24 January 2023

Tomorrow it starts

Old News

The tension is rising: Tomorrow, Wednesday, the IBU Open European Championships Biathlon 2023 will start in the Roland Arena in Lantsch/Lenz - a premiere on Swiss snow. The organizers are excited about this first of a total of three major biathlon events. The European Championships can rightly be regarded as a «dress rehearsal», since the first World Cup is scheduled for December 2023 and the first Biathlon World Championships for January 2025.

267 athletes and 190 support staff will be arriving in the Lenzerheide holiday region in the following days. They will be coming from over 30 nations - a comparatively high and extremely gratifying number of nations. Around 300 volunteers will perform a total of 63 different tasks and ensure that the event runs smoothly. The programme includes individual competitions (Wednesday), sprint competitions (Friday), pursuit races (Saturday) as well as mixed relay and single-mixed relay competitions on Sunday.

With Amy Baserga, Aita Gasparin, Elisa Gasparin, Lena Häcki-Gross, Lydia Hiernickel, Lea Meier and Susi Meinen in the women's competition and Sandro Bovisi, Joscha Burkhalter, Dajan Danuser, Jeremy Finello, Niklas Hartweg, Sebastian Stalder and Serafin Wiestner in the men's competition, all the top Swiss athletes are listed. The coaching team will decide on the line-up for the individual competitions on site. It will be interesting to see how the Swiss will do at the home championships.

Programme
Wednesday, 25 January:
10.15 am: Individual women (15 km)
2.00 pm: individual men (20 km)

Friday 27 January:
10.30 am: Sprint women (7.5 km)
2.00 pm: Sprint men (10 km)

Saturday, 28 January:
10.30 am: pursuit women (10 km)
1.30 pm: Pursuit men (12.5 km)

Sunday 29 January:
10.30 am: Mixed Relay
1.30 pm: Single Mixed Relay

All races will be broadcast live on SRF (TV or web).