In the last couple of years, fans and athletes have been constantly comparing biathlon and ski federations – and always in favor of the former. During the coronavirus crisis, the International Biathlon Union (IBU) has really done a lot to keep fans interested. However, one detail still raises many questions. An ordinary European today cannot watch most of the races due to the fact that they take place during working hours.

A few years ago, the IBU set itself the goal of moving the starts to evening prime time in order to increase the audience of broadcasts. And Russia has become one of the few countries that heeded this recommendation. In Europe, they still do not want to spend money on artificial light, especially now that electricity costs in the region have increased manifold.

European fans will have to forget about evening races because of the organizers’ savings. Will Russia be to blame again?

Failure in Holmenkollen and breakthrough of Tyumen

In the early 2010s, the IBU expressed concern about the extremely low number of evening races. Since the average program of one stage consists of four days, half of the races suffer from reduced attention to themselves. Few people can afford to watch biathlon on Thursday and Friday during working hours.

Therefore, broadcast rights holders and IBU managers asked the stadiums to either rent lights for the duration of the stage, or invest in refurbishing the arenas. By the way, the Swedish Östersund became the first stadium that held the race with artificial lighting, but other countries did not use this practice on a massive scale.

It was because of non-compliance with the wishes of the international federation at the 2016 World Championships in the Norwegian Holmenkollen that there was a real failure. Although the races were scheduled during the daytime, the incredible fog that descended on the stadium simply paralyzed all possible ways to start.

Justine Brezaz-Boucher, Holmenkollen, 2016 / Photo: © imago sportfotodienst / imago sportfotodienst / Global Look Press

Some races had to be moved to an earlier time in order to be in time before the fog. The organizers paid for this with half-empty stands and a monstrous TV picture. All because of the desire to save money, because there was no artificial light in the arena.

An opposite example is the “Pearl of Siberia” in Tyumen. During the preparations for the European Championship 2016 and for the subsequent stages of the World Cup, our organizers immediately illuminated the track in accordance with all requirements. The average value of good light should be in the range of 1000-2000 lux – in our case this figure was close to the maximum.

Photo: © SBR

The European championship was held a couple of weeks before the world championship, so the audience felt and compared the level of readiness of our country and Norwegian colleagues.

Only Finland and Czech Republic

As you know, the Tyumen stage of the World Cup last season was canceled, and next winter it will also not be. However, the organizers of the competition with such a decision make it worse for their own spectators.

It is worth taking a look at least at the World Cup schedule for the 2022/23 season. Only two arenas that will be used during the tournament are supposed to race in the evening: at the 8th stage in Nove Mesto (Czech Republic) and the 9th in Östersund, Sweden.

Formally, the first stage in Finnish Kontiolahti will also be held under artificial lighting, but this has nothing to do with the convenience of the audience. Just in November, daylight hours in this region are shorter than six hours, so the starts at 15:15 and 15:45 will be after sunset, but during working hours.

Photo: © DeFodi Images / Contributor / DeFodi Images / Gettyimages.ru

Starts of all other races at other stages are within the interval between 14:00 and 17:00. Of course, there are single races at noon and closer to 18:00, but this does not affect the overall picture. Completion of many distances will take place already under artificial light, but these costs are incomparable to holding all competitions with full power of devices.

The World Championship in Oberhof does not stand out against this background. 1:45 pm, 3:25 pm, 4:30 pm, 4:45 pm, 5:10 pm – Races will start at this time next winter in Germany. Sunset in February will be at 17:22, and dusk will come in about half an hour, that is, by 18:00. Simply put, most of the program will also take place in natural light and at inconvenient times.

Due to the recent complication of relations with Russia, electricity has become a source of increased costs for Europeans. And if the region has previously saved on viewers, excluding evening broadcasts, now this trend will only intensify. Obviously, such problems would not have arisen at the Russian stages – but now it is more important for the IBU to express its position than to please the audience.