Ole Einar Bjørndalen

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Ole Einar Bjørndalen
Personal information
Full name	Ole Einar Bjørndalen
Date of birth	January 27, 1974 (1974-01-27) (age 34)
Place of birth	Drammen,  Norway
Height	179 cm
Professional information
Club	Simostranda IL
Skis	Madshus
World Cup
Seasons	1992- (Biathlon)
Wins	81 (Biathlon) 1 (Cross country)
Additional podiums	57 (Biathlon) 2 (Cross country)
Total podiums	137 (Biathlon) 3 (Cross country)
Infobox last updated on:
March 6 2008

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Medal record
Competitor for  Norway
Men's biathlon
Olympic Games
Gold	2002 Salt Lake City	10 km sprint
Gold	2002 Salt Lake City	12.5 km pursuit
Gold	2002 Salt Lake City	20 km individual
Gold	2002 Salt Lake City	4 x 7.5 km relay
Gold	1998 Nagano	10 km sprint
Silver	2006 Turin	20 km individual
Silver	2006 Turin	12.5 km pursuit
Silver	1998 Nagano	4 x 7.5 km relay
Bronze	2006 Turin	15 km mass start
World Championships
Gold	2008 Östersund	12.5 km pursuit
Gold	2007 Antholz-Anterselva	10 km sprint
Gold	2007 Antholz-Anterselva	12.5 km pursuit
Gold	2005 Hochfilzen	10 km sprint
Gold	2005 Hochfilzen	12.5 km pursuit
Gold	2005 Hochfilzen	15 km mass start
Gold	2005 Hochfilzen	4×7.5 km relay
Gold	2003 Khanty-Mansiysk	10 km sprint
Gold	2003 Khanty-Mansiysk	15 km mass start
Gold	1998 Pokljuka	Team
Silver	2008 Östersund	20 km individual
Silver	2008 Östersund	4×7.5 km relay
Silver	2008 Östersund	15 km mass start
Silver	2007 Antholz-Anterselva	4×7.5 km relay
Silver	2006 Pokljuka	4x6 km relay, mixed
Silver	2004 Oberhof	4×7.5 km relay
Silver	2001 Pokljuka	15 km mass start
Silver	2000 Oslo	4×7.5 km relay
Silver	1998 Pokljuka	12.5 km pursuit
Silver	1997 Brezno-Osrblie	4x7,5 km relay
Bronze	2008 Östersund	10 km sprint
Bronze	2004 Oberhof	10 km sprint
Bronze	2004 Oberhof	12.5 km pursuit
Bronze	2004 Oberhof	20 km individual
Bronze	2001 Pokljuka	4×7.5 km relay
Bronze	2000 Oslo	15 km mass start
Bronze	1999 Kontiolahti	4×7.5 km relay
Bronze	1999 Kontiolahti	15 km mass start
Bronze	1997 Brezno-Osrblie	12,5 km pursuit

Ole Einar Bjørndalen (born January 27, 1974; height: 5'10" (179 cm); weight: 10 st 3 lb (143 lb) (64 kg) from Simostranda in Modum, (southeastern Norway) is a career biathlete. Bjørndalen has won five Olympic Gold medals (more than anyone in biathlon), and ten World Championship gold medals. In addition, he has a record 81 individual Biathlon World Cup victories, and became the first biathlete ever to win a FIS Cross Country World Cup race, in Gällivare, Sweden in 2006. He is also the only biathlete who has won every singles event during the same Winter Olympic Games, in Salt Lake City 2002, and just the third Olympian to win four gold medals during the same Winter Games.

He lives in the village of Toblach (Dobbiaco) in Italy and Obertilliach in Austria with his wife, Italian-Belgian biathlete Nathalie Santer, whom he married on May 27, 2006.

[edit] 2006/07 World Cup season

Bjørndalen made a perfect start to the season, winning all of the first five races in Östersund and Hochfilzen. In the fifth race of the season, the pursuit race in Hochfilzen, he won with one of his largest margins ever, more than 2 minutes. On 30 December 2006 Ole Einar took part in the famous Biathlon World Team Challenge in Gelsenkirchen (Veltins Arena, the Schalke 04's stadium). In front of about 51 000 people he won it for 4th time in a row. His partner for second consecutive time was Linda Grubben. They both left their greatest rivals, the Robert family, more than 1 minute behind. In Oberhof, coming down from training in the heights, he performed below standard for the season, shooting bad, and finishing only 30th and 5th in the individual cometitions. In Ruhpolding Ole started good as usual by leading his team-mates to victory in the relay event. In the 2 following individual competitions he cormfirmed he was back on track winning the 2 individual competitions. Since he participated in the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships Sapporo 2007 he missed several Biathlon World Cup events, and after missing 8 competitions altogether Bjørndalen finished second in the overall standings, after German Michael Greis

[edit] 2005/06 World Cup season

Bjørndalen finished the 2005/06 IBU Biathlon World Cup season in first place, with Frenchman Raphaël Poirée in second place and German Sven Fischer in third. Bjørndalen lay in third place in the standings going into the last three races of the season in Holmenkollen, with Poiree in first, and Fischer in second. However Bjørndalen won all three races, giving him six victories in the last eight races, and clinching the crystal globe. He also won the pursuit, and the mass start title, and came second in the individual and the sprint. In the pursuit he finished ahead of Fischer by 54 points, and 29 points ahead of Poiree in the mass start. In the individual he finished 41 points behind Michael Greis, and in the sprint he was 5 points behind Tomasz Sikora. Norway finished fourth in the team relay.

His winning the World Cup title was all the more spectacular because of a cold he developed over the last Christmas period, in which he missed races 5 to 11, only coming back for the three events in Antholz, Italy, starting on January 19, 2006, this being the last World Cup competition before the 2006 Winter Olympics. During his illness Bjørndalen spent eight days in bed, and only started training six days before the first race in Antholz, including in his preparations two high intensity skiing sessions but no shooting practice. Probably that is one of the major reasons for his not-as-expected performance at the Winter Olympics in Turin. His not so fast skiing and unsecure shooting along with extremely bad luck left him without any gold medal and "only" with 2 silver and 1 bronze medals. It's a pity that his best and superhuman performance came at the relay event, where at the 3rd exchange he found Norway on 10th place about 2:40 minutes behind. By incredibly fast skiing, extremely fast and non-failure shooting Bjørndalen managed to reach the 5th place, having decreased 1:20 minutes. His absence from the races during the season and him still being able to win the championship further fuels the discussion of whether there are too many races in the World Cup schedule and whether athletes should be advised to sit some out.

Bjørndalen closed out the season by winning all three events (sprint, pursuit, and mass start) at the Holmenkollen ski festival biathlon competition. This put his career victories at the ski events to five, having won once both in 2003 (pursuit) and in 2004 (sprint).

[edit] Achievements

As of March 2008, Bjørndalen has won five Olympic gold medals, three Olympic silver, one Olympic bronze, ten World Championship gold medals, ten silver, and nine bronze, and a record high of 81 individual Biathlon World Cup wins , the most of any biathlete to date. He has won the World Cup five times (1997/1998, 2002/2003, 2004/2005, 2005/2006, and 2007/2008, finished second four times 1998/1999, 1999/2000, 2000/2001, 2003/2004, and third once 2001/2002. In his first season (1992/1993) he finished 62nd, the season after, 30th and the season after that, 4th. When winning the overall world cup in 1998, at the age of 24, he actually won all that is possible in biathlon in one season - world championships gold medal, Olympic gold medal and the overall world cup title. His World Cup podium record is 120 (more than 120 including the victory and the podiums in cross-country) podium finishes, 73 1st places, 32 2nd places, and 19 3rd places. He is the only biathlete ever to win all four biathlon events in a single Winter Olympics (2002 Salt Lake City Games). This encompasses the sprint, pursuit, individual, and relay events, the latter together with three other participants (The first mass start only began in the 2006 Winter Olympics). He has said his target is to win nine Olympic gold medals before he, if he choses to follow the current plan, retires after the 2010 Games in Vancouver. According to his wife, Nathalie Santer, and himself, as long as he is healthy and has the energy and motivation, he could even race until 2014. Bjørndalen's 80 World Cup victories (including the one in Cross Country) is sixteen ahead of Annemarie Moser-Pröll and he is now chasing Ingemar Stenmark's record of 86 World Cup victories.

Bjørndalen occasionally competes in cross country races, and has raced in World Championships before. During the off season in April, the Norwegian Skarverennet takes place, a 38km race in the mountains between Finse and Ustaoset. Bjørndalen has competed in this competition, in 2005 he came 12th, and in 2006 he won the race in a time of 1:31.25, one second ahead of Frode Andresen, and seven seconds ahead of third place Kristen Skjeldal. For his accomplishments in biathlon and cross-country skiing, Bjørndalen received the Egebergs Ærespris in 2002. In 1993, at the age of 19, Bjørndalen has become the first biathlete ever to win a grand slam by winning all 3 possible gold medals on the Junior Biathlon World Championships.

[edit] Skiing

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Bjørndalen is one of the fastest skiers in the world, and the only biathlete, alongside Lars Berger, to win an FIS cross-country world cup race. His teammates Frode Andresen and Lars Berger are probably closest to him, but in almost all races Bjørndalen has the best skiing time. Bjørndalen excels on hills (and is very quick on the flat), and he's also very good at downhill, because of his great balance skills. His ease on hills lies in his slight frame. Skiers such as Bjørndalen and Raphael Poiree who are smaller built tend to 'float', or glide over hills which gives them an advantage over more powerful skiers such as Sven Fischer, who struggle and are more comfortable on fairly flat courses, such as Östersund, and Ruhpolding.

Bjørndalen's general tactic is to skate as hard and as fast as possible from the start of the race, and build up a large lead, so that he is able to afford a miss in the shooting (a penalty lap takes roughly 23 seconds). Although Bjørndalen has shown at the beginning of the 2006/07 season that he is taking the first lap slower in order to judge the pace of the race, and then steadily increase his pace.

[edit] Shooting

Bjørndalen is a solid shooter, but is generally outside the top twenty marksmen. Bjørndalen finished the 2005/06 season with a shooting percentage of 84%, hitting 292 out of 345 possible targets, that placed him in 36th position for shooting accuracy. His shooting record for both prone and standing were practically identical, 146/172 in the prone and 146/173 in the standing position. In the individual disciplines, he shot 92% in the individual, 77% in the sprint, 83% in the pursuit, 88% in the mass start and 85% in the relay. In the 2004/05 season Bjørndalen was the 16th best shot with an 85% success rate, the second best Norwegian behind Egil Gjelland. He hit 311 targets out of a possible 364. His prone like most biathletes was much better than his standing shoot, he hit 161/180 (89%) in the prone and 150/184 (81%) in the standing. He had an average of 88% in the individual, sprint and relay, a 91% hit rate in the mass start but only 79% in the pursuit. During his career in 1999/00 he averaged 82%, in 2000/01 78%, 2001/02 74%, 2002/03 86% and in 2003/04 he hit 80% of the targets, however in those five years his standing shoot was the same or better than his prone shoot. In comparison his greatest rival Raphael Poiree averaged 87% in 2004/05 and 86% in 2005/06. Nikolay Kruglov was the best shot in 2004/05 with a 91% success rate, with Ricco Gross in second with 89%, and in 2005 Julien Robert was best with a 93% average and Gross again second with 91%.

Bjørndalen does have a shooting pattern. During the 2003/04 and 2004/05 season Bjørndalen took to firing an empty round for his first shot, so that he could get into a comfortable rhythmn without missing the first target, though he appeared to have stopped doing this since in the 2005/06 season. Like most biathletes, Bjørndalen reaches for the barrel and swings it around to prepare to shoot, though this is not really possible when competing in biathlon in the summer as the rifles are different and less sturdy and pulling on the barrel might misalign the sights. Bjørndalen also shoots like most biathles from right to left because the rifle becomes more stable after every shot when the athletes are running out of breath (which they hold when shooting). However Bjørndalen has a tendency to shoot the first three targets from right to left, but then shoot the leftmost target and then the remaining target, second from the left.

Bjørndalen also started a trend of having a picture of an eye on the blinder. His has an eagle's eye, which he has used for a few seasons now, although since the end of the 2005/06 season he seems to have opted for a plain black blinder. Other biathletes who sport an eye include Halvard Hanevold, Michael Roesch, Carl Johan Bergman, Andriy Deryzemlya and Ricco Gross. Towards the end of the 2005/06 season Christoph Sumann had a picture of his young son on his.

[edit] Equipment

Bjørndalen uses Madshus skis, boots, and poles. He uses Rottefella NNN bindings. His gloves and base layer are from Odlo, and he uses Casco glasses.

During the off-season in 2006 Bjørndalen was testing a new ski boot that had a high heel in the Torsby ski tunnel with boot maunfacturers Madshus. The theory is that it forces the knee more forward for better position and it incorporates the large gluteal muscles. [1]

[edit] Honours

Ole Einar Bjørndalen

[edit] Olympics

• 5 gold medals
• 3 silver medals
• 1 bronze medals

[edit] Biathlon World Cup

• 5 wins
• 5 runner-ups
• 1 third place
  • 81 single wins

[edit] Cross-country skiing World Cup

• 1 single win

[edit] References

• Eurosport
• International Olympic Committee Profile
• IBU Profile

[edit] External links

• Fan page (German)
• Short O. E. Bjørndalen biography at Wintersport.com – Partly outdated
• the IBU's profile of Bjørndalen
• Holmenkollen biathlon information