Biathlon-Federation flashes the cash to close biathlon gap

ANTERSELVA, Italy, Feb 6 - In the face of Norway's dominance and a narrowing of competitive success at recent Olympic Games, biathlon's governing body invested a million euros ($1.18 million) to level the playing field for smaller nations and improve their medal chances.

Norway secured 14 biathlon medals at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, with France trailing in second with seven, while only seven nations made the biathlon podium compared to at least 10 countries in the three preceding Games.

This prompted the International Biathlon Union (IBU) to introduce targeted funding to improve smaller nations' competitiveness.

"I know Finland gets its share (of the money), but it's not as much as the smaller nations, and we've been training with Australia, who I think are part of this program," Finnish biathlete Olli Hiidensalo, who is competing at his third Olympics, told Reuters.

The IBU money for the "Closing the Competitive Gap" programme is part of a broader data-driven push to develop the sport beyond its traditional strongholds.

Smaller nations are encouraged to tell the IBU what they need help with, and then they are either provided with equipment and expertise, or the costs for them are reimbursed, and there are also regular development programs for athletes and coaches.

"In the initial starting of the 'Closing the Gap' projects, we invested about a million euros in grants directly to leading national federations who we felt were not at the highest level yet, but had potential to reach the podium," IBU general secretary Max Cobb told Reuters.

"It's been a fascinating journey for us, because we required the national federations to do an analysis where they analysed their own strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and then presented that to our development team in order to have the basis for applying for these extra funds there."

Cobb emphasised the dual benefits of the initiative, noting that participating federations gained not only financial resources but also insights.

"What we heard back from the federations was that not only were the funds themselves helpful, but the process of bringing their federation together to really talk about high performance was incredibly powerful for them as a federation," Cobb said.

"We're really happy to see that program having been so well-received by the federations and looking forward to seeing just how many different nations will go home with a biathlon medal."

Hiidensalo said that while competing against traditional powerhouses would be challenging, nothing would give the 35-year-old more pleasure than to bring home another Olympic biathlon medal for Finland to take their overall tally to seven.

"It's big if you get a medal in any championship, but this is, like, way bigger, because we haven't had so many (biathlon) medallists in the 21st century," he explained.

"It's a huge, huge thing, if you get a medal from here." REUTERS