Biathlon

Ok so if I watch this on Eurosport, who should I be cheering????

Nick Windsor 4 wrote (see)

Don't really approve of Biathlon I am not sure it's right to bring a person's sexuality into sport

Boom boom .......... can I catch you at the Comedy Club every Thursday night?

At least unlike tri-athlon you can't lose a race because you can't get dressed fast enough or beacause you leave your room untidy.

You can get disqualified from an event for letting your gun off in a hotel room though.

Yes that's true, many biathletes race in X-country ski too.

Sad to see Andrea Henkel retire, she' s been a great servant to the German team over the years, but as she says, the time has come and she doesn't really have anything left to achieve.

Here's a question: in the relays last week, the shooting was all over the place, even from some of the top teams.  Was this because there were some less-experienced people (maybe not used to being right at the sharp end of a race) who felt the pressure of not wanting to let the team down, or was it because they rushed it a bit as with 3 extra shots available the penalty for a miss or two was so much less?

The targets are pretty small, 40mm and 110mm diameter at 50m depending if prone or standing.

Where several shots go astray is where the biathlete starts thinking about how fast they need to ski before they have finished shooting.

I've always been puzzed why the biathletes come charging into the range and are in such of a hurry to get shooting. They are so out of breath that the first couple of shots are often missed.

You'll never see any of them stop and take a few deep breaths before raising the rifle.

But if you watch carefully you'll see that most don't charge into the range, they slow a bit to start recovery and bring the heart rate down before they actually lift the rifle.

 I meant that they never actually stop moving before trying to hit a target.

Their HR might be coming down but not half as much as it would were it not for lifting a few kg of gun to shoulder height the moment they arrive on the mat.

I've done run and shoot biathlon and could out shoot anyone. My main tactic was to stand stock still for several seconds taking deep breaths. That's all it took to change a 2 or 3 into in 9 or 10.

But they don't need to shoot 9s & 10s, they just need to get it in the black (for the standing shoot, anyway - it's tighter for the prone obviously).  The fact that the targets are so enormous compared with what a regular shooter would be expected to hit just emphasises how hard it really is at that level.

I don't know what the stats are for which shots are missed most often, but I always thought the last one seemed to be as likely missed as the first.  Hardly surprising when you've just noticed the bloke next to you hit the last to a big cheer from the crowd and head off. 

If Biathlon is named because there are two elements to it, what does that make a duathlon?

"I've done run and shoot biathlon and could out shoot anyone."

Note to self not to criticize RicF on these forums.