From cross country skiing and running to ice hockey, sport has always been a big part of Minnesota native Annika Pasch’s life. Today, she’s added biathlon to her repertoire with the responsibility of managing health and wellness for the U.S. Biathlon Team as part of its partnership with University of Health. Pasch joined Heartbeat as she headed out to Europe for her second season wth the team.

What motivated her to become an athletic trainer?

“Just being an athlete, kind of identifying as an athlete myself for so long, just seeing the passion and the hard work that those athletes put into what can essentially become their career,” she said. “I just want to do everything I could to let them be successful. And that's a huge part of my job – just keeping that arrow pointed forward for someone to just keep on the track of success.”

So what is health and wellness? And why is it important for athletes – and for all of us?

“Health and wellness is what gets you through every day,” said Pasch. “And if you're not respecting your body and taking care of it 24 over seven, that's lost time. If you look at it as the athletes, it's their job.”

Her background has taken her to basketball, hockey, and track. And one of the keys for her in her new role with U.S. Biathlon is her own background as a cross country skier.

When describing her role to others who might not know what an athletic trainer does, she compares it as a cross between a physical therapist and an EMT. “A lot of the education and focus is on first response and emergency care,” she said. But today, a lot of energy goes into injury and illness prevention.

“That's where that physical therapy, that rehab, the diagnostic piece comes into it,” she said. “And then layered within all of that in the education is pharmacology, general medicine, sports psychology, nutrition. We kind of get a little sprinkling of everything.”

As a passionate cross country skier herself, she’s now become one of biathlon’s biggest fans. And, yes, she has picked up a biathlon rifle to try shooting. This winter, she will hopscotch around Europe as the U.S. Biathlon Team heads to Antholz for the Olympic Winter Games.

Get to know Annika Pasch and the valuable support services she’s bringing to biathletes in this episode of Heartbeat, the U.S. Biathlon podcast.

Watching biathlon on NBC during the 2018 Winter Olympics inspired New England native Jim Becker to participate in the sport. Today, Dr. Jim Becker is leading an innovative biomechanics research project with the U.S. Biathlon Team, which could make a big difference at the 2026 Winter Games in Italy. Heartbeat met with Becker to discuss his innovative Montana State University program and how it’s helping American biathletes.

Becker vividly remembers tuning into the Olympics on NBC in 2018. “It was just so cool to watch how things could change in an instant, right? One athlete is leading the race. They come in to shoot. They miss a target. All of a sudden, they're on the penalty loop. Somebody else goes out in the lead. Right? All the way up to the last shoot.

“You didn't really know what was going to happen. It was just exciting the entire time. Also, as an athlete, you kind of really appreciated the fitness of these individuals and how hard they're working and how fast they're moving. And I've come to appreciate that even more, you know, really getting to know the sport.”

Today, Becker works in kinesiology – the study of human movement. “From a biomechanical perspective, we're looking at what are the forces that generate that movement? What are the forces that are applied to your body during that movement?”

The long and short of it is that Becker and his team study human movement to give athletes optimal tactics to capitalize on every single movement.

Over the past few seasons, his Montana State University biomechanics research team has collected extensive data from video and other tools, analyzed it, and provided feedback to athletes and coaches.

How can it work in practice? Becker discusses how video of athletes on a given course can provide data to offer tactical advice on how to ski that section faster or more efficiently, thereby conserving energy. And, yes, it really works!

From Soldier Hollow to Lake Placid, Vuokatti to Antholz, Becker’s student researchers are making a difference for U.S. biathletes. If you like to geek out a bit on the science of sport, this is your podcast.

Join us for season six, episode three with Dr. Jim Becker to learn more about how the U.S. Biathlon Team is shaving seconds and shooting straighter thanks to innovative data analysis.

It’s been three years since veteran Olympic sport leader Jack Gierhart found his way to U.S. Biathlon. Now entering his fourth season, Gierhart spoke with Heartbeat from the U.S. Biathlon headquarters in Soldier Hollow, outlining some of the innovative athlete support programs that have been implemented, discussing team culture, and sharing the story behind the new U.S. Biathlon logo released this month.

Gierhart was enthusiastic about the athlete-staff initiative on team culture. In episode one of Heartbeat this season, we spoke with Kelsey Dickinson and Chloe Levins about the team’s initiative to create a values-based, positive team culture. “I remember talking with Kelsey and Jake (Brown), and a couple of other athletes a year-and-a-half ago or so,” said Gierhart. “They were enthusiastic about trying to get this going.” Now the shared values program, driven by both athletes and staff, is firmly in place heading into the 2025-26 season.

He also highlighted some of the innovative high-performance programs implemented by U.S. Biathlon to support athletes. As an example, High Performance Director Lowell Bailey now works closely with Jim Becker, a masters biathlete himself, at Montana State University on a wide range of initiatives, from physiological biometric testing to 3D motion capture.

“We're really seeing quite an impact on the performance of our athletes,” he said.

Simple as it may seem on the surface, another priority area for U.S. Biathlon has been athlete wellness. “One of the areas we really started to focus on about a year and a half ago was how do we reduce athlete illness?” said Gierhart. “That's been the biggest impact on us!”

He outlined programs in place now through U.S. Biathlon’s partnership with University of Utah Health. Last January, U of U Health Athletic Trainer Annika Pasch joined the team to support overall athlete wellness on the grueling schedule athletes face during the winter season.

“This concept of minor illness prevention is incredibly important to us,” he added. “So we started to talk about how do we do that? How do we keep our athletes on the race course more frequently? And besides being able and having boots on the ground with the athletes that are able to monitor things in real time and react immediately, is really important.”

The atmosphere at the final pre-season dryland camp was exhilarating. There was a lot on the line with team trials. And final preparation before the team reassembles in Obertilliach, Austria for a final on-snow test before the World Cup and IBU Cup openers.

As he reflected back on the last three seasons, his look forward was one of pride. “The work that this team has done over the last three years – we have high goals. Everybody's working really hard. But whatever happens, I'm going to be incredibly proud of this team and our community of what we achieve.”

Listen in to Heartbeat, season six, episode two, for an insightful look into U.S. Biathlon with CEO Jack Gierhart.