You should get into biathlon this winter.

I grew up in Colorado, but I have only been skiing once — on a dinky hill in our city park for a couple of hours. I spent my childhood summers and most of my twenties in Texas, but I have only shot a gun once — at a range in Austin on a first date in 2002.

So when I tell you I love biathlon, a race in which competitors alternate between cross-country skiing and target shooting, please understand it is purely as a spectator. I have no illusions of ever participating, nor a desire to.

Watching biathlon — usually wrapped in a blanket with a hot breakfast or warm pet in my lap — has been a wonderful winter hobby for me for about a decade now, and given the sadness many of us are feeling these days, I thought you might be in need of a fun new mental escape. May I recommend biathlon?

I love watching biathlon because it’s the hardest sport. No really, it’s the hardest sport. Observe: Cross-country skiing is an all-out effort; every muscle, every joint, every alveoli is maxed out at capacity gliding the body up hills and down, around corners and competitors. Even the tongue is involved.1 Then the athlete skis into the shooting range — heart hammering, muscles burning, lungs heaving — and must pull the body into its corporeal opposite, into stillness, focus, precision. She must time those heaving breaths for the few seconds between shots, because for every missed target, there’s a penalty.

Imagine yourself at your fittest, running a mile as fast as you can, then trying to thread a needle.

Imagine it’s five needles in a row, and for every eye you miss on the first jab, you have to run up a flight of stairs. And you’re wearing gloves.

Now imagine the needle weighs seven pounds and you have to carry it with you the whole time.

Sound hard? That’s biathlon.

Some biathletes are powerful sturdy oaks, some willowy and lithe, others compact and reliably evergreen. There are biathletes, like Sweden’s Elvira Oeberg, who are lightning fast skiers but can be unreliable shooters. There are biathletes, like Italy’s Dorothea Wierer, who are adequate skiers but fantastic sharpshooters. It’s not uncommon to enter the range in first place and leave it in sixteenth because of a single missed shot. That’s what makes it so fun to watch!

Biathlon is no respecter of youth, which generally cracks under the pressure of the shooting range. Being in the lead going into the last shoot — knowing that all you have to do is nail these next five and you win — is a recipe for trouble in the young. If there’s an older biathlete right next to them who’s already begun shooting, now it’s a recipe for disaster. You have to think to be good at biathlon, but if you think for a fraction of a second too long, then the doubt creeps in and you’re fucked.

Sometimes biathletes will drop bullets (they can’t ski with a loaded rifle) and waste precious seconds fumbling them back into the chamber. Sometimes snow gets in the barrel, a sudden wind gusts, or the temperature drops between laps — all fiddly little things that can crater shooting accuracy or, worse, require thinking to resolve.

Yes, egomaniacs often excel at biathlon. But they also shit the bed more spectacularly on off days (I will not name names, I will not name names…)

The coach cams are a genre unto themselves.

Biathletes are frequently covered in snot or drool, which they don’t wipe away because it would kill the rhythm and waste time. Like cross-country skiers, they often collapse in dramatic heaps once over the finish line — facedown, mouths open, diaphragms2 desperately hammering air into lungs. (Which like, cross-country skiers aren’t even carrying seven-pound rifles???)

Biathlon is the only sport in the Winter Olympics in which the US has never won a medal. The highest an American has ever placed — Deedra Irwin in 2022 — is seventh, and in the rare instance American sports media mentions biathlon, it’s every four years to ask “WhY arE We sO BAd aT tHiS?????” That recycled, self-centered question is a disservice to athletes like Irwin who spend months away from home3 competing in an expensive sport with little support (or even nightmarish “support”) for no money, no scholarships, etc.

It’s also a disservice to other countries, where biathlon actually is a BFD. And to those countries’ top athletes and the sport as a whole, which doesn’t just happen every four years for a few weeks. It happens every year for four months, in exciting races you can watch at home.

The IBU World Cup, which is the major leagues for biathlon, holds weekly tournaments in different (usually but not always European) locations from November to March. For US residents, races stream live and on demand with English-language commentators on Eurovision Sport, which is free but requires a login. (There is a new commentating team this year, and it is *controversial* on r/biathlon. There’s a petition.) Most of the races this season are scheduled for midmorning viewing in the US.

There are different types of races: Sprint (short laps, staggered start every 30 seconds, one prone shoot and one standing), Individual (long laps, staggered start, two prone shoots and two standing), Pursuit (start time is staggered by a previous day’s finish time), Mass Start (self-explanatory), and Relay (mass start, two shoots per team member).

For most race types, the penalty for a missed shot is a 150-meter loop, which must be completed before leaving the range. For the Individual, the penalty is added time to to the finally result, usually 45 seconds per missed shot.

In the Sprint and Relay, competitors are allowed three extra attempts per shoot, but each extra bullet must be loaded individually, which adds time. There are no extra shots in other races.

For each race, the top 40 athletes are awarded points, which determines their overall standings in the World Cup season. First place gets 90 points, 40th gets one. The IBU (the FIFA of biathlon but slightly less corrupt) has a really good app, where you can follow your favorite athletes, keep track of World Cup scoring and drill down on stats to your hyperfocus heart’s content.

And yes, there is fantasy biathlon.

The athlete leading the overall World Cup scoring at any given moment wears a yellow bib, kinda like the Tour de France. The top scorer for each race type wears a red bib, and the top scorer who’s 23 or younger wears a blue bib.4

Norway, France, Sweden and Italy typically field the best biathlon teams, with other countries having so-so teams and breakout stars.5 Women’s biathlon has been way more exciting than men’s the last few years because Norwegian men generally, and Johannes Thingnes Boe specifically, dominate so goddamn hard. Last year, six of the top 10 men in World Cup scoring came from Norway. Boe won the Crystal Globe — the Stanley Cup of biathlon — by a ridiculous 188-point margin. Second place went to his older brother, Tarjei Boe. (They seem like lovely people! And I am happy for them! But, like the Kansas City Chiefs, it is also annoying!)

On the women’s side, Norway’s Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold was winning most of last season, but only by a hair, and struggled so much in the last tournament that she ended up third overall, bested by Italy’s Lisa Vittozzi and France’s Lou Jeanmonnot. Vittozzi is a seasoned veteran, but Jeanmonnot’s rise last year came as a total surprise — it was only her second season in the World Cup! — and was probably a welcome relief for the French, considering their two stars have been locked in a weird, perhaps criminal, off-ski scandal.

This season looks to be even more dramatic, with each of the races so far having a different winner. Tandrevold pulled out of the second tournament due to an ongoing heart condition, and Vittozzi has yet to compete because of an off-season injury. Pick your dark horse! Czechia’s Marketa Davidova, Germany’s Franziska Preuss, Finland’s Suvi Minkkinen, any of them could have the season of a lifetime. (Mine is Switzerland’s Lena Haecki-Gross, because she has big thighs, and I am strongly pro big-thigh-girls-in-sports.)

Even men’s biathlon could be dope this year on account of Boe having the shakiest start of his career. Another Norwegian did so badly in the first week that he was sent to the minor leagues. France’s very fun team looks strong, Sweden’s not so much, and Ukraine’s had its best start in years. Then there’s Campbell Wright, a young Kiwi now competing for the US, who got fourth place in a race last week — the best an American has done in years (maybe ever?).

We’re 13 months out from the Winter Olympics in the Italian Alps, and the fields are wide open.

So listen. Get into biathlon. Escape with me these winter mornings when you’re waiting for football to start to an alpine wonderland, where temps are low, taxes are high, healthcare is free, and rifles are very cutesy very demure.

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