Whistler, British Columbia – Olympic biathlon racing comes to a close today with the final event of the 2010 Olympic Games, the men’s 4×7.5km relay.
More so than any other event, good shooting is critical to success in the relay, and strong performances are needed form all four athletes.
In the biathlon relay, each skier gets three extra shots per shooting stage. This means a biathlete has eight bullets to hit five targets. The catch, however, is that those extra three are not in the clip, and need to be loaded manually. This takes precious seconds. If all targets have not been hit after eight shots, penalty laps are skied.
Generally, if a team has a skier doing laps, they are out of medal contention. In the women’s relay, France was an impressive exception to this rule. Marie Dorin seemingly took France out of the medal hunt with five misses and two penalty laps in peone shooting on the third leg. But the French women had amzing skis, and were posting very fast course times. They came back to take the silver.
They were the only team to finish in the top-11 to have even one penalty lap, let alone two.
It would be surprising to see a similar performance in today’s men’s race.
Norway starts in bib 1, but will be hard pressed to hold that position. It has been a rocky Olympics for the Norwegians, with Ole EInar Bjorndalen all over the map. Emil Svendsen is the real deal, but 40-year-old Halvard Hanavold and 21-year-old Tarjei Boe skiing the first two legs, will find it difficult to keep the team in contention. If they do, and Bjorndalen the legend shows up, a medal is a possibility.