Campbell Wright switched his competitive allegiances from New Zealand to the United States in 2023. Photo / Florian Frison, AFP
Competing on the biathlon World Cup circuit for New Zealand, Campbell Wright lived a lonely existence.
At 19 years old, Wright made his first splash on the global stage in the sport, which mixes cross-country skiing and shooting, as a promising talent to watch.
He qualified for his Olympic debut at the Beijing event in 2022, before going on to become the first athlete from the Southern Hemisphere to claim an International Biathlon Union (IBU) medal when he won the Junior World Championships in 2023.
That was his last major event in New Zealand colours, as the dual citizen switched his competitive allegiances to the United States. Wright had previously been approached about the move prior to the 2022 Games, but being selected to compete for New Zealand was a major goal for the young athlete.
While the additional resources that came with the 2023 move were a plus, Wright told the Herald there was more to his decision.
“I’m thankful my career went in quite good ways and I’m happy to continue, because it was kind of change to US or quit. So I’m pretty happy with the choice I made,” he said.
“I think if it was just the funding thing, I could have probably made it work just with prizemoney and sponsors and without any help from the team or stuff like that. But it was just quite lonely travelling around Europe and doing a full World Cup season by myself with no teammates or anything.
“It became a bit brutal that last year, and I think one of the biggest things that I get from Team USA is camaraderie and teammates and people to do a 12-hour travel day with and eat dinner with at the end of a training session or a race and that side of it.
“I’m a bit of a social butterfly and wasn’t quite able to spread my wings on the New Zealand biathlon team, as you can imagine.”
Be it the comfort of company or the additional resources, or a combination of the two, the 23-year-old has excelled in red, white and blue.
He showed his growth at last year’s IBU World Championships to earn silver medals in the sprint and pursuit races – the first American athlete to win two medals at a single world championships – before earning his first World Cup podium with a runner-up place in the men’s 15k mass start race in January.
This month, Wright will compete in his second Olympics and is in the unusual position of representing as many countries at as many Games.
“I kind of made peace with those demons my first year on US but it definitely loses a bit of the romantic side of it of, like, the nationality thing, if I’m being 100% honest, which does suck,” he said.
“I feel like it’s a lot more just about sport than competing for a nation at these Games, which does sting a bit, not going to lie. But it’s just the reality of the situation I’m in and I think there’s a lot greater evils in this world than that.
“It definitely feels different but I feel like I still represent a lot of New Zealand. So all the people, I’ll have a bunch of my family over here and a bunch of Kiwis are coming over and I’m pretty stoked to have that and I definitely still feel a lot of support from New Zealand because I very much am still a Kiwi.”
Wright goes into the Games with a different outlook from that of four years ago, when he was the youngest of the 92 athletes competing in the men’s 20km individual race.
“I definitely feel like I belong on the start line. Last time I was 19 and kind of felt like a bit of an outsider,” he said.
“Not an outsider, but I didn’t feel like I really deserved to be on the start line because I knew that the sixth Norwegian guy who wasn’t able to start was better than me. So I felt like I was a bit of a freebie there for a small nation, which I know isn’t true and that’s not the way it works, but it is the way I felt a little bit.
“My goals this time is just to enjoy myself. I’m fit and I’m ready to rip. So, if I can enjoy myself, I’m going to be a happy dude.”
In Italy, Wright will be part of an American team looking to win the nation its first Olympic medal in the sport. Of all the events contested at the Winter Games, biathlon is the only one in which the United States has never won a medal.
Asked where he felt the team’s best chances were to end that drought, Wright said there would be a solid chance in the men’s relay or any of the individual events.
“I like our odds. I give it a 20% chance of happening, which is pretty f***ing good I reckon.”
Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.