Biathlon

Biathlon is a winter sport that merges cross-country skiing with rifle shooting. It grew out of military patrol, a practice that started in 19th-century Scandinavia and has its roots in ski warfare. In Nordic languages, the sport is known as "ski-shooting." Various race types exist, but all share a common structure: contestants ski along a cross-country trail broken into segments by shooting rounds called bouts. These shooting rounds have no time limit, but depending on the competition, missing a target adds either extra distance or extra time to the skier’s overall result.

The sport’s history is tied to Scandinavia’s skiing traditions, where early inhabitants honored the Norse god Ullr as both the god of skiing and hunting. In modern times, the activity developed as alternative military training for Norwegians. Norwegian skiing regiments held military skiing contests in the 18th century, divided into four classes: shooting at a target while skiing at top speed, a downhill race through trees, a downhill race on large slopes without falling, and a long race on flat ground carrying a rifle and military pack. These contests included what are now known as downhill, slalom, biathlon, and cross-country skiing. One of the earliest known ski clubs, Trysil Skytte- og Skiløberforening (the Trysil Rifle and Ski Club), was founded in Norway in 1861 to promote local national defense. Twentieth-century variants included Forsvarsrennet, a 17 km cross-country race with shooting, and a 30 km military cross-country race that included marksmanship.

The modern biathlon is a civilian version of this old military combined exercise. In Norway, until 1984, biathlon was a branch of Det frivillige Skyttervesen, a government organization that promoted civilian marksmanship for national defense. In Norwegian, the sport is called *skiskyting* (literally "ski shooting"). Norway still holds separate contests in *skifeltskyting*, a 12 km cross-country race using large-caliber rifles to shoot at various targets of unknown range.

The combination of skiing and shooting, then called military patrol, was contested at the Winter Olympic Games in 1924 and demonstrated in 1928, 1936, and 1948. During that period, Norway and Finland were strong competitors. In 1948, the sport was reorganized under the Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne et Biathlon and was re-accepted as an Olympic sport in 1955, gaining widespread popularity in Soviet and Swedish winter sport circuits. The first Biathlon World Championship took place in 1958 in Austria, and the sport was finally included in the Olympic Games in 1960. Women were first allowed in Olympic biathlon at Albertville in 1992. The pursuit format was added for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, and the IBU added mixed relay as a format for the 2006 Olympics.

From 1958 to 1965, competitions used high-power centrefire cartridges, such as the .30-06 Springfield and the 7.62×51mm NATO, until the .22 long rifle rimfire cartridge was standardized in 1978. Ammunition was carried in pouches on a belt around the competitor’s waist. The sole event was the men’s 20 km individual, which included four separate ranges with firing distances of 100 m, 150 m, 200 m, and 250 m. The target distance was reduced to 150 m when the relay was added in 1966. The shooting range was further reduced to 50 m in 1978, and mechanical self-indicating targets debuted at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. For the 2018–2019 season, fully electronic targets were approved as an alternative to paper targets used in zeroing or mechanical steel targets for IBU events.

The governing body for biathlon began in 1948, when the International Modern Pentathlon Union (UIPM) was founded to standardize rules for modern pentathlon and, from 1953, also biathlon. In July 1993, the biathlon branch of the UIPMB created the International Biathlon Union (IBU), which officially separated from the UIPMB in 1998. The presidents of the UIPMB/IBU have been: Tom Wiborn (Sweden, 1947–1949), Gustaf Dyrssen (Sweden, 1949–1960), Sven Thofelt (Sweden, 1960–1988), Igor Novikov (USSR/Russia, 1988–1992), Anders Besseberg (Norway, 1992–2018), and Olle Dahlin (Sweden, since 2018).

Major international biathlon events and medalists are covered in separate articles. Unlike the Olympics and World Championships, the World Cup is an entire winter season of mostly weekly races, where medalists are those with the highest sums of World Cup points at the end of the season. These events include Biathlon at the Winter Olympics, Biathlon World Championships, Biathlon World Cup, Biathlon European Championships, IBU Cup, Biathlon Junior World Championships, and Biathlon at the Winter Universiade.

The rules of biathlon are set out in the International Biathlon Union Competition Rules and the Annexes to the Event and Competition Rules, which are updated yearly. A biathlon competition consists of a race where contestants ski a series of loops on a cross-country trail system and include either two or four shooting rounds, half in the prone position and half standing. Depending on shooting performance, extra distance or time is added to the contestant’s total skiing distance or time. The contestant with the shortest total time, or the first to cross the finish line, wins. For each shooting bout, the biathlete must hit five targets or receive a penalty for each miss. Penalties vary by competition rules and include skiing a 150 m or 75 m penalty loop, adding a 1-minute or 45-second penalty to the skier’s total time, or using an extra cartridge held on a spare round holder.