ZHANGJIAKOU, China — A few years ago, Deedra Irwin was competing in one of her first international biathlon events, having switched over from Nordic skiing, when she reached the shooting portion of the course and made a horrifying discovery. “It was so cold,” she says, “I lost total feeling in my finger and had to keep looking down to see if it was even on the trigger.”
Here at the 2022 Winter Olympics, the most important digit isn’t a judge’s score, or a race time, or any statistic at all—but the few inches of bone, blood and flesh that United States biathletes and others must use to shoot their guns.