Biathlon

Alistair here.  

I watch a lot of biathlon (combination of cross country skiing and shooting) and have watched the World Cup events at Ruhpolding, Germany for the last two years.  Actually, I watch all the World Cup Biathlon races.  http://www.biathlon-ruhpolding.de/

I thought we needed to go there and watch a race (or two) in person.  This was the year we went.  After stopping at Tanya’s wool shop, we drove to the southeastern corner of Germany and spent the night.  We were up early the next day and drove to a parking lot from where we could catch the bus shuttle to the race site.  We were there so early (2 ½ hours before race time) that we had time to watch the team managers testing skis to see which wax was the fastest for that day.

The Norwegian and Swedish teams testing skis

I bought the best tickets I could, but we were still pretty far away from the shooting range.

The shooting range as the race officials entered

It was great to watch the race in person, but I must admit, after the first few top skiers shot, it was hard to tell who was shooting at which target (and you could not tell when they missed). Good thing there was an enormous TV screen right in front of our spot in the bleachers.

Lars Berger from Norway on the big screen TV (one of 10 total around the course) during the race

We were in the bleachers, where one would assume you had a place to SIT.   Not here.  Your standing place is literally that:  a place to stand (for the 2 ½ hours before the races, and then during the 2 races).  26,000 people were watching the races from the bleachers (with another 80,000 people lining the course), so we were packed in pretty tight.

Even though it was a long day, everyone had fun ......and Eliza made a new friend: