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European RoyalsSweden

Crown Princess Family of Sweden takes in Biathlon World Championships

On Sunday, 17 March, Crown Princess Victoria was present in Östersund to cheer on her countrymen on the last day of the Biathlon World Championships 2019. She was accompanied by her husband, Prince Daniel and their two children, Princess Estelle and Prince Oscar.

The Crown Princess was joined by Sofia Domeij, Swedish biathlon federation chairman, and together they followed the finals of the men’s and women’s mass start. Between the competitions, they met volunteers who worked at the event and learnt about how the sport works.

They met with Hanna Öberg who won the gold on the 15 km individual sprint Tuesday.

This is the 5th time Sweden arranged the World Championships since it started. Östersund hosted it in 1970 and 2008. It began on the 6th of March with the opening ceremony, and the games began the next day with a total of 12 competitions that lasted almost two weeks.

The first ever Biathlon was held in Norway in 1767 as a military training exercise.

Today it has seven disciplines:

In the individual competition, the women are skiing 15 km, the men 20 km. This is the oldest and longest program part.

In the sprint competition, the women are skiing 7.5 km, the men 10 km.

In the pursuit competition, 60 of the best athletes compete, the women skiing 10 km, the men 12.5 km.

In the mass start competition, 30 people compete, the women for 12.5 km, the men for 15 km.

For the relay competition part, teamwork is essential where a team of four athletes compete, the women for 6 km, the men for 7.5 km, each member shooting twice. Mixed relay competition has the same principles, but the team is formed by two men and two women. The new single mixed relay competition has a team of two, one man and one woman per country.

The Crown Princess is passionate about sports and nature. Earlier this year the whole family visited Åre for three days to attend the Alpine World Ski Championships 2019 and cheer on Sweden. At that occasion, Princess Estelle showed enthusiasm similar to that of her mother while she loudly cheered and waved the Swedish flag.

The next Biathlon event which is held in Norway started today and will last until 24 March at Holmenkollen in Oslo.