As A Team USA Biathlete And Sighted Guide, Jake Brown Could Be In For Two Trips To Milano Cortina Next Winter

Jake Brown had heard stories about a fast visually impaired skier who was racing against non Para skiers at Bowdoin College in Maine, and he occasionally noticed that skier’s name on the results at different competitions.

But Brown didn’t know Jake Adicoff on a personal level.

Three years ago, Brown was preparing to make his Olympic debut as a biathlete at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games when he met Adicoff, who was getting ready to compete at his third Winter Paralympics. They were randomly paired together for a media event that the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee hosted.

“I connected (with him) a little bit there, and I would see him at races every now and then and just say hi,” said Brown, 33, a native of St. Paul, Minnesota. “But I still didn’t really make a connection until I started guiding.”

Thanks to another random encounter, this time with one of Adicoff’s coaches, Brown has started serving as a guide for Adicoff — a four-time Paralympic medalist — during some of his races. In late February, they won a gold medal together at the final world cup event of the Para Nordic skiing season in Steinkjer, Norway.

And there’s a chance that Brown could compete in biathlon at next year’s Milano Cortina Winter Olympics and then turn around a month later and serve as one of Adicoff’s guides at the Winter Paralympics.

“That would be the best-case scenario,” Brown said. “That’s kind of the goal, but of course, I’m here to be helpful to Jake and the Para team if I can be. … I have no ego in this. This is just something that is a really cool thing for me to get to do, and if they decide, ‘Hey, Jake is going to be helpful to us as a team and for Jake (Adicoff),’ then great. Then I’ll get to be a part of it, and that’d be really, really cool.”

The two Jakes worked well together at the world cup season finale in Steinkjer, despite the weather conditions that were so challenging that officials cancelled the races on the final day of the world cup.

With Brown leading the way, Adicoff overcame the conditions and posted the fastest time of the day across all categories when he won the 10-kilometer interval start free race on Feb. 28. He crossed the finish line in 26 minutes, 54 seconds — an impressive 51 seconds ahead of Ukraine’s Iaroslav Reshetynskyi, who took the silver at 27:45.

“I’m a pretty strong distance skate skier, and so I had a lot of confidence that for those kind of distance skate races that I can be helpful to Jake and I’m not going to be slowing him down,” Brown said. “I think that’s the thing I was most nervous for when I raced with him a year ago. We raced a pair of classic races, and I was very afraid that I was going to be way too slow for Jake.”

The next day, with the course growing more difficult to navigate, one of Brown’s biggest fears as a guide occurred. Adicoff crashed during the semifinals of the 1K sprint free race and failed to advance to the finals, settling for fifth place.

“I was so nervous that somehow I had caused him to crash until he kind of caught back up to me and was able to tell me what happened,” Brown said. “Of course, I had a little bit of that fear like, ‘Oh no, did I do something wrong?’ But at the end of the day, it was just a little bit of an unlucky event.”

Unlike Peter Wolter and Reid Goble, two other skiers who served as guides for Adicoff this past season, Brown didn’t know the three-time Paralympian from Sun Valley, Idaho. Brown instead heard about the possibility to guide for Adicoff through Nicholas Michaud, a coach with U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing.

Michaud is close friends with Brown’s youngest brother, Luke. One evening, Brown was home for Christmas when Michaud came over for dinner and started talking about how U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing was looking for fast skiers to guide for Adicoff.

Brown said he thought that sounded like a fun idea and agreed to try it. It’s been a learning experience for him ever since.

“I am learning in my guiding, and so it’s kind of an interesting role that Jake plays, where he is the athlete, but in a way, he’s also teaching me about how to guide for him,” Brown said. “So, I think in that way it’s a unique experience, whereas, yeah, I’m guiding, but he is very much the one that’s kind of teaching me the ropes of it all.”

Brown is a highly accomplished skier on his own. He started skiing at age 3 in the backyard of his parents’ home in Minnesota, and after competing as a runner and skier at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, he still had eligibility left and transferred to Northern Michigan University as a graduate student to ski.

Brown said he didn’t believe he might have a future in skiing until his time at Northern Michigan, where he became an All-American. He then qualified for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and competed in three individual biathlon races, with his best finish being 28th in the men’s 20K. He also helped the Americans place 13th in the 4x7.5K relay.

Brown said he’s working to qualify for Milano Cortina as a biathlete. At the same time, he realizes he could have a good chance to medal at the Winter Paralympics as a guide for Adicoff, though that’s not what motivates him.

“Jake is arguably the best in the world in his event. I mean, that would be fantastic,” Brown said of earning a Paralympic medal. “For me, I don’t do my sport just to try to get an Olympic medal. I think I would have retired a long time ago (if that were the case). Of course, it’s a cool thing to dream about, but at the end of the day, I like ski racing and going out there and trying to do my best and executing to the best of my ability.

“Knowing that I did that, I think, is the most fulfilling thing rather than having a piece of metal around my neck.”

Alex Abrams has written about Olympic and Paralympic sports for more than 15 years, including as a reporter for major newspapers in Florida, Arkansas and Oklahoma. He is a freelance contributor to USParaNordic.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.