Sandager Biathlon Venue

The below article is written by Irv Lerner, a TBC board member. Read on for some amazing history behind the name of the biathlon venue that Birkie is building!

Who in the world is Sandager?             

Actually it’s plural; the range is named in honor of a truly remarkable couple the Sandagers: Robert (Sanday) Sandager and Brigette (Brigi) Sandager. Sandy and Brigi were giants in the worlds of target rifle shooting and XC skiing.

By profession Sandy was a Minneapolis bank officer, but at the same time he was one of the two most outstanding American rifle marksmen of his time (the other was Minneapolis dentist, Emmet “Doc” Swanson). As a teenager Sandy competed on the North Dakota national guard team at the national championships, and in 1937 and 1938, at the University of Minnesota, he was elected to the collegiate All American rifle team. During World War II Sandy’s shooting skill served him well as an army officer in continuous combat from D-Day plus one until the German surrender. After the war he competed on multiple American international teams in Europe and South America including a sixth place finish in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. Later he took up nordic skiing, completing several American Birkies and the Swiss Engadine. Sandy was famous for his perfect classic form and served as a mentor for many beginners. 

Brigi was born of Austrian descent in Romania, an only child in a family with a heritage of foresters. Though trained in multiple languages as a research librarian, her passion was the outdoors. She was a powerful swimmer, an avid hiker, mountain climber and skier. Her idea of a great day was to ascend her beloved Carpathian mountains with skins on her skis, then ski down. Shortly after arriving in the US in 1969, she heard about a new 55 km ski race through the woods of northern Wisconsin called the Birkebeiner and was determined to sign up. Sandy and her friends thought that was madness, but she skied the third Birkie in 1975, though women were only allowed to do the half course. She skied the following year, the first women were permitted to ski the entire course, and annually for years after. Most years Brigi won her class and won so much Birkie swag it became redundant. She also skied the Canadian Riviere Rouge and the Swiss Engadine with Sandy.

The story of the Sandagers’ courtship is somewhere between a fairy tale and a romance novel. As WWII was winding down Sandy and his unit settled in the German town of Leutenberg, with Sandy as the town commandant using Leutenberg castle as his headquarters. Though Brigi and her parents despised the Nazis, like almost everyone in Eastern Europe they were fearful of the Red Army (her father had spent years as a Russian POW in WWI) As the Russians advanced westward Brigi and her parents made a harrowing trip across Europe to Leutenberg where they had relatives. Brigi got a job at the castle as a waitress. How Brigi and Sandy developed a relationship is a mystery: they were both very shy, the gulf in their life stations was huge, and though Brigi spoke multiple languages, none of them was English, so they didn’t have a common language. When the war ended the Allies divided Germany and the Americans withdrew from Leutenberg, and Brigi and her parents were repatriated to Romania. For a time Brigi and Sandy corresponded by mail, but when the Romanian secret police told Brigi she would have to report to them about her American friend she ended all contact. For the next twenty four years they had no contact of any kind!

Brigi had made it clear in 1945 that she would never leave her parents, and when the second of her parents died, a cousin asked her whatever happened to her friend Robert. She replied that she had no idea. In all those years they had no knowledge of each other and neither had ever married. The cousin worked for Romanian airlines and helped Brigi smuggle a letter to the West. Apparently Sandy indicated he was available and still interested. After some additional correspondence they crafted a plan. Sandy, who hadn’t been back to Europe since the war traveled to Vienna (a “neutral” city during the cold war), and Brigi got permission from the ultra repressive Romanian authorities for a weekend visit there. Leaving her home alone, with only a weekend backpack, she rendezvoused with Sandy. With assistance from Hubert Humphrey they were able to marry at the American embassy. In fact, to be sure, on arrival in Minnesota they married again at the courthouse in St Paul. 

So, to the astonishment of his friends, Sandy, the resolute bachelor banker, showed up with a wife, and his life changed utterly.