Hockey player Abby Roque. Snowboarder Nick Baumgartner. Watch for those names in the coming weeks as they are Yoopers competing in the XXIV Olympic Winter Games in Beijing, China.

Roque, 25, hails from Sault Ste. Marie and is a forward on the USA women’s hockey team. She speaks in her online 2022 Olympic introduction about playing hockey on her backyard rink. You can view her at https://teamusa.usahockey.com/2022olympics-abbyroque.

Roque’s father coached at Lake Superior State. Her mother is from Calumet.

The USA women’s hockey team is looking to repeat its gold medal performance in the 2018 Olympics with its main rival being Canada.

Iron River native Baumgartner, who turned 40 in December, will be participating in his fourth Olympics as a member of the 2022 U.S. Olympic Snowboard team.

He competed in the 2010, 2014 and 2018 in snowboardcross, with a fourth-place showing in 2018’s games in PyeongChang his best finish to date.

You can show your support for Baumgartner by purchasing merchandise on the web page https://dreambigmi.com/ or from Advanta print in Iron Mountain at https://nickbaumgartner.itemorder.com/

This year, Baumgartner is the oldest snowboarder in Olympic history and the oldest athlete competing for Team USA.

While Deedra Irwin, 29, is from Pulaski, Wisconsin, we consider her to be a Yooper as well, of the transplant variety. She attended Michigan Tech University from 2011-15. She ran cross country and competed in nordic skiing as a freshman before focusing on skiing for the rest of her time in Houghton.

On Sunday, Irwin made history as the highest finisher in Team USA history at the Olympics in the 15k biathlon. Not bad for a woman who added the rifle component to her game just four years ago.

We know winter-loving Upper Peninsula residents will be watching the games. There will be a total of 109 medal events across the following 15 sports: Alpine skiing, biathlon, bobsled, cross-country skiing, curling, figure skating, freestyle skiing, hockey, luge, Nordic combined, short track, skeleton, ski jumping, snowboarding and speed skating. There also are seven new events: women’s monobob, men’s and women’s big air (freestyle skiing), mixed team snowboard cross, mixed team aerials, mixed team short track relay and mixed team ski jumping.

That’s quite a lot of winter sports to follow and we know having a couple of Yoopers to cheer for makes the Olympics even more exciting.

We wish Roque, Baumgartner and Irwin the best of luck in Beijing. Go Team USA!