Biathlon is myathlon

I stumbled onto Biathlon a few weeks ago, and I'm completely hooked. If you haven't heard of it before, it's a ski race where you have to periodically stop and shoot 5 targets, and for each miss you either get a time penalty or have to ski additional distance on "penalty loops".

I just described Biathlon in one sentence so it's a very simple concept. Why am I so excited? Biathlon actually has exquisite depths.

1. Internal conflict. Ski too fast and your heart rate goes up, bouncing your sight up and down and making it near impossible to hit your shots. Ski too slowly and you risk being left behind. A person could be simultaneously the world's greatest skiier and shooter, and they could still lose to someone who excels at judging and finding the balance between the two activities. This makes for many possible combinations of tactics with wildly different outcomes. Unpredictability and competitors trying to second-guess each other is exciting.
   
2. Momentum shifts. When I started following Biathlon, I thought I was going to become a full-on winter sports fan (I hadn't been paying much attention to winter sports up until then). But I quickly found that Biathlon has a level of excitement many other winter sports don't have. For instance, Skiathlon appears superficially similar to Biathlon, but is actually a "maximum exertion" sport where the person with the best speed, stamina and technique will usually get to the front and eventually win. By contrast, the Biathlon shoot is a moment of high drama. Clear all 5 and you have a golden chance to leave your competitors behind, but miss any targets and you'll find yourself plummeting down the order. Biathletes can't help but show their emotions at these critical moments which is also exciting.
3. Badassness. There's something about women in lycra racing around and shooting guns that's extremely watchable. It's the closest sport gets to a real life first person shooter video game. Actually I'm surprised there isn't already a Biathlon themed fps. OK must be time to go self-flagellate to atone for my crimes of objectification.

So thank you Biathlon26, Biathlon24, Biathlon999 and all the Youtube channels in between - defunct or yet to be - for raising my awareness. The British Eurosport coverage is great and the soundtrack gets me hype - so much so that I did my own version in chrome music maker

https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Song-Maker/song/4763425780006912