[]Russia's obsession with the biathlon is reaching a fever pitch. Today, the sport that combines cross country skiing and target shooting is among the most shown competitions on Russian TV. In polls, Russians name it as their second-favorite winter sport. At some other events here at the Winter Olympics, attendance has been light. But this weekend, Russians packed the biathlon stadium and lined the track with Russian flags. "It's a sport that has a lot of passion," said Alexander Boyko, who brought his family from the Moscow area to cheer on the Russian biathletes in Sochi. "Passion is something that we lack in life."
Guberniev, the 39-year-old, very loud voice of Russian biathlon, would like to send his apologies across the pond.
"I feel sorry for the Americans," Guberniev says. "Maybe all the chicken wings they eat during the American football final prevent them from understanding the biathlon."
The U.S., for all its love of weaponry and abundance of snow, has never won a medal in biathlon—the only Olympic winter sport in which U.S. athletes have never stood on the podium. "Back home, often times you get the question: 'Oh, what's the biathlon? I think I know what that is, that's swimming and running, right?'" says Susan Dunklee, a 27-year-old Olympic biathlete from Craftsbury, Vt., whose 14th-place finish Sunday was the top Olympic biathlon sprint ever by a U.S. woman.
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Some Russians like biathlon so much that they even follow the U.S.'s lesser-known stars. Cobb says Russian fan mail has shown up at the U.S. Biathlon Association's headquarters addressed to biathlete Tim Burke. He finished 19th in the 10K men's sprint on Saturday.
Russia's Favorite New Soap Opera: Biathlon, The Wall Street Journal, February 10, 2014.
Everyone, once in their lifetime, needs to watch a world-class biathlon event start to finish (not on American TV). You’ll be hooked.
When will that idiot in oval office let us know how much we should be like Russia when he reads this?
Biathlon may very well be my favorite Winter Olympics event.
"Maybe all the chicken wings they eat during the American football final prevent them from understanding the biathlon."
What's to understand? You ski, you shoot, you ski, you shoot, you ski. They are in great shape to be able to hit a tiny target while my breathing and heartbeat would cause me to miss the entire target backing three times out of four, but that doesn't make it difficult to understand.
I wish they used a real military bolt action rifle instead of those fancy looking ones with such low power round. The Finn credited with the most sniper kills used a Mosin-Nagant variant. I sure he was doing the “biathlon” on some his kills.
They really make it seem scary.
Bi-athalon? Will Michael Sam be there?
While the US has never finished in the medals in biathlon one Canadian woman from Quebec has. Myriam Bedard at the 1994 winter games in Lillehammer won 2 golds. She had previously won a bronze in 1992 in Albertville. She ran into trouble with kidnapping her child in a child custody dispute in later years and other crazy stuff but she was a winner in 1994.
So the solution to the US failures in this event are pretty straightforward: stop eating chicken wings, start drinking vodka.
Problem. Solved.
Hey, at least they have ammo.
(s)due to global warming they have intoduced the bikini biathalon(/s)
seriously I am not wasting my time with this NBC coverage. The olympics would be better off using in house commentators that said NOTHING or were as exciting as cspan trained people. (cspan has special “be boring” classes)
Nor can anyone else. It's called heightened security.
And what about the LGTQ athletes?
Still easier than walking your rifle to the shooting range in the U.S.
If I’m a new viewer just starting to get into biathlon would that make me bi-curious?