Campbell Wright: The U.S. Biathlete Who Believes in Luck—and Hard Work

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Campbell Wright might just be the United States’ greatest biathlete. Born to American parents who emigrated to New Zealand in 1993, the 23-year-old joined the U.S. team in 2023 by using his dual citizenship. Since the change, he’s continued his progression and notched some of the best results the U.S. program has ever seen. Wright became the first U.S. biathlete to win two medals at a World Championships when he took home two silver medals from the 2025 championships in Lenzerheide, Switzerland. He’s been training around the world – Italy, the U.S. and New Zealand – as he prepares for the 2026 Olympics. Get to know Wright as he tells his story with a mix of humor and candor, and explains his philosophy on luck that’ll have you rooting for him even harder.

This interview has been edited for concision and clarity.

You’re on the national team with my sister, Chloe, but we haven’t met, and I honestly don’t know much about you. How did you get into cross-country skiing and then biathlon?

My getting into cross-country skiing is the result of one person: Mary Lee. She and her husband started the cross-country Snowfarm in New Zealand. She was my neighbor. My parents had four boys and had their hands pretty full. So when she offered to take us kids cross-country skiing, they were like, “Yeah, go for it!” I started cross-country skiing when I was about 10 and just really enjoyed the vibe up there. It was pretty chill, pretty laid back, not as high-stress as alpine skiing.

That’s so lucky Mary was your neighbor. It sounds like without her, you might’ve never become a skier.

She also took me over to my first-ever skiing race in Australia when I was probably 11. She organized for me to go to Canada on an exchange with a skier. So when I was 14 I went to Ontario. That’s when I really started loving skiing a lot, because that’s the first time I ever saw people my age skiing. The cross-country skiing scene in North America is just epic, I really fell in love with cross-country skiing properly there. That’s when I was like, Oh, I’d really love to be a skier.

How long were you there?

Four weeks. I was able to race against other kids, which was great because in New Zealand, I didn’t know if I was good or bad or somewhere in the middle because there was no one to race against. I was pretty shocked, realizing I wasn’t horrible at skiing. My brother (who is a professional cyclist) talked about how Europe is more competitive, so I also had the opportunity to go train with the Australian biathlon team in Italy. I was at the training sessions with everyone, and then when a race came, they would all go to a biathlon race, and I would just stay at the hostel by myself. I realized Europeans are a bit better at skiing than North Americans, and that I should try to spend more time in Europe and try biathlon properly. If I wanted to go to Europe and train with a group, biathlon was my opportunity to do it. I spent school holidays in Europe, a few more weeks every year. And then when I was 18, I left school and spent four months in Europe.

What was the team like?

Pretty much every single biathlon federation that didn’t have enough money to actually make a team gave Australian biathlon a little bit of money and became part of their team. So it was like Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, all kinds of working together. There were about 30 of us living in bunks in a hostel while training in Europe. There were teenagers up to 40 years old. It was good to see, as a young person, that not everyone has everything available to them. It’s a privilege to get to do what I do.

You were with the New Zealand team until 2022 and represented them in the Olympics in 2022. What made you want to join the U.S. Team?

I worked with Emil Bormetti from when I was 15 to 19. When I went from the IBU Cups and junior cups to training with the older athletes, I had a different coach. Once I stopped getting coached by Emil, I started enjoying biathlon a lot less. I was thinking about quitting biathlon a little bit. At the end of the season, I didn’t really know what I was going to do. I knew I wasn’t going to go back to train under my old coach. At the same time, Emil got the assistant coaching job with the U.S. I already had a U.S. passport. It just came at the absolute perfect time. I had just gotten good enough to probably qualify for the US World Cup team. Tim Burke and Lowell Bailey were two of my idols, and they were working for U.S. Biathlon, too. It was just a perfect time to swap. One day you’re like, Maybe I’m done doing this forever, and then the next day it’s just like, life-changing. 2023 was my first official season on the U.S. team.

It certainly seems like it’s been the right choice. You’ve had some incredible results since joining the U.S. team. The best, of course, was at the World Championships in 2025, where you won two silver medals. What was that week like?

Everyone wants to have their best race at World Champs, but I know that’s not the reality of the world. It doesn’t work like that. I thought if I had my best skiing day and my best shooting day, I might be able to get in the flowers. In the sprint, Ponsiluoma started a minute in front of me.  He’s probably a top 3 skier in the world in biathlon. I was thinking, If he misses three in prone then I can follow him on my second lap. I came into prone. I went clean, and I saw him coming out of the penalty loop and I was like, Holy sh*t, it actually happened. You just have to follow him, no matter how many matches you burn on this lap, if you want any chance to be near the front, you really just need to follow him.

That’s such a risk, going that hard on a lap that leads right back into shooting.

My second lap was pretty hot, like, I was redlining pretty hard. I came into standing and was like, OK, let’s just get these targets down. I don’t know how, but they all went down. On the last lap, I saw from the wax techs and everyone that I was doing pretty good, and everyone was screaming like, You’re probably gonna get a medal here! That will motivate you to ski fast.

You got your silver medal in the sprint. And then that led to you having a great starting position in the pursuit, where you medaled again. Your face after the last shooting was one of the greatest moments of the season.

I don’t know how I did it again, to be honest, because at Junior Worlds, I won the sprint and then proceeded to miss like eight in the pursuit. I was very much preparing for that mentally. I was like, Campbell, this could be a sh*t show. When you prepare for the worst and hope for the best, it’s a pretty good place to be. I came into the final shooting in second place. Eric Perrot and Sturla Laegreid were behind me. Those are the two best standing shooters on the World Cup. I knew I needed to shoot clean because I knew those guys were going to shoot clean. And sure enough, they both did. But I did, too. I knew I was safe. It was pretty fun to be me on that day.

We’re heading into an Olympic year. How excited are you? How are you feeling?

I want to be a good biathlete. I would say I was a successful biathlete this past season, even without two World Champ medals. I’m a lot more proud of that than I am of it coming together on the right day, because I think there’s a huge component of luck there. You need to be f*cking lucky to get on a podium at the Olympics or World Champs because there’s probably 20 guys who can do it.

That’s true, especially in your sport. Cross-country skiing alone would require luck to get on a podium. But then add in the variables of shooting, and there’s a lot of luck involved.

I know in my heart that if Ponsiluoma didn’t miss three, I would not be a World Champs medalist. I can’t look myself in the mirror and say that luck wasn’t part of it.

Earlier, you spoke about how you got into biathlon as a way to train in Europe. But you’ve clearly fallen in love with the sport. What do you love about it?

The thing I like most about biathlon is that it will break your heart, but then it also gives you these highs. That’s what I’m here for. A bit of thrill, a bit of heartbreak, a bit of theater. That’s what I love about it.

Campbell Wright’s World Cup season will start in November in Östersund, Sweden. Olympic biathlon competitions begin on February 8th in Antholz, Italy.

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