December 1, 2004 – The first World Cup Biathlon competition of the season will be held tomorrow in Beitostølen, Norway. Most of the teams have been in Norway training and competing already, either in Beitostølen or two-hours southwest in Geilo, which hosted the first two European Cups. Norway now has plenty of snow and the competitions in Beitostølen will be held as planned.

Earlier this month, Beitostølen hosted a series of biathlon and cross-country races to open the season. The races were used to choose the last remaining spots on the Norwegian World Cup teams, but they also attracted sizeable foreign contingents of top biathletes. The World Cup teams from Russia, China, Italy, and the United States competed as did the top German women. Of course, Norway also had dozens of its athletes competing to qualify for the World Cup.

Just last week, the European Cups in Geilo also attracted a huge participation. With 262 athletes, the event in Geilo set a record for participation at a European Cup that will be difficult to top in the future. Raphaël and Liv Grete Poirée, who won seven World Championship medals last season for their Norwegian and French teams, showed up at the start as did many of the top athletes from the World Cup.

From these competitions, it’s clear that a few things have changed since last season. Granted, most of the top athletes have planned their seasons around the World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria, at the beginning of March, but many are still setting their sights on claiming the overall World Cup title, which means they need to be performing well beginning tomorrow. Here is a preview of the season ahead.

Women/Team: Russia vs. Germany

Though these teams have been head to head for the past few seasons in the women’s field, it will be even clearer this season. With many of Norway’s top athletes either out on maternity leave or occupied with maternal duties, there is now one less team to disrupt this epic battle. Both in Beitostølen and in Geilo, Russia showed that its strength is in its depth. With a dozen women able to compete for a spot on the World Cup team, Russia will always have back-up support in case of illness, injury, or poor performance.

Though the Germans don’t have the depth, they do have the quality in the likes of Apel, Beer, Disl, Glagow, Henkel, and Wilhelm. Certainly, head coach Uwe Mussigang has an equally pleasant task in choosing the four women for his relay team as his Russian counterpart does. Watch or follow the women’s relays this season just to see this fight evolve, round after round.

Women/Individual: Who is the new queen?

Even Norwegian head coach Odd Lirhus admits that he is expecting less from last season’s biathlon queen, Liv Grete Poirée. With sub-par results in Beitostølen and Geilo this month, Lirhus says that Poirée is obviously not at the level she was at when she won four medals in Oberhof last February. Liv Grete’s response is that her daughter, twenty-two month old Emma, is taking more and more of her time and energy, but that also her and Raphaël’s training has been more intense than ever during the off-season.

Look for good performances from Liv Grete from time to time, and especially during March’s World Championships, but consistency might be the opposite for her this season. Who then will fill the void? Certainly one of the Russians or Germans hopes to fill the role of biathlon queen, but most likely this season will see many different women on the podium.

Men/Team: If the Norwegians could only shoot…

…then they would be dominating biathlon like they did cross-country in the nineties. Led by some of the fastest skiers in the world, Norway will certainly do damage on the ski trail. But amongst Norway’s team lie also some of the World Cup’s worst and most inconsistent shooters. This means severely high blood pressure for head coach Roger Grubben, but great drama for television audiences. Soon Grubben will be able to relax as it is clear that the new generation of Norwegian biathletes seems to have learned that the secret to biathlon is to ski fast and shoot well.

It is the opposite case for the German team. Traditionally some of the field’s top shooters, the Germans have been plagued by old age and stagnation. Finally, head coach Frank Ullrich is beginning to make the hard decision of forcing some of his older athletes into retirement to make room for the younger athletes, who are talented skiers. The German relay will be a touchy subject, and some athletes might crumble from the pressure of pleasing Ullrich.

Meanwhile, far to the east of the Ural Mountains, a new team of Russian athletes has sprung up over the off-season. Though some of the more experienced and well-known athletes are still part of the team, they are being challenged by a strong group of younger athletes, and strangely, athletes that are in their prime, but who have never made it to international races before. The team is strong and deep, and will be amongst the podium shuffle for the relay along with Norway and Germany.

Men/Individual: Ole Einar – he’s still got it, but does he still want it?

Ole Einar Bjørndalen has done everything a biathlete can do in a career. He won every gold medal possible at the 2002 Olympics in Utah, has won the overall World Cup title, and has claimed World Championship titles. But he has two thorns in his side. First, he is always competing against his arch-rival Raphaël Poirée of France. Poirée was on fire last season, claiming both the overall title as well as dominating World Championships. Second, he has an inferiority complex with cross-country skiers and has a huge need to prove to everyone that he is not only a great biathlete, but a great skier.

Bjørndalen has raised the level of biathlon significantly over his decade-long career on the World Cup. His performance in February 2002 will long be remembered as a great moment in sport. But he is human. Biathlon, with its three races per week, and cross-country skiing, with its constant travel from venue to venue, are impossible to combine. And Ole Einar has correctly acknowledged this. He has said that his goals for this season are winning gold at the Biathlon World Championships in March and “getting a good result” at the World Ski Championships in February. What he has sacrificed is the overall World Cup title.

Though he will certainly be a major contender for winning every World Cup he starts in, by missing at least two World Cups – Östersund later this month and Pokljuka in late February – his chances of claiming that overall title are small. The door is open then for Raphaël Poirée of France and Ricco Groß of Germany, who both use Rossignol skis, boots, and bindings. Groß seems to be in good shooting and skiing form, though Poirée struggled both in skiing and shooting this month. Both men have said that they have hungry aspirations for the overall title as well as gold medals in Hochfilzen. They, along with Ole Einar, his Norwegian teammates, and the Russians, will be the men to beat this season.

Americans fighting for points

The primary goal for the U.S. team this season is to have good enough results to place in the top twenty in the Nations Cup. If they succeed, then the team will retain four start positions per gender per race at the 2006 Olympic Games. If they fail, then only one American will be able to race in each competition in Torino. Fortunately, the American team has been in the top-twenty since the mid-nineties, but by fielding a full team in the December World Cups, it will be a much easier task for them this season.

Alaskans Jay Hakkinen (27) of Kasilof and Jeremy Teela (28) of Anchorage lead the men’s team while Rachel Steer (27), also of Anchorage, leads the women’s team. Also competing in December will be Lanny Barnes (22) of Durango, CO, Jill Krause Beste (26) of St. Cloud, MN, and Sara Granroth (25) of Yarmouth, ME in the women’s races, and Tim Burke (23) of Paul Smiths, NY in the men’s races. Hakkinen, Barnes, and Burke all use Rossignol skis, boots, and bindings.

Two new races formats, just to keep it interesting

At the 2006 Olympics in Torino, Italy, biathlon will have five different races formats for both men and women – individual, sprint, pursuit, relay, and mass start. Two new events have just been approved by the Executive Board of the International Biathlon Union (IBU) for use this season.

The SUPER SPRINT will be tested during a European Cup at the end of the season in Switzerland. At the moment, the rules are vague enough to allow tweaking by race organizers, but it follows the sprint-type racing of cross-country skiing. For qualifying, athletes ski a 3.6 km course, starting every fifteen seconds, stopping to shoot twice. During each bout of shooting, the athlete has eight rounds to hit five targets. If a competitor fails to hit all five, then he is disqualified. The final and quarterfinal use a 6 km course and four shooting stages, but are mass start. The same shooting rules apply, missed targets result in DSQ.

The MIXED RELAY will be a World Championship event this season, but will be contested at the World Cup Final in Khanty-Mansiysk, Siberia, rather than at the World Championships held earlier in March. It combines two women and two men from the same nation into one relay team, each athlete handing off to the next. The order for all teams is woman-woman-man-man. All athletes ski a 6 km course, stopping to shoot twice. As in the traditional relay, athletes have eight rounds to hit five targets in each shooting stage. However, like the super sprint event, one missed target results in disqualification.

It all starts tomorrow

The season opens tomorrow with the men’s 10 km and women’s 7.5 km sprint races in Beitostølen, Norway. Pursuit races will be held on Saturday followed by relays on Sunday. Follow the races live on Biathlonworld.com, or wait for OLN to broadcast a program later this month.