MIDWAY — When the Olympics get underway in a couple of weeks, 25-year-old Luci Anderson will be making her debut.
She has qualified to compete for Team USA in Biathlon, a grueling sport that combines cross-country skiing with rifle marksmanship.
Anderson is from Minneapolis, but as she told KSL, the hills of Utah got her ready to compete at the pinnacle of her sport.
"Honestly, all my favorite ski racing memories are Soldier Hollow," she said. "And hopefully I can make some more biathlon memories here."
She said the skiing part was something she'd been doing her whole life. "I got into cross-country skiing when I was about 5 years old," she said.
Shooting, though, was another story. She said she had never fired a gun before being noticed by U.S. Biathlon when she was a junior in college and skiing for the University of New Hampshire. "I didn't really grow up in, like, a hunting family. We don't really own guns. I think we have, like, my grandpa's military rifle or something. I don't know," she said, laughing.
But U.S. Biathlon team officials saw her ski times, brought her to the team's headquarters in Soldier Hollow, put a rifle in her hands — and bang! Less than two years later, she's on her way to Italy's Dolomite Mountains.
Asked if there was a moment where competing went from fun to something where she realized she was elite, she points to a cross-country skiing race at Soldier Hollow. She was in high school and that race qualified her for a trip to Norway as an 18-and-younger athlete. "I got to represent Team USA there," she said.
That was her first time on Team USA. It will not be the last.
