Nordic biathlon, a contest of technology and endurance

The Nordic biathlon competition consists of ski jumping and cross-country skiing, and athletes need to compete in ski jumping and then cross-country skiing. The main rules are the same as in ski jumping and cross-country skiing, and cross-country skiing competitions are all free-form techniques. Nordic biathlon requires athletes to have both the guts and skills to ski jump and the physical strength and endurance of cross-country skiing.

The Nordic biathlon originated in the Scandinavian region of Northern Europe in the 19th century and is a traditional Nordic project. In 1924, at the first Winter Olympics, the Nordic biathlon was a competition event; at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, team events were added. Nordic biathlon is the only event at the Winter Olympics that has only a men's competition so far, and has not been included in the Winter Olympics due to the late development of women's events. The Nordic biathlon in the mainland was launched late, and the Nordic national team was only formed in 2017.

The Nordic two events of the Beijing Winter Olympics only have men's events, a total of 3 sub-events, namely: individual standard platform + 10 km cross-country skiing, individual big jump + 10 km cross-country skiing, team big jump + 4 × 5 km cross-country skiing. The competition of the jumping part is held at the National Ski Jumping Center, and the competition of the cross-country skiing part is held at the National Cross-Country Ski Center.

When competing, athletes wear ski clothes, ski boots, skis (skis), ski helmets, ski gloves, ski goggles, etc. For cross-country skiing competitions, you will need to hold a pole in your hand.

The order of departure of the ski jumping competition is based on the reverse order of the FIS points. In the standard individual competition, athletes need to ski jump at a height of 90 meters on the same day, and cross-country skiing competitions after 1.5-2 hours. The big jump individual competition is the same as the standard platform competition, except that the height of the platform is different, which is 120 meters.

In the individual race, the athlete's score on the ski jump is converted into seconds, and the difference in the number of seconds is calculated to determine the order of departure. Those who score high on ski jumping will start first in cross-country skiing competitions. For every point behind in the ski jumping competition, the start is delayed by 4 seconds in the cross-country skiing competition, and so on. The first to finish wins.

In the team competition, 4 players from each team wear red, green, yellow and blue bib numbers according to the order of appearance, and 4 people compete on the big jump first. In the cross-country ski relay, the order of departure of the first team of athletes and the interval between the departure of the next team are determined by the total score of the ski jumping team, and each point behind is delayed by 1.33 seconds. The team's second, third and fourth basemans wait in the relay zone. Each person skates 5 kilometers, and the team who reaches the finish line first wins.

Finishing: Shi Zhe Draft: Zhang Fangman

People's Daily (2022-02-15 10th edition)