Encyclopedia
Biathlon is a term used to describe any sporting event made up of two disciplines. Biathlon, however, usually refers specifically to the
winter sport that combines
cross-country skiing and
rifle shooting. Another popular variant is summer biathlon, which combines cross-country running with riflery.
Unsurprisingly, biathlon events are broadcast most regularly where the sport enjoys its greatest popularity, namely
Germany ,
Norway ,
Finland ,
Sweden ,
Russia ,
Belarus ,
Slovenia ,
Estonia , and
Bulgaria ; it is also broadcast on European-wide Eurosport. Some events are broadcast on
U.S. cable channel
OLN.
The broadcast distribution being one indicator, the constellation of a sport's main sponsors usually gives a similar, and correlated, indication of popularity: for biathlon, these are the Germany-based companies
E.ON Ruhrgas ,
Krombacher , and Viessmann .
Concise history
The sport has its origins in an exercise for
Norwegian soldiers. The first known competition took place in 1767 when border patrol companies competed against each other. Gradually the sport became more common throughout
Scandinavia as an alternative training for the
military.
Called
military patrol, the combination of skiing and shooting was competed at the
Olympic Winter Games in 1924, and then demonstrated in
1928, 1936 and 1948, but did not regain Olympic recognition then, as the small number of competing countries disagreed on the rules . During the mid-1950s, however, biathlon was introduced into the Russian and Swedish winter sport circuits and was widely enjoyed by the public. This newfound popularity aided the effort of having biathlon gain entry into the Winter Olympics, where it has later become one of the most cherished sports.
The first
World Championship in biathlon was held in 1958 in
Austria, and in 1960 the sport was finally included in the
Olympic Games. At Albertville in 1992, women were first allowed in Olympic biathlon.
The competitions from 1958 to 1965, used high-power centerfire rifle cartridges before the .22LR rimfire cartridge was standardized in 1978. The ammunition was carried in a belt worn around the competitor's waist. With the only competition being the Men's 20km Individual, four different ranges and firing distances of 100m, 150m, 200m, and 250m. The target distance was reduced to 150m with the addition of the Relay in 1966. The shooting range was further reduced to 50m in 1978 with the mechanical targets being making their debut at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. Newer electronic targets are now used in all major competitions such as World Cups, World Championships, and the Olympics. The targets, using computerized sensors, are superior to mechanical targets as they require fewer officials for recording and reseting the targets and they allow for instant shot recording, needed for live television broadcasts. The mechanical targets were also shown in the
For Your Eyes Only is a collection of James Bond [i] short stories by Ian Fleming [i]. ...
when
James Bond was in
Cortina d'Ampezzo while a biathlon competition was ongoing.
Governing body
In 1948, the
Union
Internationale de
Pentathlon
Moderne et
Biathlon
was founded, to standardise the rules for biathlon and
modern pentathlon. In 1993, the biathlon branch of the UIPMB created the
International
Biathlon
Union
, which officially separated from the UIPMB in 1998.
Presidents of the UIPMB/IBU:
- 1948–1949: Tom Wiborn
- 1949–1960: Gustaf Dyrssen
- 1960–1988: Sven Thofelt,
- 1988–1992: Igor Novikov
- From 1992: Anders Besseberg
Champions
The following articles list major international biathlon events and medalists. Contrary to the Olympics and World Championships , the World Cup is an entire winter season of weekly races, where the medalists are those with the highest sums of World Cup points at the end of the season.
Rules and equipment
The complete rules of biathlon is given in the official IBU rule book . However, the concise description given below, along with the section on competition format, should be enough for a spectator to understand what is going on at a biathlon stadium whether actually being there or at home watching a televised biathlon event.
Basic concepts
In short, a biathlon competition consists of a race in which contestants ski around a cross-country track, and where the total distance is broken up by either two or four shooting rounds, half in prone position, the other half standing. Depending on the shooting performance, extra distance or time is added to the contestant's total running distance/time. As in most races, the contestant with the shortest total time wins.
For each shooting round, the biathlete must hit five targets; each missed target must be "atoned for" in one of three ways, depending on the competition format:
- by making a skiing round in a 150 m penalty loop, typically taking 20–30 seconds for top-level biathletes to complete ,
- by having one minute added to one's total skiing time, or
- by having to use an "extra cartridge" to finish off the target; only three such "extras" are available for each round, and a penalty loop must be made for each of the targets in order to keep track of the contestants' progress and relative standing throughout a race, split times are taken at several points along the skiing track and upon finishing each shooting round. The large display screens commonly set up at biathlon arenas, as well as the information graphics shown as part of the TV picture, will typically list the split time of the fastest contestant at each intermediate point and the times and time differences to the closest runners-up.
Skiing details
All cross-country skiing techniques are permitted in biathlon, which means that the
free technique is usually the preferred one, being the fastest. No other equipment than skis and ski poles may be used for moving along the track. Minimal ski length is 4 cm less than the height of the skier.
Shooting details
The biathlete carries the 3.5
kg small bore rifle including ammunition in magazines on her/his back during the race. The rifles use
.22 LR ammunition and are
bolt action.
The target range shooting distance is 50
m or 164 feet. There are five circular targets to be hit in each shooting round. When shooting in the
prone position the target diameter is 45 mm or 1.7 inches, when shooting in the standing position the target diameter is 115 mm or 4.5 inches. On all modern biathlon ranges, the targets are self-indicating, in that they flip from black to white when hit, giving the biathlete as well as the spectators instant visual feedback for each shot fired.
Competition format
Individual
The 20 km Individual race is the oldest biathlon event. The biathlete shoots four times at any shooting lane, in the order of prone, standing, prone, standing, totalling 20 targets. For each missed target a fixed penalty time, usually one minute, is added to the skiing time of the biathlete. Competitors' starts are staggered, normally by 30 seconds.
Sprint
The sprint is 10 km for men and 7.5 km for women. The biathlete shoots twice at any shooting lane, once prone and once standing, for a total of 10 shots. For each miss, a penalty loop of 150
m must be skied before the race can be continued. As in the Individual competition, the biathletes start in intervals.
Pursuit
In a Pursuit, biathletes' starts are separated by their time differences from a previous race, most commonly a Sprint. The contestant crossing the finish line first is the winner. The distance is 12.5 km for men and 10 km for women, there are four shooting bouts , and each miss means a penalty loop of 150 m. To prevent awkward and/or dangerous crowding of the skiing loops, and overcapacity at the shooting range, World Cup Pursuits are held with only the 60 top ranking biathletes after the preceding race. The biathletes shoot at the lane corresponding to the position they arrived for all shooting bouts.
Mass start
In the Mass start, all biathletes start at the same time and the first across the finish line wins. In this 15 km competition, there are four bouts of shooting with the first shooting bout being at the lane corresponding to your bib with rest of the shooting bouts being at the lane in the position they arrived . As in Sprint races, competitors must ski one 150 m penalty loop for each miss. Here again, to avoid unwanted congestion, World Cup Mass starts are held with only the 30 top ranking athletes on the start line .
Relay
The Relay teams consist of four biathletes, who each ski 7.5 km or 6 km , with two shooting rounds; one prone, one standing. For every round of five targets there are eight bullets available, though the last three can only be single-loaded manually one at a time from spare round holders or bullets deposited by the competitor into trays or onto the mat at the firing line. If after eight bullets there are still misses, one 150 m penalty loop must be taken for each missed target remaining. The first-leg participants start all at the same time, and as in cross-country skiing relays, every athlete of a team must touch the team's next-leg participant to perform a valid changeover. On the first shooting stage of the first leg, the participant must shoot in the lane corresponding to their bib number , then for the remainder of the relay, the relay team shoots at the lane in the position they arrived .
Mixed relay
The most recent addition to the number of biathlon competition variants, the Mixed relay, is similar to the ordinary Relay but for the composition of the teams, each of which consists of two women and two men. Legs 1 and 2 are done by the women, legs 3 and 4 by the men. The legs are 6 km, as in the ordinary women's Relay competition.
Team
A team consists of four biathletes, but unlike the case of the Relay competition, all team members start at the same time. Two athletes must shoot in the prone shooting round, the other two in the standing round. In case of a miss, the two non-shooting biathletes must ski a penalty loop of 150 m. The skiers must enter the shooting area together, and must also finish within 15 seconds of each other, otherwise a time penalty of 1 minute is added to the total time. Since 2004, this race format has been obsolete at the World Cup level.
Biathlon venues
World Cup events and World Championships in biathlon have traditionally been held at the following relatively few locations.
*The Veltins-Arena, located in
Gelsenkirchen and renamed from Arena AufSchalke in July 2005, is the stadium of German football club
FC Schalke 04. Since 2002 the stadium has hosted a special end-of-year mixed team event, now called the "Veltins Biathlon World Team Challenge".
Other Biathlon variants
Two common variations on biathlon are
summer biathlon, where skiing is replaced by a cross-country run, and
archery biathlon , where the rifle is replaced by a
recurve bow. There have also been summer competitions in
roller-ski biathlon,
mountain bike biathlon and
orienteering biathlon.
Notes
See also
Biathlon's two sports disciplines:
Other multi-discipline sports :
External links
- – The official IBU rule book, with annexes
- – A cooperation between IBU and EBU; with race results/statistics, TV schedules, live competition results, etc.
