Joan Guetschow (born September 6, 1966) is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

Olympic Olympic or Olympics may refer to Sports Competitions * Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896 ** Summer Olympic Games ** Winter Olympic Games * Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece b ...

biathlete The biathlon is a winter sport that combines cross-country skiing (sport), cross-country skiing and shooting sports, rifle shooting. It is treated as a race, with contestants skiing through a cross-country trail whose distance is divided into sh ...

. She competed at the Olympic Games in 1992 in

Albertville Albertville (; Arpitan: ''Arbèrtvile'') is a subprefecture of the Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in Southeastern France. It is best known for hosting the 1992 Winter Olympics and Paralympics. In 2018, the commune had ...

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, and

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

Lillehammer Lillehammer () is a municipality in Innlandet county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Gudbrandsdal. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Lillehammer. Some of the more notable villages in the municip ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. She finished 17th in Lillehammer in the 15 km distance event, hitting 19/20 targets. She also competed for her country in the World Championships in

Lahti Lahti (; sv, Lahtis) is a city and municipality in Finland. It is the capital of the region of Päijänne Tavastia (Päijät-Häme) and its growing region is one of the main economic hubs of Finland. Lahti is situated on a bay at the southern e ...

in 1991 and

Borovetz Borovets ( bg, Боровец ), known as Chamkoria ( ) until the middle of the 20th century, is a popular Bulgarian mountain resort situated in Sofia Province, on the northern slopes of Rila, at an altitude of 1350 m. Borovets is located app ...

in 1993. She was the overall winner of the first-ever Olympic Trials for the U.S. Women's Olympic Biathlon Team in 1992. In 1994 she also won Olympic Trials.

High school

Guetschow attended

Hopkins High School Hopkins High School is a public high school located in Minnetonka, Minnesota, United States. Minnetonka is a southwestern suburb of Minneapolis. It offers classes for grades 10, 11, and 12, making it one of the only schools in the state still wi ...

in Minnesota, where she earned an All-American Honorable Mention for swimming.

Professional career

In triathlon she participated 1986 in Finland Championships Games and became second, right after Marjo Matikainen, Olympic gold medalist in

cross-country skiing Cross-country skiing is a form of skiing where skiers rely on their own locomotion to move across snow-covered terrain, rather than using ski lifts or other forms of assistance. Cross-country skiing is widely practiced as a sport and recreation ...

. In 1988, she placed first in the 10 km skate National Collegiate Ski Association Cross Country Ski Championships. After competing, Guetschow was a U.S. National Development Coach for U.S. Biathlon from 1995 to 1999. In 1996 she received the U.S. Olympic Committee's, "Developmental Coach of the Year" award for biathlon. She also served as an athlete representative on the Board of Trustees Executive Committee for the 2002 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Personal life

Guetschow was one of the earliest female Olympic athletes to

come out Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. Framed and debated as a privacy issue, coming out of ...

as a

lesbian A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...

. She stated in an interview about lesbian athletes that her teammates were extremely supportive. She told an interviewer that "there were members of management that didn't go out of their way to make me their poster biathlete." She also was quoted as saying that her team, at the time, spent a lot of time in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

, and that Europeans seemed to be less invasive, and couldn't care less about her sexuality. Guetschow is married to

Tricia Stumpf Tricia Stumpf (born 1970) is an American skeleton racer who competed in the early 2000s. She won two bronze medals in the women's skeleton event at the FIBT World Championships, earning them in 2000 and 2001. Tricia was the Women's Nationa ...

, World Championship Medalist in Skeleton.DurangoTelegraph: Gay Park City couple married
/ref> She has a twin brother, Dave Guetschow, who played professional soccer for the Portland Firebirds and was the goalkeeper for the

United States national bandy team United States national bandy team has been taking part in the Bandy World Championships since 1985, being the first nation to join apart from the four teams which had so far participated in almost all the world championships; the Soviet Union, Swe ...

. Dave and Joan are dual U.S.-Canadian citizens since their mother, Janet Wallis Guetschow, was born and grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

References

External links

Interview at Lesbian Olympians
{{DEFAULTSORT:Guetschow, Joan 1966 births Living people Lesbian sportswomen American LGBT sportspeople Olympic biathletes for the United States Biathletes at the 1992 Winter Olympics Biathletes at the 1994 Winter Olympics American female biathletes LGBT sport shooters LGBT skiers LGBT biathletes Hopkins High School alumni 20th-century American sportswomen