CSS skiing alumnus competes in Winter Olympics

The 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics have kicked off, and Team USA has selected over 200 athletes to represent the country in the 16 winter Olympic sports held this year. Joining Team USA in Italy is College of Saint Scholastica alumnus Paul Schommer, who will be representing the country in the Biathlon events.

Biathlon — while likely more familiar to Minnesotans — is an unfamiliar sport for many Americans, as it retains most of its popularity with European audiences. 

Although several different formats of Biathlon racing are held at the Olympic games, the competition is most easily explained as a cross-country ski race with intermittent rifle-shooting competitions. Competitors ski with a .22 bolt action rifle slung over their back and shoot five small black targets each time they pass through the shooting range. Each target turns white when hit, and after each biathlete has taken five shots, they ski an extra 200 meters for each black target remaining — one lap of a “penalty loop” for each miss. Biathlon combines intense racing with precise marksmanship which often means rapid changes in ranking due to the consequential nature of the shooting portion.

Schommer graduated in 2015 and competed for the cross-country ski team during his time at CSS, during which he achieved NCAA All-Region and All-American accolades. He was also named the CSS Male Athlete of the Year for the 2014-15 academic year.

Schommer has competed year round for the United States Biathlon Association in IBU (International Biathlon Union) World Cup races since 2017 as a member of the national team. The 2026 Winter Olympics will be his second time at the games, having competed in Beijing in 2022.

Joshua Tesch, assistant ski coach for the CSS ski team, coached Schommer during his career at the college and is traveling to watch him compete in Italy. When asked about what coaching Schommer meant to him he spoke to his appreciation for helping and watching athletes improve.

“He was an athlete that I coached through his whole career at CSS. And, yeah, it was fun to see that progress. He definitely was an athlete that took a little while to build himself,” Tesch said.

He stressed that he believes that Schommer’s success is the result of a lot of hard work and that institutions like the sports teams at CSS give the foundations to allow that kind of hard work to take root.

“I think we just have a lot of really good resources to do that and a good community to do that in,” Tesch said. “He [Schommer] took advantage of that and kept going.”

Tesch, who has kept in touch with Schommer over the years, is most looking forward to seeing him race at the highest level of Biathlon and to experience what the environment at an Olympic competition feels like.

By: Kai Donnelly