How Golf and Buddhism Have Helped Olympic Hopeful Chloe Levins in Biathlon

Chloe Levins may seem like a new name on the U.S. Biathlon Olympic hopeful list. But the 27-year-old Vermonter is, in fact, a veteran — and one of the sharpest markswomen on the U.S. team.

She just missed making the 2018 U.S. Olympic Team, then was derailed by illness before the 2022 Olympic year. Now, with her Zen-like abilities in the shooting range, she is a strong candidate to qualify for the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026.

Biathlon is the only sport in which an American has never won an Olympic medal. Could Levins be the first?

“No pressure, no diamonds,” she likes to say — one of her many “brain bites” from philosophy, neuroscience, and Buddhism. Others include “improving (not proving),” “ego is the enemy,” and “good thoughts, words, deeds” (all etched on her new signature Bivo water bottle).

Levins is a championship golfer and college neuroscience major/religion minor. Here’s how she leaned into both golf and Buddhism to get where she is now.

The youngest of four, Levins was raised in Rutland, Vermont, where her family cross-country skied in the winter and hit the golf course in the summer. Her dad, Jim, ski raced at Middlebury College back when skiers had to participate in all disciplines — alpine, cross-country, and ski jumping. And mom, Mary Anne Levins, was an LPGA golfer.

With three older siblings to watch and learn from, Levins “had the benefit of being the youngest,” says Mary Anne. On skis by age two, little Chloe chased her siblings for hours around the local cross-country ski trails, gliding and sliding while dressed in a puffy snowsuit.

“She was a pretty fierce little toddler,” remembers Mary Anne. “She put her head down and off she went. You never know where that [determination] goes, but it has served her well.”

Levins’s two oldest siblings, Jimmy and Keely, went on to compete in both cross-country skiing and golf for Middlebury College. Their little sister’s dream was to make it to the Olympic Games as a cross-country skier (golf was not yet an Olympic sport). But in sixth grade, she learned that her math teacher’s son, Lawton Redmond, had competed in the Olympic Winter Games Salt Lake City 2002 in biathlon. She watched video clips of those Games and realized it was the sport for her.

“This is how I meld the two skills that I love, the cerebral aspect of golf and the physical aspect of skiing,” she realized.

By eighth grade, Levins was training with a biathlon development group at the Ethan Allen Firing Range in Jericho, Vermont — just under two hours north of Rutland. Her golf skill immediately paid off.

“Shooting and putting are interchangeable in instruction,” explains Mary Anne.

The only real difference? Shooting has fewer variables than putting because it’s the same distance (50 meters) every time. Putting distances and the topography of golf’s greens vary infinitely. But the mentality needed for accuracy in both sports is similar.

When Levins was confused about shooting instruction, she looked to her mom, who explained it in golf terms.

“You're going to think I'm crazy, but golf and biathlon are literally the same thing in my brain,” says Levins. “Precision marksmanship in biathlon and golf have the same cerebral aspect, like having to make a putt on 18 to win a match is the same sensation as trying to get your last target to win a biathlon race or get on the podium.”

While Levins cross-country skied and played golf for Rutland High School, winning two state golf titles on the links, she also competed with the U.S. biathlon team. Junior year, she qualified for her first junior world championships, scoring a top 20 result in her second international start (18th in the sprint).

Senior year in high school, Levins traveled to Lillehammer, Norway, for the 2016 Youth Olympic Games. Coming from behind, she finished fourth in the pursuit race, just 17.1 seconds from a medal. She was the only biathlete in the top four to shoot clean, and her future looked bright.

With no college biathlon programs at the time, Levins was recruited to play golf. But she chose an NCAA Division III school — Middlebury — so she could do both golf and biathlon. As a collegiate golfer, she thrived, winning several collegiate tournaments, as well as the Vermont State Amateur Championship. In biathlon, she competed at more world junior championships and ranked as high as 36th in the world among juniors.

In the classroom, Levins followed a pre-med path. Along the way, she discovered Buddhism.

“I fell into my first class randomly and fell in love with it, just the philosophies and the pillars of Buddhism, no self,” she says.

It helped her find inner peace.

“We can get fixated on titles and accolades,” she explains. “The Buddhist would say that is the root of all suffering.”

Instead, Levins learned to embrace mastering her craft.

“Then whatever comes to me on that path of mastery, like the Olympics, I’ll embrace it with open arms,” she says. “But I’ll also realize that this is just a part of the process of becoming the best possible athlete I can be.”

It would serve her well in the years to come.

With success at the Youth Olympic Games, Levins had her eye on the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018. But struggling with disordered eating, she just missed making the team heading to PyeongChang, South Korea.

Then on November 1, 2020, as Levins was working through the next Olympic quad, she tested positive for COVID-19. Her symptoms did not ease, and in the following months, she was diagnosed with long Covid. One alarming symptom was postural orthostatic tachycardia; her heart raced every time she stood up. If she tried exercising, her heart rate hit 170 beats per minute — just below race pace. All she could do was walk.

“It was really frightening,” she says, “I didn’t know if it would go away, and it came at the worst possible time."

Levins worked with a USOPC cardiologist, and by March 2021, symptoms had eased. She managed to get on the podium at U.S. nationals that month. But she did not fully recover in time to make the 2022 Olympic Team. It was crushing, says her mom.

Then Levins hit her next health obstacle: mononucleosis in spring 2023. Soon after recovering from mono, she had abdominal surgery for a cyst.

“You make lemonade out of lemons, right?” says Mary Anne. “And she’s been handed some health lemons.”

Levins leaned into Stoicism and Buddhism to maintain her mental equilibrium — and still qualified to compete at world championships in 2023-2025. She discovered a gratitude for training and competing in biathlon — “it isn’t something that I have to do on a daily basis, it’s something that I now get to do, and that I almost lost.”

The shift in mindset was transformative for Levins, who now sees setbacks and failure as a path to success.

“When I’m faced with adversity, I embrace it,” Levins says. “I get excited when something bad happens because I know that the comeback is going to be good.”

“She’ll be the first to say, ‘the obstacle is the way,’” adds her mom, referring to a phrase rooted in Stoicism.

Levins ended last season winning two sprint races at U.S. nationals and finishing runner-up in the mass start race.

From nationals, she returned to Middlebury, where she started a new job as the college’s assistant golf coach. Last spring, the Panthers qualified for the NCAA golf championships for the first time in 13 years.

Back training for biathlon, Levins joined the new Mansfield Nordic Pro Team in northern Vermont, along with standout NCAA cross-country skiers like Sydney Palmer-Leger and Annie McColgan, giving her local training partners.

This season is off to a good start, and Levins is leaning into another brain bite: “let it shine,” something her mom used to say as a reminder to not let anyone dim her light or get in the way of her greatest potential.

In August, Levins finished third and fourth in the mass start and sprint, respectively, at summer nationals. Then at international team trials in October, she again finished on the podium — second in the sprint (with perfect shooting) and third in the mass start.

Asked if she thinks her daughter is nearing her potential, Mary Anne is — like her daughter — thoughtful.

“Chloe understands the struggles she’s been through and the lemonade that came from them,” says Mary Anne. “She is doing her best to learn from all that and apply it to what she’s doing now.

“I think she is chasing her own potential.”