History of Biathlon

The word Biathlon comes form the Greek and means something like "Two-contest". This means the both disciplines "skiing" and "shooting".

The origin country of Biathlon may be Norway, as a region full of ski-loving people, but maybe one should enlarge this to whole Scandinavia. If we believe in a Norwegian myth was the first biathlete the goddess of ski Skadi, who left her husband Njord, the god of lights, on ski and armed with an arch, to live in the mountains and ski.

With the development of the ski, about Christ's birth, also Biathlon was born, because the ski arouse out of the wish to relieve the hunt and till today the biathletes are also called "ski-hunters".

This kind of hunting was made perfect until the 16th century in the military in Scandinavia, but also in Prussia and Bavaria where the soldiers were under high pressure and where even competitions were hold. But for the normal people Biathlon, or better said its predecessor, was still from low importance.

This changed at the end of 19th century - beginning 20th century when ski sport became popular because of different successes made with ski (i.e. the crossing of Greenland in 40 days). Also mid-European hunters discovered the ski and so the great development of Biathlon started :
At Olympic Games in Chamonix 1924 the so called Patrol was firstly demonstrated for the people, but it was still a military battle sport, what shouldn't change until the end of World War II. 1949 won a Swedish suggestion against the foremost favourite modern pentathlon (cross-country, ski alpine, shooting, fencing, riding) and this was the birth of Biathlon as we know it now.

But the development to the today's mass exciting sport took a long time and wasn't easy. 1958 were in Saalfelden the first World Championships and in 1960 became Biathlon (11 years after its invention), an Olympic sport. But for a long time were no professional conditions for the athletes.

The biggest difference to today's Biathlon were the targets that were balloons these days. Furthermore rifles with a big calibre were used. With the establishment of rifles with a small calibre Biathlon was accessible for the huge mass.

A milestone in history of Biathlon was the foundation of the World Cup in 1976 and the registration of women competitions for World Championships in season 1983/1984, what happened mostly because of the CSSR and UdSSR who wielded high pressure on the federation. 1992 women biathlon became finally Olympic !

In 1993 the IBU (International Biathlon Union) was founded in London and at the latest with the entrance of big sport stars like the couple Poirée, Ole Einar Bjoerndalen or Uschi Disl became Biathlon a sport who excites a million of people all over the world. Also the development of the Biathlon-Trophy (now Golden Classics) did its part.

Biathlon

Disciplines