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This page explains what governing bodies, standards bodies and safety bodies publish. It is not a substitute for lessons from a qualified instructor, avalanche training or medical advice.
Governed by the IBU, not FIS
Biathlon does not appear in the list of FIS disciplines in article 2.2 of the FIS Statutes (Edition 2026). Its governing body is the International Biathlon Union (IBU). Several basic facts about the IBU could not be confirmed from an IBU page for this site:
- Founding: an archived Olympic.org page, seen only as a search summary, gives 1993, and a search summary of the IBU constitution places the founding on 2 July 1993. Neither was opened.
- Headquarters: an IBU job advertisement, seen as a search summary, places the IBU at Anif near Salzburg, Austria; Wikipedia says it moved there from Salzburg in May 2020.
- Members: secondary profiles give between 59 and 63 national federations, none dated. No dated IBU figure was found.
The race formats
The IBU's competition formats page describes each race by distance, loops, shooting stages and the penalty for a missed target. Distances are the IBU's for the senior races.
| Format (IBU) | Distance | Shooting | Penalty per miss | Start |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sprint | Men 10 km, women 7.5 km; three loops | One prone, one standing | 150 m penalty loop | Interval, every 30 seconds |
| Pursuit | Men 12.5 km, women 10 km; five loops | Two prone, two standing | 150 m penalty loop | At the sprint time gaps, for the top 60 sprint finishers |
| Individual | Men 20 km, women 15 km; five loops | Four stages: prone, standing, prone, standing | One minute added | Interval, every 30 seconds |
| Short individual | Men 15 km, women 12.5 km | Not detailed in the research | 45 seconds added | Not detailed in the research |
| Mass start | Men 15 km, women 12.5 km | Four stages | 150 m penalty loop | 30 athletes together |
| Mass start 60 | Men 15 km, women 12 km | Not detailed in the research | Not detailed in the research | Mass start |
| Relay | Teams of four: men 4 x 7.5 km, women 4 x 6 km | One prone, one standing per leg; three spare rounds per stage to hit the five targets | 150 m penalty loop once the spare rounds are used | Not detailed in the research |
| Mixed relay and single mixed relay | Mixed relay: two women and two men, 6 km legs. Single mixed relay: one woman and one man | Not detailed in the research | Single mixed relay: 75 m penalty loop | Not detailed in the research |
| Super sprint | 7.5 km for women and men | Not detailed in the research | 75 m penalty loop | A qualification round, then a mass-start final for the top 30 |
The IBU formats page does not give the shooting distance, the rifle rules or the target sizes, and those were not collected for this site, so they are not stated here.
Where biathlon meets FIS
Biathlon skiing shares equipment approval with cross-country. FIS's equipment specifications for cross-country, ski jumping and Nordic combined (cover: Edition 2026/2027; the FIS-hosted file is a marked-up version, so this needs confirming against a clean copy) say new cross-country equipment for a season must be submitted to both FIS and the IBU by 1 May of the year the season starts, and that the two bodies keep each other informed so the same approval applies in both sports (B.1.2). The cross-country rules themselves are on cross-country.
At the Olympics
Biathlon results at Milano Cortina 2026 and the IBU World Cup were outside the scope of the research for this site and are not covered. For 2030, The Sports Examiner, in a report dated 7 July 2026 relaying the IOC Executive Board's 2030 programme decision, reports a biathlon mixed singles team event added; the IOC release itself could not be opened. The Canadian Olympic Committee lists Le Grand-Bornand as the 2030 biathlon venue, in the Haute-Savoie cluster. Para biathlon, which is part of the Paralympic Winter Games, was not researched.
Sources
- IBU, Competition formats (read 24 October 2026)
- FIS, Statutes, Edition 2026 (June 2026)
- Archived Olympic.org page on the IBU (search-result summary)
- IBU Constitution 2021 (search-result summary)
- Wikipedia (secondary), International Biathlon Union
- IBU, job vacancy: Para biathlon content creator (search-result summary)
- FIS, Specifications for Competition Equipment: Cross-Country, Ski Jumping, Nordic Combined, Edition 2026/2027 (marked-up file)
- The Sports Examiner, Alpes 2030: IOC Executive Board eliminates Nordic combined, adds freeride skiing (7 July 2026)
- Canadian Olympic Committee, Alpes 2030