Olympic biathlete from Minnesota finds calm, strength in prayer

Published: 2006-02-14

TURIN, Italy (CNS) -- Carolyn Treacy, the so-called underdog biathlete, found the needed calm and inner strength to make the XX Olympic Winter Games by praying a novena to the Infant of Prague. Facing top-notch athletes and harsh, icy weather at the mid-January Olympic trials in Fort Kent, Maine, the 23-year-old native of Duluth, Minn., recited the spiritual prayer "every day, once an hour for nine hours in a row," she told Catholic News Service Feb. 13. She was considered "a major underdog" at the weeklong trials and had failed to make the U.S. team for the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. The prayer to the child Jesus includes the lines, "I implore you to assist me in this necessity, for I firmly believe your divinity can assist me," and "Take from us all affliction and despair, all trials and misfortunes with which we are laden." Treacy, a senior at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., said she got into the biathlon after her high school skiing coach recommended she give it a try. The biathlon combines cross-country skiing with .22-caliber rifle target shooting.

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