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Biathlon
A Brief History:
Biathlon is a relatively
new sport, to North America, that combines the athletic skills of cross
country skiing and rifle marksmanship.
The winter biathlon
combines a 20-km (12.4-mi) cross-country ski race with a series of pauses
for shooting.
This biathlon is a
direct descendant of the World War II military ski patrol and had its
Olympic debut at Squaw Valley, Calif., in 1960.
The participants must
carry a single-shot rifle and stop four times at roughly 4-km (2.5-mi)
intervals and fire five shots at each stop. For each failure to hit the
target, 1 minute is added to the competitors time.
The biathlon relay,
for four men each traversing 7.5 km (4.7 mi), has slightly different rules
and was introduced as an Olympic sport in 1968.
In Summer biathlon
the race distance is 5km for both men & women, using .22 caliber rifles.
The same format as
winter is followed except that running is used in place of skiing, and
they do not carry their rifles while running, the rifles are found at
the firing line.
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