The United States continued a tradition of being one of the earlier nations in the summer biathlon schedule after holding it’s competition in Jericho, Vermont on the first weekend of August. This year it wasn’t strictly American athletes either. Lena Haecki-Gross and Irene Cadurisch were visiting from Switzerland and a few young Canadian athletes joined the races as well. Their presence definitely helped to liven up the festivities as they made their presence known throughout!
Just a quick note: You won’t see the names Campbell Wright, Maxime Germain, or Lucie Anderson anywhere. Don’t worry! Campbell Wright and Lucie Anderson were training elsewhere and agreed with coaches that this was the best thing for them to keep doing rather than coming back for the competitions. Maxime Germain got sick just before the weekend and sat out the weekend but it was minor and he’s just fine.
The racing got underway on Saturday August 3rd with the Sprint competitions and sunny, but warm, conditions. Deedra Irwin combined the 2nd best ski time on the day with 8/10 shooting to carry her to a victory. Coming in 30.5 seconds further back was Margie Freed. Freed actually beat out Irwin by two seconds on the course, but had one extra miss which set her back behind her teammate and put her into silver medal position. Lena Haecki-Gross took the bronze a further 4.6 seconds back after an 8/10 day. Chloe Levins (8/10), Kelsey Dickinson (8/10), and Canadian Shilou Rousseau (6/10) rounded out the top 6. Rousseau actually achieved the 3rd best ski time on the day!
| Senior Women | Junior Women |
| 🥇 Deedra Irwin | 🥇 Abigail Van Dorn |
| 🥈 Margie Freed | 🥈 Reine Soule |
| 🥉 Lena Haecki-Gross | 🥉 Sarah Hottle |
The Junior women’s competition was won by Abigail Van Dorn (6/10) over her teammates Reine Soule (5/10) and Sarah Hottle (8/10). The fastest junior women in the race was Virginia Cobb who ended up finishing 4th as she went just 3/10 on the range.
The men’s Sprint was absolutely dominated by Paul Schommer. Schommer did everything right. He was a perfect 10/10 on the range and was the fastest man on the roller skis by a narrow 3 seconds over Jake Brown. Brown, meanwhile, used that 2nd best roller skiing to overcome three misses and grab the silver medal for the 2025 Summer Sprint title. Rounding out the podium was Sean Doherty who had three standing misses after a clean prone shoot. The top six was rounded out by Vaclav Cervenka (8/10), Wes Campbell (9/10), and Vincent Bonacci (6/10).
| Senior Men | Junior Men |
| 🥇 Paul Schommer | 🥇 Tristan Thrasher |
| 🥈 Jake Brown | 🥈 Aidan Sands |
| 🥉 Sean Doherty | 🥉 Eric Anderson |
The Junior men’s competition would have been won by Wesley Campbell except he just bumped up to the senior men and was on his way to a very solid 5th. In his place Tristan Thrasher used a Juniors best 7/10 shooting to take the gold medal position. He was followed up by Aidan Sands (6/10) and Eric Anderson (5/10). Eric Anderson also took the fastest Junior man on the day honors coming in with the 12th fastest total time amongst Senior and Junior men.
Sunday August 4th concluded the US Summer Championships with Mass Start races for the Senior competitors and Pursuit races for the Juniors.
In the Women’s Mass Start, Margie Freed raced to the summer national title with easily the best ski time on the day. Running 34 seconds faster than her closest competitor on the skis she hit 17/20 targets on the range, the best hit rate of the day, and crossed the line 18 seconds ahead of the next competitor. The next competitor was one of the surprises of the championships. Shilo Rousseau took the silver medal with another great ski day. She followed up her 3rd best ski position in the Sprint with once again being the 3rd best skier in the Mass Start just 35 seconds slower Margie Freed. She matched Freed on the range with a 17/20 to cap off a terrific race. Third across the line, with the bronze medal, was Chloe Levins. Levins was 16/20 and was the 2nd fastest woman on the course, 1 second faster than Shilo Rousseau. Rounding out the top 6 were Deedra Irwin (17/20), Kelsey Dickinson (15/20), and Tara Geraghty-Moats (14/20).
| Senior Women | Junior Women |
| 🥇 Margie Freed | 🥇 Reine Soule |
| 🥈 Shilo Rousseau | 🥈 Abigale Van Dorn |
| 🥉 Chloe Levins | 🥉 Breanna Barton |
In the Junior Women’s Pursuit it was a bit of a tough day on the range. Reine Soule took the top position with a 13/20 shooting day. She finished a solid 1:00 ahead of Abigail Van Dorn who also hit 13/20. Brenna Barton, who had the best shooting performance of the day with just six misses, took the bronze medal rising from 7th place to the podium.
The Men’s Mass Start saw another large victory, this time by Sean Doherty. He hit 16/20 shots with the 4th best skiing performance in the race and took the victory by 1:00. Coming in second was Wesley Campbell who completed a tremendous weekend. The 21 year old hit 15 of 20 targets and took home the silver medal in his first championships as a Senior. Paul Schommer completed the podium for the Senior Men’s Mass Start for his second medal of the weekend. Schommer had the 2nd best skiing in the race which helped him to overcome six misses, two each in the last three trips to the range. The top 6 was filled out by Jake Brown (11/20), Bjorn Westervelt (16/20), and Vaclav Cervenka (13/20).
| Senior Men | Junior Men |
| 🥇 Sean Doherty | 🥇 Tristan Thrasher |
| 🥈 Wesley Campbell | 🥈 Thomas Van De Kamp |
| 🥉 Paul Schommer | 🥉 Aidan Sands |
The Pursuit for the Junior Men was taken by Tristan Thrasher who won the race by nearly 2 full minutes. While he had just the second fastest ski time his 15/20 shooting was the best in the race. He was followed up by Thomas Van De Kamp (13/20) and Aidan Sands (10/20).
Overall it was a great weekend of competition in Vermont. From all appearances it was a fun atmosphere and the athletes certainly look like they had a good time.
Not too many big things to take away from this completion, after all it is only early August. However, we have a few:
- Paul Schommer still looks good. Last year he returned after basically two full injury plagued years. He looked better than we could have ever hoped. He had four IBU Cup top 15’s including consecutive podiums in Ridnaun-val Ridanna. He later finished 24th in the Individua at the 2025 Worlds in Lenzerheide which was the best finish he’s ever had at a World Championships. Well the 33 year old still looks like he’s racing well. He won the Sprint and took home bronze in the Mass Start. He had the best ski time in the Sprint and the 2nd fastest Mass Start ski time. Let’s go Paul!
- Really nice week for Margie Freed. Silver in the Sprint and gold in the Mass Start is about as good as she could have hoped for! She also brought home the fastest ski time in both races. Margie Freed definitely has speed. As with a lot of US biathletes she was primarily a cross country skier until she started to get into biathlon around 2020. In her debut IBU season in 22-23 she ran nine races on the IBU Cup and was top 14 in ski rank in every race. Since coming to the World Cup she’s flashed some skiing as well. The most exciting part was that at least for this weekend she hit 24 of 30 shots for an 80% hit rate. Her hit rate the last two seasons was 62%. In fact she’s never had a two race stretch on the IBU Cup or World Cup where she has hit more than 73.% Hopefully this is a sign of things to come!
- Shilo Rousseau looked very solid. She was 3rd fastest in both the Sprint and the Mass Start and took home the silver medal (and maple syrup!) for her efforts in the Mass Start. Rousseau had a very good finish to the 22-23 IBU Cup season in Canmore where she had four top 20’s in the last six races. We didn’t see her in 23-24 but last year she got her feet wet on the World Cup while also collecting five finishes between 24 and 46 on the IBU Cup in five races. Combine that with Pascale Paradis’ win in Frassinoro and it’s been a great summer for Canadian biathlon so far! Of course it’s only August but fingers crossed!
- Wesley Campbell took part in his first senior summer championships and already has a medal. Campbell was very good this weekend. He his 9/10 in the Sprint which was only behind Paul Schommer in shooting accuracy. He followed that up with a 15/20 in the Mass Start. That’s not tremendous but it was good enough for silver. Last season Wesley did his first IBU racing since 21-22. He had a very good season including his first career top 10. In six races last season he 28th or better in every race. He’s shown remarkable improvement every year in shooting rising up to a hit rate of 75% last year. Meanwhile he had an average course time rank of 17.8 Add him to the list of young Americans to keep watching.