Olympic Biathlon with Sean Doherty and Deedra Irwin

Buckle up for biathlon! It’s one of Jill’s favorite Olympic sports and arguably one of the most exciting to watch, because on any given day, at least a dozen people could win.

On our episode this week, we’re talking with U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program members SPC Sean Doherty (3x Olympian – 2014, 2018, 2022) and SSG Deedra Irwin (2022 Olympian) about the sport, competing at altitude, and skiing with a rifle on your back.

SPC Sean Doherty: Soldier, Olympic biathlete. Photo courtesy of U.S. Army.

Sean Doherty’s been at this sport a long time–he competed at the very first Youth Winter Olympic Games in 2012, then moved up to the Olympic level at Sochi 2014, and he’s competed in every Games since.

At Beijing 2022, he even got an Olympic diploma for his 7th place finish in the mixed relay, which he did with TKFLASTANI Clare Egan. We talk with Sean about his extensive experience and how that helps him weather an ever-challenging biathlon season.

SSG Deedra Irwin: Soldier, Olympic biathlete. Photo courtesy of U.S. Army.

With Deedra, we also talked about how you come back after a tough race. Our conversation took place after the first weekend of the 2025/2026 biathlon world cup season, and Deedra had a tough individual race, complete with crashing on her skis and having a shooting round that wildly did not go according to plan. How she’s come back since has been incredible, and she’s landed in the prize money several times this year (if you’re not familiar with biathlon, if you have good results, you can make some decent coin over the course of a season).

A few weeks after our conversations, both Sean and Deedra were named to Team USA for the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics, so we are thrilled to cheer on our TKFLASTANIs who will compete at Antholz. Luckily, they gave us insight to what that venue–a classic stop on the biathlon circuit–is like and how rowdy it will be.

Also on the show, Milano Cortina 2026 got the Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena in good enough shape for a test event. Will the paint be dry? Will there be sandwiches at the bar? Time will tell, but it’s definitely one of the first places we’ll go to when we get to Milano. In the meantime, check out journalist Brian Pinelli’s series of articles about the event:

• First-Hand Look At Milan’s Santagiulia Olympic Hockey Arena: Officially Opened, But Far From Perfect

• There Is No Reason That NHL Players Will Not Come’: IIHF’s Tardif And Olympic Leaders Give Approval Of New Milan Rink

• Players Satisfied With Future Olympic Ice Surface On Day Two Of Milan Test Event

In more fun 2026 Olympics news, if you like Paris’ Marathon pour Tous event, there will be a similar one at Milano Cortina! Salomon will be holding the New Shapers Run an Olympics-inspired 10K run in Milano during the Games with some snazzy Olympic-themed swag.

Plus, another iconic voice will join the Olympic Opening Ceremonies: Andrea Bocelli. How could he not?

In LA 2028 news, registration has opened for the LA 2028 Olympics ticket lottery. We have the details and full timeline on the podcast, but registration is now through March 18. If you’re local to the LA or Oklahoma City area (where softball and canoe slalom will take place), you’ll get an early ticket drop, so get in on that action!

Plus, we have tons of news from TKFLASTAN, including great results, Olympic teams named, and a potential scandal in skeleton.

Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!

 TRANSCRIPT

Note: This is an uncorrected machine-generated transcript and may contain errors. Please check its accuracy against the audio. Do not quote from the transcript; use the audio as the record of note.

426-Olympic Biathlon with Sean Doherty and Deedra Irwin

Theme Music

Jill Jaracz: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Keep the Flame Alive, the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. If you love the games, we are the show for you. I am your host, chill. JT joins us always by my lovely co-host, Alison Brown. Alison, hello, how are you?

Alison Brown: I am one step closer to being ready for Milano Cortina 2026.

This week I purchased. Flannel lined pants.

Jill Jaracz: They are fantastic. I have a pair.

Alison Brown: I look like a little mini lumberjack, like a little [00:01:00] pocket lumberjack, and they are so soft and comfortable and I am very excited to try these out at the sliding track. Hopefully we can get to the sliding track, but I am prepared.

So now I’ve got flat aligned mittens. They do have the Canadian flag on them. I don’t care ’cause they’ll wear it with my team USA hat. So everyone and my team, Choa scarf and everyone will be confused as to who I’m cheering for and my flannel pants and I will be ready to go.

Jill Jaracz: Excellent. I have purchased some base layers this week, so that is adding to my stash of stuff to keep warm and toasty.

I’m bringing some Beijing. Cap and little, neck warmer thing that they got us and wrote down on my packing list to pack that seat. Cushion and blanket. Oh yes.

Alison Brown: The seat cushion.

Jill Jaracz: cause we’re gonna be sitting on some stone stuff, perhaps. Oh. I’m not. Never looking

Alison Brown: forward to that stone.

Talking biathlon with SPC Sean Doherty

Jill Jaracz: But to get to that stone, we’ve gotta get some more [00:02:00] episodes out. And today we are talking biathlon. It’s your favorite day of being here. Excited. It. It’s so exciting ’cause the season has been really good so far. And, uh, we are talking biathlon with two seasoned Olympians who are also part of the US Army’s world class athlete program.

First up, we have specialist Sean Doherty, who is heading to Milano Corina for his fourth Olympics. Sean competed in the 2012 Winter Youth Olympic Games. He competed in Biathlon and in the mixed youth cross country biathlon relay.

Which sounds very, a lot of words

Alison Brown: for one race

Jill Jaracz: I know. the US team earned a bronze medal there. He competed at Sochi 2014 Pyeongchang 2018 and Beijing 2022. He has Olympic diplomas for a sixth place. Men’s relay finish at Pyeongchang and seventh place for the mixed relay at Beijing 2022, where he was on a team with our other team.

Team, keep the flame alive by athlete [00:03:00] Claire Egan,

Alison Brown: one of our favorites.

Jill Jaracz: I know Sean joined the Army in November, 2018 as a carpentry and masonry specialist. Milano Cortina will be his second games as part of the Army’s World class athlete program. We talked with him on December one, which is at the beginning of the 25 26 biathlon season.

Since then, he’s had some solid results and the men’s relay team has been near the podium several times. Take a listen.

How Sean Doherty’s experience helps him on the World Cup circuit

Jill Jaracz: Specialist. Sean Doherty, thank you so much for joining us. you’ve been on the biathlon circuit for a long, long time.

Things change over time. experience helps when you’re on the circuit? So how does that factor in going into your potentially fourth Olympic year?

SPC Sean Doherty: Yeah, experience definitely helps a lot in a lot of ways, whether it’s managing travel that we have to do just to race in all these different places all winter long.

it’s kind of knowing the sort of nuances of a venue or a range [00:04:00] or course. That’s super helpful. I’ve been racing here the first time I came. I’m in Sweden currently. First time I came here I was 16, so. Now I’m 30 and, uh, I’ve seen this course before, which is nice. and then there’s also just obviously the physiological benefit with the years of training.

And then the same with shooting. I’ve got a lot arounds in my life and, uh, so that just gives you more and more of a base to draw on. I think. Fortunately, biathlon is not a sport that Is not a heavily aged selecting sport. You can be successful if at 35 or at 18. And that’s really cool. And I think that that’s a really nice thing about the, the event.

Alison Brown: And now the silver bib exists.

SPC Sean Doherty: That’s right. The, what is it, 33 and up or 35 and up? Susan’s legacy, the silver bib.

Jill Jaracz: biathlon is very European centric, so you’ve got another season where you’re entirely in Europe. how does that [00:05:00] work for you and how does that work for you as being part of the world class athlete program? The, the WCAP.

SPC Sean Doherty: right. Just kind of the overview.

Like this year, I guess my expected sort of itinerary is I left the US on November 1st first, and I would not be going back to the US until like the end of March. The Army Wcap program, like supports. Through this competition season. So I’m like on orders currently and I have to build trips and like tell them where I’m gonna be and stuff.

that is kind of our, Mission during the competition season is to represent, you know, our team country and uh, the army as we’re overseas. competing. I think it’s a bit unique in biathlon.

Not all sports have like nine World Cups and a world championships or Olympics in one concise season, right? Like. So that’s also a bit unique. I, I know other people in other sports, you know, [00:06:00] they do a trip for the Pan Am games and then they go back versus we are just kind of, once we go on the road and we are on competing, we’re just go, go, go. So

Why the U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program works for Sean

Jill Jaracz: yeah, yeah. I mean, the, the program is so interesting because it provides a lot of sport for being an athlete, but there’s also army duties as well.

SPC Sean Doherty: yeah, so that’s really cool and I think that’s a really unique facet avenue pathway for people in the military that like a lot of people don’t necessarily know about or maybe they’ve heard about, but. It supports like all sorts of high level athletes and I think that’s really unique and also a really great sort of, how would I say this?

Like it’s great for us to have the, for an athlete to have support that’s not their national like federation. You have support that is not entirely wrapped up in. Like that. You know, the Army support comes from kind of outside of sport and it’s cool that the program can kind of adapt itself and find ways to support athletes who are doing like all sorts of different things, whether they’re doing TaeKwonDo, bobsled, biathlon, discus, throwing like turtles.

It doesn’t, is like a lot of different ways that people have found support to pursue elite sports. And I think that that’s. Pretty cool. I feel very fortunate to be a member of the program,

Alison Brown: okay. Did you ever get the chance during, say, marksman training with people who didn’t know who you were and what your sport was to just really show off

SPC Sean Doherty: a little bit?

A little bit? For sure. I didn’t, I didn’t really tell anyone. My story, like when I went through basic training, I didn’t because, well, to be honest with you, I didn’t really want to be treated like extra different as standing out in the crowd is not really like why you joined the army. So, yeah, like I qualified, well.

And some of my friends were kind of confused at it. Well, I, I got, I got a bit of [00:08:00] experience here, but an M four and a Bathon rifle are like, not all the same thing. It’s kind of like a scalpel versus a sledgehammer. Like they both, you can do things with both of them, but they’re not, it’s not the same tool.

Jill Jaracz: How do you get used to one versus the other?

SPC Sean Doherty: Well. the mechanics of tasks repeated for accuracy are kind of all the same at a base level, like shooting free throws, putting in golf, tennis, serving, like shooting, whether you’re shooting a bow, shotgun, a rifle at long distance or a Python rifle.

There’s a lot of commonality. But, I do different kinds of shooting to kind of keep it fresh. So I know picking up a service weapon when I do a, a qualification with a unit is, is fun and different and takes a few rounds to dust off the rust, and then I get the hang of it again.

Biathlon rifle talk and how weather affects shooting

Jill Jaracz: What kind of rifle do you have for biathlon?

SPC Sean Doherty: our biathlon rifle is a 22 long rifle made by on shoots in Germany, [00:09:00]

Jill Jaracz: ONT. Okay. Do you do modifications for it for you?

SPC Sean Doherty: yeah. The stock is super customized. Every athlete’s stock is quite different and very personalized to them as they’re individual body shape, size, shooting style.

’cause you have a lot of different people, men, women. Tall people, short people, whatever. So everyone’s stock looks, looks pretty different. They’re pretty cool. Some people have cool paint jobs. Some people have fun personal touches, this and that. They’re, they’re, it’s quite, that’s where you see most of the customizing.

But the actual rifle itself is pretty much everybody’s using it. Basically the same thing.

Jill Jaracz: What do you like about the ONS shoots versus other types of biathlon rifles?

SPC Sean Doherty: two big things are, it has a straight pull bolt system. So instead of a conventional like T bolt, it is just a straightforward straight back to rebolt in between shots.

Uh, it’s a designed by a man, Peter Fortner. so it’s very fast. It’s very [00:10:00] smooth, and that’s what we all compete with. Second is they make really good barrels that are made specifically with cold weather shooting in mind. cause we test our rifles in a like giant fridge, uh, to make sure that they’re accurate at cold temperatures.

So you need, ’cause you most rifles, even a cheap one, will shoot pretty well at normal temperatures, let’s say, you know, in the summertime. But when you get down to zero degrees Fahrenheit. There’s a big difference. And so our rifles are good at cold weather shooting, which makes a big difference.

Alison Brown: Yeah. My mind just got blown. Okay, so let me ask you a little about cold weather shooting then. So is it that the metal changes, is it the speed of the, the what? What changes Because of cold weather?

SPC Sean Doherty: well first off, we use ammunition made by Laua, which has, powder [00:11:00] specifically and primer that’s formulated for cold weather use.

so then you have that, like the variance in ammunition, and then yeah, basically it comes down to like the tolerances of the barrel and how it was, uh, manufactured to make sure that it. Doesn’t change at those different temperatures. And that like, they use, um, nitrile coating to like harden the steel a lot more and other stuff like that to make sure that the grouping or the the barrels capacity to produce, produce consistent grouping is maintained as the, as the temperatures drop.

Alison Brown: So Beijing and Pyeongchang were Asian cold versus European cold. And did you find that that was, I mean, it was just different weather conditions, so did you find the rifle behaving differently in that very dry cold versus more of the snowy, wet cold of Europe? Yeah,

SPC Sean Doherty: I mean, it’s more just about actual air temperature and Beijing was [00:12:00] really cold.

Now I don’t notice necessarily like the group change, you would need your rifle, you know, locked into a fixture and kind of a controlled environment to, um, really see those big changes, So. It’s more that like, it’s hard for you as the, as the shooter. Like it’s hard ’cause there’s a real, a real sort of paradox, with biathletes and gloves of like, you need gloves that are thin enough to feel what you’re doing, but also thick enough to keep your hands warm.

And it’s really hard. It was really hard in Beijing. It was, you know, single digits Fahrenheit and so windy. So it was really, really tough to keep your hands warm. So those are the things that you feel the most if you’re like, face is freezing, your hands are freezing, you’re, it’s more of the struggle on the operator to basically be able to do this very precise task in those weather conditions.

The rifle is pretty solid. They’re, they’re pretty reliable. So that wasn’t the [00:13:00] issue there.

Jill Jaracz: How does snow affect shooting?

SPC Sean Doherty: mostly if we’re racing in, let’s say it’s snow, like it’s snowing during a race. Yeah. Mostly it can get in your sight and in your bolt, like the action of the, of the rifle.

And obscure your vision or like kind of jam up things? We do have snow covers on the sites to help keep that out. But if you have a crash or something or the conditions are quite, there’s a lot of snow, it can still get packed in there or whatever. shooting through the snow is not so bad. We’re only shooting at 50 meters, which is not terribly far.

And so. don’t find it too, too distracting. But sometimes we shoot in a fog and that’s tricky ‘ cause you have this kind of very washed out picture of the target that you’re, that you’re trying to focus on.

Alison Brown: So conditions for anals are gonna be different because you’ve got, altitude factoring in. So how does altitude play into the shooting especially?

SPC Sean Doherty: So again, altitude doesn’t affect the rifle or like the kind of mechanical side of it. Overly much. It affects you a lot.

Anal is 1,640 meters, whatever that is in feet, just under 6,000 feet. And racing up there is hard. It, it hurts more. it also makes how you ski up to the point to shoot and, and makes your recovery and the way you try to sort of calm your system and set yourself up to shoot well, it makes that much more challenging. it’s harder to catch your breath. It’s harder to bring your heart rate down to, you know, we’re not bringing our heart down to a resting level, but we are trying to hit the mat a little calmer than we were just skiing.

It’s hard. Also, a thing that happens a lot, you’ll see it if you watch on tv, is that people will start to rush as they get hypoxic. So you’ll take the first, second, maybe third shot, and then you’ll see people go faster for the last two because your, your brain is kind of like, get outta here, gimme some air.

So that’s, [00:15:00] that’s, that’s some of the challenges of racing in altitude.

Training for altitude

Alison Brown: How are you training for that?

SPC Sean Doherty: we did a lot of altitude training this summer, so I didn’t join the team right off the bat, but from July on we have periods of training at altitude, so through July and then we come back down, then go back up again, and our preseason camp this year was at Altitude and here we’re in Sweden down, but the next two venues will be up at.

Small altitude and then a little higher before Christmas. And then most of us will train in altitude over Christmas as well to try to be as excellent acclimated to that as we can be.

Alison Brown: What’s small altitude like? What is considered small altitude?

SPC Sean Doherty: I’m not a physiologist. we work with the team, the, guy on the US Olympic Committee, Randy Wilbur, for a lot of our altitude like training design.

but small altitude is gonna be, I don’t know, from three to 4,000, 4,500 feet. And then once you get of that, you, [00:16:00] we consider that significant altitude. We also, we also. There’s like a limit to how high we can compete and how high our venues can be. So that kind of, you know, around 6,000 feet is kind of our maximum.

So that’s what we’re preparing for in on adults.

How big of a sport is biathlon in the U.S. vs. Europe?

Alison Brown: How has the reception of biathlon in the United States especially changed over your career? Or has it?

SPC Sean Doherty: Yeah, I mean, it’s still a small sport in the us Uh, definitely.

But yeah, certainly more, more, uh, people knowing about it. More people. Having watched it on TV, either at the past games or here and there and kind of heard of it. And I think having the World Cup in Utah a couple years ago was really fun. We have a lot of people come out and check it out and watch and, at least think it’s cool and get excited about it.

so yeah, and I would say that like the. The kind of base of support is definitely, growing and, you know, more kids or more clubs kind of popping up, like Aaron’s [00:17:00] Nordic Center out in Wisconsin or something like that. That another place for people to, come across the sport, give it a try or get interested in it.

So, yeah, I mean, it’s still a small sport. I don’t expect to have 30,000 people show up to watch a World Cup in the us but at the same time, I definitely think it’s, it’s growing and. There’s more people who, at least when I tell them biathlon, they don’t ask me if that’s like swimming and running. So that’s good.

Alison Brown: by comparison, what is it like in Europe when you race? Like what do you expect to see at Anals?

SPC Sean Doherty: I’m told there’s gonna be. Is gonna be packed, I don’t know, like ticket sales numbers, but that, that venue is, is large, has a high capacity spectating, and I don’t know, it wouldn’t surprise me if there were well over 30,000 people watching.

that would be pretty standard, I would expect. And some races are even bigger. Group holding is big. Oberhof is huge when we race in Nova Meso in the Czech Republic. That’s one of our biggest crowds, massive crowds there. Racing at night is awesome, [00:18:00] so I expect a pretty charged atmosphere and I think that’ll be really cool.

we definitely did not have that, during COVID in Beijing, racing in the edge of the desert at night. So I hope that, um, those will be, really I think it’ll be a lot of energy. I think it’ll be really cool.

The U.S. team’s support staff

Jill Jaracz: What is the support staff system like, because I know, I mean, USA biathlon is still small. You’re not got the semis that Norway has or Germany has. So what kind of staff support does the team have?

SPC Sean Doherty: yeah, it takes a, it takes a real crew to get everybody, you know, the athletes prepared and ready on the starting line.

we have a couple coaches, and then we have a, a couple staff who are like, physical therapists, pt, massage, all that kind of stuff to help us keep up with injuries and try to recover. And then we have, I don’t know how many guys we have here right now, off the top of my head, five.

Like staff [00:19:00] who are working on the preparation of the race skis. And that’s a, that’s a big job. They do a lot of work and it, they put a lot of time and effort into like testing the skis, preparing the skis, figuring out how to give us the most competitive set of skis when we start the race. So it’s a, it’s a pretty big group.

We got eight athletes and then. You know, probably another dozen people around to support us and, uh, hopefully, set us up to race well and go fast.

The 2026 Olympic course at Antholz

Alison Brown: The past three, your three Olympics, were all in pretty new courses. Is, am I right in saying that?

SPC Sean Doherty: Yes. I don’t, we hadn’t raced any of those before. Right. So

Alison Brown: this is, this is gonna be very different. How do you think that will affect the races and, and results and how it, how it looks to fans?

SPC Sean Doherty: Well, I think it’s cool for us as athletes to race on courses that we’ve seen before.[00:20:00]

You can kind of feel a little more prepared or you can. You can kind of know what you’re getting into versus like in Beijing, no one had raced there before we showed up and it was just brand new course and figure it out. So that’s kind of, cool. I think as far as results go, it’s, I mean, I think unpredictability is what makes Lon fun, and you never really know who will kind of hit it right at the right time.

During a, during a championship event, like there’s always a few people who. Just get stars aligned and they just have a day, like last year, Campbell just like, bam. He was just the man. so that’s, I think, I don’t think the course or having seen the venue before is gonna really change that aspect of the, of the sport.

And that’s, I think that’s a lot of fun. But it’s nice for us to know where we’re going, what it’s gonna look like, what we’re preparing for, and not just flying in blind.

Variations in snow

Jill Jaracz: How does having, natural snow versus manmade snow change how the [00:21:00] conditions are for you?

SPC Sean Doherty: Yeah, that’s a good one. the, the variations in the snow have a big effect on the speed of the skis and the kind of difficulty of the race, whether it’s, dry.

Fresh, soft, natural snow. That’s really tough. it’s slow ’cause it’s abrasive. Those snow crystals are sharp and it’s also softer surface. So as you push, you get less return back from the efforts that you put in. Manmade snow is often older, more transformed, less sharp, and very dirty. as far as skis go.

So then you have to really work on like having your skis not pick up dirt and slow down during the race. And sometimes manmade snow turns into like a, a kind of sugary salt, like granular surface that can also be kind of funny to, to try to ski through. At times, we race on artificial snow. Mostly, it’s usually [00:22:00] a base of artificial snow with men with natural snow mixed in.

So that’s something again that the key techs are really trying to figure out the best way to. Squeeze speed out of these, all these different surfaces. Humidity has a lot to do with how fast conditions are and all these other things, so I don’t know. I’m not actually an expert in, in waxing in snow. I have a, I have a decent understanding, but it’s not really my job right now.

So I’m fortunate that the other guys take care of that for us.

Ski prep in biathlon

Jill Jaracz: On race day you get your skis, how much time do you get to warm up usually and figure out if that’s a good mix for you.

SPC Sean Doherty: So now. In the IBU and like does not allow the use of fluorocarbons anymore in ski preparation. So that means that skis have to go through testing prior to your start.

So you don’t see your skis until you pick them up. Like before the start. you don’t ski on them at all [00:23:00] before the race. So you warm up on a pair of warmup, like training skis and you’re doing your zeroing and your preparation. You have plenty of time to do that, whatever you kind of need. but then when you like take your warmups off, you go to the start, they check you through, you pick up your skis and that’s it.

You go. So.

Alison Brown: Good luck.

SPC Sean Doherty: Yeah. I hope

Alison Brown: they’re prepped properly.

SPC Sean Doherty: Yeah, they, they are. The guys do a great job and they do a ton of work in, but yeah, you have to have a pretty high degree of trust to that those guys are, or the wax techs are doing their thing and you just pick ’em up and go.

Jill Jaracz: What have you noticed in that change away from Fluorocarbons? Because that’s, it’s also happened during your career?

SPC Sean Doherty: Well, the skis are slower. And they’re, uh, the durability is a real challenge without fluoros. some of these new products are very fast, but don’t stay on the ski, so the skis slow down a lot in certain conditions.

there’s also sometimes [00:24:00] because of the kind of shake, before when everyone was using fluoros every team ski preparation was actually a lot of similarity. Now sometimes some teams have a real advantage or they find something that really works in certain conditions or for something that clicks and you’ll sometimes have almost like higher variance in, in skis throughout a, throughout a race.

But I mean, I think it’s good. It’s especially good for the staff that the ski techs who are working with those compounds all the time because like. For them to just be using florals every, all day, every day through, through the whole winter is not great. And it’s like if we can avoid those guys getting health consequences because of it, it’s definitely worth doing.

But in certain conditions, especially, there was a bit of like a relearning curve for a lot of us, for a lot of teams to like kind of figure out how to prepare skis. With new stuff and different compounds that [00:25:00] we haven’t used before and all this other stuff, and figure out how to get ’em to work in all these different conditions.

Alison Brown: the secret formulas, I, I mean, I can see the spy novel happening with the wax text and they’re secret formulas and, and what they’re doing in the prep, which is fantastic.

SPC Sean Doherty: Yeah, it’s a real technology race, uh, on the ski side because skis make a huge difference. You know, if, if you have good skis or not good skis, it can be a big impact on your race.

Jill Jaracz: how do skis vary? Not the wax part of it, but when you’re looking at what skis to wear. What brand do you end up with? how does that impact?

SPC Sean Doherty: oh man, this is like an episode of itself, the voodoo science of skis. No. Um, so each, each, each athlete kind of at this level has their kind of own whatever partnership with a brand.

So then you have, within that brand, you have. their sort of [00:26:00] construction, their style of base materials and the the different characteristics of that make up like the camber and flex and all these different sort of ways that the ski responds to your inputs. And then you also have like the grind, which is the pattern cut into the base material, how that interacts with the snow.

All those different things, and the whole way that that comes together creates good or bad skis. It’s kind of wild, like most ski companies are actually trying to make their skis all the same, but there’s quite a bit of variation in. You have ones that are better, even if they’re trying to make the same model, the same specifications at all times.

Just ’cause of variation in the materials and the production and all this other, I don’t know, the cycle of the moon, the weather, the day, I don’t know, like it, it you just, you, you just have skis Sometimes some are better than others, so then you’re trying. Then that’s also where [00:27:00] your relationship and the support from the WAX staff comes in, as they do a lot of, you know, they help us by also in the summertime testing skis.

Picking out ones that are good, and weeding through the old ones to compare and keep, kind of, keep constantly renewing your fleet so that way you have the best stuff that you can.

Jill Jaracz: How many pairs of skis do you travel with?

SPC Sean Doherty: I don’t know, 20 something between 20 and 30.

Alison Brown: How many

SPC Sean Doherty: rifles? I just have one.

Um, the team has a spare rifle. If one of us were to have an issue or to have a crash and damage something, but nope. Just the one rifle.

Alison Brown: Do you name your rifle?

SPC Sean Doherty: Nope, I don’t have a name for it. We get on pretty well, but the rifle is like an extension of your body. It’s not like a pet.

Mindset in biathlon relays

Alison Brown: So you’ve done a lot of relays. I’m really interested in the difference between when it’s a men’s relay versus a mixed relay. Is there a difference in [00:28:00] how you race when it’s mixed versus only men? Does it change your mindset at all?

SPC Sean Doherty: I wouldn’t say it changes the mindset so much. I mean, you’re always still just racing against the men, in your leg. And I would say that the kind of mindset of a relay is a bit unique or the environment of a relay is a bit unique. But I wouldn’t say that a mixed relay or, you know, men’s only relay is overly different.

the single mixed relay is a bit different because that’s a real, really unique event and like a very. much more of a shooting event. And it, it’s, the dynamics of that one are, are very different, but, well, I don’t have any, any changes in strategy if it’s a mix or a just gender relay.

Alison Brown: So what’s the difference with an individual race versus a relay in terms of strategy and mindset and all those different pieces that go into it?

SPC Sean Doherty: Yeah. Relays are short. Shorter races. So they’re fast. And um, that’s really fun because you don’t, the [00:29:00] pacing for those is, is a little different. Uh, the extra rounds are also a fun addition of, they’re like, they’re a small penalty in themselves. ’cause it takes six to seven seconds to shoot an extra round.

But at the same time, you can afford to be more aggressive, and take more risk on the mat with your five from the clip. Because you have those extras in reserve. I mean, the other day in the mixed relay, Maxim Shot hit all eight of his rounds in like 38 seconds in standing, which is just fantastic.

But also like, you can go for it and you have, you have a little bit of room to make mistakes and you can. Same on skis because you’re skiing a shorter distance and you might be able to hang in the draft with someone or really challenge someone who is a really strong skier because it’s a short distance and you can push and try to keep up and it’s just fun.

So I like relay.

Jill Jaracz: How much do you know of where the team is at [00:30:00] while you’re waiting for your turn?

SPC Sean Doherty: I guess that kind of depends on the individual. So I mean, some guys I used to know would ski with a radio in their jacket when they warm up and they’d be hearing the whole like, live stream.

I, if the warmup track is close enough to the race, you can kind of keep tabs on how things are going, but I’m not keeping that close track of it. I usually see when I go over to the starting pen to get ready for the like. How things are going and, and you see when you come in to shoot what point place you’re in.

Jill Jaracz: How does your position in the relay, I mean if you’re second or if you’re third or your fourth or your first, like how do you approach each position?

SPC Sean Doherty: Yeah. The first leg is definitely a bit unique ’cause you’re racing in like really? Well, you, you’re responsible for getting the team off to a good start and you’re racing in, in, in a big group, which is, can be fun.

like skiing in close quarters. You have to be pretty quick and efficient shooting there in order to, to make sure you keep contact with that [00:31:00] lead group. and then through the middle of the race. I would say like legs two and three. The unique thing about that is that there’s like, especially we’re assuming a race is going pretty well, you get tagged and there’s no like building into it.

You just get tagged with a couple other guys and it’s just full throttle from zero, just like right out the gate. Uh, which is fun. Usually you’re, you’re flying along hopefully with a group of a few other skiers and the race becomes much smaller at that point because. You’re only really racing the people in your vicinity, you know, unless it, it becomes like a small, sort of head-to-head competition in that which I really, which is fun.

And then if you’re racing the anchor leg, I mean, it can be a tremendous amount of pressure to close out the relay and, and, you know, seal the deal on those. And so you gotta stay, gotta stay calm, gotta stay in your, in your groove on the range and, and just hit your targets. [00:32:00] Give it all, you got to bring the team home.

But I’ve raised all the different legs of the relay and uh, each one has, its unique character or on a given day and stuff like that. So it’s fun. I like going first in a way ’cause it’s like really action packed, but, any job is fine.

Alison Brown: Is there chatter among the racers?

SPC Sean Doherty: Not really. We’re mostly out of breath.

Shooting positions, zeroing in and thermal winds

Jill Jaracz: When you’re done shooting, do you notice if people have had to go into the penalty loop at all and you, do you register that or are you just focused on what you’re doing?

SPC Sean Doherty: Yeah. You, you might take a glance at what the people around you are doing a little bit.

But that’s kind of a classic mistake to make if, while you’re actually shooting, is to like start noticing what other people are shooting while you’re supposed to be shooting and then you get distracted. That’s a, that’s a classic one, but yeah, if you, if you see someone like, especially leaving the stadium, like going into penalty loop, that usually puts a little, little motivation for you that you’re gonna, you’re gonna pass them, but usually you’ll get that information from a, from a staff member out on the course or something like that.

Alison Brown: Do you prefer a spot versus another or it’s just I have to shoot wherever I’m put.

SPC Sean Doherty: Oh, you mean different mats, different points,

Alison Brown: different mats?

Yeah.

SPC Sean Doherty: Yeah. So that kind of depends on the format of the race. Like in a relay you have to file in, so if you’re in six place in the relay, you are shooting on 0.6 that you don’t have a choice there. in a, like a sprint format race, it’s one through 15 is set to prone, and 15 to 30 is set, or 16 to 30 is set to standing and you can choose wherever you want to go.

That depends a little bit. One on where you zeroed, like generally you’re gonna stay around the points that you zeroed because the wind and the conditions on the range would be most similar there. And then in, in standing, you can go where you prefer to go. Usually people go more towards, you know, 16, 17, 18, because it gives you a little more time to ski up to the target and or ski up to the mat.

get a couple extra breaths in and kind of glide up to the, up to the mat there. But I don’t, I don’t have like a strong attachment. It’s not like I’m always trying to shoot on lucky number seven or something

Alison Brown: Where you zeroed.

SPC Sean Doherty: Yeah. Usually in an individual race you’re shooting around where you zeroed.

Alison Brown: So. Okay, so what, what does that mean?

SPC Sean Doherty: before the competition, we have a set amount of time to shoot on paper targets. Cite in the rifles, get a feel for the conditions of the day, make sure we’re good to go. And so you zero based on your nation’s overall rank, and so you zero, like in the relay day, we zeroed on our bib number at 12, and so we’re kind of in the middle of the range, which is good.

And then, yeah, if that was a sprint race, I would’ve shot somewhere around there. I would’ve shot between 10 and 13 basically.

Jill Jaracz: Wind can be a huge factor in shooting. So how much are you noticing the wind changes? Especially if it’s a windy day or the wind is whipping around [00:35:00] and changing directions?

Sometimes mid shoot for athletes.

SPC Sean Doherty: Yeah. How do you figure

Jill Jaracz: that out? Handling,

SPC Sean Doherty: handling the wind is, is challenging. That’s one where experience really comes in. One, you have more experience of dealing with wind in general as a shooter. And two, you have more experience with like. Kind of the, the way the wind behaves on a given range.

’cause each range has its own sort of feel to it with wind. And so that’s one where you try to gain as much information as you can during the zeroing period. And then, um, you know, I zero generally for like the average of the day. And then you have a plan to react, to adjust the sites.

Accordingly as you need. But you have little wind flags, little red flags all throughout this whole range to give you some feedback of like what the air is doing. And then it’s just to read and react the best you can. And yeah, if the wind changes during your shooting stage, that can be really tough. Some people will stop and adjust the sight.

Some people will just kind of [00:36:00] shade. We would call it military term of Kentucky windage, where you kind of just push your shots off to one side or the other to try to. Adapt to the wind of the moment. But that’s another one where like you’re shooting, you know, for time as well and you don’t, you don’t wanna slow down too much and start trying to read the wind.

It’s kind of just to make a decision and go. I rarely would click during a stage or just my sights. Sometimes I would just try to maybe, adjust my aim to compensate if it was that short notice of a change. That can be really tricky, especially in stadiums like Oberhof where you have some really weird air movement patterns.

You gotta be really ready to make some adapt adaptations on the fly or you gotta just be really confident and go for it.

Jill Jaracz: What, what is the range at on holds? Like,

SPC Sean Doherty: it’s not generally super windy there, but you can get like little sort of squalls and like mountain snow storms that come blowing through that can really be quite, Dramatic. Generally you have [00:37:00] like thermal wind in anul. The way the air heats up and moves through the valley or cools and settles down through the valley throughout the day kind of creates like the movement in the air mass that we have to adjust the sites for. But it’s not, not terribly windy of a place, at least I hope not.

Alison Brown: Okay. Thermal wind, new term. I love this.

What are coaches saying when athletes are on the course?

Jill Jaracz: You’re skiing on the course, do you hear what your coaches are saying to you as they’ve run down as well?

SPC Sean Doherty: Yeah, sometimes, unless the crowd’s really loud, you can usually hear ’em pretty good. most of the time they’re just cheering you on, maybe giving you a split time or like, uh, in a, especially in a four stage race, like an individual coming up, they’re gonna give you a target board that shows you you’re shooting from the previous stage so you can adjust if needed.

Jill Jaracz: How do you take all of that in while you’re also pushing your body to the max? Is that just training that comes into play?

SPC Sean Doherty: [00:38:00] yeah, I think it’s mostly just training, but it’s not, Sometimes it is kind of tricky to remember if a coach said two right or two left or whatever, but generally speaking, they’re not really giving you that much information.

And it’s not like every coach or staff member on the track is giving you information. A lot of them are just cheering and then, you know, one, maybe two coaches would give you information that you need. But it’s, we’re trying to keep it pretty simple and not like, yeah, you’re not trying to overthink it while you’re out there skiing.

So. it’s not too much to remember. We’re not doing math in our heads out there while we’re racing.

Alison Brown: Hypoxia would not mess. Yeah. With math very well.

SPC Sean Doherty: No, definitely not.

What a successful season looks like for Sean Doherty

Alison Brown: What does a successful season look like when it’s an Olympic season for you this year?

SPC Sean Doherty: I mean, I think the first, the first and biggest part of the successful season is just staying healthy. ’cause you can’t, you can’t race well or even anywhere near your capacity to race Well if you’re not healthy.

And all of us over the years, [00:39:00] when you do this long enough, has struggled with illness or injury or something like that. And then, I mean, the big, big goal would be I’m not yet qualified for that Olympic team. So it would be to qualify for that team and then just. Be in a position to give it all I got in February because you never really know what the outcome is gonna be.

it’s not like a, you can say I want a PR time of X or things like that, but my goal would be to, to be in a position where I could just race to the fullest of my ability and wherever that falls is where it falls. There’s a lot of really, really talented people out here. In any given day, you don’t really know.

Wear your best will stack up. But on a day where you feel that you, you produced an effort and a performance that is complete and in one of your better ones, then at least you can be happy with that.

Jill Jaracz: You’ve had a long Olympic career what did you learn from the people ahead of you because you raced with Lowell Bailey, who was just a force on the team and Susan Dunkley and Claire Egan who were [00:40:00] forces on the team for the women. what did you learn from them? And also as you kind of are in one of those senior level stages to be able to mentor the new people.

SPC Sean Doherty: Yeah, I mean definitely as a young guy, you could see how, especially in like 2018, how like Tim Lowell and Susan and Claire dealt with the pressure and the expectation and the kind of unique sort of storm of media and other stuff that comes up around an Olympics. That’s a bit unique and I think. Those are probably some of my biggest takeaways from them is like how they manage stuff, outside of actually competing.

’cause that’s a lot of the challenge on Olympic year is, and yeah, also just seeing them prepare and train and, I learned a lot from training with those individuals and racing with them all throughout the years. That would then prepare you to [00:41:00] also, a classic thing that happens is at a big event is that people feel like they need to do something different or something special or pull some magic out, and you watch the people that are successful at those times and you know, they just keep even and they just.

Set themselves off the best they can and then go out there and you know, actually just try to do their normal good work and then all of a sudden, like in 20, what was that on until it’s 2020, right? Susan Silver in the print?

Jill Jaracz: I think so.

SPC Sean Doherty: And so that was one of those races where like, man, you know, in training camp before Susan was the same, same Susan that she’d always been, you know, but then all of a sudden she just.

put one together and had a hell of a day. And that kind of example is when you see someone do that, that you trained with so much then Yeah. You know, to believe in, in, in your preparation, in your process. And then just go out there and, and do it.

Sean Doherty’s favorite race format

Jill Jaracz: Do you have a favorite race format?

SPC Sean Doherty: yeah. I mean, each [00:42:00] race has its own sort of characteristic that I really enjoy. I really like, like mass start racing, like relays, pursuits, and mass starts just because of the head-to-head element. Um, I think those are really cool. but also I think the individual has a cool place as a shooting race and I think relays are really cool. And if I was to pick my favorite races, they would be like pursuits and mass starts of like the ones that I, that I look forward to, the most

Jill Jaracz: excellent. Excellent. Well, Sean, thank you so much for spending time with us while you’re on race week. We really appreciate it.

SPC Sean Doherty: Well, yeah. Fun talking shop. Thanks for the quick good questions.

SSG Deedra Irwin talks biathlon

Jill Jaracz: Thank you so much, Sean. Next up we’re talking with Staff Sergeant Deedra Irwin as a winter athlete. Deedra got her start in cross country and at age 25 was planning to retire. When she discovered by Alon. She joined the US Army’s World Class Athlete program as a human resource specialist, and subsequently made her first Olympic.

Team in 2022, while the US has never [00:43:00] meddled in biathlon at the Olympics, Deedra’s had the best individual finished by an American at any Olympics placing seventh in the Women’s 15 K individual race at Beijing 2022. And that was a pretty spectacular day for the us. Uh, we talked with Deedra on December 9th, which was after the opening week of competition for the 20 25, 26 season.

she had a really tough. Weekend, that first race weekend and her first race was, really difficult in the first round of shooting. She missed four rounds and couldn’t figure out where they were going. So if you went back and watched this, you’d be, you. Usually the, the biathletes are just.

Heads in the gun and in the sights and looking and shooting and getting outta the, the, the range. But, Deedra like actually looked around to try to figure out where her bullets were going, and it was really tough to see when that happens. However, she has been on an upward trajectory since then and has been getting some prize money while she’s at it.

And you know how I love when athletes make some coin, especially in the smaller [00:44:00] sports. take a listen to our conversation with Deedra.

Deedra Irwin on planning out a season

Jill Jaracz: Steph, Sergeant Tedra Irwin, thank you so much for joining us Thanks for having me talking. As we are talking, week one of the biathlon season just finished. Long season race weakens vary in terms of the number of races. So how do you plan out your season in terms of summer training and like fitness goals and trying to peak at the right times?

SSG Deedra Irwin: That is such a hard question, and I think like if everybody knew that answer course, everyone would be doing well all the time. I’ve seen some athletes literally peak every four years just for the Olympics. I’ve seen some people peak the year before the Olympics. And you know, they think that going into the next season, if they do all the same stuff, it’ll happen again.

And it doesn’t. And so I think for me, I’ve had kind of this like every other season I have really good results and depending on my health and, [00:45:00] and you know, sickness and everything. And, and so I think that actually plays more role into it than our actual fitness and training. A lot of us do all the same stuff and we’re, we’re putting in all the same work, but it really comes down to who can stay the healthiest at the right time, who can, you know, have the right nutrition, like not sustain a weird injury.

I’ve had like three crashes this year that have taken me out of races, you know, or, or training for a little while. So I think it’s, that’s the game. You know, there’s no perfect formula of how do we peak for an event. It really just comes down to like every little thing we do all the time.

Alison Brown: How do you deal with the frustration of you train so hard, you train so hard, and then you have a crash or something funky happens, you know, you catch a cold and you just, that must be so wearing on you.

SSG Deedra Irwin: It is. Um, I would be lying if [00:46:00] I said that this sport, the entire career of my sports, you know, this is like my third or fourth sport I’ve done now that it hasn’t just like, brought me to tears and wondering why I am doing it and how do I keep going and should I move on? Or, is it time to be done or is this the injury that’s finally gonna like, cause the end?

or is this the frustration that I’m not gonna mentally be able to come back from this time? And so it is, it’s, it’s a very difficult thing. And I think one thing that’s really helped me is I have an incredible support system. My family, my fiance, my friends, they all like. Look at me as if, like, I’m already, I’ve already won an Olympic medal all the time, so it’s really easy to just be able to, take it one day at a time and just keep kind of going through the motions until all of a sudden you’re like, oh, I’m back to normal again.

I can move my leg again. It doesn’t hurt anymore. You know, everything’s healed up, you know, whatever shoulder, injury I’ve had, even with a cold, I woke up with a sore throat yesterday morning and I was like, all right, I hope it’s not a cold. You know, you just kind of sit there and you, you just kind of take it day by day, hour by hour training session by training session, until all of a sudden all the bad stuff is gone and you’re like, oh, I feel good again.

I’m ready to race. I’m mentally here. And so I think it’s just, continuing to move forward while you still have that motivation, while you still have that, you know, support. And so that’s one thing that’s really helped me through, gosh, I mean, I could tell you probably about 50 different ways.

I thought I was gonna quit since I started taking sports super seriously when I was in like, I don’t know, eighth grade, you know? So, but I think that’s what makes a lot of Olympians and a lot of people who have continued doing sports for so long in their life that makes them so unique because we’ve all been hit with about 50 different ways to fail, and we’ve been handed 50 different ways to give up and, and we are still here and we’re still trying, and we’re still pushing and we’re still motivated by the fans, we’re still motivated by, just pushing ourselves to the limit and beyond everything we can imagine ourselves to be able to experience at the time.

What Deedra does after a bad race

Jill Jaracz: I have about 20 questions off of that, but do you allow yourself to wallow after a bad raise?

SSG Deedra Irwin: I do. I actually, because, because I

Jill Jaracz: mean, we can just put it out there, like the individual this past week was tough, bad wins, and then you zeroed. But like even Chad Samala said on the counter, he’s like, she doesn’t know where her bullets are going.

Like what? I mean, that’s just wacky. And that’s by Apple. Oh,

SSG Deedra Irwin: totally. Yeah. And I mean, that was one where, you know, I took the clicks into the wind and I was still not hitting, and I was just like, I mean people, if they watch the replay on the mat, the Norwegian media asked me after, they’re like, which swear words were you using?

And I’m like, don’t. I was like, I um [00:49:00] hmm. I was like, I think you guys know all our American swear words definitely

Alison Brown: cannot swear in Norwegian apparently In Biathlon.

SSG Deedra Irwin: Yeah, exactly. I know you get fined for that. I told them that. I was like, you trying to get me fined on Norwegian media? Like no. but yeah, it’s just one of those things where you just don’t know.

And I, I was sitting there and I had taken four clicks into the wind, which if a lot of people don’t know that it really moves the bullet about two centimeters. Our target’s only four centimeters big. So it’s like I took quite a few clicks into the wind and when my coach showed me, my board after that about, and was like, you need five more.

I was like, that was a nine click wind. That means like out of this little target that’s like about the size of a golf ball. I needed to move like three quarters of a golf ball. That’s how strong the wind was. Like, no, my brain was just like after that and you could tell by the end of the race I finally got back into my rhythm and I was able to shoot well again.

But having such a bad shooting stage, [00:50:00] just opening up like that, it was really mentally tough. And yeah, after the race I definitely was just like wallowed in that, but I could find the good stuff from that race. There was good stuff that happened in that race. So like I skied the top ski time out of my teammates even with a crash.

’cause I also crashed during the race and. Right. Bruised my leg really bad. Um, and so I’m, you know, and I was able to come back and shoot my last standing stage clean in under 30 seconds in the wind, which is huge. So, I mean, there were definitely some positives to pull out of that race that I, I was really happy about.

But I, uh, I usually tell myself, I’ll give myself like five minutes if I need to like cry, punch, scream, be angry, I’ll give myself five minutes and then you gotta just like move on to the next thing. And so let’s say I tell a lot of my teammates too, where I’m like. If you dwell on it too long, you’re gonna just really like spiral yourself into this hole where you’re gonna start wondering like what you did wrong.

And, and most [00:51:00] of the time, especially in biathlon, we didn’t do anything wrong. We just didn’t execute the way we know how we can execute. We’ve all been through a training where we’ve hit 80 out of 80 shots for the day and we’re like feeling on top of the world and we know we can do that in a race. But executing that under all that pressure, with all the elements, with everything going on, it’s not an easy task.

And so you have to be for forgiving about those one or two misses or for me, you know, just knowing that like that was so out of my control. I was zeroed. The group, they showed me, I mean all five of my bullets were like really small, tight group. I wasn’t shooting poorly, it just wasn’t my day with the wind.

So it’s one of those things where like you gotta definitely. Understand where you made your mistakes, or like, definitely reflect on how your body felt that day. If you had a bad race and you’re just like, I don’t know where that came from. Like, you know, maybe your energy’s off, maybe you didn’t eat the right food, maybe you didn’t [00:52:00] sleep well.

So like, there’s definitely a point to the wallowing. You gotta like really use that to dissect what happened. But you can’t use it to like pull yourself down. You gotta dissect it, learn from it, and then try to bring yourself up into the next race. Because like you said, our season’s really long.

We have a ton more races going on, including all the Olympic races, which are even higher pressure. So it’s gonna be, and it always is a really long season where you’re gonna make a lot of mistakes, but you also, hopefully you’ll clean a few races and get some really good results.

What Deedra Irwin does after a great race

Jill Jaracz: On the flip side, when you do do well, I, how long do you.

Enjoy that victory, the personal victory before you have to, like, do you have to turn it off in order to focus on the next race? You, you know? Yeah, definitely. You know what I mean? It’s like the opposite of wallowing. Yeah. But, but can that lead to overconfidence, which could lead to mistakes or No, not necessarily.

SSG Deedra Irwin: I think it’s yes and no. I think for [00:53:00] some athletes, like, definitely depending, it could, it could make them a little more risky maybe with the shooting part or something like that. like in my, in the mixed relay, I mean, I still brag about it. I was like my 23 second clean prone, I felt sexy getting off the mat.

I mean, I was just like, girl, that was good. But then of course I followed it up with four misses in the individual in 50 seconds. So, you know, it’s like very humbling. So it’s like I can still look back at that shooting stage in the relay knowing like, I can do that. I felt really good doing that. I remember how it felt to perform that way and definitely love and enjoy that moment, but also I got humbled real quick two days later.

And so it’s definitely, especially for our sport, there’s this level of you can definitely gain confidence from your good results and you can build and build and build on those. but there might be a day where it comes up and all of a sudden you’re the one [00:54:00] missing all the targets or you’re just bonking in a race or whatever’s happening.

And so I think you definitely wanna celebrate the good races for sure. but I think, what was it? I remember it was distinctly, man, it was a couple years ago now where I got my first eighth place. I got like my first top 10, I think my only top 10 on the World Cup. cause I cleaned a sprint and of course after the sprint next day is the pursuit.

And so I’m sitting there like starting bib eight. Nervous. Totally nervous. Barely slept that night. ’cause I was like so excited, but also nervous. And I just went into that day being like, I got this. But I think I kind of maybe had a little bit of imposter syndrome where I was like, I’m normally not up this high.

You know, I’m used to like crawling my way back up from like bib 30 or something. And so I definitely like that first shooting stage in that race. I think I missed two and then I cleaned the rest of the race and did fine. But I think that first stage I almost had to like, get that outta my system and be like, oh, okay.

I’m not unstoppable. I, I, I am like, I [00:55:00] do have to fight. I have to like, turn that on. Like, Maybe don’t think I belong here yet, but like I will work to belong here. You know? And so I think there’s all of that learning that you take from all of the really, really high highs and also the really low lows that, you know, the people who can meet in the middle are the ones who end up being able to perform the best and the more consistent.

’cause our sport is honestly about consistency. You know, you can win a World Cup one day and then you can be at the bottom the next

Jill Jaracz: with that sexy shooting.

Getting a payday in biathlon

Jill Jaracz: You got a payday, which is always exciting, I think, for me.

SSG Deedra Irwin: Yes, totally. Yeah. No, it definitely, I mean, especially for a lot of the US athletes, we’re all like, we don’t get paid on a regular basis.

So anytime we can sneak into the prize money, it’s a super cool feeling. I mean, I remember telling myself, cause I think that was. My teammate Chloe Levins, it was her first time making money on the World Cup in that relay. And so I knew, I heard somebody was chasing me down, I think it was Hannah Oberg, [00:56:00] and I was just like skiing my butt off.

’cause I didn’t really know what place I was in, but I knew we needed a top eight and I was just like, do it for Chloe. She needs a payday. You know, like I’m like lucky enough that I get paid by the army, but like I am sensitive to the fact that a lot of my teammates, they are doing this like out of, you know, just the love of the sport and they don’t get paid to be here and they’re constantly having to pay for, you know, the breaks between World Cups where they’re gonna stay for Christmas.

And it is not cheap to stay over in Europe during Christmas. especially where there’s snow where everybody wants to be. So I definitely think like, yeah, anytime we get a payday is super amazing and especially as a team, it’s really cool when we get to do it as a relay. ’cause anytime, top eight, top eight in the world, that just sounds cool to say, come on.

Alison Brown: And Hannah Oberg chasing you down is no joke.

SSG Deedra Irwin: No joke. It was so funny because I think I was just so out of it. It’s the first weekend of racing and someone was screaming at me, Hannah’s coming. And I literally was like, who’s Hannah? [00:57:00] Like I had no idea until like halfway through the loop that like I finally had processed.

I was like, Hannah Obergs coming for me. Oh my gosh. Like I better get moving. ’cause she is a powerhouse. I think she just set the record this past week for like biggest move in a pursuit ever on the World Cup. Did you see that? She moved 50 places. She started BIB 59 and got all the way up to ninth place.

Like who does that? And she didn’t clean either. Like she missed two. And so I was just like, huh. She’s fit and I think, yeah, I think I saw it on the biathlon world. They were, they were like, A new record has been set for pursuit movement, 50 places. Crazy, insane. She’s a beast. Love her.

Jill Jaracz: Biathlon is a crazy sport, but there, yeah, there are a lot of insane people on biathlon, I mean. Mm-hmm. But that’s what makes it fun too, is because there’s so many athletes that you can follow and get excited about.

SSG Deedra Irwin: Totally. Yeah. I mean, I was excited to watch [00:58:00] the sprint and pursuit this past weekend.

Uh, sadly I didn’t get to race them, but I was cheering on the sideline watching Lisa Theresa Hauser win it in the last stage. I mean, biathlon is so exciting. Being able to be a fan for the weekend was just like so fun to be able to like be excited and watching my teammates, and not even my teammates, just watching biathlon in general, I’m like.

This is the coolest sport ever. And I mean, maybe I’m a little biased, but it’s the coolest sport ever.

Training for high altitude venues

Jill Jaracz: Antos classic World Cup venue.

And also Olympics venue this year. very high altitude. How do you train for altitude, first off, and then where on the course can you get advantages?

SSG Deedra Irwin: Oh, yeah. I mean, so there’s a lot of places we can train for altitude. We trained in Anholts this summer to get some altitude training. We also trained in Lavino, Italy, which is higher than Anol.

I believe before the Olympics we’re gonna have a camp [00:59:00] in Renno in Italy, which is, I think either the same height or slightly higher than on Holts. It’s like an IBU cup racing venue. but yeah, there’s, we’re at al we at like middle altitude right now in Hook fil in. So we’re kind of, we use some of the race venues obviously to train up and race at altitude.

but then we will definitely do like a. Oh my gosh, the word is so hard. An acclimation, aclima, whatever, whatever that word is. It’s late here, to get used to the altitude before the Olympics. So we’ll spend I think about three weeks if I’m right. I think we’re actually sitting out one of the World Cups in second trimester to gain more altitude exposure.

And I think a lot of the teams will do that, um, because on tilt is at altitude. And I think for me, I raced really well at altitude. I don’t know if it’s because, I trained in Sun Valley for two seasons or three summers when I was racing, you know, Nordic skiing. So I think I kind of figured out how to race at altitude, which is [01:00:00] definitely more of a.

You can’t be so quick, you can’t use all your oxygen all at once. You have to be a little more powerful and have a little bit more finesse and endurance to your, I guess, form and your racing pacing style. and so I think there’s a lot we can gain in on Toltz with the training at Altitude. And then a lot of us have experience racing at Altitude.

and it’s also, we have a lot of experience at On Holtz in general because it’s a World Cup venue. A lot of us already know the course. They’ve only made like a couple changes here and there throughout the past couple years. yeah, so I think, I think there’s a lot to gain on the course, but obviously like it’s all gonna come down to the range and who can shoot the best at altitude.

So that’s the big one, is people, you know, being able to shoot with like the oxygen deprivation, you know, the ones who are a little more comfortable taking an extra breath between shots or, shutting down a little bit more into the range and, taking their time, setting up so that they have enough oxygen.

And they can get their heart rate under control before they actually start pulling the trigger. [01:01:00] So I think that’s kind of, kind of make the biggest difference. And I think you see it a lot when you’re at altitude, and we have races at altitude, is the shooting gets crazy.

Jill Jaracz: you’ve got races at different lengths. Does the physical course change or is it just like the number of loops? So in the, I I, I know in Sprint it’s, just cutting the race in half basically. But, do some of the other distances change where you go into the, the trails?

SSG Deedra Irwin: Yeah. So for a sprint we’ll do a two and a half kilometer loop.

and so that’s kind of our basic loop at most of these venues. For the individual, we will add half a k. Somewhere on the loop. It’s usually we go out and do an extra little finger somewhere to do a three K loop. And then in what would be the pursuit and the relays, when we’re doing two kilometer loops, they usually find some sort of cutoff to cut off a certain half a kilometer from our course.

And so the same with the men. The men will do a 3.3 K course. and then for the individual they’ll do a [01:02:00] 4K course. So they like really go out there. Very rarely, unless we have low snow, do we end up just like doing double loops or something like that, which on the World Cup I haven’t had to do much. maybe only like once in the past three years did we have like such a low snow that only like 2K was open.

So like, I think for the men, they had them do, like, you have to do two loops and then you get to shoot and then you do a loop and shoot. So it’s like trying to add the kilometers either before at the end of the race, but very rarely does that happen.

Gender equality in biathlon

Jill Jaracz: Speaking of the men having a different race length, we, on the podcast have talked a fair amount about gender equality and on the summer Olympic side, they talk about it a lot, but they tone that down because women still can’t do Nordic combined for the Winter Olympics. So there’s, you know, you get that but biathlon is interesting because you have the equal number of races and you have equal pay for the, the prize payout.

But the men and the women race different [01:03:00] lengths. How is that perceived within the Biathlon community?

SSG Deedra Irwin: yeah. I think we’re fine with it. I think a lot of it comes down to like, in my mind, like we do the difference between men and women. Is obvious to me, like men can handle a bigger load if you start racing.

If I started racing, like what, what do they do? 10 K that pretty much is a 10 K sprint. And then on top of that, a 20 K, like it would take a lot, a different training than what we’re used to. And so I think the big thing is we spend about the same amount of time doing the same things. So like our sprint takes about 25 minutes, their sprint takes about 25 minutes.

So when you actually look at like how much time we spend doing it, and so that goes down to like TV ratings too. ’cause like the IBU has to, you know, everybody’s gotta pay to advertise and everything like that. So I think when everybody’s looking at biathlon as a whole from the outside, we get our prize money from TV, viewings, we race for the same [01:04:00] amount of time.

In a lot of our minds we are treated equally. You know, even though we’re skiing less of a distance, but. in my mind and my background with like sports science and exercise science, like the biology is different. I don’t want to be racing as much as the men ’cause I don’t think my body can handle that.

And if I wanted to race that I would have to put in way more training to be able to achieve good results with how much more taxing that is on my body. Where I think like the men can obviously handle those distances. They have testosterone, they have all of the extra bone density or whatever, you know, you really wanna throw at it.

And so to me, and I think, I can’t speak for the entire biathlon community, ’cause I bet there’s some, some women and some men out there who do want us to race equal distance. But even when I look at how the Nordic Circuit has done it, I think it’s really cool that they’re racing the same distance. but I do see a lot of women sitting out more races now because it’s so exhausting.[01:05:00]

So it’s, it’s a lot to race all of those distances for the entire season. ’cause we have like 30 races a season. And so if you add on, you know, an extra five to 10 kilometers a week for the women, it’s like you could see more injuries, you could see more fatigue, you see more people strategically sitting out races, to try and survive the whole season.

And so maybe in the future, you know, people will wanna do it. But I think right now, like we have equal TV time, we have equal representation on the start line. We have equal pay. I feel like the IVU is far ahead of most other organizations in treating the men and the women very, very equally.

Jill Jaracz: No, it’s interesting because it’s easy to sit on the couch and look at the distances and the numbers and just not know in the background what that means.

So that’s, yeah, that’s really interesting.

SSG Deedra Irwin: Um, yeah, for me definitely. I think it comes down to just like body fatigue. I think if we want women to, to continue in the sport [01:06:00] for longer, putting them through much more of a load, I think would be, it’d be difficult. And it’s, it’s, they’re ha they’re doing it though on the Nordic circuit and they’re doing it super well.

So I think that, you know, only time will tell if that’s actually going to be, you know, the way we all move forward in all the sports.

Jill Jaracz: No, that’s interesting. But they’re also not skiing around with a gun on their back.

SSG Deedra Irwin: That’s true. That’s true. We gotta carry an extra, like seven and a half to eight pounds, you know, and that, and that is also very fatiguing.

I mean, there’s some days where, yeah, if I wanna save my energy a little bit, instead of doing my pre-race with my rifle on my back, I will leave it on the rack and just pick it up to shoot, just to kind of not fatigue my body as much. So it’s definitely all like, comes down to an energy balance and, and that kind of.

Thing. Like if they told me I had to race a 10 K for a sprint, I would totally do it and I could train for it, but it would probably take me a couple years until I could do it. Well

The best way to carry a rifle on your back

Jill Jaracz: speaking of having a gun on [01:07:00] your back, cause a lot of athletes do get back injuries. I would assume the gun helps be part of, or that the gun is part of that in a way. But like where does the weight sit? And when you fling that gun back on your shoulders after a shooting stage, what does that feel like?

SSG Deedra Irwin: Wow, great questions. so we actually, us biathlon tried to figure out the best way to have our rifles on our back.

And we did this with the, I think everybody knows by now, we’ve partnered with Montana State University, biomechanics department. They do a bunch of stuff with us, from weight sensors or pressure sensors in our boots to, you know, videos on the treadmill of like our little skeletons moving around and doing all of the different things.

One thing they also did was measure, I guess like the angle and where the weight should be on our backs. And what we’ve realized is that we should [01:08:00] have our rifles sitting as high up as possible on the harness, so you can adjust the harness height. So as long as there’s no, like impeding of the butt plate, you know, it’s not hitting you or stabbing you in the back, you’d have as high as possible.

And then there’s that little, you guys kind of see the little, I guess the little metal part from the harness part that sticks onto the rifle. So we try to like maximize the rifle being up top, I guess, instead of sitting low. And so that way the rifle’s not pulling you back because when you want a more efficient technique for skiing, you want to be kind of forward and have your center of mass forward over your toes.

Your hips are supposed to be up. And so having the rifle actually higher on your back helps you bring everything forward. And so a lot of the pressure that’s sitting on us, it’s sitting like pretty much right in the, like underneath our neck is where the weight is. kind of where that little harness kind of connects to the rifle.

[01:09:00] obviously everybody takes off their rifles different ways and puts them on different ways depending on how they like to set up or get up. but I think at this point. The rifles kind of just become part of our skiing so much that like, putting it on our back, like in the middle of the race, it’s, I don’t really feel it anymore.

Like, it doesn’t feel like, as I’m throwing it back on, I feel this like, weight coming onto me. It’s just sort of like, just becomes a part of you. And so obviously if the, if the, if anything’s off, like if the harness is a little shaky or your, your bungees, we, it’s, ’cause it’s like pretty much a bungee cord that holds it onto our bodies.

If those are a little loose, you can definitely feel the rifle flopping around and you’ll see that if people have accidentally broken their harness in the race or something. But for the most part, I think, we’ve done the science to try and figure out if it’s sit high, low or middle. We’ve decided higher is better.

and when you think about how much eight pounds actually is, it’s, it’s not a ton. So like the immediate feeling of putting on your back isn’t like [01:10:00] you feel weighted down. It’s more of like the fatigue that comes towards the end of the race. You might be able to feel it and see it in your technique.

Deedra Irwin on her biathlon rifle

Alison Brown: Do you have a name for your rifle?

SSG Deedra Irwin: I don’t. And you know, I thought, I thought after, like what have I been in this eight years now that like a name would have like manifested itself? cause like I, I definitely don’t just like buy a car and name it, my car has to earn its name. You know, like most of the things that we, we treat as our lovely inanimate objects, they have to earn their name.

and it’s not that she hasn’t earned it, but like, she just, it, it hasn’t really popped out to me in any way yet. So, like, I know she’s a, she, she’s, she’s a strong she, so I know that bit. but uh, yeah, she hasn’t gotten a really a name yet. I’m trying to think like. No, nothing’s, I haven’t thought about that for a couple years.

’cause it definitely was like the first four years I was like, okay, it’s gonna happen. Some sort of name’s gonna come [01:11:00] up in my mind and it’s gonna be it, and it just still hasn’t happened. So, if anything, like yeah, I mean, every once in a while we talk about our babies, like they’re expensive little babies, you know?

So, like, I got my little baby over there. She’s, I got a cleaner actually

gotta bathe her, you know, once a week.

Jill Jaracz: speaking Of expensive, they are expensive, but they’re really fun to shoot. how much are we talking and what kind of,

SSG Deedra Irwin: gun do you have? so luckily when I first decided to do biathlon, I had an incredibly generous donor.

Give me the rifle that I race with. Uh, and so I’m so ever grateful to them. ’cause I don’t think, I mean, before I started Biathlon I was pretty much homeless, living with friends out in, you know, Idaho that had taken me in, you know, into their home. And so I didn’t, definitely didn’t have like, what is I think now, about $4,000 to drop on a rifle.

[01:12:00] Like, you know, I could barely like pay for gas to like get to work every day. So I was very lucky to get someone who donated to the rifle to me. but since then I have invested probably another $4,000 into the rifle. because obviously I got it as like just an ons shoot stock. So I have an ons, shoots Sprint Barrel, which is what most people race with these days.

It’s a company out of Germany, Fortner Ons shoots. It’s probably the best bathroom rifle you can get. Um, and it just came with their stock barrel, I mean stock, stock, which is like the wooden, or you know, a lot of people have like a carbon fiber now. Um, and so it just came with that. And so I ended up getting this like beautiful French stock, uh, made outta this really light, I think it’s called like palm wood or something like that.

I really wanted a wooden one ’cause I wanted to be able to like, manipulate it and work it how I wanted to. but I think actually the year before the Olympics, I like broke my first stock. [01:13:00] Lunging to a finish in the Czech Republic for our, like, best women’s Relay. Back when we had clearance, Susan, we got like a fifth place lunged fell on the stock, snapped it.

So sad. but that happens in our sport because, you know, you just fall on your rifle, it’s gonna break. So I ended up buying a new one, very similar to the old one, with the same company, but since then I’ve had so many modifications put onto it. I have parts from 3D Athletics, which is an awesome brand out of France, which 3D prints, like hand molded.

Like he custom built all of the pieces for me to com to fit my hands, specifically how I wanted it to. and then there’s also Lost Nation, which is the company based outta k crafts, bury Vermont from the dga, Ethan Dreiger. He’s like our, our person in the United States who does most of our gunsmithing and, and building of our stuff because it’s such a unique sport.

And so I also have a lot of parts from him. So it’s like. Our rifles and our stocks kind of end up [01:14:00] becoming just like Franken stocks after many years. You know, there’s nothing that’s really like, not customizable, especially if you have a wooden stock. You know, people have stuff shaved, or a lot of people have like repaint theirs every year and they get custom, like magazine toppers.

And, um, we have different, different ways we can install the sites. There’s different levels we can put it on, like site risers is what they’re called. We all have different types of triggers depending on what type of trigger we like. Like I have a, I think I actually have like a BB rifle trigger on mine or something like that.

I don’t actually know where it came from, but I saw it, I liked it and I shoot well with it, so it just became my trigger. But I’ve tried like six different triggers. I’ve tried like six different bolt throws, which is, the little piece, just that little piece to like pull the bolt back and reload the, the ammo.

So there’s so many different. Tiny pieces on our rifle that we can customize that eventually add up to a lot of money. So my, my rifle, if I sold it as is, is probably worth about $5,000 right now. But then used, I would, I would knock off a couple thousand, you know, if I was selling it to a kid or something, I would be like, this, the stock’s been used, you know, she’s been beat up a little bit.

Deedra Irwin on the WCAP

Jill Jaracz: You’re part of the world class athlete program. How does your Army training separate you from, or set you apart from other US Biathletes athletes? And maybe ’cause there are a lot of biathletes on the circuit who are also in the army, correct?

SSG Deedra Irwin: Yes, yes. just on our team alone, Maxim Germaine, he joined the Vermont National Guard about a year or so after me, specialist Doherty, Sean Doherty. He joined I think like a week, the same week as me or something like that. and then Sergeant Cervenka, he joined about the same week as me, so we all kind of joined around the same time.

And so we are currently representing, the US Army and Vermont National Guard over here in Europe this [01:16:00] season. But yeah, I mean, Lisa Theresa Hauser is part of the Austrian military. Simon is part of the Austrian military. I think like McKayla Carrera, I might be wrong. Some of the Italians are definitely part of the carbon area.

Carbon area. It sounds like a, it sounds like a pasta dish, but it’s actually their police unit. but yeah, there’s a lot. There’s like Finnish, the Finnish military, a couple, I know a couple of the athletes from the Finn team. definitely the German team. There’s a handful of them.

So a lot of the biathletes are like in the international circuit and in the development circuit on the IBU Cup are part of some sort of government, police, or military program. and I think it’s, it helps in so many ways to have that extra, it’s almost like club level support, how we look at it in the us. Um, so you have people who are part of K crafts berry, you have people part of Team Burkey or, I’m trying to think of some of the other clubs. Soho and Bozeman, they all have different clubs.

Um, and so the US Army team is kind of just this other club, um, where we get a lot of [01:17:00] support and funding. From the US Army, but obviously we’re soldiers and we’re soldier athletes and so we all also have jobs and careers outside of biathlon. So I’m a human resource specialist and I think it’s a pretty unique, way to, to feel like you have a career outside of.

This one passion. You know, I call this like my passion career bilon, I think can be a full-time job for some people. but it’s definitely like a passion to put yourself through what we put ourselves through year in and year out and all the training and all the racing and everything. and so if I could do it forever, I would, but you know, eventually I’m gonna have to like move on to another career.

And I think, you know, being able to have the US Army support that and know that, you know, I have an option when I’m done to, continue on with my career as a soldier is a really unique opportunity that we have as, world class athlete, program soldier athletes. And [01:18:00] so there’s so many things I think I’ve also learned from the Army.

Just like going to basic training when I was like 26 years old is like not, I don’t recommend it. I don’t recommend going to basic training in your twenties. It was tough. It’s tough. Being in a situation where you, you think you’re independent and all of a sudden you’re being told what to do all the time and you have to completely retrain your brain and your body to like work as a team and not just be independent.

You know? And I think especially as me as a female athlete growing up the entire time I was like, totally thought I knew how to do everything the right way. And then being told that like, didn’t matter, I still had to do it their way. You know, I definitely learned how to just like, work in an uncomfortable situation.

Like a lot of times we’re like out in the forest and they’re just like, okay, complete this task. You know? And it’s like you’re already a cold, you’re already dirty or uncomfortable. And so you learn this really unique like resiliency and the ability to work, on a team and as a team [01:19:00] to achieve a common goal.

And so I think the US Army brings. So much and has taught me so much and it’s brought so much to my, like mind as an athlete and it’s helped me grow in that kind of resiliency like we were talking about earlier, like how do you deal with, you know, the losses, how do you deal with the failures? How do you deal with the success?

How do you find that? And I think I learned a lot of, of that kind of being in the military and obviously throughout life, but you know, the military puts you through some really unique situations that, and basic training. So, you can always reminisce with your battle buddies about that.

Alison Brown: We asked the same question of Sean Doherty and I wanna ask it of you. did you keep your athlete ness a secret during basic training and then have a little fun at marksman training?

SSG Deedra Irwin: I tried, but somebody, somebody from Vermont called down there. Let my commander know. And so I was just like, not telling [01:20:00] anybody, I was just like, people were like, what do you do?

And I was like, sports, you know, whatever, people can make up whatever they want. Like what do I do? I don’t know what I do. Um, and I was trying to think of like a cool backstory so that people wouldn’t know, and so that I didn’t have to like go out and win the PT test the first day. but we’re all standing in line at reception and they’re calling off all our names.

Like, you’re now in, gosh, I can’t even remember what company I was in, like echo something, you know? They’re like, you’re an echo company. I’m like, okay. And this commander comes walking by and he just goes, Irwin, and I’m like, present, you know, trying to just be like here, And he just goes, you’re the Olympian, right?

And I went, no, not yet, sir. Because obviously that was like three years before I actually made the Olympics. And I’m just like, not yet sir, but I wanna be. And so he just is like, okay. And he walks away and I’m like, oh, maybe that’s the last I’ll hear of it. Maybe no one else heard. You know, I don’t want all these other girls, you [01:21:00] know, like thinking of me like this certain way.

First PT test, they throw us in, I’m like jogging the mile. ’cause I know I can just like jog it and hit the standard. And I got these drill sergeants yelling off for me. They’re like, we heard you were good at this. And I was just like, no. And so me thinking I could just like jog my way through pt. All of a sudden I’m getting yelled at by all these drill sergeants.

They’re like, you better beat these boys. And they’re just yelling at me and all of a sudden like, I’m just starting. Okay fine. So I start like tracking the boys down one by one. And, and one guy is the only guy that ended up beating me the whole time we were there. He’s a faster runner than me, but it was hilarious the entire time there ended up being bets.

So like what standard I was gonna hit, how fast I could run the two mile. it was really fun and little did I know eventually, like being good at PT was how I was gonna be able to get, like phone time, you know? ’cause they don’t let you use your phones at basic training, at least not. When I [01:22:00] went, I got my phone four times and three of the times was because I won the PT test.

So I definitely was just like, they were like, the first thing they put on whoever wins the PT test will get 30 minutes on their phones so they can call their, mom or significant other. And I was just like done cranking through pushups, sit-ups, running the two mile as fast as I could. So it was, it was a, a unique, a unique experience like I said.

So I sadly did not get to keep it as much of a secret as Sean did and. Also, I think like on the men’s side, there’s a lot of people who a lot of men who go into, basic training in the military who like, want to be the top athletic soldier. not that there’s not a, a lot of women who do that, but I think a lot of women don’t go into like, be like running the fastest, you know, doing 70 pushups and whatever, you know, that I was doing.

And so I definitely stood out as a female at basic training of just, being able to do very similar to what the men were able to do.

Deedra Irwin on seeing the big picture

Jill Jaracz: When we were talking about [01:23:00] like being resilient and taking things one step at a time, one race at a time, trying to make it blocky. I don’t know how to phrase this very well.

But when you start thinking in a very short spans of time, is that then harder to see the big picture and then also life beyond biathlon because you, you’re fortunate to have the Army and you have a career and you’ve built a career that will continue on and you’ve got this other side that kind of helps see big picture.

Does that make any sense?

SSG Deedra Irwin: Yeah, definitely. I think, I think a good way to help me explain this is, is talking about how many times I almost retired before I found Bilon. I mean, I think I grew up a runner. always wanted to be, I wanted to be an Olympic track star and so I really wanted to be a good runner and the more I got hit with.

Injuries and failure and that, the more I gravitated towards Nordic [01:24:00] skiing, which I was introduced to at, you know, 16 years old, which is much later than everybody I’m racing against. And so I think, for me, running was kind of a way to get into college and get my college paid for. ’cause otherwise, like I didn’t really, I mean, I was a decent student, but you know, I was like, I wanted scholarships.

I wanted to go to college for athletics. And so I think for me it was always big picture is like, get into college. So then when I got into college and I got to college, it definitely was like, when I’m done with college, I’m done competing, you know? And so I think I kind of always had that even going into my last year of college, I had that where, uh, when I’m done, I’m done.

You know? And I think I just sort of got this glimpse of this life beyond being a professional athlete when I made U 23 Worlds in 2015 and I was like. Well, maybe I can try professional skiing. And so then my perspective was able to shift and I was able to kind of see a life beyond that. And I think as you know, the financial [01:25:00] burden of racing on that circuit kind of came to you start getting to that point where I can go day by day and I can love training, but like big picture, I couldn’t see it anymore.

I couldn’t see what Nordic skiing was going to bring me and what this lifestyle was going to bring me. And so when I told people, I was like, I have to move on. I have to find something else. Like this is, I love this, but I can’t do it. And so then Joanne introduced me to Bilon. And so I was like, okay, well they’re willing to at least give me a place to live for six months and give me a purpose for six months.

And so for me it was really easy to decide and see the big picture of those six months of like, I’m gonna have fun and I’m gonna do biathlon and I’m still gonna move on with my life, but I’m gonna do this. And it’s just crazy how it’s kind of morphed and you know, of me like kind of ignoring the big picture and putting it off to the side and just focusing on that little small picture in front of me, like the next six months.

The next six months. It eventually led to [01:26:00] finding the military and finding, you know, the Vermont National Guard and finding the Army. ’cause all of a sudden then they were like, well if you sign a six year contract, they laid it out for me. Super. Well, you’ll get benefits, we’ll pay off your school, you’ll get some money and you’ll get to do bilon.

And then for me, I was like, this is a hard decision. But at the same time, this gives me something big for six years. this is a six year thing. And like if I do well, like I can make the Olympics and if I don’t, I can go to drill once a month, get a paycheck, and I can have a place to live. And I think.

That’s where the US Army, for me, it gave me, like you said, it gave me this big picture and it gave me the security of like not feeling like I was in a rush anymore. I was like, I’ll sign this six year contract. I know I’m gonna be in Vermont. I know I’m gonna wanna do Bathon and I really love doing Bathon and I think I can get good at this.

And it taking that kind of, I [01:27:00] think, pressure away from me of like, what’s the next thing in my life? Helped me excel in biathlon so much more. And so I think, you know, moving to the US Army world class athlete program has given me another perspective of, you know, the active duty side of, you know, where I can go beyond this too.

So I haven’t qualified for the Olympics yet and I really hope I do, but it’s kind of interesting of going into this Olympic cycle. I definitely feel a lot like. A lot more secure about my big picture of if I don’t achieve this goal, if I don’t achieve this goal, it’s not the end of my career as either by athlete or as a soldier.

It’s just a step. And so I think, you know, having, having been through so much of that up and down in my life has made me really appreciate the security that I do have now, the security that I have found with the US Army and with this program and with Biathlon, and so anything at this point, I mean, is it’s a little easier to get through.

I was having [01:28:00] a really hard time last week because they didn’t select me to race in the sprint, and I really wanted to race in the sprint, but, you know, they really wanted to race the team that they raced and it hurt to not get picked. But we, we only have three start spots this year, so this is what we’re dealing with this season.

and I think at one point in my like stress and anxiety and all the emotions I was feeling and throwing at myself at once, I finally just was like, I got off the phone with my fiance and I was like, this isn’t life or death. Why don’t I just have fun? You know? And just be able to like, go through all those emotions, feel everything, feel upset, feel disappointed, feel sad, feel everything.

But then also know like, this is a fun part of my life. I’m gonna look back at this in 20 years and I’m be like, holy crap. I was an Olympic by athlete competing on the world cup, living the dream, you know? And so in the moment it all feels like so hard and so tough and, and going to the Olympics feels like so much pressure and we wanna perform, we wanna do all this stuff.

But I think if anything, what I’ve [01:29:00] learned over the past. Eight years in biathlon and seven years now in the military is that, having this bigger, broader perspective of, of what my life is and what it can be. Being a biathlete is such a small part of it.

Jill Jaracz: Well, Deidre, we are out of time, but thank you so much for joining us and chatting by Alon.

SSG Deedra Irwin: Yeah. I feel like I talk all day to you guys. Thank you so much. It was such a fun podcast. You guys are wonderful.

Jill Jaracz: Thank you so much, Sean and Deedra, and thank you also to the US Army World Class Athlete Program for connecting us

Alison Brown: and most importantly, since we spoke to them, both have been officially named to the Olympic team.

Jill Jaracz: Yes,

Alison Brown: we will definitely see them in Italy.

Jill Jaracz: Well, we won’t see them

Alison Brown: in Italy.

Probably. We won’t see them. You at home will see them and we’ll see them on the television ’cause we can’t get there from here. But they will be there. Which is the most important element.

Support independent podcasting at Milano Cortina 2026!

Jill Jaracz: Exactly. You know what else is important about getting there?

Alison Brown: Our fundraiser?

Jill Jaracz: Yes.

Alison Brown: We are coming to the [01:30:00] last stretch, so we are doing a fundraiser to make sure that Jill and I get to Italy and get home from Italy.

Because that’s the, the second half of this and that we’re able to bring you 32 daily shows. It’s not cheap, it’s not free. But we want to do this and we love doing it. And I think the listeners love what we bring them. So to do this, we’ve got the fundraiser. If you go to our website, flame alive pod.com.

You’ll find the little popup menu. And if you wanna thank you gift, we only will guarantee a thank you gift if you donate by Friday, January 16th. So that is this week. And the thank you gifts are pretty cool. We’ve got postcards, we’ve got mascots. So take a look, have some fun with us and get us home.

Because we can get there so far with what we have may not be able to get home.

Jill Jaracz: and thank you for everybody who’s donated so far. We have made a huge dent in our fundraising goals and we just need to get [01:31:00] over the finish line. So please give us a hand and you can find the fundraising page. We’ll have a link in the show notes.

Of course. It’s also if you go to flame live pod.com, you’ll see a popup and a banner at the top to take you right there.

Milano Cortina 2026 News

Alison Brown: Hockey, non

Jill Jaracz: hockey is not ready. It’s ready enough.

Alison Brown: It’s proto ish. That an Italian phrase.

Santagiulia ice hockey venue finally has a test event

Jill Jaracz: So we finally had the ice hockey test event at the brand new Santa Julia, uh, hockey venue in Milano. Now we have an idea of what the stadium is like. And according to journalist Brian Pinelli, who covered the event for the hockey news and wrote several articles about it, we’ll throw some links in the show notes.

Uh, the powers that be in the, international Ice Hockey Federation and the IOC are very optimistic about the venue. And they believe that the ice hockey tournament will be successful even though there’s still plenty of work to be done. So the Ice Master for the Olympics is Colorado Avalanche Ice Master Don Moffitt.

This is his sixth Olympics. He’s no stranger to last minute preparations. they’re working on putting some ice. The players at the event were pretty satisfied with it. They said it, it was pretty consistent all the way through. It was a little thin. Goalkeeper said that you got a little hollow sound out of the ice, which was a little strange.

But, they also had some holes that they had to repair mid game. But, uh, it’s pretty good so far. Not perfect, but. Satisfactory.

Alison Brown: You know, I would think the hollow sound would definitely be disturbing to the goalie. If you ever use sound as part of your defense, you know, probably the sound of it really makes a difference to the goalie more than anybody else.

Jill Jaracz: Right,

Alison Brown: right. But as they lay more and more ice, that should get better.

Jill Jaracz: Yes, yes. Christophe Dube, the, IOC executive Director [01:33:00] said that he expects a number of areas where painting might not be fully dry, but nothing that would prevent anyone to work or enjoy the experience at.

Alison Brown: Well, that only becomes a problem if I lean against the wall in my new flannel line pants and the paint is not dry.

Christophe, are you gonna buy me a new pair of flannel lined pants, or I’m just gonna have to walk around with paint on my booty?

Jill Jaracz: Right? Because that could prevent you from enjoying the experience. It could prevent me from working too.

Alison Brown: Exactly.

Jill Jaracz: Brian Pinelli reported that the dressing rooms were, quote, a work in progress with eight of 14 completed so far.

And concession stands were non-existent as we predicted last week. in one of his articles, he had a, a picture of the sandwich bar, which just you see sandwich bar and you see a bar. There’s no sandwiches, no panini,

Andrea Bocelli to have another Olympic appearance

Jill Jaracz: the Milano Corina Organizing Committee announced another opening ceremony performer to no one’s [01:34:00] surprise and to much excitement, I would say.

Andrea Celi,

Alison Brown: you had to,

Jill Jaracz: yeah.

Alison Brown: Yes. I mean, this is, how could you have an Italian ceremony without Andrea Belli? That is just like having Italian food with no pizza.

Jill Jaracz: Well, yes and uh, he’s performed at the Torino 2006 closing ceremony. So he is no stranger to Olympic ceremonies and this will be exciting and beautiful.

I will say, you know, he’s got an amazing voice and this will be, honestly, one of those. I can already see them clipping it within 30 seconds of it happening and getting that sucker isolated and on socials

Alison Brown: everywhere we will see him.

New Shapers 10K Run during Milano Cortina 2026

Jill Jaracz: If you were excited about the marathon, port two at Paris 2024, get excited again.

There’s going to be a 10 K fun run in Milano. This will be the new Shapers Run sponsored by Solomon. It will take place on Saturday, [01:35:00] February 21st, which is the day before the closing ceremony at 9:30 AM at Via Lagano with a race expo on Thursday and Friday the 18th and 19th. the field is limited to 10,000 routers, costs 40 euros until January 31st, 50 euros after that until it’s full.

The fee includes a race bib event, t-shirt, goodie bag, post-race refreshments, and a finisher’s medal. We will have a link to registration in the show notes

Alison Brown: and I hope it includes maybe some mittens. ’cause it may be a little chill for a fun

Jill Jaracz: run. I dunno. But the, the shirt was really cool looking.

Alison Brown: Oh,

Jill Jaracz: it has Milano Cortina 26 on it.

It’s very cool. It’s tempting to run. I haven’t run a 10 K in forever, so that would be a negative for me.

Alison Brown: Well, you could just walk fast.

Jill Jaracz: I could, I could probably walk fast by then.

Alison Brown: You do a hundred miles on the bicycle. How much harder could a 10 K be?

Jill Jaracz: Biking and running are two different things maybe.

Alison Brown: I know,

Jill Jaracz: but I don’t know.

The [01:36:00] temptation is there. The schedule may not allow it.

Alison Brown: It’s not like me trying to do a 10 k that

Jill Jaracz: you walk, you walk fast.

Alison Brown: Very fast. That would be be disastrous.

Jill Jaracz: So if you do sign up, let us know. ’cause we wanna hear all about it.

LA 2028 News: Ticket lottery registration is open

Jill Jaracz: LA 2028 news ticket registration is open. how the ticket processing works, you register@tickets.la 20 eight.org. That will be putting you into the lottery for time slots for purchasing tickets. Did that sound complicated?

Alison Brown: It did, but it is.

Jill Jaracz: Okay. So basically what you do, you register, your email goes into a, a virtual hat, and you get, as they come up with time slots for purchasing tickets, because tickets get purchased on a schedule.

They don’t just release them all at like 10 in the morning on a Saturday and you go down to your local. Ticketmaster outlet to buy them in [01:37:00] person. Do you remember those days

Alison Brown: where you’d go to Sam Goody?

Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Right, because they’d have the Ticketmaster desk.

So anyway, now tickets are all online and they’ll draw your name and give you a time buying slot, and that’s just all random. Once you register, you’ll be in for all ticket drops throughout the ticket selling process. You register now through March 18th. Time slots to purchase during drop one will run from April nine to April 19th.

So sign up by March 18th. By April nine to April 19th, you’ll find out what your. Time buying slot is for the first ticket drop. You’ll be notified by email March 31st to April 7th if you’ve been assigned a slot. There will be rolling ticket drops starting in April. This will be just for Olympic tickets ’cause Paralympic tickets go on sale in [01:38:00] 2027.

The maximum number of tickets you can buy per person is 12. So if you don’t buy your full allotment in your first time slot, you go into subsequent ticket draws. So you can choose to spend it all now or save it over time and see what else comes down the line.

Drop one will include opening and closing ceremony Tickets. Tickets start at $28. Details on ticket pricing for all categories will be available when drop one opens in April. If you live locally to the LA area or to Oklahoma City, there will be a presale for you. That will be April two to April 6th, you know, so your drop ends before the drop one begins on April 9th.

You’ll have to have a zip code in the following counties, Los Angeles, orange, Riverside, Ventura, San Bernardino, Oklahoma, Canadian, and Cleveland. If you live in those counties, you [01:39:00] can be in this presale drop,

Alison Brown: Nice little bonus for the locals as it should be.

Speaking of tickets, we didn’t say this in Milano Corino, but Ken has Hanscomb, our good friend, mentioned on LinkedIn how Milano Corino is dropping tickets still every week that we’re gonna be seeing new tickets from now until opening ceremony.

So if you wanna do a last minute trip and maybe run that 10 k. Tickets are there. It’s there.

Jill Jaracz: Tickets are there. I think hotels have been opening up, especially in Milano and, and the hard thing is if you wanted to see sports in multiple regions, in multiple venue clusters, that’s gonna be difficult. ’cause the Facebook groups are full of conversations about how do I get there?

Alison Brown: Right? But if you wanna go to one spot, get some tickets. Check out some things. You can do it last minute, which we’ve said all along. So we’re kind of at the, the, the two ends of the ticketing. LA is for the [01:40:00] LA is for the people who love to plan this all out. And know exactly what they’re doing two years in advance.

And Milan right now is for all those last minute fun people who are just like, let’s see what happens.

Jill Jaracz: Yeah. And, and as Ken always likes to say, it’s a marathon, not a sprint for ticket buying, and LA’s gonna be a huge ticket draw, but you are purchasing tickets two years plus in advance of an event. And we found this out with.

Milano, we found this out with Paris. People buy tickets and then their plans change. Their lives change and they can’t go anymore. So if you don’t get it right away, keep trying. Something will come up.

Team Keep the Flame Alive News

Alison Brown: Welcome to Stan.

Jill Jaracz: It is the time of the show where we check in with our team, keep the flame alive. These are past guests and listeners of the show who make up the citizenship of our very own country. Stan. Figure skating nationals happened

Alison Brown: and Amber Glenn won her third [01:41:00] consecutive US figure skating Championship and was named to her first Olympic team.

Spencer Howe and Emily Chan finished fourth in pairs and were also named to their first Olympic team. Jason Brown finished eighth in the men’s competition and was named as first alternate. Amber and Jason were also named to the US team competing at World Championships with Spencer Howe and Emily Cha.

As second alternate for that World Championship team. Jason will also be competing at the 20 26 4 Continents Championships.

Jill Jaracz: It was an amazing figure skating competition.

Alison Brown: What a beautiful, beautiful women’s final. If you have not watched that Women’s Final, please go back and. I will say this, I will try very hard to get that high demand women’s final ticket at the Olympics because man, is that Women’s Final gonna be a blockbuster.

Jill Jaracz: it is. That was the best competition out of all four disciplines for the us, all the top three [01:42:00] women who are going all competed fantastically. So beautiful. Everybody’s got their own style. It’s all beautiful. That’s gonna be exciting going up against, a formidable number of other skaters, particularly those from Japan.

Spencer and Emily had a really difficult short program, finished eighth, and managed to work their way up to the fourth slot

Alison Brown: with a gorgeous long program. And, got themselves on an Olympic team. So, man, it’s ugh. This is so much fun having skaters on ship list on. Oh,

Jill Jaracz: bobsled and skeleton World Cup tour had races in sum, more at Switzerland, Brie Walker won gold and mono. Bob and 16th in the two woman Elalana Meyers Taylor took ninth in the model. Bob and 10th in the two women. The four man, Frank Del Duca and Josh Williamson got 16th and in the two man they took seventh.

Also, the bobsled and [01:43:00] skeleton North American Cup stop was at Lake Placid this weekend where athletes had two races for most events. Adam Edelman, drove the Israeli two men team to 10th place and the four man to fifth and sixth place in the women’s skeleton.

Shannon Glia took 16th and 18th end.

This is huge. Deutsche VLA is reporting that there are allegations of a cheating in the women’s races in the North American Cup that may affect Shannon Alia’s ability to qualify for the Olympics. Jonathan Crane reported for dw.com that Canadian coach. Has been accused of manipulating the event where four of the six Canadian interns dropped out at the last minute.

This reduced the number of competitors to fewer than 21, and therefore reduced the number of qualifying points that athletes could earn in this race in an attempt to ensure that Canadian Racer Jane channel, who’s on the World Cup Circuit would qualify for the Olympics. Shannon got affected by the number of points she earned if you’re a skeleton [01:44:00] fan.

It also affected American KD Lander, who at age 41 is trying to make her sixth Olympics. We will be following this

Alison Brown: on a happier note. Luge was back in Winburg with, Sivan, Forgan and Sophia Kirkby taking fifth. More importantly, Forgan and Kirby were officially named to the US Olympic team as was singles Loser.

Far.

Jill Jaracz: Yeah. Go, go, go. Go.

Alison Brown: the fencing season has started up again at the World Cup in Hong Kong. Lee Keefer won women’s foil. She and Lauren Scruggs were part of the bronze medal winning team. in the team event, Alex Maci won Men’s Foil in Paris. He, Nick Ikin and Garrick Meinhardt were part of the silver medal winning team at that event.

And also Miles Chimley Watson has co-founded. The World Fencing League, a pro circuit that will debut in LA this April. And you can join the wait list for tickets@worldfencingleague.org

Jill Jaracz: in women’s individual Nordic [01:45:00] Combined Action at OT Tepa Estonia. Annika Mosinski took 18th in the mass. Start Norma Hill, 14th in the Gunderson normal hill and 10th in the compact normal hill.

Alison Brown: Ke and Randall will be part of the NBC Cross Country Commentary Team as an analyst and will be based out of Stanford, Connecticut.

Jill Jaracz: Author Doug Levy has started his own podcast called Under the Radar, Olympic Athletes. Ya Gotta Meet. We’ll have a link to that in the show notes so you can find it in your podcast app.

Alison Brown: And four months after tearing his hamstring off the bone, which I did not even know about that, that how serious it was. Race Walker, Evan Dunphy is back on the track and training again. So glad to hear that, that Evan is recovering well.

Jill Jaracz: And that will do it for our part of this episode. After our sign off, Shuk Ani Sean Callahan is going to tell us about his experiences shooting Olympic related cultural stories for NBC Boston and other NBC affiliates.

Those started airing in October and have been spread out across from then [01:46:00] until the games, so you can look for them on your local NBC station. We decided to piece together this interview a little differently than our others, so we’re curious to know what you think of it and whether we should do that type of production again in the future.

Alison Brown: Also, please do not forget to support our fundraiser and help the show provide you better coverage from Ano Cortina. Most importantly, I need a mascot. Jill has one, so I’m really jealous. So get on that Peoples.

Jill Jaracz: Combine funds if you need to. So thank you so much for listening,

Alison Brown: and until next time, keep the flame alive.

Sean Colahan on shooting Olympic features in Milano, Livigno and Verona

Sean Colahan: Milan is my first time in Milan, a really cool city. I, I do say I definitely wanna go back. I’ve never been to Rome, but it just felt more intimate. So maybe like, the Boston to New York in terms of size of Milan is a lot bigger than Boston. Really great public transit, and it looked like all the venues.

Looks like all the venues in Milan are right on. subway lines. So I think getting around will be relatively [01:47:00] easy.

we actually went and we had a tour at San SRO Stadium where the opening ceremony was gonna be. we did not go into any of the, the other venues at all. besides that. We did, went to the Opera House, the Tro, Ali Scala, we went to the duomo. Uh, we went to a bar, uh, called Bar Baso, where the Negroni ano was, um, invented.

Really cool bar if you can get out there. I mean, it’s in Milan. but great, great time. Uh, did a cooking, um, segment with a chef. Um, made a risotto, meise did a coffee piece, did some other sites around, around the city, so,

San Sea was a cool stadium. I think they said it’s, it’s about 70,000, kind of your big, sports team stadium, so we’ll, I think have plenty of opportunity for the opening ceremony. And it said, right, you know, there’s a trail, uh, subway exit right on the other side of the parking lot, so.

the one nice thing is you’ll be able to get food late at night. when we were over there, we were filming and, um, just working [01:48:00] continuously through the day that we really were not stopping to eat until like 10 o’clock at night, 10 30 at night, and there was no, everything was open, other people were eating.

So, definitely ability to get late bites will be, uh, and, and your caffeine fix will be, will be very easily handled as you can literally get espresso. Anywhere you go, but just don’t order a cappuccino after breakfast.

Well we did, uh, Verona and day trip. So we, we took the nice, uh, high speed line, uh, out to Verona in the morning. Shot four stories in Verona. and then including, we went to the arena where they’re gonna be doing the closing Aries, and that is gonna be incredible. Uh, think of the coliseum in Rome. That’s what this arena’s gonna be like.

Um, they do operas there all summer. and it’s gonna be the site of the, the closing ceremonies and also both the opening and closing for the Paralympic games. So that’s gonna be pretty incredible in terms of what the production designer decides to do with [01:49:00] that.

it’s an ancient Roman arena that is still, still in use, so it’s not like a specialty use for the Olympics. I said it’s used all summer. , There was an opera that was, they do many different operas.

They were resetting the stage for a different one. Uh, the day we were there filming. So,

it’s stone steps. So like on the outside it’s, it’s the, you know, the stone that is used to build that you sit on, the arena floor. They have, like a floor seating like you would see in any sort of like, big theater. slightly sloped down from the back to the, it’s in, um, oval shape, so slightly from the long way, down.

But those, those were typical normal seats you might see at like a, a theater? I would say bring your, bring your seed cushion.

It’s sitting on, on the stone Bundle up.

Uh, so we did, uh, a piece, um, those, the movie letters to Juliette. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, but there’s a club that takes, um, [01:50:00] well first, for those of you don’t know, there’s a statue of Juliette. In Verona that a lot of people, very many, many people like to take pictures with. And then there’s also the Juliet’s balcony that people can wait to go and get their picture taken.

But people would leave letters, love letters, and kind of like ask for help type letters to Juliet. And as a volunteer club in Verona, that will take people from around the world can come and volunteer. And you come in and people will write letters back to these people in the voice of Juliet or Juliet’s secretary.

And so we went and interviewed a volunteer who runs, the club, and we also talked to a few p uh, people who were there responding to letters, which was fascinating to kind of hear what people had wrote them and, uh, what they were responding to.

uh, another thing we did there is, um, we met with an archeologist who took us down below the buildings to, Roman ruins that were below the city that were excavated and preserved. So, got to see old part [01:51:00] of an old Roman road and the forum of a, of a part of Verona from it’s, uh, dating back to the Roman era.

Verona’s a definitely a small, intimate. I mean, I don’t wanna say city ’cause it has no, there’s no big buildings in it. but definitely small. It’s not, it’s not a huge city. it’s a, a, a very, very large town. I guess I could say. Milan is a, a, I think a city, I mean, 1.5 million for the city, big metro area,

lavinia was a super cool, little mountain town and that’s exactly what it is. It’s a very, narrow strip in the valley. Basically two roads, go the go up and down the valley and small little side streets off of it. I would say a lot of historic and older, Chateau. And, but there was a lot of modern construction kind of, but keeping kind of in the style of, your Alps chateau look, uh, you might picture.

Just driving into town at like the Rotary, kind of as you got into town, they [01:52:00] had a lavino, you know, site of Milan Cotina 2026. They had an Olympic wings, on like a little ridge line. Uh, there, were talking about it. you know, a lot of towns have little banners on their light poles going down the main road.

And there was, Milan Cotina logos, on that along with the town logo and things. So. But definitely a lot of activity. there’s two ski areas on either side of the valley and so on. The one side is gonna be the aerials and the moguls freestyle.

And the other side where like the halfpipe and the ski snowboard cross and the snowboard, there was a lot of mountain modifications going on, lot of dust and, and equipment up on the slopes.

I don’t think you’d walk between ’em. It’s a little bit further, so they’ll probably be shuttles. But, from what the town people is telling us, the town’s gonna be closed off. Unless you have a hotel reservation, have credentials or have tickets to an events, you won’t be able to get into the town.

well, we did a cool story, [01:53:00] up at the top of the mountain, uh, one of the mountains. there’s a winery from just outside Lavino down in, down on the way to Cuomo in, um, VA that is, uh, making a special wine. Sato, I think is what out of Nebia grapes. They’re aging it at the top of the mountain.

So it’s cooler up there. And also there’s less oxygen. So they’ve been aging it for, there’ll be 10 years by the time it comes in. It’s a special Olympic branded, wine. I don’t know how much those bottles will be going for. but that was, that was a cool thing. But I’d just say any, any town you could get up to, I’m sure it was just gonna be amazing.

we picked this one just because it worked out logistically for us, for our trip. But I think any, any mountain town to see anything will, will be nice.

I mean, Milan’s really cool because the center of the, the city is the Duomo Cathedral. which it might be a religious, space, but the city really kind of looks at onto that as like the center of the city more, more so in the broader sense [01:54:00] than, than a, uh, a Catholic cathedral, which is kind of a cool thing.

’cause I said that is smacked up in the middle of Milan and kind of everything almost radiates out from that.

definitely being Milan takes some, hopefully it takes some time to check out some of the culture of it. I mean, it’s gonna be right there in the city. you know, I, so it was tough, tough ’cause Pyeongchang was such a different vibe than, than Paris. Paris was in a, a big city, so, um, I think you could easily get out of the bubble if you wanted to.

Um, it was a little bit harder in Pyeongchang to do that. But yeah, just, check out the food. definitely get the wine.

And the food is fantastic, by the way. The food was fantastic.