Biathlon at the 1968 Winter Olympics

Dates 12 – 15 February 1968
Medal Events 2

New on the 1968 Olympic program was the 4 x 7.5 km relay. The biathlon relay was first contested internationally at the 1966 World Championships. Each member of the team had two shooting sessions, five targets from the prone position and five from the standing position. A maximum of eight shots per shooting session were allowed, the last three shots had to be loaded one by one. If still not five hits after eight shots, the athlete had to ski an extra penalty lap of 150 m per missed target.

Also in the individual event some rule changes had been made. The shooting range was set to 150 meters for each of the four shooting sessions, and the positions for the four shooting rounds were set as follows: Prone, standing, prone, standing. The target was unchanged, with a one minute penalty for hits in the outer ring and two minutes penalty for each missed target.

Events

Event Status Date Participants NOCs
20 kilometres, Men Olympic 12 February 1968 60 16
4 × 7.5 kilometres Relay, Men Olympic 15 February 1968 56 14
72 (72/0) 16 (16/0)

Medals

Event Gold Silver Bronze
20 kilometres, Men Magnar SolbergNOR Aleksandr TikhonovURS Vladimir GundartsevURS
4 × 7.5 kilometres Relay, Men Soviet UnionURS NorwayNOR SwedenSWE

Medal table

NOC Gold Silver Bronze Total
Soviet Union URS 1 1 1 3
Norway NOR 1 1 0 2
Sweden SWE 0 0 1 1