The Winter Olympics are here, so I’m posting a short summary of what to expect from the only shooting event contested in the winter games:  Biathlon.   I’ve no direct experience with the event—I had some discussions in college when the US Biathlon Team was considering recruiting rifle shooters and teaching them to ski--but I think everyone realized the skiing skills were ultimately more important.

Team USA has 4 women and 4 men representing us in China.   All have good international experience, five of them are returning Olympians.

https://www.teamusa.org/US-Biathlon/Teams/2022-US-Olympic-Biathlon-Team

They’ll be competing in the five Biathlon events:  Men’s and Women’s individual, sprint, pursuit, mass start, and relay events, plus the mixed relay.  The events take place between Feb 5 and 19, and the schedule can be seen here.   

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biathlon_at_the_2022_Winter_Olympics

Most years, the Biathlon does receive some TV coverage, and I believe all of the events are available to stream.  There is a very nice promotional video for the sport--best one I've seen--here:

Biathlon

The shooting portion of the event is done from the prone and the standing positions, in five shot strings, at a distance of 50 meters.  The prone targets are 45 mm across (1.77 inches), the standing targets are 115 mm (4.53 inches).  Pretty small, when you’re shooting them in the middle of a ski race.  Targets are reactive, so hits and misses are visible to the spectators.   Depending on the event, each missed target either adds a fixed amount of time to the skier's time on the course, or requires the skier to ski around a penalty loop before continuing on the course.  

Rifles used must be .22 caliber, generally with a straight-pull action.  Iron sights must be used.  The most popular rifle in recent years has been the Anschutz 1827 Biathlon rifle, about $5500, once the right bells and whistles are added to it.

I won't be posting daily updates, but will try to put an occasional summary up in this thread as the games progress.

Go Team USA!

Biathlon has not been a strong event for Team USA, and the results from the first few medal events reflect that.

In the Mixed 4 x 6 KM relay, Gold, Silver, and Bronze went to the teams from Norway, France, and ROC, respectively.  The US team finished 7^th, a little over 2 minutes behind Norway.

In the Women’s 15 KM Individual, the medals went to Germany, France, and Norway, in that order.  Deedra Irwin from the US finished 7^th, Clare Egan 39^th, and Susan Dunklee 63^rd

In the Men’s 20 KM Individual, France, Belarus, and Norway took the medals, American’s Jake Brown, Paul Schommer, and Leif Nordgren finished 28^th, 35^th, and 87^th, respectively.  You'd think Leif would have finished with a medal, based on his name alone.

There are seven more events still to come over the next 10 days.

Great posting! I would love to try this one day even if it's a watered down version of the real Olympic event.

1 hour ago, dino71 said:

Great posting! I would love to try this one day even if it's a watered down version of the real Olympic event.

There is, or was, a NJ summer biathlon league (running/shooting) that shot at the Cherry Ridge range.  It doesn't look like they've been very active in recent years.  https://www.facebook.com/NJ-Summer-Biathlon-111322242229252/   There was also a standalone website for the group, but it's down.

The PA summer biathlon league was still running matches as of last year.  https://pabiathlon.com/events/

I've no experience with either one.

I did the one at Cherry Ridge a few times several years ago.  It was fun, but I haven't seen any new events in quite awhile.  I sucked at the shooting part, so I have fond memories of going round and round in the penalty loop, strings of five shots, with one loop required for every miss. 

5 hours ago, Old Glock guy said:

I did the one at Cherry Ridge a few times several years ago.  It was fun, but I haven't seen any new events in quite awhile.  I sucked at the shooting part, so I have fond memories of going round and round in the penalty loop, strings of five shots, with one loop required for every miss. 

When you participated in the even did you have to use a special rifle?

Yes, you were required to use a bolt action .22, which they provided as part of the entry fee for those who did not have their own.  Most of the more experienced competitors had their own rifles. 

New Biathlon results, through Sunday:

In the Women’s 7.5 km sprint, Gold, Silver and Bronze went to Marte Roeiseland, Norway, Elvira Oberg, Sweden, and Dorothea Wierer, Italy, respectively.  US finishers were Susan Dunklee (27th), Joanne Reid (34th) and Deedra Irwin (37th)—all in the top half of the pack.

In the Men’s 10 km sprint Johannes Bo of Norway won Gold, Quentiin Maillet from France the Silver, and Tarjei Bo (Johannes’ older brother) from Norway the Bronze.   US Biathletes Jake Brown, Sean Doherty, and Paul Schommer finished 36th, 47th, and 74th, respectively.  

In the Men’s 12.5 km Pursuit, Quentin Maillet from France took Gold, Tarjei Bo from Norway took Silver, and Eduard Latypov from the ROC team took Bronze.  US athletes Jake Brown, and Sean Doherty  finished 40th and 43rd.

In the Women’s 10 km Pursuit, Marte Roeisland (Norway), Elvira Oberg (Sweden) and Tiril Eckhoff (Norway) took the medals.  This was a brutal race, as it was run in heavy, wet snow.  Ingrid Tandrevold from Norway was solidly in third place when she collapsed just 300 meters from the finish line.   For the US Joanne Reid was 29th, Clare Egan 38th, Susan Dunklee 40th, and Deedra Irwin was 47th.  This was the first time the Women's team had 4 shooters qualify for a Biathlon event.

Here is a nice video summary of the Women’s 7.5 km sprint, with an emphasis on the shooting portion.  Women's 7.5 km sprint  Watch Eckhoff’s breathing at about 1:15, as she transitions from gasping for air at the start of her prone stage, to a rock solid hold, then back to gasping for air as she returns to the race.

What incredible athletes, maybe if baseball never comes back then sports like this could take over! 10X are you planning on doing any of the events in Pennsylvania?

34 minutes ago, dino71 said:

What incredible athletes, maybe if baseball never comes back then sports like this could take over! 10X are you planning on doing any of the events in Pennsylvania?

At this point, for me to participate in summer or winter biathlon, they'd have to introduce a new team event, in which I could do the shooting and my teammate could do the running or skiing.  

The biathlon events have concluded at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

In the Men's 4 x 7.5 km relay, Norway, France, and ROC took the gold, silver, and bronze, respectively.  The ESPN website didn't list order of finish for teams outside of the top 8, so I'm not sure where the US team finished.

In the Women's 4 x 6 km relay, Sweden, ROC, and Germany, in that order, won the medals. The US team of Reid, Dunklee, Egan, and Irwin finished 11th.

In the Men's 15 km mass start event, Johannes Bo from Norway won another gold, Martin Ponsiluoma from Sweden silver, and Vetle Christiansen of Norway, bronze.  The US team apparently failed to qualify anyone for the field of 30.

In the Women's 12.5 km mass start event, Justine Braisaz-Bouchet from France took gold, Tiril Eckhoff of Norway silver, and Matte Roeisland of Norway bronze.   America's Deedra Irwin finished 23rd, not quite 3-1/2 minutes back.

Results by country and by athlete are up on the Wikipedia page.   TWO Norwegians won 5 medals each in the event, and Norway with 14 medals total doubled the count of second-place France.  The US didn't medal; as I noted above, it's never been a strong event for us.

Biathlon results

Now, it's on to the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, and the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina-D'Ampezzo, Italy.

I sincerely hope the political bullshit will be significantly dialed back by then.  It's been a terrible distraction at these games.  The athletes and the fans deserve better.