Tour de SkiErg Challenge and Olympic Biathlon

Our annual challenge, the Tour de Ski Challenge, takes place February 1–28 and features a different SkiErg event each week. This year, it coincides with the Winter Games in Beijing, so plan on participating while watching the best skiers in the world compete for gold! We offer ways to join in the excitement of the cross country skiing and biathlon events.

Biathlon and the SkiErg

The Biathlon feature on the PM5 allows you to simulate the exciting sport of biathlon using the Concept2 SkiErg, BikeErg or RowErg. Traditional biathlon combines skiing and rifle shooting, both in prone (lying down) and standing positions. In a biathlon race, there are five targets to hit after each interval of skiing, and then a final ski lap to the finish. For each target you miss, you ski a penalty lap. Here are some tips:

• For your marksmanship challenge, set up a bucket or box as your target. Place it at a distance that makes it pretty hard to toss a ball or beanbag into the target. To make the standing “shooting” even harder, stand on one leg when you toss.
• For your penalty lap, you can set up a penalty lap on your PM5, or decide what your personal “penalty lap” will be. It should be a challenging exercise!

Another option on the PM5 is to set up an undefined rest interval workout and get creative.

Biathlon Workout #1: The Sprint

As the name implies, the Sprint in biathlon is the shortest of the biathlon formats, even though it isn't particularly "short". It consists of three laps of skiing and two shooting stages, first prone, then standing. The sequence is: Ski a lap and shoot five shots prone; ski another lap and shoot five shots standing; ski a final lap. For every missed shot, you must ski a penalty lap before heading out on the next ski lap.

Suggested Sprint Workout

(Distance can be adjusted as desired):

• Ski 1000m
• “Shoot” five times prone
• Ski your “penalty laps” for each missed shot
• Ski 1000m
• “Shoot” five times standing
• Ski your “penalty laps” for each missed shot
• Ski 1000m

Biathlon Workout #2: The Pursuit

In a biathlon Pursuit, racers start based on their finish in the Sprint. If you were a minute behind the leader in the previous Sprint, then you will start a minute behind the leader in the Pursuit. Your challenge is to catch the people ahead of you! Here we will focus on the format of a pursuit, which has four shooting stages (two prone and two standing, in that order) and five laps of skiing. For every missed shot, you must ski a penalty lap before heading out on the next ski lap.

Suggested Pursuit Workout

• Ski 750m
• “Shoot” five times prone
• Ski your “penalty laps” for each missed shot
• Ski 750m
• “Shoot” five times prone
• Ski your “penalty laps” for each missed shot
• Ski 750m
• “Shoot” five times standing
• Ski your “penalty laps” for each missed shot
• Ski 750m
• “Shoot” five times standing
• Ski your “penalty laps” for each missed shot
• Ski 750m

Biathlon Workout #3: The Individual

This is the only event where missed shots earn a time penalty, instead of a penalty lap—and it’s a hefty time penalty, so it can pay to spend a little extra time setting up for your shot. This is another five lap-four shooting race, but the order of shooting is: prone, standing, prone, standing. There’s less of a break between ski laps because the time penalty is simply added at the end. We’ll use a timed lap for this workout.

Suggested Individual Workout

• Ski five minutes
• Shoot prone
• Ski five minutes
• Shoot standing
• Ski five minutes
• Shoot prone
• Ski five minutes
• Shoot standing
• Ski five minutes

Total up all your misses and add 15 seconds per miss to your total elapsed time for the workout.

Repeat these workouts and see if you can improve!

Biathlon Schedule

Follow the competition on TV or online. We highly recommend watching some Olympic Biathlon before and after trying these workouts.

• February 7–8: Individual
• February 11–12: Sprint
• February 13: Pursuit
• February 18–19: Mass Start

Additional Resources

Training with Biathlon
Biathlon: Competition Formats and the Mental Game