Gunn Margit Andreassen

Gunn Margit Andreassen hales from a real sporting family. Her father Ivar Andreassen was 1964 Norwegian champion in the 1,500 metres on the track and a top national level cross-country skier, while her uncle Reidar Andreassen was Norwegian champion in 50 km cross-country skiing in 1958 and 1960, and later in 1960 won the 10,000 metres at the national athletic championships.

Gunn Margit made her first international appearance at the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics, aged 20, and won her first championship international medal as a member of the Norwegian biathlon relay team in the 1997 World Championships. At Nagano in 1998 she was also a member of the relay team that placed third. Four years later in Salt Lake City she was still on the team, this time earning a silver medal. Her only individual medal came at the 2003 World Championships, when she placed third in the 15 km event. In 2004 she was a member of the gold medal winning Norwegian relay team at the World Biathlon Championships. After giving birth to a son in December 2004, she came back and qualified for her fourth Olympics in Torino 2006. Andreassen has won seven national championships in biathlon, four in winter and three in summer. She lives together with biathlete Frode Andresen, by whom she has had three sons.