ANTERSELVA, Italy (AP) — The sport of biathlon, which combines cross-country skiing and precision target shooting, requires hundreds of hours of training annually and the ability to push your body to the maximum effort for an athlete to have a chance of success at the Olympics.

Here's is the full Olympic biathlon schedule for the 2026 Winter Games

Biathlon combines two sports – cross-country skiing and shooting – into one race. The biathlon first made its debut 66 years ago in the 1960 Winter Olympics at the renamed Palisades Tahoe in Olympic Valley near Lake Tahoe. This year, the Winter Olympic biathlon games will be held in Antholz (Anterselva), Italy.

French biathlon great Martin Fourcade and the German relay team received gold medals from the 2010 and 2014 Olympics respectively on Sunday in a reallocation ceremony at the Milan/Cortina Games. The ceremony took place in the sold-out Anterselva biathlon stadium between the men's and women's Olympic pursuit races in the presence of International Olympic Committee president Kirsty Coventry.

Here is how the Biathlon works, including its rules, scoring and history in the Olympics.

Jens Friberg is a sports journalist who's covering the Winter Olympics for the Norwegian newspaper VG. He explains how much biathlon matters in Norway, the most successful nation in Olympic biathlon history, and how the death of Norwegian biathlete Sivert Bakken in the run-up to the Games has affected both the sport and the country.

France's Quentin Fillon Maillet shot clean to power to Olympic biathlon gold in the men's 10 kilometre sprint on Friday. He picked up his fourth Olympic gold and second of these Games after winning by 13.

"It's about giving back and justice," said France's Martin Fourcade, now the gold medalist in the mass start from the 2010 Games.

The Winter Olympics bring sports we barely see outside of these few weeks. Many of them look exciting. Some of them look like a bad idea for normal people. A lot of these events mix speed, ice, height,

Meet some of the faces behind a world-class training facility in Brillion, Wisconsin, that is helping athletes prepare for Olympic-level competition in cross-country skiing and biathlon.