dunklee finished 34th with five penalties and Studebaker was 55th with four penalties.

Then on Sunday morning, Andrew Weibrecht ’09 stunned the world with a silver-medal finish in the men’s super-G, coming just fractions of a second ahead of more-heralded teammate Bode Miller who tied for the bronze.

Weibrecht’s top finish this season was 20th place at Beaver Creek, and he was never considered a medal favorite in Sochi. Weibrecht won a surprise bronze medal in Vancouver in the super-G but had been beset by injuries in the interim and was even dropped from U.S. Skiing’s “A” roster.

After a fast start that had him ahead of the gold-medal pace by over three-tenths of a second, Weibrecht faded over the last split, slipping into second place with a time of 1:18.44.

Weibrecht told NBC that he knew he had skied well but was surprised by his result. “I took a couple seconds and looked at the time,” he said in an interview with NBC. “I saw ‘2.’ I looked away. I looked again. I thought, ‘You have got to be kidding.’”

Examples of Fraud in Organizing the Sochi Olympics

It's no secret that with its price-tag of $51 billion, the 2014 Sochi Olympics are the most expensive games ever organized in history. The $51 billion is five the amount spent on the Vancouver Winter Games four years ago, and shatters the ~$45 billion China spent on the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics.

The original expected price tag? $12 billion, a budget decided back in 2007. The International Olympic Committee has to regret awarding Russia the right to organize the Winter Olympics for everything that has, and is, occurring.

$51 billion is a monetary total that could purchase all 32 NFL teams, which are priced by Forbes at $37.4 billion. $51 billion is more than the nominal GDP of 108 countries (the entire economy of Guatemala is less than Sochi's cost).

It should be no surprise that Russia is notorious for corruption and bribes, but even this is extreme, especially considering that Sochi did not have, nor does it yet possess, the infrastructure to host the Olympics Games.

Buzzfeed's Max Seddon published an article on 16 examples of alleged corruption, including, but not limited to:

1. The Olympics Stadium is 2.5 times more expensive than similar stadiums in Europe.
2. A mafia-linked businessman with ties to Putin's friends built the Shayba hockey arena for $33 million over the market price.
3. Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev's ski instructor was awarded contracts totaling $2.5 billion.
4. The local governor spent $15 million of Olympic funds on a helicopter for himself.

Seddon admits that the examples originate from a report by political opposition leader Alexei Navalny who has a definite anti-Putin history as a anti-corruption fighter. The full investigation can be located here.

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.

A Brief History of Dartmouth College in the Olympics

Dartmouth owns a long and storied history of sending athletes to the Olympics, starting in 1908 when Arthur B. Shaw ’08 won a bronze medal in the 110-meter hurdles at the Games of the Fourth Olympiad in London. Since then, Dartmouth has sent over 150 athletes to the Games, including all but one Summer Olympics since 1908 and to every Winter Olympics since the founding on the Winter Games in 1924. 

Through 2010, Dartmouth athletes have claimed 28 gold, 22 silver and 13 bronze medals.

Unfortunately, for Dartmouth’s impressive Olympic history, there is no single, easily accessible, easily searchable, record of Dartmouth Olympians, their involvements and their performances. Students interested in the history of Dartmouth at the Olympics must rely on a scattering of articles released by Dartmouth Now, U.S. News & World Report and press releases from the Dartmouth Athletics Department.

Normally, those sources provide satisfactory coverage for readers but there is a surprising amount of inconsistency and incompleteness. The Athletics Department press releases provide the most complete record of Dartmouth Olympians, but the ones they have published, when pieced together, reveal a partial list of athletes and events. Not enough medals are listed to correlate with the amount claimed, not all events are listed, etc.

Only one known collection of first-hand accounts from Dartmouth Olympians exists, a 2013 Masters Thesis written by Jennifer Titus Johnson. Johnson also made it clear that there was a stunning lack of documentation and data collection.

Her thesis currently resides in Rauner library, waiting for a single page to be reprinted so that the entire work can be bound. Until then, it sadly remains a pile of unbound paper. Its one saving grace? Any student interested in reading personal recollections regarding Dartmouth’s Olympic history can read it during Rauner’s open hours.

Despite the lack of a clear history, Dartmouth deserves a lot of credit for the assistance it provides to Olympic athletes. In all actuality, Dartmouth’s assistance in ensuring education for athletes is more important than documenting their performances.

One of the many ways Dartmouth has supported athletes is the so-called “15-year plan,” which allows athletes the flexibility to take numerous off-terms to train and participate in the games. Some winter sport athletes take classes during the spring and take off-terms during the fall, winter and summer.

According to her thesis, Johnson indicated many Dartmouth Olympians are thankful that Dartmouth didn’t force them to choose between their Olympic dreams or completing their education. Many lament that nowadays, young athletes are forced to choose one or the other.

Furthermore, athletes are provided superior training facilities, excellent coaching and a natural environment conducive for Winter Olympics practice. 

Aided by the Dartmouth Skiway, Dartmouth is considered a premier college for aspiring winter Olympians. A 2010 U.S. News & World Report article called the Dartmouth Ski Team “a pipeline of Olympic talent,” in part because “the program’s leaders have strongly encouraged their student-athletes to focus on school while still maintaining their athletic careers.” 

Laurel Anderson ’14, a Cross-Country skier, agrees that Dartmouth is a great location for prospective Olympic skiers.

“The Dartmouth Ski Team has a great record of sending athletes to the Olympics,” Anderson explained. “Two of the cross-country skiers going to Sochi are women I skied with as a freshman and sophomore, and several of our top skiers each year have opted to continue racing professionally, and that’s not counting the biathletes. The coaches work hard to make sure everyone on the team can do every workout, despite any conflicts with classes or labs. Dartmouth professors are usually very accommodating when it comes to missing class for races.”

In return for its efforts, Dartmouth holds the distinction of most Olympic appearances out of all the Ivies with 110 appearances in the Winter Games. Harvard, the next closest Ivy, has just 71 appearances.

However, here occurs some disagreement depending on which news source you read. Dartmouth College claims 110 appearances, but IvyLeagueSports.com indicates Dartmouth has 124 Olympic alumni. Additional disagreement also occurs regarding Harvard’s numbers as U.S. News reported Harvard has 77 athletes with Olympic appearances. 

Overall, Dartmouth Olympians have represented 15 different countries, most playing for the United States or Canada. Other countries include Great Britain, Japan, Bermuda, Norway, Switzerland, Argentina, New Zealand, France and Italy. 

Many Dartmouth Olympians never had the opportunity to participate in the games despite having qualified. Instead, world events have changed the lives of many athletes. 

Ten Dartmouth Olympians, in men’s hockey and men’s skiing, never when the 1940 Helsinki Winter games were cancelled due to World War II. 

Six other athletes, including the Geer sisters, were prohibited from the 1980 Moscow Summer games when President Jimmy Carter boycotted the games in response to Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. All six athletes would have competed in crew.

Luckily for Carlie Geer ’80 and Julia Geer ’75, they both had second chances to compete. 

Julia competed in two other Olympics, but even if she had been able to participate in the 1980 games, she still wouldn’t have surpassed Cameron Myler ’92 for the most Olympics appearances. Myler competed in four consecutive Winter Games from 1988 to 1998. 

Carlie would become the first Dartmouth woman to win a medal, taking silver in crew at the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles. It wouldn’t be for another 14 years, at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, that another woman would win a medal. Gretchen Ulion ’94 and Sarah Tueting ’98 won the gold medal that year with the U.S. women’s hockey team, becoming the first Dartmouth women to win a medal in the Winter Games. 

Shaw was the first Dartmouth athlete to win a medal, while John Shea ’34 (gold – speed skating), Robert Minton ’26 (bronze - bobsled) and Douglas Everett ’26 (silver - hockey) were the first men to win medals in a Winter Olympics during the 1932 winter games in Lake Placid. Shea actually won two gold medals, making him the first multi-medal winner for Dartmouth. 

Shea holds the distinction being the only non-hockey ice skater from Dartmouth to compete despite Dartmouth’s reputation as a superior location for prospective Winter Olympians. No figure skater and no other speed skater has appeared in the games before or after Shea.

Jojo Miller ’14, one of Dartmouth’s leading figure skaters, believes there are several different factors explaining the lack of Dartmouth Olympic non-hockey skaters, such as physical abilities and time prioritization.

“Girls hit their prime in their late teens and early twenties,” Miller continued. “Michelle Kwan stopped competing when he was 26, which is considered 'old' in skater years. Men hit their prime a few years later. Our current champion, Jeremy Abbott, is 28 and is planning on retiring after the Olympics. The guy who came in second is 18-Jeremy is considered really old. So pretty much, by the time people are graduating college, that's the age where skaters have stopped competing.” 

The amount of time spent training to become an Olympic-caliber figure skater would jeopardize a student’s academics. But focusing on academics ruins the opportunity to become an Olympic skater.

“Skating is an all-or-nothing sport,” Miller explained. “You can’t be doing school if you want to be good enough to go to the Olympics. You have to be at the training facilities with the top coaches and best skaters, like in Colorado Springs or Boston. All the best skaters devote most of their days to training on and off the ice, and you can't do that at Dartmouth. There’s no way you could come to Dartmouth, graduate, and go on to train for the Olympics like hockey skaters or skiers. They have way longer shelf lives to be able to do that than figure skaters. With skating, you have to be going full force with it by the right coaches and facilities until you stop competing to be Olympian worthy.”

Dartmouth women’s hockey can make a strong argument for having the best athletic program that produces Olympic talent and medal winners.

Cherie Piper ’06 and Gillian Apps ’06 were members of the gold medal-winning Canadian woman’s hockey team. They both earned points when Canada routed Slovakia 18-0 as the Canadians outshot the Slovakians 67-9. Piper registered a goal and an assist while Apps had two assists.

The 18-point differential was the largest margin of victory in the history of Olympic women’s hockey, which has been an event since 1998.

The Canadian women’s hockey team won gold after taking out Switzerland 10-1, Sweden 13-1, Finland 5-0 and the United States 2-0. 

The 2010 gold medal was Piper’s third and Apps’ second. Apps and Piper won a gold medal in the 2006 Torino Winter Games and Piper won her first gold medal at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games. Interestingly, Piper’s Canadian team defeated Tueting’s U.S. team in the Americans’ bid for a second consecutive gold.

Although women’s hockey possesses the most medals for an Olympic sport, men’s hockey has had its fair share of Olympic representation, including eight players on the 1948 American hockey team.

Current men’s hockey players value the legacy their predecessors have left behind.

“It’s awesome,” Geoff Ferguson ’16 said. “We just got to try and live up to the tradition and respect the place and respect the program, and just look up to those guys and try to get better.”

Still, players are mindful to not lock themselves in the past and always towards the future.

“We try to do our own thing,” Ferguson said. “Obviously those guys paved the way for us and we can try to follow the path and use Dartmouth to improve like they did.”

During the most recent Olympic Games in London two years ago, Dartmouth was represented by four alumni – Sean Furey ’04 (javelin), Evelyn Stevens ’05 (road cycling), Eric Storck ’07 (sailing-49er class) and Anthony Fahden ’08 (lightweight crew-men’s four). 

Abbey D’Agostino ’14 and Ben True ’08 barely missed out on the 2012 games for the 5,000-meter race. 

Nine Dartmouth athletes qualified for the Vancouver Olympics, the most recent Winter Games, in 2010. Athletes from Dartmouth have participated in the Olympics as early as the 1920 Summer Games in Antwerp.

Dartmouth’s connection to the Vancouver games ran even deeper than athletic participation. The former Vancouver mayor who helped lure the games to the city was Gordon Campbell ’69, and Scott Blackmun ’79 was designated the U.S. Olympic Committee CEO during the games. Several more Dartmouth alumni assisted with the games in varying capacities.

It remains to be seen how current potential Dartmouth Olympians will perform in the upcoming Sochi Olympics and build upon Dartmouth’s heritage. Currently, 25 Dartmouth athletes are striving to qualify for the 2014 Winter games and carve their own legacy into Dartmouth’s Olympic history.