Durango natives Lanny and Tracey Barnes accomplished a lot in their careers as Olympic biathletes. Now, their stories are included with other Olympians in Doug Levy’s new book, “Hero Redefined: Profiles of Olympic Athletes Under the Radar.”
The twin sisters and Levy met in Durango at Maria’s Bookshop on Feb. 26 to as part of a bookstore event promoting the event. However, the writing process started more than two years ago for Levy.
Levy, a former sports columnist, sports reporter and news reporter in the Pacific Northwest, also had a career as a lobbyist. He’s always wanted to write a book but he didn’t have the time. Levy’s always been a big fan of the Olympics and had filed away some Olympic moments he wanted to include in his book.
Whether it was Swiss marathon runner Gabriela Andersen-Schiess’ incredible determination to finish in the 1984 Summer Olympics or Manteo Mitchell finishing his leg of a relay in the 2012 Summer Olympics on a broken leg, Levy had the foundation for his book ready in his mind.
“When I wound down my lobbying career, I got to the point where I thought I could put some time into this,” Levy said. “I started researching the idea of winter and summer Olympic athletes who typically didn't win medals. With the examples of Gabrielle Anderson-Schiess or Manteo Mitchell. I wanted to look at athletes who fought through other things and demonstrated heroism in other ways. I found an interesting collection of them through the years. That's what inspired me to inventory the list of athletes and write the book.”
Levy really focused on Olympic athletes from 1960 forward because he wanted to interview all the Olympians or related people who were still alive to tell the stories.
Therefore, he came across Tracy Barnes’ incredible story at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Tracy gave up her spot in the U.S. Olympic biathlon team to Lanny because Lanny was sick during the U.S. Olympic trials and missed out on qualifying for the team by one place.
Levy got in touch with Tracy through USA Biathlon. Levy said Tracy and Lanny were great to work with and they gave him a bunch of coaches to reach out to for interviews.
“I was pretty excited because what my twin sister did was pretty heroic,” Lanny said. “I try and tell her story as much as possible so it was nice that she was recognized for the sacrifice she made.”
Lanny was also excited because it was the first time her and Tracy’s story had been told in a book. It’s been told and written about in basically every other media format. The book can be read and a source of inspiration for generations to come.
It took several months for Levy to track down all the athletes, their families and coaches that he wanted to interview. He had a raw manuscript early in 2024 and worked with Girl Friday Productions out of Seattle to bring the book to life. Levy’s book was published on Jan. 28.
In chapter eight, Levy chronicles the Barnes twins’ journey from growing up playing soccer in Durango to their Olympic experiences and what they’re up to today.
“Doug was great to work with,” Tracy said. “It was a fun process reliving the story … one of the other things I took away from it was the other stories that Doug included in it. I’m maybe easily inspired by those types of things. However, those stories were incredible and amazing … it was fun to read those stories to my kids who were easily inspired by them.”
Levy thought it was important to reach out to bookstores in the athlete’s hometowns. The event at Maria’s Bookshop with the Barnes twins was Levy’s first and he plans to do more. He was happy with the turnout at Maria’s and wished he could’ve stayed longer to check out all that Durango has to offer.
“At the bookstore event, she (Tracy) and Lanny were just absolute salt of the earth folks who came to the event, talked about their experience and signed books for anybody who wanted their signatures,” Levy said. “I went out to dinner with them afterward. I feel like I've made two new friends so it was a really great experience.”
Find Levy’s book on amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, or at Maria’s Bookshop.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
