Amazing what people wear to the Winter Olympics

What is a Biathlon

Since Biathlon is where I spent most of my time at the Olympics I thought I should describe what it is. It involves cross country skiing - up to 20 kilometers (5 laps) and shooting 5 targets at the range on 4 laps (twice prone and twice standing). A miss means skiing a 150 metre penalty lap and generally means dropping 5-10 places in the standing. They may look relaxed when they start but at the end they are exhausted. Its amazing though how fast they recover. Variations include mass starts, relays individual sprints and pursuit for both men and women - 10 races in all. As you can see the photographers are always near the action and so are the photo-smurfs.