Athletes upset
Glue trouble in biathlon – association reacts
12/02/2025 – 8:52 a.mReading time: 2 minutes
The biathlon season began at the weekend with the first World Cup in Östersund. But not everything went according to plan for the world association.
The biathlon season has officially opened. Four of the competitions in Östersund have already been completed. From a German perspective, they have been unsuccessful so far, not a single podium place in the women’s or men’s relays, and the DSV selection also came away empty-handed in the mixed relay and the single-mixed relay.
But it wasn’t just the German team that had problems, the organizers also had room for improvement. Because some athletes’ start numbers fell off their chests. The reason: poor quality of the adhesive.
As banal as losing a starting number may sound, it can be dangerous on the cross-country ski trail, the Norwegian Vetle Sjastad Christiansen made clear. “If they stick to your skis, it’s critical. Then you can trip or fall. Nobody wants that,” he told Norwegian broadcaster NRK.
His compatriot Sturla Holm Lægreid agreed with him: “The glue on these start numbers was bad. I can’t say whether it was a new manufacturer, but before it was really good glue and you could hardly get the start numbers off. Now it was the complete opposite.”
Frenchman Eric Perrot suspected: “There was some glue missing, I think. Maybe they tried something new that didn’t work so well. But I bet they’ll solve it.” The world association IBU is at least aware of the problem and announced that it had commissioned new stickers.
The problem may have been solved this Tuesday, when the women’s individual over the 15 kilometers takes place (from 3:30 p.m. in the live ticker on t-online), before the men’s individual over the 20 kilometers follows on Wednesday.