Biathlon: The Greatest, Slushiest, Shoot-Em-Uppiest Sport You're Not Watching

Morning Edition has a story on the biathlon today, which is very timely, given that just this weekend, I actually spent some time with the biathlon, and for a sport that makes absolutely no sense to me at all, I have to say: it's pretty compelling.

Part of it is just novelty, I'm sure, based on just how little biathlon I've watched. By contrast, I've watched a whole lot of figure skating, so there's only a very remote chance that a figure-skating competition is going to lead to something I've never seen before. If it does, it's probably not going to be that move they do at the end of The Cutting Edge that defies physics in several respects — it's more likely to be a new way of falling down.

Not so the biathlon.

Steely people and a stern admonition regarding your skis, after the jump.

 

The oddities of the biathlon, on the other hand, were intriguing. For one thing, the weather appeared to be brought to you by the most indecisive weather gods who have ever reigned. During the men's event I watched (the 10K sprint), it started out calm, and then it snowed, and then it rained, and then it was sunny. If you started at the beginning, you were fine. If you started during the slushy snow, you were essentially doomed.

In most sporting events, the weather might not be good, but at least it rains on everyone at once. In this event, it was as if an actual cloud reached down from the sky, tapped some of the guys on the shoulder, and said, "Not today, buddy." Essentially all the highly-ranked guys started during the Time Period Of Doom, leading to a victory for France's Vincent Jay, who wasn't really expected to be in it (which I freely admit I know from the commentary, and not from my deep knowledge of world-class biathletes).

Furthermore, how great are penalty loops? If you've never seen biathlon, the way it works is that you stop periodically and shoot at a set of five targets, and if you miss one, you have to go over to a little track on the side and ski around in a circle. If you miss two targets, you have to go around twice. It's brutal and petty and wonderful. Imagine, if you will, that if you fell down in figure skating, you had to drop to the ice and do push-ups. We're talking about an Olympic sport where, in essence, when you mess up, you have to run laps. Obviously, the extra loops function as effectively a time penalty, but it's so much more colorful than anything most sports would ever even conceive of.

I was also fascinated by the fact that these are some steely, steely people. The sport essentially asks you to get yourself all sweaty and worked up and ready to collapse, and then you have to stop and hit a teeny-tiny target. (To duplicate this experience, I recommend you run ten miles and then stop and build a house of cards as quickly as you can.)

There's just so much to learn from the Winter Olympics. Sometimes, I amuse myself by reading the rules of sports I know almost nothing about, and here's my favorite part of the biathlon rules:

During any given event, some of the shooting bouts will be conducted in the prone position and some in the standing position; the sequence varies according to the event. (See 'Competition Format.') Competitors are not allowed to remove their skis while shooting in either of the two positions.

Just the words "not allowed to remove their skis while shooting" delight me. If I ever open a bar, I am absolutely, positively putting a sign on the wall that says, "DO NOT REMOVE YOUR SKIS WHILE SHOOTING," even if my bar is located in Tucson, Arizona. Especially if it is, really.

There's more biathlon today during the daytime NBC coverage — it's the men's 12.5K and the women's 10K. If you like guns, skiing, and watching good athletes slink off to complete penalty laps just like you had to do when you were caught whispering in gym, biathlon just might be for you.