Clare Egan '10 is competing with Team USA in Biathlon World Championships

Clare Egan '10 was named to the United States Biathlon's World Championship Team roster this past fall. She is with Team USA participating in the IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland, through March 15th.

Egan, a former cross country student-athlete and founder of the Wellesley Club Nordic Ski Team, was promoted to the top level of U.S. Biathlon's developmental program in 2014 before making her biathlon World Cup debut in Antholz, Italy at the end of January, 2015. She has also been a member of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (Craftsbury, Vt.) since 2011.

Egan studied International Relations at Wellesley and was Wellesley’s first Outdoor Track All-American, an honor earned after her performance in the 1500m dash at the 2010 NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Following her graduation, she went on to pursue an Master of Arts in linguistics at the University of New Hampshire, where she was named MVP of the women’s Nordic Ski team and nominated for UNH’s Student-Athlete of the Year award.

After graduating from UNH in 2011, She was drafted to the Craftsbury, VT Green Racing Project Nordic Team, and spent two seasons competing on the domestic cross-country skiing circuit before switching to biathlon in 2013. Egan has since placed in the top-20 at the US National Biathlon Championship twice and won two first place prizes at the 2014 North American Biathlon Championships.

She regularly updates a personal blog where her love of and excitement for the sport shines through. Her posts are frequently dotted with exclamation points and humor. On Sunday, she wrote about her race that day at the Championships, which resulted in her first top-60 World Cup finish (the top 60 qualifiers advance).

“I thought for sure that...I would be in like 90th place, so I was shocked when I heard one of my coaches yell ‘55th place!’ Knowing that the top 60 qualify for the pursuit, I really started hammering!” Egan wrote. “When another coach yelled "35th" place, I was sure either I had misheard him or we were having a language barrier problem.”

Egan continued, "But it turns out that with fast conditions and fast skis, I managed a top-40 course time, and when I combined that with a top-40 range time and 4 misses, I finished in 40th place! I guess I misheard the first coach, who actually said 35th too. The top 40 finishers earn "World Cup Points," so today I earned ONE World Cup Point and am now officially ranked (last) (...among the ranked people!!!) on the overall World Cup Standings.”

The skier and shooter is known for her outgoing personality, confidence, and good attitude. In one 2011 interview, when asked by the Portland Press Herald about how she felt about her place on UNH’s cross-country skiing team, Egan responded, “Every day when I wake up, I think how lucky I am to be here. [Skiing professionally] was a dream I didn’t think was going to come true.”

Between the athlete’s appetite for success and her love of her work, Clare Egan exemplifies the potential of every Wellesley student to achieve unprecedented excellence.

- Katelyn Campbell '17 and Wellesley Athletics contributed to this story.