World Team Challenge – FasterSkier

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Crawford, Green Seventh at Bucket-List-Type Event: Biathlon auf Schalke

Harald ZimmerDecember 30, 2017

Picture some 45,000 rambunctious fans, loud music blaring, a course comprised of 10,000 cubic feet of machine-made snow, a shooting range surrounded by bulletproof glass, 1,300 fir trees as decorations, and 10 biathlon teams representing their nations, all packed into a huge stadium with a retractable roof that’s home to soccer team Schalke 04 in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. That’s the setting for the annual “Biathlon auf Schalke” two-person mixed relay show race, also known as the...

Biathlon News Other Racing

Germany Wins at Home in Soccer Arena; Canada Debuts at Schalke

Harald ZimmerDecember 29, 2016

A biathlon relay with athletes skiing around and through a huge soccer arena in a city with no snow seems like a crazy idea. But in the 1990s, the German cross-country skier and biathlete Herbert Fritzenwenger, who had retired from active sports after competing in the 1988 Calgary Olympic Games, believed there had to be some way to make biathlon even more attractive for viewers. He wanted to mix sports and entertainment bringing the sport...

Biathlon Racing

A Holiday Tradition Unlike Any Other: French Biathletes Win World Team Challenge

Harald ZimmerDecember 30, 2015

Imagine the most outrageous, over-the-top spectacle for a biathlon race -- complete with a world championships snowball fight -- and you'll have Biathlon auf Schalke, a.k.a. the annual World Team Challenge, which took place in a soccer stadium earlier this week in front of nearly 41,000 fans.