ANTHOLZ-ANTERSELVA, Italy — The numbers were not kind, but the effort was unmistakable.
Team USA finished 18th out of 20 teams in the biathlon women’s 4x6 km relay at the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics on Wednesday, Feb. 18, walking away from the Anterselva Biathlon Arena with a final time 1:16:49.4.
The quartet of Deedra Irwin, Luci Anderson, Margie Freed and Joanne Reid finished 6 minutes and 26.7 seconds behind gold medalist France but stayed ahead of Canada and Lithuania, the only two teams that were lapped during the race.
The relay was the final Olympic biathlon event at Milan Cortina for all four U.S. women and, while an 18th-place result will not make highlight reels, the checkpoint data revealed a team that competed hard on skis even when the range did not cooperate.
Irwin gave the U.S. a solid start on the opening leg. Her ski speed was sharp early, with a 1:37.0 split to the 1.0 km mark that was the third-fastest among all 20 leadoff skiers, along with 53.2 to the 1.6 km checkpoint ranking third. She used one spare round in each shooting stage to keep the team clean and tagged off in 13th place, which was 44.2 seconds behind the leaders. It was a strong handoff that kept Team USA in the middle of the pack.
Anderson’s second leg proved the most difficult stretch of the afternoon. She struggled at the range, skiing two penalty loops—one in prone and one in standing—while using all six of her available spare rounds across the two stages. Her prone shooting section of 2:04.3 was the slowest in the 20-team field, and the standing section of 2:03.5 ranked 18th. The penalties pushed Team USA from 13th to 19th. Anderson’s skiing between the shooting stages was competitive—her 1:39.3 split after the first penalty loop ranked fifth and her 1:33.2 opening split was the fourth-fastest among second-leg skiers—but the range cost too much ground to recover.
Freed steadied things on the third leg. She cleaned prone with one spare and posted an 11th-ranked shooting time of 1:11.1 at that stage. Standing was tougher—she skied one penalty loop after using all her spare rounds, and her 1:58.8 standing section time ranked 18th. But her skiing on the back half of the leg was strong. After exiting her final shooting stage, Freed posted an 8th-ranked split of 1:43.0 to the 16.5 km mark, with an exchange time of 1:09.8 that ranked eighth among third-leg skiers. She held 18th and handed off to Reid with the team’s position stabilized.
Reid anchored with the most composed range performance of any American on the day. She cleaned prone without using a spare round, posting the sixth-fastest prone shooting time at 55 seconds. In standing, she needed just one spare and her 1:06.7 section time ranked ninth in the field. Reid’s shooting kept Team USA clear of the lapped teams behind them and her 19:31.3 leg time was the 12th-fastest among all anchor skiers.
In the biathlon relay format, each of the four team members skis three loops of the course with two shooting stages: one prone, one standing. Unlike individual events, relay competitors get three spare rounds per stage on top of the standard five, for a total of eight shots to hit five targets. Any target still standing after eight shots sends the athlete through a 150-meter penalty loop. The first team across the finish line wins.
France dominated the event behind anchor Julia Simon, who delivered a flawless final leg to seal gold in 1:10:22.7. Sweden took silver in 1:11:14.0, 51.3 seconds back, and Norway claimed bronze in 1:11:30.3.
With the relay complete, the U.S. women’s biathlon program at Milan Cortina 2026 comes to a close. Campbell Wright carries the American flag into the final biathlon event of the Winter Olympic Games, the men’s 15 km mass start on Friday, Feb. 20. Watch Winter Olympic biathlon competition on Peacock, NBC and USA Network.
