In addition to the football World Cup, some winter sports enthusiasts are now also starting the season. The biathlon starts on Tuesday – with a rule change.
The new biathlon season starts with some rule changes. According to a decision by the World Association, the results of the World Championships will no longer be included in the overall World Cup rankings, which means that a World Championship victory is no longer a World Cup victory at the same time.
It will therefore be much more difficult in the future to break Norway’s record world champion Ole Einar Björndalen’s record of 94 World Cup successes – because eleven of them were individual World Championship titles and four Olympic victories. Since Sochi 2014, triumphs at Winter Games are no longer counted as World Cup successes.
No more scratch results
In addition, there will be no more discarded results from the new season, so far the two worst have been deleted. This means that all races are taken into account in the battle for the Big Crystal Ball. To do this, the overall and discipline scoring systems will be adjusted to increase the gap between top results and ensure that athletes missing races due to illness can still compete for the crystal globes. For a win there are now 90 points instead of the previous 60, the further points are staggered accordingly.
The prize money has also been adjusted. In the first phase until 2024, more athletes should receive prize money in the World Cup and IBU Cup. In a second phase from 2024 to 2026, they are then to be increased.