Ole Einar Bjørndalen

Ole Einar Bjørndalen (born 27 January 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. He lives in the village of Toblach in Italian South Tyrol with his wife, Italian biathlete Nathalie Santer, whom he married on 27 May 2006. In preparation for the 2006 Winter Olympics he moved to Obertilliach on the Austrian side of the Italian/Austrian border so that he could live at high altitude (1600 m). He has two sisters and two brothers, he has and older brother, Dag, who used to be a biathlete, and a younger brother, Hans Anton; who is an active biathlete.

2005/06 World Cup season

Bjørndalen finished the 2005/06 IBU Biathlon World Cup season in first place, with French Raphael Poiree 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 19 January 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. His absence from the races 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.

Achievements

As of the end of the 2005/2006 season (26th of March 2006), Bjørndalen has won five Olympic gold medals, three Olympic silver, one Olympic bronze, six World Championship gold medals, six silver, and eight bronze, and a record high of 63 individual Biathlon World Cup wins (the most of any biathlete to date). He has won the World Cup four times (1997/1998, 2002/2003, 2004/2005, and 2005/2006), finished second four times (1998/1999, 1999/2000, 2000/2001, 2003/2004), and third once (2001/2002). In his first season (1992/93) he finished 62nd, the season after, 30th and the season after that, 4th. His World Cup podium record is 113 podium finishes, 63 1st places, 31 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. Bjørndalens 63 World Cup victories is one ahead of Annemarie Moser-Pröll and he is now chasing Ingemar Stenmark's record of 86 World Cup victories.

Bjørndalen occationally 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.

Skiing

Bjørndalen is arguably the fastest skiier on the circuit, with few able to skate as quickly on a regular basis, possibly only Frode Andresen. Bjørndalen excells on hills (and is very quick on the flat), but is not very good on the downhill (much like Bjørn Daehlie). His ease on hills lies in his slight frame. Skiiers such as Bjørndalen and Raphael Poiree who are smaller in build tend to 'float', or glide over hills which gives them and advantage over more powerful skiiers such as Sven Fischer (and German skiers in general), 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 (roughly 24 seconds). However becuase of his fast paced start Bjørndalen does not have a fast final lap, so, if he is left level on the final lap with another competitor then the opponent does have a hope of beating him, as Vincent Defrasne proved when he beat Bjørndalen on the final lap to win the 12.5km pursuit in the 2006 Winter Olympics.

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%, Hiting 292 out of 345 possible targets, that placed him in 36th position for shooting accuracy. His shooting record for both prone and standing were practiacally 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 shooter 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 avarage 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 avaraged 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 avaraged 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% avarage and Gross again second with 91%.

That said Bjørndalen has won more races than any other biathlete in history meaning he has can both shoot and skate. Undeniably Bjørndalen is a more gifted skater than a shooter, and is most probably the fastest skater out on the tracks, with maybe only fellow countryman Frode Andresen (who has a shooting avarage for 2005/06 of 72%) consistently able to ski as fast as Bjørndalen.

Bjørndalen does have a shooting pattern. During the 2003/04 and 2004/05 season Bjørndalen took to firing an ampty round for his first shot, so that he could get into a comfortable rythmn without missing the first target, though he does appear to have stopped doing this since the beginning of the 2005/06 season. Like most biathletes, Bjørndalen reaches for the barrell 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 barrell 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 sight blind. His has an eagles eye, which he has used for a few seasons now, though at the end of the 2005/06 season Bjørndalen also had 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.

Trivia

He hired Joar Himle as a shooting coach at the beginning of the 2004/05 season, and is one of the few biathletes who can afford to do so.

He also has a motivational coach in Øyvind Hammer, who's been with Bjørndalen since 1995.

One of Hammer's techniques for helping Bjørndalen to concentrate is firewalking, "Walking on burning wood forces him to concentrate and to eliminate all other thoughts at that exact moment, and this is exactly the same thing he does when he is shooting." Hammer has also said that over the last year they have tried to think less about results, and focus more on performance. ^*

Bjørndalen is also a businessman in his spare time, and over the last year has teamed up with two others to produce a new Omega 3 product. It was released just before the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, and is called Optimega, available over the internet, and sports Bjørndalen's face and signature.

Bjørndalen speaks fluent English and German as well as Norwegian.

An amusing note is that Bjørndalen means bear valley in Norwegian, Bjørn being bear and dal meaning valley. It is also a place in Nord-Trøndelag.

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