The biathlon is a winter sport that combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. It is treated as a race, with contestants skiing through a cross-country trail whose distance is divided into shooting rounds. The shooting rounds are not timed per se, but depending on the competition, missed shots result in extra distance or time being added to the contestant's total.
Ole Einar Bjørndalen is a retired Norwegian professional biathlete and coach, often referred to by the nickname, the "King of Biathlon". With 13 Winter Olympic Games medals, he is second on the list of multiple medalists behind Marit Bjørgen who has won 15 medals. He is also the most successful biathlete of all time at the Biathlon World Championships, having won 45 medals. With 95 World Cup wins, Bjørndalen is ranked first all-time for career victories on the Biathlon World Cup tour. He has won the Overall World Cup title six times, in 1997–98, in 2002–03, in 2004–05, in 2005–06, in 2007–08 and in 2008–09.
Michael Greis is a former German biathlete.
Ekaterina Stefanova Dafovska is a Bulgarian former biathlete. She took up the biathlon in 1990. She made the national team in 1993 and came in 29th in the 15-kilometer competition at the Lillehammer Olympics the following year. She won a gold Olympic medal at the 15 km Individual event during the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano. As of 2023, her gold medal is the only one won by a Bulgarian at a Winter Olympic Games.
Emil Hegle Svendsen is a retired Norwegian biathlete. He has won eight medals at Winter Olympics and five individual gold medals and seven relay gold medals at World Championships.
Biathlon debuted at the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California with the men's 20 km individual event. At the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, the men's 4 × 7.5 km relay debuted, followed by the 10 km sprint event at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. Beginning at the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, women's biathlon debuted with the 15 km individual, 3 × 7.5 km relay, and 7.5 km sprint. A pursuit race was included at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The top 60 finishers of the sprint race would qualify for the pursuit event. The sprint winner starts the race, followed by each successive biathlete at the same time interval they trailed the sprint winner in that event. At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, a mass start was introduced where the top 30 biathletes from the previous four events were allowed to start together for the competition.
Tora Berger is a retired Norwegian biathlete and Olympic champion.
Kaisa Leena Mäkäräinen is a Finnish former world-champion and 3-time world-cup-winning biathlete, who currently competes for Kontiolahden Urheilijat. Outside sports, Mäkäräinen is currently studying to be a Physics teacher at the University of Eastern Finland in Joensuu. Her team coach is Jonne Kähkönen, while Jarmo Punkkinen is her ski coach.
Darya Uladzimirauna Domracheva is a retired Belarusian biathlete and coach who competed in the Biathlon World Cup from 2006 to 2018. She won a gold medal in the 4×6 km relay and a silver medal in the mass start competition at the 2018 Winter Olympics, three gold medals in the pursuit, individual, and mass start competitions at the 2014 Winter Olympics, and a bronze medal in the individual competition at the 2010 Winter Olympics. She was a Biathlon World Cup overall winner for the 2014–15 season.
Tarjei Bø is a Norwegian professional biathlete. Awarded Olympic gold medals, World Championship gold medals and World Cup victories from 2010 to 2022. Bø debuted in the Biathlon World Cup on 26 March 2009 in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. In the 2010 Winter Olympics, he earned his first gold medal in the 4 × 7.5 km biathlon relay. On 10 December 2010 he won the World Cup sprint race in Hochfilzen, his first world cup victory. He also won the following pursuit race and anchored the winning relay team. Bø is the older brother of biathlete Johannes Thingnes Bø.
Valentyna Oleksandrivna Semerenko, known also as Valya Semerenko and featuring in statistics as Valj Semerenko is a Ukrainian biathlete. She is Olympic and World champion, multiple World championships medalist, and one of the most successful Ukrainian winter athletes.
The 44th Biathlon World Championships was held in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia from March 3–13, 2011.
The 46th Biathlon World Championships was held in Nové Město na Moravě, Czech Republic, from 7 to 17 February 2013.
Dorothea Wierer is an Italian biathlete competing in the Biathlon World Cup. Together with Karin Oberhofer, Dominik Windisch and Lukas Hofer she won a bronze medal in the Mixed relay at the 2014 Winter Olympics, in Sochi, Russia. At the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea she won again the bronze medal in the Mixed relay with Lisa Vittozzi, Lukas Hofer and Dominik Windisch. At the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, she won her first individual medal in the Sprint. She is the 2019 Mass Start World Champion and the 2020 Pursuit and Individual World Champion.
Michal Krčmář is a Czech biathlete and an Olympic silver medalist in the sprint at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
Lisa Vittozzi is an Italian biathlete. She competes in the Biathlon World Cup, Vittozzi has won a bronze medal at the Biathlon World Championships 2015 in Kontiolahti . At the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics she won the bronze medal in the Mixed relay. Vittozzi is the overall winner of the Biathlon World Cup 2023/24 season.
Biathlon at the 2018 Winter Olympics was held at the Alpensia Biathlon Centre, Daegwallyeong-myeon, Pyeongchang-gun, Gangwon-do, South Korea. There were eleven events contested: men and women competed in each of sprint, pursuit, individual, mass start, and relay; there was also a mixed relay event. The eleven events were scheduled to take place between 9 and 23 February 2018.
The 2022–23 Biathlon World Cup(official: BMW IBU World Cup Biathlon) was a multi-race series over a season of biathlon, organised by the International Biathlon Union (IBU). It was the 46th edition for men and 41st edition for women of the highest international race series in biathlon.
Ukraine competed at the 2023 Winter World University Games in Lake Placid, United States, from 12 to 22 January 2023.
Cross-country skiing at the 2023 Winter World University Games was held at the Lake Placid Olympic Sports Complex Cross Country Biathlon Center from 15 to 22 January 2023.
Kazakhstan 
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