The forest and mountains were blanketed in a thick layer of new snow and the sun was shinning brilliantly, ideal conditions for a biathlon race. Matt couldn’t tell if there were more spectators because of the good weather, or if he simply hadn’t been able to see the crowd through the falling snow on Friday. He highlighted the names of the four Americans on his start list so he wouldn’t forget anyone in the excitement of the event.
As the women began to enter the range to shoot, the Sarge provided a running commentary, “Okay, watch this little Japanese girl on number four. She can’t weigh more than eighty pounds! I’ll bet that rifle she’s hauling is fifteen percent of her body weight! They ought to give her a handicap. How do you think you’d ski if your rifle weighed twenty-five pounds?
“Now look at the Swede shooting on target nine. She’ll hit ’em all, but she’ll fumble picking up her poles. Did you see that? She always cleans her prone targets but loses fifteen seconds getting off the firing point.
“All right! Here comes Maria, the first Italian! Let’s see if Maria can handle the pressure.…” A powerful dark-haired woman wearing the garish Italian racing suit selected a firing point as the partisan crowd cheered. She dropped smoothly into position and loaded quickly. Her shots were followed by cheers and groans as she hit two and left three.
“Nope,” the Sarge resumed, “not Maria’s day today.” Jankowski was just as philosophical about the American women; Paula Robbins and Kate Anderson had trouble, Trudy and Sandy shot clean in their first stages. Jankowski gave the coaches on the ski trail sight corrections over the radio. Matt concentrated on timing the women from the instant they placed their poles on the snow to the moment, after shooting, when they bent to retrieve them. He repeatedly glanced up when he caught sight of a Norwegian uniform, but he couldn’t offer Grete any encouragement, because it was against the rules to communicate with the athletes from the coaches’ box. He couldn’t tell much about her skiing, but he was happy that she was shooting well.
After Sandy’s second stage of prone, the Sarge had trouble controlling his excitement, “She’s clean so far! Damn, five more good ones and she’s got a chance for a medal!”
The chatter over the radio was intensifying. Vlad was cautioning Andy and Gopher to stay calm, “Just give splits! Don’t tell places, and don’t talk about shooting clean!”
Trudy was also doing well with only two penalties in the first three stages, but the focus was definitely on Sandy. When she hit the range for her final stage of standing, fire burned in her eyes. She never glanced at the coaches’ box for reassurance; instead, she scowled at the targets with a fierce determination, then peeled her rifle off and in a heartbeat was in position and holding on the target. BANG! The report from the first shot came so fast that Matt flinched in surprise. Before he shifted his focus from Sandy to the target, she squeezed off her second shot. Two hits! Matt held his breath. The third shot was another hit!
Matt knew it was far from over, but she hit the first three with such assertiveness that he had a strong premonition that she was going to hit them all. BANG! Fourth shot, another hit! “She’s going to do it, she’s going to do it.…”
BANG! The roar from the stadium echoing off the mountains confirmed that she had cleaned her targets. Jankowski babbled into the radio, almost incoherent with excitement. Moments later the word came back from Andy, “She’s in fifth place past me, twelve seconds out of third!”
The next report came from Gopher who was stationed midway on the final loop where she had closed the gap to eight seconds! Vlad was so excited that he unintentionally depressed the transmit button on his radio as he ran alongside Sandy, yelling encouragement in a mixture of Russian and English. Other coaches on the range grinned at Jankowski as they overheard the jumbled transmission.
Racers charged up the final hill and sprinted into the stadium in a steady stream. The electronic scoreboard reshuffled after each competitor, the top six positions dominated by Russians and Germans. Matt strained to see across the road where the final 2.5K loop slanted down through the pasture. He saw Sandy in a tight tuck slicing across the field, her momentum carrying her up and over the arching overpass. Before she lost her speed, she drove her poles into the snow with fury.
As she charged the final hill, there was nothing graceful or delicate about her skiing; it was pure, ferocious power. Sandy’s running time clicked away at the bottom of the scoreboard, like sand pouring through an hourglass. The top six names seemed permanent, their times forever imprinted on the scoreboard. The crowd was hushed as she crossed the range in long, powerful strides then turned the corner and lunged for the finish. Matt’s upper body rocked along with each of her final double poles, three, two, one.… She actually accelerated through the finish line!
Like the eye of a hurricane, everything was still, thousands of spectators silently staring at the giant electronic board. Then the digital display flickered with revisions. The two Russians holding first and second place remained unchanged, but behind them in third, the letters registered STONINGTON–USA. The roar from the crowd was deafening. Matt stared at the Sarge in disbelief and saw tears filling the rifle coach’s eyes. They both became aware of Andy’s pleas over the radio, “Did she get it? Did she get it? Sarge, do you read me? Come in on the range!”
“Andy, this is the range. The big board’s got her in third, four-tenths ahead of a German! Is there anyone still on the course who can bump her?”
“Negative, Sarge! I believe all the girls still out here had trouble shooting. Assuming there aren’t any protests, I’d say she’s won the bronze! Do you believe that? Over.…”
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