Monzanator

Cross country has seen all the changes aka improvements over the last 20 years, Tour de Ski, sprints, team sprints, 10k mass start and etc. and what? It's only Norway and Russia that matter with even Sweden barely competitive outside of the sprints. Meanwhile the old fashioned biathlon has more countries fighting for top spots with its outdated rules, formats and distances. Go and figure.

You do realize Olympian likes to start a political war in every thread and thinks he's right all the time?

And who decides whether a change is needed? Some 20 year old American like you? Please, don't make me laugh... Donald Trump would be proud of your logic in this thread. It's "MY WAY or the highway"

No, it won't. It's a speciallist precision sport where being bigger and stronger actually doesn't matter.

Biathlon is doing just fine. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

You're too young to understand the world

It's simple. We don't Biathlon is core to only few countries, mostly in Europe. Transgender athletes are not a problem esp. you have to shoot well enough to make a run. It's a problem for global sports like athletics or swimming. But biathlon? Nah...

You don't have to change every single sport there is. Like I've said, change isn't always better and making a change for the sake of the change is just nonsensical IMO.

My crystal ball has seen the future! Then again, top nations wouldn't like to see smaller nations suddenly becoming players so they would oppose that IMO. It's happening in ski jumping already. We used to have 13-14 teams in the 00s, now they can barely enter 9 four-man teams for a Team Event. And Kazakhstan is just way off the pace all the time. Russia, South Korea, Italy, USA and Switzerland don't bother to enter teams anymore.

Laser rifles are like hamburgers from grass IMO Hell, maybe we just switch to e-sports and have Fourcade & co. play a biathlon game online

Trust me, there is bitching about VAR in Poland too

Athletes who are like #4 or #5 or any team would disagree. If you only want two best per nation for a mixed relay then it hurts the depth of the roster. If you're #5 then you have no shot of making the team. Several lesser athletes have thrived in the relays which helped their status for individual races (Peter Sendel or someone like that).

For me individual is the most interesting race though. No counting the chickens like i.e. Eckhoff or Herrmann can afford to miss twice and still win by 30 secs.

And in Japan they make hamburgers from grass. You really want to eat grass and call it ham?

The external challenge is what makes the whole sport exciting though! You can't have it all perfect all the time. Hell, New Orleans Saints must play in Green Bay outdoors in the snow and nobody says "it's unfair"

Either you're IN or you're OUT though? What about alpine skiing and custom made skis for top stars? It's a tech race everywhere! In ski jumping it's down to material for the suits and those damn boots again this season. Let's don't fool ourselves everyone has an equal chance because it's not the case.

VAR was supposed to fix the bitching about referee mistakes in football and look, there is more bitching about VAR now. The idea of "fixing" or "improving" something looks good on paper but then reality kicks in. The same will happen if biathlon even thinks of laser rifles. And will the athletes use their personal rifle all the time like today? Obviously not IMO.

Have you ever heard of split rounds in biathlon?

Ski jumping is way bigger in Poland than USA. Reports are 2020 could have been the last year of FIS Cup events. Climbing the hill by foot shouldn't take place in XXI century. Without the elevator Iron Mountain has no chance of hosting World Cup events anytime soon. Someone who preaches change should embrace that. If you want "insane stunts" rather than World Cup that's your choice. I bet incidents of people breaking legs or necks won't make the global news though.

Please go insult someone else. PLEASE!!!!

Yep, Steamboat Springs is dead and Iron Mountain hasn't done any improvements since 1996. It's a miracle it hasn't ended like Harrachov yet.

You're fighting another political war. I'm OUT. Go insult someone else. You have insulted me enough already with the "Poles are racist pricks" comments so I should have known better. Now you're calling me a crying litte bitch. Geez, just how evil are you? You've ruined the thread about the best winter sport there is.

TV stations only think about themselves though and their precision time window. If you're so focused on what other think do you realize what's the real reason the 50k time trial was canned and hell, even 10km time trial looks like too long? They got rid of the skiathlon too. Sprints are great for TV. Three minutes of racing and five minutes or TV commercials. No wonder TV loves this format so much.

I have seen the change already. 10k mass start in cross country. And Johaug still wins. The more things change the more they stay the same

Then I bet Olympian doesn't watch it