ANHOLTZ, Italy – Margie Freed of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (GRP) saved her best biathlon race for the big time at the Cortina/Milan Winter Olympics. Earlier this season, she finished 31st in a World Cup race, but last week she hit 19 of 20 targets (another best) and skied to 21st in the 15 km distance race. After her finish, Freed said: “I have a lot of friends and family here who I know would support me no matter what, but I wanted to give them a show today!”.
photo by Nordicfocus
Margie grew up in Apple Valley, Minn., but made her way to the northeast to attend UVM. In 2020, Freed was an NCAA all-American skiing for UVM. She then joined the GRP to continue her skiing development. While there, coaches encouraged her to pick up a rifle to see if biathlon might be another avenue to high-level racing. Two years ago, she made the switch and started training for biathlon full time.
Most athletes new to shooting take years to become proficient; Freed pick it up quickly and last winter raced for the U.S. Biathlon team all winter after just one year. Now in her second year, she reached some dreams by even going to the Olympics. And then she had her best race under the most pressure and biggest audience. She skied in the mixed relay and the sprint race most recently at the Olympics, where she hit seven of 10 placing 64th. Consistency will be a major thing for her to work on in the coming years. On February 18, she’ll be racing in the women’s 4×6 km relay.
Ben Ogden of Landgrove, Vt., skied to a silver medal in the classic sprint race. Ogden, also a UVM graduate, has skied plenty of races in Craftsbury ever since he was child just getting into ski racing. Ogden is only the second U.S. male skier ever to medal, with Bill Koch taking a silver back in 1976.
Jack Young of the GRP is currently an alternate on the U.S. men’s cross country ski team. If the sprint race had been a freestyle race (skating), he would have been a starter. This year the race was classic technique where Odgen tends to do really well (and he did). Jake Brown is also in Italy as an alternate for the U.S. Biathlon squad.
