Diggins wins historic cross-country gold
Stratton’s Jessie Diggins, finishing fifth three times and sixth once at the 2018 Olympics, finally has won a medal.
A gold one, at that.
Diggins and teammate Kikkan Randall grabbed U.S. women cross-country skiing’s first-ever Winter Games victory in Wednesday’s team sprint, reports Vermonter Peggy Shinn, a writer for the U.S. Olympic Committee’s website.
The historic win comes four decades after Windham County native Bill Koch snagged the country’s first and only other medal in the sport — a silver in the men’s 30-kilometer in 1976.
Vermont biathletes take aim at gun violence
Competing with a .22 caliber rifle, four-time Olympic biathlete Lowell Bailey usually focuses on his sport’s unusual mix of skiing and shooting. This week, the 36-year-old University of Vermont graduate is taking aim at gun violence.
“I support an assault weapons ban,” Bailey told a crowd of reporters and spectators after Tuesday’s biathlon mixed relay. “Our county needs to wake up. Our country needs to change.”
Bailey, whose quotes are making national news in outlets as prominent as the Washington Post, spoke in response to the killing of 17 Florida high school students and staffers by a 19-year-old armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.
“There’s just no excuse,” the athlete said. “I compete against all of these other World Cup nations — Germany, Norway. How good are they on the range? They’re great at rifle marksmanship. Do you know how strict their gun controls law are? It’s a travesty America hasn’t changed and continues to go down this path. It just makes me want to cry.”
Bailey finished 15th in the team event alongside fellow Vermont biathlete Susan Dunklee, who said the fact guns can be used for mass shootings caused her unease.
“Every time something like that happens, it does make me sick to my stomach to think about,” said the 32-year-old three-time Olympian from Barton. “We’re using a .22. We’re working on emotional control. But there is still that association of it being a firearm. And it really takes a lot of the joy I have out of pursuing a sport like this.”
In their travels, U.S. biathletes have learned how strict international gun laws are compared to those at home. In South Korea, for example, officials are locking up Olympic sporting arms and ammunition outside of competition.
“It’s important people understand the vast, vast difference between a .22 caliber 50-meter target rifle and an AR-15,” Bailey said. “I have no interest in owning an assault rifle. I have no interest in owning another weapon that can kill another human being, that’s designed to kill another human being, and to do it an expeditious way. Why is that allowed? It’s maddening.”
Bailey, who’s set to compete once more in the men’s relay, said his international peers don’t understand the kind of guns available in the United States compared to those available elsewhere.
“They’re baffled at the political landscape of the United States and how we can continue to put assault weapons in the hands of anyone who wants to walk into a gun store and buy one,” he said. “I understand the Second Amendment. I appreciate hunting. I appreciate rifle marksmanship. You’re talking about rifles. You’re talking about targets. You’re not talking about weapons that are designed to kill people.”
“In my opinion,” he concluded, “there’s just no reason for assault rifles to be in the hands of ordinary citizens.”
