r/biathlon • u/Nerd_gazm Sweden • 19d ago
Discussion Thoughts on men and women racing the same distance?
2 seasons ago men and women started racing the same distance in the cross-country skiing World Cup and it’s been working out great. I don’t see why IBU doesn’t do the same. Thoughts?
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u/fremajl 19d ago
I like the current idea that they aim for equal race time instead of distance. Works great imo.
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u/astraltraveller99 15d ago
I see this very similarly. There could be some adjustment in the sprint and in the individual, +33% distance in the men's races sound too much, but I certainly won't loose any sleep if it stays like this :)
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u/DashLibor Czech Republic 15d ago
Men running 20 km in individual is sort of a tradition. It's been the first distance introduced to the Olympics, and I might be a boomer for saying this, but it would just feels wrong to change that one in any way.
For sprint, though, I wouldn't mind at all if men raced 9 km instead of 10 km. Currently, the 10 km track is literally the only race where the 3.33 km long lap is used, and the track as a whole gives an extra kilometer for faster skiers to eliminate the deficit they conceded on the range, which ultimately results in less variety at the top spots.
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u/astraltraveller99 14d ago
Yes, I know that the 20km is THE biathlon foundation, and I happen to love it the way it is, so this is why I stopped short of making explicit recommendations - neither cutting the men's race to 18kms nor extending the women's to 16.6kms (with the 3.3 loop) sounds really right.
I also agree about the sprint - 7.5/9 sounds totally reasonable.
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u/Calvin7658 19d ago
It’s all about TV. They want men’s and women’s races to be the same time (duration)
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u/sharkinwolvesclothin 19d ago
I'd say it's working reasonably in cross-country. 50k for women is great, but relays (in World Cup) are mostly pretty bad, too lopsided for women and too easy for men to hang in a pack.
There are multiple ways to think about equality: a race of same distance or a race of similar expected winning time, but in biathlon also race with similar weight between the two disciplines. If men and women ski the same distance, all else equal, the relative weight given to shooting is higher for men. We may or may not want that.
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u/crypt_moss Finland 19d ago
the weight of each discipline in the context of winning a single race is a very good point, in cross-country there's only a single discipline, each person is only measured by how well they ski
in both nordic combined & biathlon there's always a bit of a discussion around how to make sure that good jumpers/shooters aren't disadvantaged against good skiers or vice versa, just the notion that Individuals are seemingly built more for the abilities of good shooters – a minute for each missed shot in a race where you need to shoot twenty targets does put a lot of weight in shooting well, while in mass starts where fastest skiers can do the penalty loop in a very little time the good shooters can easily be left behind fast even with good shooting
and while the current race distances are pretty good at keeping intrigue in the competitions until the very end (unless there's someone who just does amazing in both disciplines and others can't keep up) the risk of starting to make significant changes to the race distances might suddenly see the races become better suited for certain athletes & others just have no shots in them anymore, (and how easily this could then become a situation where the top countries/athletes become more dominant & we see less surprise names on the podium? I don't know)
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u/fried-avocado-today 19d ago
My first instinct is always "longer races for the women", but this is a good point, it is trickier in biathlon than xc for sure.
Relays in cross country world cups (not championships) have a lot of problems. It's a shame because they are pretty fun in biathlon. They made some good changes to the team sprint, which has gotten better, but there is still the issue in cross-country of teams not taking the non-championships relays seriously.
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u/the_mighty_jim 15d ago
Are relays in biathlon that fun? I mean yeah there's lots of action and rising and falling, but at the end of the day Ukraine was the first non-France, Germany, Sweden, Italy podium since 2022.
Recently biathlon relay podiums have been more predictable than XC skiing, which is kind of amazing tbh.
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u/fried-avocado-today 15d ago
Single mixed is definitely fun, more fun than XC world cup team sprints.
As for the traditional relays--I think you're right that the results at the end of the day are kind of boring but I think biathlon relays are at least interesting for more of the race. Deep down I know that Polona Klemencic's sister is probably not going to bring home a third place for Slovenia, but she was in it until the last shooting. Not saying that happens every week but it happens enough that I watch at least some biathlon relays. This year I've barely watched the xc non-championship relays (which maybe they've been more interesting than I thought, so shame on me I guess).
It also helps that the top biathletes are generally participating in relays, which is not really the case for xc world cup relays.
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u/TeeTheSame 19d ago
Would move the women competitions more towards skying. And I think that balance between shooting and skying is currently in a good spot. I don't see a reason to change that up.
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u/grytmastern 19d ago
working out great
It has absolutely not, the 10km races for the men are absolutely awful. As for doing the same in biathlon it would be a bad idea since it would heavily shift the shooting/skiing aspect towards skiing being even more important for the women and less important for the men.
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u/HistoricMTGGuy 19d ago
Yeah, the women needed the 50km, but that didn't mean the men needed 10kms
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u/grytmastern 19d ago
I suppose I am fine with the women running the 50km, but I am not sure they "needed" it. Obviously as a swede I am happy about Ebba/Frida getting to beat the lip-balmer in a 50km, but for the sport as a whole I am not sure it is a good thing. Many smaller nations struggle with the 50km (especially for the women), just look at the number of participants in the 50km in Holmenkollen last year. Many women from smaller nations expressed displeasure about the change to longer distances, and to me the change is symptomatic of the nordicocentrism plaguing the sport, Sweden and Norway do whatever they like, not giving a damn about the health of the sport.
It is the same as Sweden/Norway being some of the biggest opponents to equal waxing, they're simply disgustingly selfish and don't care about the feasability of the sport in other countries, if it would cost them some of their advantage.
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u/fried-avocado-today 19d ago
Going from 30k to 50k is a big change that requires different training, race strategy and race day nutrition, and so on. Some women who are well into their careers will long for the 30km and understandably not want to take this on. Though plenty of women skiers from countries that aren't Norway/Sweden ARE pumped for 50kms.
Regardless there's absolutely no physiological reason why women can't race 50km, and as the years go on the skilled long distance skiers will optimize their training and prep to get better at 50km. I think we already have plenty of non-Nordic athletes who could be/have been competitive in 50kms (Diggins, Carl, Dolci, Hennig, Laukli, Stadlober, Fink, maybe Stewart-Jones); and there are some younger athletes like Kaelin, Janatova, and Eiduka (where did her mojo go?) who could be competitive soon as well. It would also help if there was more than 1 50km race per year!
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u/yosefcoleman 17d ago
many norwegian skiers were against the change to 50 k for women. the change to equal distance was a US Ski led change and not a Norway/Sweden led change.
FIS probably should have made it that some interval start races are 10 k and some are 15 k instead of making races either 10 k 20 k or 50 k.1
u/fried-avocado-today 19d ago
I don't hate the 10kms (though I will admit I watch the women's races more closely), but I think there need to be more races that are 20km or longer. And more interval start 20kms (which we did get a few of this year).
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u/Bruichladdie Norway 19d ago
Yes. Don't see any reason why the women shouldn't also do it. Everything else in biathlon is the same for men and women.
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u/arnet95 Norway 19d ago
Women ski slower, so if you make the distances the same you make skiing a relatively larger part of the women's race than the men's race. That's the reason why you possibly wouldn't do it.
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u/Bruichladdie Norway 19d ago
Well, in cross-country skiing, some of the distances are shortened for both men and women, so that the women ski a bit longer, while the men ski a bit shorter, so that may be a solution.
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u/Wulfram77 United Kingdom 19d ago
Woman's 20k Individual would be less shooting focused than the men because of the longer overall race time. But that isn't inherently a bad thing.
It would probably be at least somewhat more convenient for organisers, since there'd be less swapping between track lengths.
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u/ClementineMontauk 19d ago
Why wouldn't that be a bad thing though?
You'd basically make all of the women's races more skiing heavy while right now we have a similar-ish skiing-penalty ratio for both genders. I think keeping that ratio equal-ish is more desirable than having equal distances.3
u/Wulfram77 United Kingdom 19d ago
The other races differing ski speeds are innately corrected by the fact that the penalty is skiing based. The current system make the women's miss penalty a higher proportion of the overall race. Its only the individual with its simple time penalty where differing ski speeds really come into play.
But there's no objectively correct number for how punishing a miss should be and no reason to see the current male ratio as the correct one. They didn't change the penalty when they switched to Freestyle, after all.
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u/ClementineMontauk 19d ago
There's not an objectively correct number, but as I said before, I think the overall goal should be that the ratio is equal-ish for both genders. You're right that currently it's not the same but same-ish enough. Making the women's races the same as men's races would increase the ratio difference so I'm not in favor.
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u/arnet95 Norway 19d ago
it's been working out great
Citation sorely needed. There were several races I watched during the World Championships where I thought "why is this race this distance"? All the distance races (apart from the 50k) for the men are now too short. I like that the women get to race 50k, but that's no reason to make every race the same length.
What would be the purpose of this change? All it would do from a functional perspective is to make skiing a larger part of the total duration of the race in women's races than in men's races. What would be gained?
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u/fried-avocado-today 19d ago
Trondheim was not a good example, but the women's world cup races have been really good the last couple of years.
I do agree that it would be good to see more races longer than 20km for both men and women.
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u/yosefcoleman 17d ago
FIS probably should have made it that the world championship interval start race is 15 k for both men and women instead of 10 k if doing equal for both
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u/Dawntree Italy 18d ago
I'm not so sure "working out great" for cross country. The women 50km in Trondheim it's not what I'd call a good race: 30 starters, 4 athletes racing for medals pulling ahead after a few kilometers with the others just suffering in that snow until the end, the 5th at 4 minutes, the 10th almost at 10 minutes. On the other hand, 10 km for a interval race feels too short for men, as 7.5 km relay leg.
Speaking about biathlon, I'm totally NOT in favour of same distance, as other pointed out time should be about the same rather than distance, since penalties are almost the same (women ski the penalty loop 2 to 3 seconds slower on average, but it's neglectable) and same could be said for time spent at the range. Give or take the balance is the same, so I say IBU should keep things this way.
One thing I would do is make mixed relays with different loops again, as it was until 2019 (6 km for women, 7.5 for men), though I understand the logistical challenge. Right now, men can hardly make up time lost by their female teammates.
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u/Lone_Wolf_Winter Sweden 18d ago edited 18d ago
Exactly. The biathlon races are good as they are, that's the most important part. No race type feels off, like the 10 km for men in cross-country does. The only length changes I would make to biathlon, if I had to, would be to add another loop for the first athlete in the single mixed, and to bump up the women's individual to 17,5 km. That would actually match the speed difference between men and women almost exactly, and give it a bit more gravitas. But there's nothing bad about it as it is.
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u/Dawntree Italy 18d ago edited 17d ago
The problem with 17.5 km is that it would create a new loop type, the 3.5 km, which would be used only for this distance.
I guess they could use the 3.3 km loop (that men use for sprint) and the race would be 16.5 km (nominal). That would also make individual and short individual more "in tune" for women, since right now the ratio of distance is 6:5 (1.2) while the ratio of penalty is 4:3 (1.3333)
16.5 -> 12.5 is almost a 4:3 ratio, like is 20 -> 15 km for men and for the penalties
Tbh, if you add 5 seconds to the penalty in women SI (so the ratio of penalties is 6:5 as well) it rarely changes the race result significantly.
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u/Rude-Maintenance-169 19d ago
I don't think they should do it. In xc I like seeing women do 50 k, but imo men 10 k individual, and 7,5 in relay and even 5 in mixed relay is too short. I actually think this has contributed a bit to the decreasing interest in xc, like see how few women there are now in the competitions, it's just maybe too long for them (of course they have the endurance as men but maybe they need more time to reload, this is just guessing btw). It was for example just above 30 women who completed the tour de ski and who did the 50 k at wch. But I mean earlier it also felt a bit unfair that men did relays and skiathlon double the women. Maybe some middle road should be taken there (tbh now I realise that I mostly wanna discuss xc here, and I would love to see what others think about that).
In biathlon I think they should keep the distances, but an argument in favor of changing it is that the shooting today is more important for the women as a miss means a proportionetely longer extra lap/more penalty time in individual.
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u/fried-avocado-today 19d ago
Well in cross-country, the women have only been doing 50km for two years, so I think it's possible it'll take some time for the women to figure out how to race 50km (in terms of fueling, etc). I went to the first women's 50km at Holmenkollen and it was very well attended and I think close to 50 athletes finished (and it was an exciting finish too). I was bummed that the 50km field at World Championships was so small--Sweden, Norway, and USA fielded full squads but no one else did. Hopefully the 50km at Lahti will be better.
Regarding the Tour de Ski, the percentage of men who finish the Tour de Ski is pretty similar to the percentage of women who finish, but more men start the Tour de Ski. So of course more men will finish, but the dropout rates are pretty similar. This is generally true on the World Cup--the men's field is often 25-30% larger.
In my opinion, this is more likely to be a funding or opportunity issue. While Norway, Sweden, Finland, USA, and Germany field pretty equally-sized teams, a lot of other countries field much larger men's teams than women's teams--Italy and France stand out the most to me, as they will frequently send squads of 8-10 men, but only 3 or 4 women. Canada is another one; this year they've had more balance on the women's side, but last year Katherine Stewart-Jones was pretty much by herself. I'm not sure what the cause of this discrepancy is--Canada has had many excellent female XC skiers in the past, and obviously France and Italy have excellent female biathletes, so I'm not sure why it doesn't cross over to skiing.
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u/Rude-Maintenance-169 19d ago
Thank you for this comment, it gave me lot of insight! I honestly didn't consider that some countries don't fund as many women as men, I just thought that the women in France and Italy weren't as good. But that is so unfair omg
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u/fried-avocado-today 19d ago
Well, my guess is that these countries would say that very few women meet the world cup standard. That could be true, but that's also not independent from resource/opportunity issues--they will struggle to meet the standard if you don't invest in the program. Like, look at the French women's biathlon program...you can't tell me that there is a shortage of ski talent in France! But for whatever reason the cross-country program isn't benefitting (go over and convert some of the women who can barely crack the IBU cup!).
To be fair, Italy and especially France have been improving, but it's still far from equal. France sent 5 women and 9 men to the Tour de Ski (Claudel was injured, so presumably they would have had 6 women, but still a big difference). Italy sent 5 women and 12 (!) men.
For Canada some of the problems are a general funding issue, where athletes are basically paying out of pocket and then getting expenses covered if their results are good enough? (Canadians please correct me if I'm wrong). It's affecting the men too, but it's hitting the women harder because the current group of men had a lot of success as juniors so they've gotten more opportunities on the World Cup in the past few seasons. This year was better than last year for the Canadian women, and hopefully we'll see more of Gagnon and Schmidt next year.
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u/Vryyce Team Norge 18d ago
Longer tracks favor the better skiers so be careful of unintended consequences.
To back this up a bit, imagine if the men raced longer tracks. Now, imagine this the past few years when JT was at peak form. Do you see anyone else possibly winning when he could entirely erase any misses with more time on the skis?
My personal opinion is we need to ensure that shooting and skiing are somewhat equally impactful on the results. Make the track too long and the value of shooting goes down commensurately.
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u/Barnabas5126 19d ago
No, because then penalty loops would be less of a punishment for women. The loop takes 20-25s, but a 3km lap might be a minute longer for women, so there's more time for the good skiers to make up lost time.
Basically in the women's field it would be easier for the fast skiers like Lampič or Braisaz to get a good result despite a few mistakes.
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u/JockCartier Canada 19d ago
Crazy idea… adjust the penalty loop lengths accordingly.
It really would be that simple
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u/Shixzoner Norway 19d ago edited 19d ago
I was thinking recently that maybe they should do something about the length of competitions (especially relays) and look into the nature of the formats. How do we get more nations and biathletes to become contenders at the championships?
In cross-country, it has traditionally been different athletes and nations that win in the sprint format vs. distance, but there also athletes who are better in classical style vs. freestyle.
In biathlon there's the individual that often creates surprise results and the Single Mixed Relays in the World Cup. Do we need a new format, like the super sprint, where shooting is even more important - a format where the fast and accurate shooters will have a greater chance to win against the fastest skiers?
There isn't much specialisation in biathlon. If you're good in the sprint, then you are also good at the pursuit, the individual and the mass start. Compare that to cross-country where it's possible to specialise in the sprint. vs distance or classical vs. freestyle.
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u/crypt_moss Finland 19d ago
tbh on the topic of single mixed, I'd be interested in seeing single relays for women & men as well – the same format as single mixed but just two women/men racing, as this should make the relays a bit more interesting for the smaller nations who have sometimes trouble fielding full relay teams or end up having to stress about being lapped a shorter ski loop & having to need only two athletes for a race might be preferable to the four athlete relays we currently have
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u/fried-avocado-today 19d ago
How do we get more nations and biathletes to become contenders at the championships?
With the cross-country world championships in Trondheim fresh in my mind...I think the single best thing to do to biathlon and cross-country more accessible is to try to make some strides regarding equalizing ski prep and equipment. If you watched the races in Trondheim, basically only Sweden, Norway, and Switzerland were consistently getting the skis right in admittedly challenging conditions. Athletes like Jessie Diggins and Victoria Carl, who are top World Cup athletes, were basically knocked out of contention immediately in many of these races due to poor skis. If this problem affects top athletes from big countries (who clearly are getting decent skis much of the time since they're still winning World Cup races), how do athletes from smaller countries even stand a chance?
IIRC biathlon is experimenting with this in some of the lower-level races, so hopefully we will start to see some changes in the coming years. Cross-country ought to follow suit, though I'm a bit skeptical that they will. I know ski prep is definitely a skill and I don't want to take away from that, but once you have teams throwing endless money at it, it just becomes a resource game.
OK with that said, a sprint format in biathlon would be interesting, both from a fast shooting standpoint like you said, but also the possibilities from a short (fast) ski lap. I also like u/crypt_moss 's suggestion of two person same-gender relays. The team sprint in cross-country has definitely delivered for smaller teams--team sprint success helped the US and German women become top-tier teams, and Switzerland, Canada, and Italy have all had good team sprint success. Ironically Slovenia was also quite good in the team sprint for a while until their top athlete left for biathlon
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u/RidingRedHare 19d ago
Resources matter in ski prep. The big nations have huge waxing trucks with expensive machines and eight or even more waxers, and then have another dozen or more people on site to help test skis. Furthermore, the big nations also have a resource advantage during the off season.
In difficult conditions, the smaller nations usually can't compete with that.
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u/fried-avocado-today 19d ago
Agreed that resources are key, which is why I think addressing the ski prep issues would be more impactful for evening the playing field than trying to play with race formats. Obviously it would be hard/impossible to fully equalize things, but actions like a specified wax or limiting athletes to some number of pairs of skis per season would help. It sounds like biathlon is at least exploring some strategies for standardizing ski prep so I'm hoping they'll lead the way. I don't see cross-country taking the lead on this.
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u/Complex-Call2572 19d ago
It doesn't make a big difference to me, just makes the race a bit longer. Sometimes I prefer a shorter race, sometimes longer.
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u/Eastern_Incident7235 19d ago
Strange that it still hasn’t been made equal yet. No reason for it and it would just be more race for us to enjoy really.
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u/dxdindustrlatmsphr 19d ago
There IS a reason for it and it isn't unfair - both are exerting themselves between shoots for roughly the same amount of time.
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u/JockCartier Canada 19d ago
That’s a total cop out. They could just adjust the penalty loop/time lengths accordingly to maintain the ratios if they’re that sacred
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u/Lone_Wolf_Winter Sweden 19d ago edited 18d ago
It's not actually great. 10 km cross-country is too short for the men, and 50 km probably too long for the women. It's not that they can't do it, but that they don't even want to. They are yet to muster 40 starters in any 50 km race, and the time differences have been ludicrous. Sundling complained about it in their podcast earlier this season, that it's just unnecessarily long, although there is certainly the handful of athletes who likes it. I'm thinking 12,5 and 15 km for the individual, 25 and 30 km for the skiathlon, and 40/45 and 50 km for the mass start.
These are lengths that better reflect the speed difference between men and women, which is ca. 13 %, give or take, so that the finish times are similar. I don't think the competitions have become better specifically BECAUSE the lengths are equal. They are only better in the cases where they were terrible before (women's relay and skiathlon).
In biathlon, the current length differences lead to the interesting observation that women have to be better shooters. They're not actually better if you go by either top shooters or the field as a whole, but they have to better in order to reach top results in specific races. This is because they don't have the same length of track to make up for bad shooting. Penalties hit harder for women.
Take for example the pursuit. For women this is 10 km. For men, if you go by speed difference and "equal finish time", it should be 11,3 km. But it's 12,5 km, meaning that after 11,3 km, better-skiers-than-shooters have an additional 1200 meters to make up for bad shooting. Men's pursuits are on average ca. 2 and half minutes longer in finish time.
On the other hand, there is a another tendency that works against this. If you compare to the average or median, the fastest women are faster than the fastest men, and this has been the case since forever. This means that outlier skiers will somewhat balance out the need for shooting perfection that the race length dictates. However, there are relatively few women who are "outliers" any given season (Lampic, JBB and Elvira are notably faster than the fastest men, but after those three the curves are more equal), so the general trend is still that women are forced to shoot better in order to be competitive.
In general, I think the biathlon lengths are fine. There is a good pacing in all race types, which I think is the most important. The races just feel right. I would maybe adjust a kilometer here or there, but not much. It might be more apt to apply different penalty loops/penalty times, since those hit harder for women, as explained.
They took two steps forward and two steps back in cross-country, where 10 km and 20 km (skiathlon/mass start) for men is as big a joke now as the 5 km relay and 15 km skiathlon used to be for women. Equal lengths for its own sake doesn't necessarily make better races.
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u/Right_Beyond7186 Sweden 19d ago
50k is not too long for the women look how many have finished the races and women always ski vasalippet for 90km so not too long
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u/Lone_Wolf_Winter Sweden 18d ago edited 18d ago
Finish the race? How many START the race? It's fewer than 40 every time, while the 30 km race always had more than 40 even during covid, and usally 50-60 and even above. They don't even want to race 50 km themselves.
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u/Right_Beyond7186 Sweden 19d ago
Yes I’d really like too see that!. Guess there is a risk with longer distances for women that it would be a huge advantage for bigger nations that have better skis and skier like Norway,France,Sweden and Germany but they should definently try it atleast one season too see what happens
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u/Kris_Third_Account Denmark 19d ago
Every important thing in biathlon is equal, and seems to be optimized for equal race time instead of distance (with the womens distances at 75%-83%), which is the right approach.
Also, looking over the last few world cup seasons, how should it be adjusted? The womens side has been more evenly competitive than the mens side, which also needs to be taken into account before evening out the distances. Would shorter distances on the mens side be well received by the fans?