Olympian Paul Schommer Finds Faith And Focus In The Contrasts Of Biathlon

For biathlon competitors like Paul Schommer, the sport is a demonstration of athletic opposites.

Heart pounding, muscle-burning exertion on skis – stride after stride, mile after mile – only to come to a complete stop. The breathing must slow, the heart must still, as athletes pick up their rifles and take aim at five tiny targets.

Then the process repeats itself.

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“It’s a very exciting sport because things can change very quickly,” Schommer said. “You can be way out ahead, doing a great race, and come in and have a bad shooting. Next thing you know, you’re back in the middle of the pack.”

Schommer, a member of Team USA competing in the Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, sees a lot of parallels between his sport and daily life.

“We all have goals,” he said. “We all have a target. We all want to hit that target. And I think that there are variables that we can’t control.”

In biathlon, the wind may suddenly start swirling. The sun’s brightness may change. Snow or rain may start falling. Hands may get cold.

“You have to be able to focus and perform in the midst of all that chaos to still hit the target,” he said. “Life doesn’t stop for you.”

For Schommer, the spiritual parallels are also profound.

“There’s this redemption aspect of it that’s really cool, because your past shooting doesn’t have to define your next shooting,” Schommer said. “It’s hard. It humiliates you. Just when you think you got it figured out, you don’t. But there are always new opportunities that await you if you just keep moving forward.”

A native of Wisconsin, Schommer grew up attending church and always believed God was real and important. Early in life, he said he felt the weight of sin. Though he didn’t fully understand what it meant to be freed from that until his teenage years, he knew that such freedom came through Jesus Christ.

He credits his involvement with Fellowship of Christian Athletes in high school with giving him a better appreciation of God’s heart toward him.

“I really started to understand that God actually likes me,” Schommer said. “He actually wants to speak to me. He wants to move in my life in a way that goes beyond understanding or comprehension at times.”

His faith deepened even more during his college years, when he says he began to be “refined by the fire.”

Now, as a two-time Olympian competing in the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, Schommer said he’s still growing as a believer. He lives in an athletic world where he’s bombarded by the message that results matter – but Schommer has learned that there’s more to life, and more to his relationship with God, than how he performs in his sport.

“What’s the heart of God like?” he asked. “Does His heart change based off the result? Is He surprised by the result? Or is He an all-knowing, all-loving God who understands the mistakes that we’re going to make before we make them? Does He allow us to go through some of these things to shape and mold us?”

Schommer has announced that the 2026 Olympics will be the finale to his competitive biathlon career. While the solitude of the biathlon course has defined his career, he’s looking forward to a future with more community in church life since he won’t be traveling so much. He has a teammate he reads the Bible with and prays with, but he acknowledges that arrangement isn’t ideal.

“It’s just not a true replacement for what I feel like we’re really called to do: to live in community, to be there for one another when times are tough and the times are good, to celebrate with each other and to share meals and to challenge each other and just walk through life together,” he said.

Schommer’s first event is Tuesday in the men’s 20km individual race. On Friday, he’ll compete in the men’s 10km sprint, and on Feb. 17 he’ll race in the men’s 4 x 7.5km relay.