BEIJING — It's always good to have goals in life. When Jake Brown was a young cross-country skier, his was pretty simple: to win one of the Swedish Dala horses given as trophies at the Mora Vasaloppet.
His ambitions are a little grander now. Tuesday, the biathlete from St. Paul, Minn., finished 13th in the men's 4x7.5-kilometer relay at the Beijing Olympics, wrapping up his first Winter Games. Brown combined with two other Minnesota-connected athletes — Leif Nordgren of Marine on St. Croix and former St. Scholastica skier Paul Schommer — and New Hampshire native Sean Doherty to race on one of the coldest days of a frigid Olympics.
The event was the last of these Olympics for the U.S. men's biathlon team, which did not qualify any athletes for the 15k mass start on Friday. Brown, 29, posted the best individual results of the four-man group. He finished 28th in the 20k, 36th in the 10k sprint and 40th in the 12.5k pursuit.
