I had not known until a few days ago that the Winter Olympics include a ski-shoot biathlon, in which the contestants ski cross-country to a designated point and then shoot at targets. (Can Vice President Cheney ski?) The Wall Street Journal reported today that many American biathletes had been in the National Guard, which trains biathletes at the Army Mountain Warfare School in Jericho, Vermont, but that this year's delegation to Torino includes only one National Guardsman among the 10 American biathletes. Some of the Guardsmen who might have competed are in Iraq, where opportunities to ski are limited, and other top biathletes have left the Guard. The article contained the intriguing fact that it takes eight years to train a skier to shoot well.
If the biathletes aren't coming from the Army, where are they and the other United States Olympians coming from? Apparently from the hardware superstore: the February 6 issue of SCT Xtra, a nesletter from the International Council of Shopping Centers, says that since the 1992 Games about 11% of the American Olympic medalists -- one out of every nine -- have been employees of The Home Depot, and the United States team in Torino includes 33 Home Depot employees. I didn't find anything on how many Olympians are from Wal-Mart.