Discussion: biathlon

I noticed something interesting at the bottom of the wikipedia biathlon page.

orienteering biathlon!

we have at least 2 maps here in Texas with rifle ranges on them.
(i've even used one of them after a morning of field checking...
with the land owner's permission of course)

anyone know anything about this? google seems to indicate that a swedish club had a joint meet with a biathlon club in 2005.
this would be interesting to try at some point, but i suspect insurance reasons would nix it...


mlewis
ntoa

And for a further little known variation, try underwater orienteering in Google: it even has a World Championship.

At O-ringen last summer they had orienteering-biathlon trial sessions. We signed up but when we got there there was no one around, I think there was a little miscommunication about the time or place because of a language barrier. I was really excited to try it out as I was a biathlete before switching over to the better sport ;) oh well, maybe next time.

One of my bosses has actually done the underwater thing. She and her husband are big scuba fans. They were in our club for a while, but mumbled something about "too much air up here," and promptly quit.

They should do the 1000-day. Not so much air way up there.

In Sweden we call it "Orienteering shooting" (Orienteringsskytte). It is more a triathlon than biathlon really, because it consists of three parts: 1) Shooting. If you miss the target you get time penalty or a penalty loop. 2) "Location orienteering", where you run along a taped course. Along the course there are flags and you are supposed to punch a whole in the map with a nail where these are situated. For each millimeter error on the map you get a time penalty. 3) Normal orientering.

This is not a big sport in Sweden. Poorly known even among orienteers and it is not organized by the orienteering federation, but by a military sports federation. But there are international championships.

I did a search on the internet and found a film (in Swedish), introducing the sport: http://www.mangkampsforbundet.org/oriskytte/oskytt...

I also found international rules in english http://www.mangkampsforbundet.org/oriskytte/IBOFru...

I think ALTOS intends to try some O-biathlon. I don't think that's a good idea, but I'm sure other clubs could handle it just fine.