Pacing strategies for improved skiing performance in biathlon

Biathlon, which combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting, is constantly evolving and it has been shown that, for example, skiing speed has increased significantly over the past 20 years. Since it is important for biathletes to know which parts of the course they lose or gain time against other biathletes, it is justified to examine this in order to give the biathletes important information within which parts they should focus on in their training to be able to develop.

In addition, it is also important from a training point of view to investigate in which parties biathletes can ski more energy-efficient or which sub-technique they should possibly use. There is also another dimension in biathlon where biathletes carry their rifle on back during the competition, it is partly unclear though how big the differences are between biathletes and between skiing with and without a rifle is.

This project thus aims to investigate the biathletes' pacing strategies, energy expenditure and biomechanical variables during a simulated biathlon competition in the field.