ANTERSELVA, Italy (AP) — The sport of biathlon, which combines cross-country skiing and precision target shooting, requires hundreds of hours of training annually and the ability to push your body to the maximum effort for an athlete to have a chance of success at the Olympics.

Here's is the full Olympic biathlon schedule for the 2026 Winter Games

French biathlon great Martin Fourcade and the German relay team received gold medals from the 2010 and 2014 Olympics respectively on Sunday in a reallocation ceremony at the Milan/Cortina Games. The ceremony took place in the sold-out Anterselva biathlon stadium between the men's and women's Olympic pursuit races in the presence of International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry.

Combining cross-country high speed skiing with a rifle didn't happen by chance. The history of the biathlon explained.

Here is how the Biathlon works, including its rules, scoring and history in the Olympics.

Biathlon combines two sports – cross-country skiing and shooting – into one race. The biathlon first made its debut 66 years ago in the 1960 Winter Olympics at the renamed Palisades Tahoe in Olympic Valley near Lake Tahoe. This year, the Winter Olympic biathlon games will be held in Antholz (Anterselva), Italy.

"It's about giving back and justice," said France's Martin Fourcade, now the gold medalist in the mass start from the 2010 Games.

France's Quentin Fillon Maillet shot clean to power to Olympic biathlon gold in the men's 10 kilometre sprint on Friday. He picked up his fourth Olympic gold and second of these Games after winning by 13.

ANTERSELVA, Italy (AP) — Julia Simon became the first Frenchwoman to win an Olympic gold medal in the women’s 15-kilometer individual biathlon race and teammate Lou Jeanmonnot took silver at the the Milan Cortina Games on Wednesday.

ANTERSELVA, Italy (AP) — Lisa Vittozzi secured Italy's first Olympic gold medal in biathlon, hitting all 20 targets in the 10-kilometer pursuit biathlon race at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics on Sunday.

The Winter Olympics bring sports we barely see outside of these few weeks. Many of them look exciting. Some of them look like a bad idea for normal people. A lot of these events mix speed, ice, height,