Welcome to Biathlon UK
Welcome to Biathlon UK – “The Biathlon Family”.
Welcome to Biathlon UK, the federation of biathlon experts, organisations and enthusiasts. We give a platform and voice to everyone in the biathlon family - all ages, all abilities, all interests - and very importantly also other like-minded groups with relevant and valuable professional knowledge and experience that we can share and together develop, all of which contributes to the wider view and needs of biathlon.
We're bound together by this 'flexible Constitution', a memorandum of understanding, primarily because we are a wide-ranging group, and therefore 'one-size-fits-all' rule usually can't fit perfectly. We have an Executive of course, but no body or contributor is subservient to over-riding harsh rules. The Executive members are lifetime biathlon athletes, coaches and creators who understand well the value that other passions bring to the party (a long list that includes target shooting, cross-country skiing, target sprint, cross-fit, etc).
Mutual respect is the over-riding principle with 2 tiers: principal partners (in essence, the alumni of biathlon and sister challenge-sports with vast expertise to share); and members, who are those who need help finding their way into their own place in the biathlon family (eg starting a new biathlon club, taking up the sport, providing for family members, friends, etc).
Overall, the aim is to broaden and deepen the levels of biathlon activity in the UK (and Ireland), by bringing focus, expertise, capability and opportunity to everyone who needs it.
There's so much in our portfolio of technical expertise and experience in biathlon than 'club activities'. Just for example: we run formal competences and qualifications courses, which are so important today to ensure everyone is safe, and seen to be well trained and safely organised and managed; our technical consultancy partner McGill looks after range design, range project management, risk management and course design for biathlon leaders (range conducting officers, coaches, range safety staff, rollerski training and race organisation, etc); and we have experts - including erstwhile international competitors - who can organise superb UK and overseas training camps for both summer and winter on-snow competition training.
One of our major partners in the Biathlon UK federation is the British Biathlon Club (BBC), which is the focal point for all current and aspiring biathletes of all ages and experience. BBC is an active club with several venues around the UK and Ireland, which organises and delivers biathlon training and competition at all levels, from one-day introductions for beginners all the way upwards to training camps for established biathletes. (These venues provide proper live-firing 0.22in rimfire biathlon shooting.)
Whilst the British Biathlon Union (BBU) (www.britishbiathlon.com) looks after elite GBR Squad administration and international competition, we do everything else that’s needed to provide ‘routine national business’. Nonetheless, for elite competition and aspiring athletes, our training programmes are aligned with the BBU’s task of projecting British biathletes onto the World and Olympic stages; and we have the answers, the capability and the experience to make biathlon happen for everyone.
Our overall aim is to create opportunities for everyone to enjoy this wonderful sport, and to make access for newcomers a whole lot easier than ever before.
This is “Biathlon For All”.
