Starting this week feeling a bit of withdrawal symptoms after the last 10 days of the world championship in what I think is one of the most fun sports to watch. Biathlon is such an impressive and tense sport. In this house we all love watching the impressive athletes; after they have skied for a few kilometres with a rifle on their back, they come into the shooting range and whilst their heart is racing and their pulse is high, they shoot at targets that are the size of a golfball 50 meters away. If you miss a target you will have to ski as many penalty loops as targets missed, or sometimes you have three reloads to do, and on a rare occasion it is a minute per miss added to your time. This all means that nothing is really decided to the very end, keeping us all on our toes and making us chew our fingernails until the very end.
Obviously being Norwegian over the last week has been especially fun as the Norwegian biathletes ended up on the top of the medal table with 7 golds, 3 silvers and 4 bronze.
Well done specially to Ingrid Tandrevold who has had a year with health challenges and maybe not the results she wanted and thought she was capable off leading up to the Championship. We cheered so much when she finally got her first individual medal. What a girl -she ended up with 3 medals at the end!
And then the junior who absolutely bossed it in his first Senior Championship. Cool as a cucumber!
I am always so impressed with any top sports people. Knowing how hard they work to be where they are. The determination, passion and staying power in these people are something to admire.
So if you have never watched a biathlon race I highly recommend it. (Top tip: start with a Mass start event, or a relay).
Silje Howes 