Clare Egan of Cape Elizabeth, who last month competed for the United States in the Winter Olympic Games at Pyeongchang, South Korea, has been elected to a position within the International Biathlon Union.
Egan last week was elected to chair the IBU’s Athletes Committee, which according to the IBU is intended to act as a link between active athletes and the IBU bodies.
Egan, 30, was selected as the committee chair by receiving the most votes (130) from her fellow athletes during balloting conducted in Pyeongchang. She is joined on the athletes committee by Switzerland’s Aita Gasparin (105), Erik Lesser of Germany (100) and Martin Fourcade of France (98).
Gasparin served during the previous four years along with Lowell Bailey, who trained at the Maine Winter Sports Center in Fort Kent, Darya Domracheva and Ole Einar Bjoerndalen.
“It is a great honor, a bit of a surprise, and a clear mandate to continue the fight for integrity and clean sport within the IBU,” Egan said in an IBU release. “Thanks to the work of our predecessors — Lowell Bailey, Darya Domracheva, Ole Einar Bjoerndalen and Aita Gasparin — the newly elected Athlete’s Committee is poised to take on a more central role in IBU governance. I take this role very seriously and I’m motivated to work on behalf of all IBU athletes as the new chair of the Athlete’s Committee.”
The new members will serve on the committee from 2018-2022.
Egan, a 2006 graduate of Cape Elizabeth High School, finished 61st in the sprint and 62nd in the individual competition at the winter games. She also participated on the United States’ 13th-place relay team.
Her best World Cup biathlon season finish was 56th during 2016-2017 and her top World Cup performance was a 16th in the 7.5-kilometer sprint in December 2017 at Oestersund, Sweden.
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