DURANGO, Colo. — A Colorado biathlete has given up her spot on the U.S. Olympic team so her twin sister can go to Sochi instead.
Tracy Barnes qualified over the weekend just ahead of her sister, Lanny Barnes. The team says Lanny was sick and was only able to compete in one of the final four qualifying races in Italy.
“In honor of friendship, cooperation and sacrifice, I declined my spot on the Olympic team,” Tracy Barnes said in an email to family and friends Monday morning, according to The Durango Herald.
Both participated in the 2006 Games in Turin, Italy, while only Lanny qualified in 2010 for Vancouver — finishing 23rd in the 15-kilometer individual event.
“I can’t even begin to describe what it means to me that Tracy made such a huge sacrifice for me,” Lanny Barnes told the paper in an email to The Herald Monday afternoon from Italy. “We have been training together every day for the past 15 years and I know how hard she has worked to make this team.”
In a statement, Tracy Barnes says her sister was having a great year until getting sick and she wanted to give her a second chance. Mother Deb Barnes told the paper that Tracy decided that her sister wanted to go to the Olympics more.
“It’s just really a selfless thing to do,” said the twins’ mother, Deb Barnes, in a phone interview Monday, minutes after she’d gotten off the phone from talking to Tracy, who is in the process of making her way back home from Europe. “She was fine with the decision.”
Lanny Barnes says her sister’s decision is an example of the Olympic spirit of teamwork and excellence.
“Tracy selflessly gave me her spot and told me to go to Russia and bring her back the medal in the individual … I am going to do my best to represent Tracy, Durango and our awesome country and bring home that medal for Tracy,” Lanny said.