Other / Richard Douglas / 23 November 2009 /

A baffling combination of skiing and shooting it may be but, as Richard Douglas explains, bettor needn't exert themselves too much to profit from one of the most punishing events in world sport.

It has been said that all sport originated as training for war.

The author of that comment has clearly never seen synchronised swimming unless, that is, inane grinning was a subtle technique to undermine the enemy in days of yore.

The statement does stack up for biathlon. The event was created by Norwegian soldiers and the world's first club, the Trysil, was established to promote home defence.

In the deepest recesses of your memory there is a box marked "slightly weird snow-based sports that the Scandinavians excel at and get about 30 seconds coverage on the Winter Olympics every four years".

It is probably right next to the one labelled "sexy female footballers". This is biathlon's natural home.

Yes, it is that skiing and shooting sport. In the individual event, male competitors race for 20 kilometres, women 15km. The undulating courses are testing, sometimes climbing 700 metres over their length and competitors came reach up to 80kph on downhill sections.

At four points, they must stop to shoot at targets - first prone, then standing, then prone again and finally standing. There are five targets each time and missing any will add a time penalty, usually one minute each.

Biathletes are known as some of finest sportsmen on the planet. Physical strength and mental control are everything. These people race around with a pulse rate of 180-190 beats per minute then have to control themselves enough to hit a button-sized target 50 metres away. The clock is ticking all the time.

For the average bloke, it is like running to the pub at break-neck speed and then, without pausing for a pint, trying to play darts from a oche three-times the usual distance from the board. You are not even allowed pork scratchings!

Apart from the individual event, there are five main variants. The sprint is over 10km for men, 7.5km for women, and has only 10 targets in two shoots. The pursuit, as you might think, is a chase over 12.5/10km where competitors set off in a staggered start using time differentials from a pervious race. The first over the line is the winner. The mass start, over 15/12.5km, does what it says on the tin. So does the four-person relay over 7.5/6km.

There are few things guaranteed in sport (betting would hardly work if it did) but I can predict that barring an act of God, Ole Einar Bjørndalen [2.24] will finish on the podium in the Men's World Cup this year.

The Norwegian has been in the top three for the past 13 years. In last seven, he has taken gold five times and silver twice. He also has five Olympic golds from various events. In a nutshell, he is quite handy.

His compatriot Emil Hegle Svendsen [2.32] is his closest rival. He is 10 years younger than Bjørndalen and only made his breakthrough at the 2008 World Championships by taking two individual goals. He finished third last year but is seen to be a man on the rise.

Thomas Sikora [5.2] split to pair 12 months ago, though it was something of a surprise. The Pole won an Olympic silver in the mass start at Turin in 2006 and picked up a Sprint title in 2006.

Michael Greis [5.2] however has stronger credentials. He collected three golds at the same Games. In addition the German has three World Championship wins to his name and, perhaps most importantly in this case, he is only man to finish in front of Bjørndalen in a World Cup in the last five years.

In the women's event, Magdalena Neuner [2.2] leads the way. The German won the event in 2008 but slipped to fourth last year when her shooting let her down. In her stead, Helena Jonsson [4.0] stepped up to finish first. However Kati Wilhelm [3.5] is widely fancied to run them both close. The 23-year-old is famed for sporting red hair so those wacky funsters in the German media have dubbed her Little Red Riding Hood.

However, no wolf would want to take on Wilhelm. She'd surely chase it down over snow and then shoot it between the eyes.

He pulse-rate would barely rise in the process. You see, this Little Red Riding Hood is trained for war.

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