The raids of the hungry Vikings

It's not easy to track down the Vikings. The literature available is almost overwhelming and the pre-Christmas period is not enough to research all the information with due thoroughness. But no one is completely wrong when they call the Vikings Northerners. And the fact that some of them harbored military ambitions cannot be denied. Some raids were probably legendary. This has not changed to this day, even though the basis is peaceful and only takes place in sporting competition.

It seems as if the desire for success was born into the Scandinavians. The four biathlon weekends that have been completed so far have made it clear that the Viking seems to have a winning gene in him that radiates far beyond biathlon. See alpine skiing, ski jumping or cross-country skiing. To the oars. And the bow of the Viking ship is almost always a step ahead of all competitors.

Marte Olsbu Roiseland from Norway and the Swede Hanna Öberg dominate. © APA/afp / MARCO BERTORELLO

Sometimes numbers help to make the enormous superiority of the athletes from the far north tangible. They won seven of nine biathlon races for women and men. This has never happened in this form before, especially since the winners' lists have many different names. Norway and Sweden dominated in a way that almost reduced the rest of the field to extras. Only small exceptions were allowed (Dorothea Wierer from Rasen or Dzinara Alimbekava from Belarus) or Quentin Fillon Mailett from France and most recently Arnd Peiffer from Germany. Successes that give a little hope that the Viking raids can perhaps at least be stopped from time to time. Supervisors from abroad – also from South Tyrol The success of the teams from Scandinavia rests on two solid pillars. Both the Norwegians and the Swedes went above and beyond when it came to hiring the responsible coaches. Patrick Oberegger from Antholz is the responsible women's boss in Norway. Fritz Hinteregger from Pfalzen massages the muscles of the Norwegians, as he has done for more than a decade, especially with Ole-Einar Björndalen. And the Frenchman Siegfried Maze, who trained Martin Fourcade, takes care of the shooting safety. Sweden was also busy. The Swiss Jean-Marc Jabloz is the new men's coach and also looks after the possibly future star Stine Nillson in Östersund, who became the Olympic champion in cross-country skiing in South Korea in 2018 and now wants to become a biathlete. And as the successor to Wolfgang Pichler from Ruhpolding, the most successful biathlon trainer in the world, Johannes Lukas from Munich was hired, who apprenticed with Pichler. He is team boss.

International diversity enlivens the Scandinavians. In addition, there is an unusual constellation that only allows the really successful athletes to sleep peacefully. In Sweden or Norway there is no state protection for any athlete, whether woman or man, through various institutions such as the police or military. Only success ensures a reasonable income. Otherwise there are only small contributions from the association that are really hardly worth mentioning. The Scandinavian attitude is that athletes are provided with trainers and facilities for training. That has to be enough. The active ones are challenged. This “social hunger” automatically drives the Vikings. There is no net that can be rolled out during a losing streak. Maybe that's still the connection to history, because the ancestors of the current generation probably also fought for survival every day.

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The raids of the hungry Vikings

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