Origins of Biathlon

I’ve seen several posts on Facebook and heard some people saying, “What’s with that sport where they ski, then shoot and ski again? What’s up with that?” I originally thought the sport originated with German army units in World War II that traveled on skis carrying all their gear with them. They had to be ready to shoot at a moment’s notice.
 
It turns out, the origins of the sport go back even further than that to Neolithic hunters who shot arrows and wore “sliding timber” on their feet. Written descriptions of military units on skis go back as far as the Romans in 400 BC. You can read more about how the sport evolved here and here.
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Rowdy Gymnastics Fans

“People power” stops gymnastics event

“People power” stopped a gymnastics competition for 10 minutes when the crowd booed and jeered the judges for a poor score that destroyed Russian Alexei Nemov‘s chance of a 13th Olympics medal.

Normally you don’t think of gymnastic fans being rowdy, but this was amazing. I was watching it last night and the jeers went on, and on and on…

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New Golden Diva

Olympics

Carly Patterson Wins the Women’s All-Around

Carly Patterson upstaged Russian diva Svetlana Khorkina to
become the first American in 20 years to win the women’s Olympic
gymnastics all-round gold medal on Thursday.

I looked for an article that didn’t compare Carly to Mary Lou
Retton, but couldn’t find one. Guess it’s impossible to not mention the
previous American Olympic champion when talking about the new one.

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