Jake Brown and Paul Schommer have been named to the U.S. Olympic biathlon team, adding two more athletes with Minnesota ties to the roster for the Beijing Winter Games.
Two more athletes with Minnesota ties will be part of U.S. Olympic team in Beijing
They are biathletes Jake Brown of St. Paul and Paul Schommer, who went to the College of St. Scholastica.
December 20, 2021 at 12:57PM
Brown, of St. Paul, and Schommer, who competed at the College of St. Scholastica, earned their spots through their performances at a World Cup event last month in Sweden. Schommer finished 22nd and Brown placed 23rd in a men's 20-kilometer individual race to secure their berths. The Beijing Games will be the first Olympics for both.
Brown, 29, graduated from Minnehaha Academy and was a multisport athlete at St. Olaf. He has competed in three world championships, highlighted by a 12th-place finish in the sprint at the 2021 worlds in Slovenia. Brown currently lives and trains in Vermont.
Schommer, 29, competed in Nordic skiing for St. Scholastica from 2011-15. The Appleton, Wis., native qualified for three NCAA championships, earning second-team All-America recognition with an eighth-place finish in the 20k freestyle in 2014.
Two more men will be named later to the U.S. Olympic team in biathlon, which combines cross-country skiing and shooting.
Third silver for Diggins
Jessie Diggins earned her third silver medal of the World Cup season Sunday, teaming with Julia Kern for a runner-up finish in a freestyle team sprint in Dresden, Germany.
The cross-country skier from Afton crashed during the final, getting tangled up with another skier on the fifth of 12 laps. She quickly got up and charged on. After falling back to ninth place, Diggins and Kern steadily worked their way back into medal contention.
Sweden's Jonna Sundling and Maja Dahlqvist won the race in 15 minutes, 45.81 seconds, with Diggins and Kern 1.11 seconds behind. Slovenia's Eva Urevc and Anamarija Lampic were another 1.21 seconds back in third.
"I'm always proud of the never-give-up attitude, and I think it really paid off today,'' Diggins said after the race. "We didn't panic. We just skied as smooth and smart and hard as we could.''
Next up for Diggins is the multi-stage Tour de Ski, which starts Dec. 28. Last year, she became the first American to win that event.
The Afton, Minnesota native talks success, pressure, focus, and fun in this Q & A.
