Posted on 02/11/2014 11:16:39 AM PST by 1rudeboy
SOCHI, Russia—The most carefully guarded sporting equipment in the Winter Olympics lies behind the door of a sealed-off corridor in a stadium near the upper reaches of the Caucasus Mountains. It is monitored at all hours by security guards who open the door only for its owners. And even then, they need personalized keys to retrieve it from their lockers. For biathletes, the security measures are just one more reminder: It isn't easy getting your equipment around the Olympics when your equipment includes a .22-caliber rifle.
Only the biathlon, which combines cross-country skiing with target shooting, requires athletes to carry firearms on their backs. And while many countries allow biathletes to take their rifles back to their hotel rooms, Russia has stricter rules.
When biathletes arrived in Sochi, their rifles were taken off their planes and delivered directly to the biathlon venue, which is the only place they can access them. Biathletes must sign out their rifles when they arrive and sign them back in before they leave. Every box of ammunition must also be signed out and accounted for.
The measures are similar to those used at previous Olympics, and Russia isn't the only country with such tight controls. But it is among the strictest. "There aren't a lot of other countries like that," said U.S. biathlete Sara Studebaker.
For American biathletes in particular, it represents a stark change from what they are accustomed to at home
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I’ve seen the biathalon on American TV, and the pistol, rifle and archery competitions in the summer games.
I watched the biathlon yesterday with the shooting elements. Soon after had to checkout those 22 rifles. Couldn’t believe they ran between 3 and 4 grand.
My little $150 Remington w/scope nails a quarter @ 100 yards no problem every time.
Those 22 rifles hardly make any noise. I want to hear a real bang with visible recoil..
So the solution to the US failures in this event are pretty straightforward: stop eating chicken wings, start drinking vodka.
Problem. Solved.
Worked for me. I lost weight.
That would be awesome.
My Remington 700 SPS nails coyotes at 500 yards no problem and every time.
(-:
NBC has ruined the Olympics with their platitudes and idiotic gibberish.
I love watching it. When is it on?
Your picture makes Bob Costa’s one good eye weep.
Hey, at least they have ammo.
(s)due to global warming they have intoduced the bikini biathalon(/s)
seriously I am not wasting my time with this NBC coverage. The olympics would be better off using in house commentators that said NOTHING or were as exciting as cspan trained people. (cspan has special “be boring” classes)
NBC forgot about the atlanta games where the athletes actually hijacked the buses because the union drivers did not know where they were going.
They harped on endlessly about the ring not opening while forgetting in Vancouver, they couldn’t even get the Olympic Flame lit.
Hey Norm: That is what I was wondering.
Where the heck are they getting 22 ammo?
"Look, the men's downhill! And they skipped three skiers to show some obscure guy . . . I wonder what medal he wins." /s
They certainly aren’t getting it from Russia. They’d have to go from “ski, shoot, ski, shoot” to “ski, shoot, breakdown and clean weapon, ski, shoot ...”
Nor can anyone else. It's called heightened security.
[snort]
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