Bang-Bang, Bang-Bang
During the Beijing Olympics, a commercial aired introducing us to one of our 2010 Olympic biathlon hopefuls, a dimpled, young brunette from Quebec who acted out her sport, shooting, with hand gestures, enthusiastically spurting, Bang-bang, bang-bang! I found her utterly adorable and found myself contemplating biathlon, a sport I’ve never watched, even on television, and one I’ve certainly never tried.
I understand its utility. Many summer sports are based, historically, on skills necessary for war, many winter ones on hunting skills. The biathlon demonstrates the ability to chase your prey and shoot to kill with accuracy. But it does seem a little odd to most people to give athletes rifles in this day and age, especially in a competition. As comedian Jeremy Hotz put it last night during the last performance of his tour, his last stop being here in Vancouver, They strap a rifle on your back! If you’re the person in second, and the one in first goes behind a tree, and they break for commercial, you could just…!
You may recall a couple of years ago Canadian women gave the sport a higher profile—and a more erotic one—by producing a nude calendar to raise money for their training costs. The women really do have beautiful, buff, lean bodies. Rick Mercer even posed naked with a gun on his show to promote their cause.
Apparently, it’s all breath control. To be able to bring your heart rate and breathing rate down enough to fire an accurate shot. That way no penalty laps or time penalties are applied and your score will be based on your speed alone. The breath training is a crucial part of the athletic training. To control such a basic body function to that scientific degree is itself an interesting field of study relevant to many other disciplines.
I’ve never shot a gun or a rifle in my life. Well, OK, I shot a BB gun at the CNE in Toronto and it was so embarrassing, I can’t bear to try again. When you’re that bad, it can be misconstrued as mockery of the sport.
And I wouldn’t mock this sport. Yesterday I attended my first biathlon event, at Paralympic Park in Whistler. The grandstand seats allow spectators a view of the shooting range, the starting and finish lines, as well as two sections of the course. Participants are categorized by gender and by disability: visually impaired, standing (missing arms), and sitting (paraplegia or missing legs). The shooting range includes technologically modified rifles designed to provide an alternative suited to each athlete’s disability.
For instance, the visually-impaired shoot with rifles that emit electronic audio signals that indicate when they are aiming at the target. Guns are adjusted, in advance, to heights. The most incredible innovation in the rifle portion of the race was without a doubt that of German Paralympic legend **Jesen. He is missing both arms. He skis the course on the power of his legs alone. And he fires his rifle with his teeth. Yes, that’s right. With his teeth! And he usually shoots clean.
The youngest participant in the Arctic Games was a ten-year-old biathlete. He hit several of his shots, even though it was the first time he was shooting bullets instead of air. Teammates joked about carrying him on their shoulders for the snowshoeing portion of the race (they include snowshoe as well as skiing biathlon in the Arctic Games), but they are confident that he will be a contender in later years.
Recently, a friend of mine tried to give a teenage boy a birthday gift certificate for a shooting range. All he does is play video games. I thought if I could get him to actually learn the skill, he might get involved in biathlon and start exercising. It didn’t work. He asked for the money instead. Maybe if he started earlier—like this ten-year-old, he might be off the couch by now, doing more than staring at cartoons muttering, bang-bang, bang-bang.
