OK…it’s not triathlon, but close enough, and it deserves the main forum.
2 more world cup wins for Ole Einar Bjorndalen, putting him at 88 WC wins and closer than ever to a 6th crystal globe!
I love biathlon!
It is a thrilling sport to watch, i can’t even imagine how to fire a rifle with HR around 180.
- And it was Bjoerndalens 89th victory today
- he commented on the race today as “a perfect race, the best one of the season”.
Oh yeah, 88 was the pursuit…yesterday! 0 miss today! amazing…
Francois,
It’s an extraordinary sport that deserves more coverage and profile than it gets.
I have xc-skied a lot over the years, but I still don’t know how these guys do it. Anyone who has xc-skiied fast/hard knows that when you stop, your heart is pounding so hard, it’s nearly leaping out of your chest - I am told that this is due to the extraordinarily large stroke volume required for the heart to keep up using ALL the muscles you are using when xc- skiing fast - How they shoot accuratly in this state, I have no idea.
They’ve been playing this on the TV at the gym I go to - fun to watch.
How they shoot accuratly in this state, I have no idea.
I have been told by some skiing buddies that also do biathlon (one of whom is an ex-SEAL) that you shoot “between the heartbeats”, although as rapid as that must be it would require some delicate timing.
Just read in local media that he logs 1600 hrs training this year, more than any other norwegian athlete.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ole_Einar_Bjørndalen
I think he is absolutley fantastic and miss his battles with Raphael Poiree, but this year he has shown a new level fighting off Svendson from his own team…too bad the Germans can’t seem to get their men’s team back up to the top. Such a cool sport, for sure…the only sport I actually really look forward to watching on TV (too bad most of races are shown on weekend mornings when I am out training…)
Between the beats at 180bpm, you’re still shaking pretty bad…if you’re human!
Ole Einar is Three years younger than me and I remember him from our local xc-ski races. He is several time Norwegian xc-ski champion for juniors, and trust me that is not easy to become. As a 13 year old boy he ran a 10k under 35 minutes, not bad.
I guess the trains around 800- 900 hours on the skiing and then he does a lot of shooting training to 
When it comes to shooting, most athletes use the shoot when you see soothing black approach. Biathlon shooting is really different from all other shooting due to high heart rate, no support clothing and the time pressure.
If you want to some information on how Norwegian biathlon athletes are working out, reading Mark Johnson’s blog. He is an American training one year in Norway.
nice blog thanks
Im also a bithlon lover and a FAN of bjorndalen
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Hey guys…they don’t exactly sprint into the shooting range…they actually wind things down a bit in the final meters to help drop the heart race somewhat before shooting and like any shooting you do it between beats, except in this case your heartrate is not 33 with almost 2 second between beats…more like half a second between beats!
Well, I did manage to get back on skis 5x this week but looks like it is all going to melt this week.
Bjorndalen is just an animal…89 wins is unreal. You have to wonder what keeps a guy who is that good motivated for that long. I guess kind of like Edwin Moses in his day.
Thanks for bringing this up, biathlon and Bjorndalen don’t get enough recognition in the States. What he is and has done is beyond belief. Had he been healthly all year I’m sure he would have more.
Biathlon is my favorite sport without question.
Dev
I am not sure about Bjorndalen, but another Norwegian biathlon athlete Frode Andresen has a goal of starting his shooting with a heart rate less than 160 bpm. Hopefully get it down to 140 as fast as possible.
Keep skiing
Where’s the love for the ladies? Big win for Tora Berger in front of the home crowd and what a great race it was, 5 women finish the final shooting essentially tied and duke it out on the last lap. With that tricky descent into the stadium I thought we might see a good pile up at some point.
I’m a Kati Wilhelm fan myself, good to see her pick up some points on Johnsson going into the final weekend.
I admit, I never followed women’s biathlon…
Isn’t that the guy who got his ass handed when he dumped his rifle and ran with the real men?
No gun - no gun.
Hmmm…he did win a world cup event in XC skiing too.
Hmmm…he did win a world cup event in XC skiing too.
I must have missed that. Link? Ah, don’t bother, I trust you, you’re French.
2006 in Gällivare, Sweden. Only he and Lars Berger (Nor) won FIS XC events, despite being biathletes.
It’s just as if Bjorn A went to win a classic, or Simon W won a Golden League 5000m