In 2018, when Olympic bobsledder Sgt. Frank Del Duca decided to test his mettle as a pilot after several years as a push athlete in the back of the sled, he realized just how constrained he was by finances. He sold his car, his video game system, mountain bike — anything that had any value just so that he could put a 50% downpayment on a set of runners for a sled.
“Driving a bobsled is unlike driving anything else. It's just a direct line to my soul, and what makes me tick is racing,” Del Duca said. So when a coach told him about the U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program, enlisting was in many ways a no-brainer.
Commonly known by the acronym WCAP, athletes serve as full members of the military, selected for their ability to perform on sport's greatest stage. They have a salary and benefits, with the option to develop rank, complete their education and create a secondary career, all while focused on their sport.
Del Duca completed basic training, bought new runners, and after a quick rise through the ranks, tied for 2nd in a strong U.S. field at team trial races. A year later, he was the highest U.S. finisher at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
“I owe my career to WCAP,” Del Duca, an 11B Infantryman, said. “I would have had to stop. I just didn't have the resources to continue.”
The United States Military isn’t the first to support athletes that represent their nation in this way. The model is used across Europe, with athletes serving in the police, the military and in public service roles while earning the ability to train full-time.
Founded in the mid-‘90s to honor the legacy of Tuskegee Airman Malvin G. Whitfield, who won three Olympic gold medals across the 1948 and 1952 Games, both the Army and the Air Force have WCAP initiatives, and the National Guard also provides limited support to full-time athlete members.
Many of the athletes who enlist to support their athletic careers have no prior affiliation to the military. Staff Sgt. Deedra Irwin competes in biathlon — a sport that has its origins in Scandinavian hunting traditions, in which athletes cross-country ski and then fire at targets — and she never imagined she would serve in the Army.
“If you would have asked me when I was a kid, I would have said, ‘There's no way I’m joining the military,’” she said. “But once I switched to biathlon, I had already been through about two-and-a-half years of trying to be a professional [Nordic skier] post-college. With student loans and trying to live paycheck-to-paycheck, I was like, ‘Okay, maybe I should at least just talk to a recruiter.’”
Since then, Irwin has gone from strength-to-strength. She achieved the highest placement of any American in biathlon at the 2022 Games — a record she hopes to beat at Milan Cortina with a first-ever U.S. medal in the sport.
She’s also taken every opportunity to take leadership courses, allowing her to achieve the rank of Noncommissioned Officer, working as a platoon sergeant guiding other athlete-soldiers remotely with their daily tasks and duties.
“I've learned so much from the military,” she said. “We're able to have this dual career. We're able to be Olympians in our sport, but also become NCOs or officers in the military, or go to different schools and really just gain experience.”
Irwin is excited to go through another Olympic cycle and sign another contract with WCAP. Beyond that, she’s less sure, but she sees herself remaining with the Army, transitioning to a support role to help others achieve what she has, and more.
“I wouldn't mind maybe dabbling a little bit in the coaching,” she said. “I think if I'm able to finish out my 20 years in the military, that would be a pretty magical way to come full circle with my experience making an impact on the biathlon community.”
Elite athletes make for elite soldiers
For those overseeing the various military sporting organizations, Del Duca and Irwin’s stories are one of the main reasons the programs exist. U.S. Army WCAP program director Willie Wilson said that while slightly more soldier-athletes are recruited from within the military via sporting events or intramural games, many athletes currently serving learn of these programs through another athlete or outreach effort as Del Duca had.
Wilson spends much of his time establishing a connection with the various national governing bodies, developing awareness of the program and learning what level of performance he should be looking for when assessing candidates. Once an athlete clears those standards, they are earmarked not just for their ability to qualify for an Olympic or Paralympic Games, but for their suitability for a military career.
“It's easier to turn an Olympic athlete into an Airman or Guardian instead of turning an Airman or Guardian into an Olympic athlete,” said Dale Filsell, Chief of the Department of the Air Force World Class Athlete Program.
The effort to have top-tier military representation earning medals at the Olympics is in overdrive with the next Summer Games taking place in Los Angeles in 2028. “We really want to show top athletes here in the States, on the Olympic stage, since we're hosting it,” Filsell said.
Right now, that means having 13 athlete-Airmen in the summer program, along with three winter athletes, but Filsell hopes that membership — and budgets — will grow in the coming years. With the 2034 Winter Games taking place in Salt Lake City, Utah, his next strategy is enhancing the winter sport program, at least doubling the number of placements they can offer.
Two Airmen are currently on Team USA in Milan Cortina: Staff Sgt. Kelly Curtis, who will compete in skeleton; and Senior Airman Jasmine Jones, who will compete with three-time Olympic gold medalist Kaillie Humphries in the two-woman bobsled event.
After hearing about Curtis’ positive experience, Jones decided to join the Air Force WCAP. A single mother, she had been working a full-time job that barely supported her daughter’s needs, let alone that of her sport prior to enlisting. Today, she is unable to imagine where they would be without the program.
“It's a headache to even think about, because I feel like I would still be struggling financially, and not putting my best foot forward in my training,” Jones said. “Joining gave the best opportunity for a better life for me and my child.”
Cross-training in the Army
Williams said that the athletes best-suited to the program often come from some sort of combative sport — wrestling, biathlon, mixed martial arts and the like. But he added that there's no limit. In February 2025, pairs figure skater Pvt. Spencer Akira Howe enlisted, leaving his training center in Norwood, Massachusetts, to complete his basic training.
Howe had always been interested in the idea of serving in the military, but had always assumed that could only be after he hung up his skates. He described the feeling of excitement when he heard about WCAP from a roommate while rehabilitating an injury at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.
“It was a really unique opportunity where I could actually serve and do what I've been doing my whole life, which was skating,” Howe said. “I asked my roommate probably a million questions, and then a year later, I found myself getting more information and setting up my application process to get started.”
Howe said that despite his enthusiasm, basic training was particularly jarring, even for an athlete used to the rigors of elite physical exertion. It also meant spending 16 weeks away from his skating partner, Emily Chan, and missing the final part of the figure skating season.
The physical training was different from on-ice or off-ice training, and the pairs skater — who said he was always considered a little too lean — returned to Norwood with considerably more muscle. That was mostly a good thing, given his sport’s requirements to lift and throw his partner high above his head. But Howe said it took at least a month to relearn figure skating jumps.
Irwin echoed Howe’s reaction to the push-up-heavy training style of basic training.
“I lost so much fitness going to basic training. I was used to anywhere from like 12 to 20 hours a week of cardio," Irwin said. “For me, it was mentally hard to have to take such a huge step back from the fitness level I was used to. But I will say, I have this picture of me flexing my arms at my basic training graduation, and I was reminiscing because holy crap, were my arms huge!” she added, laughing.
As the Olympic Games get underway, each of the athletes in the WCAP program will be hoping to perform at the best of their capability. But unlike many of their civilian counterparts, they have a back-up career, one that not only supports them financially but provides stability into the future whether they stand atop the podium or not.
Biathlon coach Staff Sgt. Drew Gelinas has worked as an enlisted member of both the National Guard and WCAP, and has been astounded by just how many career paths athletes can carve out saying his athletes have gone on to be helicopter pilots, Green Berets, physicians assistants and so much more.
“It's pretty amazing to see these young adults, who may not have thought they would make a career of it, decide to stay in and go on to do great things in the organization,” he said.
Del Duca agrees.
“There've been so many people in the program that have helped me so much that I would love to carry on that tradition and be a part of the World Class Athlete Program and continue to give back,” Del Duca said. “If I could write my story, that's how it would go.”