The Biathlon: Firing Guns Under Pressure

[@Olympics]

The Youth Olympic Games will be starting on February 12th. Watch event live streams as well as daily highlights on the Olympic KZbin channel.

[@TomScottGo]

And there are three more videos from me over on their channel. Thanks to all the team who put this together, it was a fantastic trip!

[@ykeloy5655]

Nice. Can't wait :D

[@ykeloy5655]

CavePony It is a colab between Tom and the Olympics KZbin team :)

[@CavePony]

+Ykeloy Radford Yeah, I know :)

[@konradw360]

Olympic

[@FOXTR0T1]

It's even worse when the targets are shooting back

[@bulman07]

You need to hold your breath, Tom. Call of Duty told me. There should be an LS button on your gun to help.

[@xxxdumbwordstupidnumberxxx4844]

on xbox it's LS for Left Stick

[@PBMS123]

When shooting, you don't hold you're breath, you breathe all the way out, and hold that.

[@caramelldansen2204]

@@PBMS123 I was taught to shoot while you're slowly letting a normal breath find its way out naturally... have I been doing it wrong?

[@PBMS123]

@@caramelldansen2204 yes. As you breath in and out your chest is moving. So if you're prone your sights will raise up and down You breathe out and then hold that's your natural aim, at that point you should be on target. You shoot once you breathe out and hold. Not while. If you shoot while breathing you will be moving.

[@wolf1066]

@@PBMS123 When we breathe, there's an in then out and then a slight pause before the next in. That pause is when you shoot - extending the pause, but not for too long as deoxygenating your blood is also bad for your aim.

[@justandy333]

Target shooting is hard enough let alone doing a cross country ski before hand. I used to attend a club shooting .22 and the max score you can achieve in the discipline we did was 100 (10 targets, a bullseye being 10 points). In the 7 years I attended I managed a 99/100. And that was at resting heart rate. Christ knows how these guys manage it.

[@PBMS123]

When I was in the Army, one of our shooting events that we had to complete was a beep test (shuttle runs) from level 0 to about level 6 or 7, then we had certain shoots that we had to complete, prone unsupported, 3 sets of 5 rounds. Then back up to do the beep test again from level 5 to the end of level 6 or 7, then kneeling unsupported, multiple targets multiple ranges again beep test, standing multiple targets. Then beep test again 5-8, then the scenario shoot, any position you want, whilst prone supported is the most accurate position to be in, it's the hardest to catch your breath in, while standing is the easiest to catch your breath in, but the least accurate. Scenario shoot is moving targets at multiple distances, appearing for random amounts of time, 2 magazines. And while you do all of this your being tested on not only safe operation, but correct operation, every drill you perform has to be performed to the letter.

[@FlippingSloth]

Tom i just want to say that this is TV quality video right here :) great job man love the channel its getting better and better every video

[@FlippingSloth]

i just mean the production value :) i agree about the content of tv shows being kinda shitty these days haha

[@NathanM229]

+Mot U RS If I'm not mistaken, he has the Olympic's camera team with him for this video, but I cannot be sure!

[@MegaMGstudios]

@@NathanM229 sure, but his other videos have such a high quality as well

[@hotelmario510]

What we've learned here is that Tom sucks at shooting when resting, and REALLY sucks at shooting when not.

[@DalmarWolf]

The shooting aspects is what makes it a whole lot more exciting to watch. Someone can have a good lead and then have a bad series and leave it all open again. Each of the four shootings can really shake up the field, making it less likely to be over by someone claiming an early lead.

[@arminpetschelt8127]

That's my favorite thumbnail to a video in a long time.

[@sorou]

ok but can we all take a moment to appreciate how nice tom's eyes look in this, because holy shit

[@ihathtelekinesis]

Seeing the biathlon at Lillehammer brings back memories of seeing an orangutan in a Volvo XC90 missing all the targets with an MP5. Edit: Thanks for reminding me which gun it was. Haven't seen that episode for a long time.

[@ondank]

I thought he used a heckler and khock

[@rdizzy1]

+SBwingman Accuracy doesn't really matter much in crowded areas like shopping malls, or movie theatres,crowded college halls, classrooms, in these instances, it would actually be harder to miss, than to hit. (Unless you purposely aimed at the ground or the ceiling.) And the most densely packed areas are what is targeted most by mass shooters here in the US. For example someone in a crowded mall could aim in front of them, close their eyes and spin around in circles and would definitely hit many people.

[@alphaadhito]

Ah, hahaha

[@SonySMRTLim]

SBwingman funny, how the MP5 is one of the most popular SMGs.

[@andrewheil1158]

ondank The MP5 is made by Heckler and Koch

[@rolandgharfine534]

I remember watching so much biathlon as a teenager. You basically have a track with a shooting range, and you do either 3 or 5 laps around it, 3 if there are 2 shooting stops, and 5 if there are 4. There were 5 events called the individual, the pursuit, the sprint, the mass start, and of course the team relay race. And not many people know this but on that prone shoot (lying down and shooting) you're actually trying to hit a target about 5cm in diameter or something from 50m away. To put that in perspective that's like hitting a football goal post from the midfield line. Anyway it's really entertaining to watch and your video just made me wanna watch it again.

[@BoterBug]

I live near Lake Placid, NY. We shot a wedding once where in the morning the groom and groomsmen went to the biathlon shooting range that's still there from the 1980 winter games. Pretty cool :D

[@top_kek681]

This really shows how badass their military was for being able to do this while skiing. I think this sport originates from their military needing to ride around on skiis through the snow while being able to shoot.

[@justjoan926]

Very intersting! I never understood this Olympic event until now. Thanks!

[@adamplace1414]

I watched everything I could of Lillehammer '94. Still my favorite Olympics - the last non-metro games until 2018. Great venues, great drama, great athletes.

[@edwardcameron4149]

This is very well made, very professional

[@stamfordly6463]

Had you ever even fired a Rimfire before this Tom? If not 1 ex 5 isn't that bad for a first go... Enjoyed the video about the rules surrounding the rifle too, every little modification having been scrutinised by somebody. You can buy a rifle from the nameless manufacturer with the same straight-pull bolt as the biathlon "repeater"... it's just that it's about £1000 more than the turn-bolt from the same maker.

[@jayashrishobna]

Tom you're so cute when you run

[@stevemattero1471]

"So now, I will get up and go skiing." "...I can't ski."

[@ianburgess9884]

amazed i found this just now as a biathlete and big tom scott fan

[@leander_aunvik]

Same and i’m Norwegian as well😂

[@ElagabalusRex]

Tom Scott is a British citizen. Doesn't he need a license to use sharp objects like ski poles?

[@NXTMusicianBassist]

+ElagabalusRex I came down to the comments here specifically to find a comment like this one. Kudos to you, good sir! :D

[@LadyAnuB]

+ElagabalusRex The Health and Safety Executive's Norwegian branch failed in it's job to prevent Tom from suffering on the job.

[@TwistedLemniscate]

+DoNotTouchMyPepes What kind of "unbritish things" can't you say? *curious American*

[@PawelTheShrubber]

+TwistedLemniscate "The French are actually nice people"

[@Oddme100]

+DoNotTouchMyPepes I remember seeing people protesting a new law in Britain that made it illegal to distribute a film where someone sat on another persons face. Hilarious! And when the British army couldn't have winter training with NATO in northern Norway because the climate was too cold!

[@SageManeja]

Buen video! cheers from Spain

[@djn3kkid]

and the insane thing is, the typical winners (say about top20 worldwide) have a hitrate at close to 90% on average over a season from about 1st of december until about the end of mars. The day they can hit 10/10 in the short race, and 19/20 in the long races, they usually win.

[@crazytrollololol]

These 'Ads' are really good videos to be honest, wish everyone did 'ads' like this!

[@AceHawk37]

Love these videos Scott! Glad they are also helping with the bills! What a match made in heaven

[@Wordsnwood]

Quite enjoyed this, thank-you. I had never even HEARD of the Youth Olympic Games, so as a promo method, this works for me!

[@rucdoc]

not bad for not having shot a biathlon rifle before

[@richardscales9560]

Used to watch it on Eurosport. Ole einar vulnerable. Total god

[@JoshJetStream]

Really really interesting video's Tom, and they just keep getting better! One of my favourite youtubers to date, hands down

[@Gerwulf97]

You actually modeled .22lr bullets right, thank you!

[@benrobertson1255]

This made me remember the Top Gear winter olympics. Jeremy shooting was hilarious.

[@richb313]

Nice job Tom.

[@MoopPloop]

Cool

[@clericneokun]

This totally reminded me of my college days when, once a day after school, I would do a 5 kilometer jog from campus to the mall and immediately play 3 sets of the Silent Scope Firing Range. Fun Times.

[@InnovationBlast]

Very informative !! I always wondered about why this was a thing

[@CultRelics]

whole new respect for this sport

[@ugoleftillgorite]

That look of sheer joy when that one shot connected :D

[@charliespinoza1966]

This is the only Olympic sport I've ever actually dreamed of competing in. Can't believe I just found the video now!

[@HunterRodrigez]

what always confused me is why they shoot at practice targets... and not at each other... would make a lot more sense and would be a hell of a lot more interesting

[@TheUglyGnome]

+Hunter Rodrigez I think there once was a sketch on a Finnish TV comedy show where they did exactly that. It was back in 1980's, I think. And then there's of course James Bond film 'For your Eyes Only'.

[@dalekmun2010]

2:15-2:17 That jump, my god.

[@AuroDHikoshi]

Feels like it's similar to Boxing Chess... managing two disciplines one after another

[@trefod]

500g trigger pressure? That is a very light triggerpull.

[@mememachine8954]

+trefod Are you high?

[@brooped]

+trefod Don't know much about the numbers, but I've shot with those rifles a bit and the trigger tends to be super light.

[@RisinT96]

+The Marshmallow Man assault rifles have a trigger pressure of 2-3kg......

[@RisinT96]

+trefod Olympic air rifles have a trigger pressure of around 50-60g, but then again these are air rifles, not a firearms unlike biathlon rifles.

[@trefod]

+Tal Risin Really? 50-60g I think I could breath that pressure. When I shot .22 competition pistols the mandated minimum was 1250g Approx. 2½lbs and that felt light.

[@theprofessor3339]

Jesus, love you Tom but 3 seconds into a run and you're already nearly 200bpm. Time to start running

[@kaziiqbal7257]

I’ve gotta imagine armies do something similar for training. The closest thing I’ve done is I’ve had to do PT including a ladder run and then go for a two mile run. What I do know is that the Vermont National Guard does do biathlon.

[@jimday666]

Yes! It's kind of relevant now !

[@volundrfrey896]

You should breathe out before you shoot. Take deep breaths, when you have your breathing under control you breathe out to relax your muscles (they will move slightly when tense) and then you take to shot between heartbeats. It's of course more difficult after running, but you did it wrong when you were relaxed too. Some say that you should take a small breath in before shooting, but that's more if you need to wait a little bit before taking the shot.

[@platinumlagg]

how am i only just seeing this! i have been subbed for god damn ages!!

[@kasperjoonatan6014]

It's funny someone just casually saying that they can't ski.

[@momouppa]

I have never seen snow in person in my life so I can't ski.

[@ericjamieson]

It's cross-country skiing too. Anybody can cross-country ski - you won't be particularly fast or efficient if you don't know what you're doing but it's not like you're going to fall off a mountain.

[@PaulPaulPaulson]

Reading "under pressure" in the title -> instant earworm

[@felixh.3788]

A little info: Normally biathletes keep there heart rate rather high (around 170 or so) because if it drops lower you start shaking even more..

[@minxythemerciless]

In proper shooting you don't sync with breathing, you sync with heartbeat. Although in Tom's case he must be extremely unfit to get a heart-rate over 180 - which makes it quite difficult to get an intra-beat shot.

[@joelavrunin347]

I was thinking the same thing as I watched the video. He had a remarkably high heart rate and it took a really long time to drop. Tom needs to do more cardio.

[@ThisIsARubbishName]

woah, this is cool. also the guns are cool too :)

[@s6th795]

Your legs need to be further apart. What are you doing on your toes? Every time your feet sway in the wind, your entire body moves. Both those things throw off your shots.

[@markmeadows7569]

Oh shut up

[@s6th795]

@@markmeadows7569 agreed. I was a douchebag three years ago

[@BaineBG]

Браво за субтитрите!

[@stefanmisch5272]

I never understood Biathlon. How can you be second if you have a gun? ;)

[@lucidmoses]

Be glad they are not really long shots where you have to deal with your heart beat as well.

[@xyluker]

its called a stress shoot and its still practiced in the infantry in the US army today

[@mattebandet]

Imagine shooting on targets right after, say, vaping and coughing big time.

[@namefinder]

Biathlon is among my favourite wintersports (watching, I'm not good at firing a gun after going 5+k cross country ;-))

[@valerykonovalov5506]

Good video!! I love it!!!

[@ΚωνσταντίνοςΜ-λ8ο]

you look sooo... funny, running like that

[@mitchellbrown5846]

Something that would have been really cool is if you added a clip with the heart rate of on of the athletes, so we could see them slow their heart rate and hit the targets. Great video though.

[@SiskoBlue]

Not sure if it's true but I was told bialthon came back into favour in 1950's in honour of some Austrian snipers who managed to convince a large camp of Nazi soldiers that there were a lot more of them than their were. They'd snipe at the camp, ski fast to another location and snipe from there, making it incredibly difficult for the Nazis to catch them, and making them think that there must 5 times as many snipers out there than there were. Can't find any confirmation of the story though.

[@tedjones1021]

+SiskoBlue Well, if that story's true, it's a novel variation on relatively standard practices. A single sniper is already a nightmare to deal with, and depending on distance and other conditions it can be virtually impossible to narrow down the direction it came from to begin returning fire. But when that direction keeps changing, in addition to minimising the likelihood of accurate return fire it can also compound the effect on morale a sniper causes by, as you say, tricking them into thinking there's more than there are. Skiing allows the snipers to change their positions much faster than they otherwise could; I seem to recall the Royal Marines and USMC being trained in similar concepts but for application by an entire division rather than limited to niche roles such as snipers. Whether the Biathlon was inspired by this in any way, I wouldn't know.

[@locohombre79]

Nice to see the International Olympics Cartel using smaller channels for promotional material :)

[@clarafitzgerald]

"Stop breathing just for a minute" FANTASTIC idea!

[@PiaLorena]

Poor little baby

[@nERVEcenter117]

This would be incredible stuff if they went with handguns instead. Plinking with a .22 rifle with a super light trigger is easy. Mastering any handgun caliber above .380 with a more substantial trigger weight takes skill, never mind with your heart pounding away.

[@sierrabravo7368]

Anschutz German engineering at it's best, they are the BEST rimfire rifles around. Most of the small bore target rifles are Anschutz, but I have a Brno model 4 from Checoslovakia it's great for Silhouette target shooting and shooting rabbits

[@squireob]

Does Tom have any shooting experience? Knowing that would have informed the viewer on how difficult these shots are.

[@Octanis0]

+Tim O'Brien I don't think he does. His prone position is wrong and his rifle was slanted when aiming.

[@soggybiscotti8425]

Totally want to do this. I want a metallic blue sled, with a NOS bottle sticker on the front. You know... so it looks like a big NOS bottle sorta... heh.

[@paradonym]

His heart rate while shooting is mine when doing absolutely nothing.

[@TheSwissMotard]

The places life takes you, eh?

[@aidanwansbrough7495]

Cool!

[@72Isaacblue]

I love biathlon. It's just so hard to watch in the US.

[@a.nyangao.m]

still no reason to sit and watch through a competition. respect for those guys and i guess it could be interesting to test yourself, but

[@Macieks300]

what do you mean you can't ski?

[@Tophu48548]

This was uploaded today, why are there comments from four days ago?

[@LilMafs]

You should've called an mp5 like Clarkson

[@coolbrotherf127]

Wow dude. How did you get your heart rate up to 180 with a quick jog? I have to run really hard to get my heart rate that fast.

[@elisam.r.9960]

The amount of layers he must have on (and with heavy fabrics, most likely) are likely contributors. That's more weight he's supporting with each stride, and that's before we get into the snow making foot placement trickier. Plus the editing makes it unclear exactly how far/long he ran, so he might have been running longer than we got to see.

[@MIbra96]

Why is there such a burst of bpm at 02:15? ^^

[@TheBassHeavy]

This is exactly what I needed to watch now in 2018. I didn't get it.

[@brachypelmasmith]

so how do they controll their breathing?

[@adamlang4260]

that has to be the most random combination of sports ever...I get the challenge but idk

[@MorRobots]

Tom, let me know the next time you are in the states. I will teach you how to shoot.

[@francisbarnett]

Get some skis on.

[@fleecemaster]

Wait what? This is from 2 years ago!

[@CopOnTheRun]

How did you sync your heartrate to the video? I'm a cyclist who wouldn't mind doing something similar.

[@jordanjohnson714]

I found the bonus!

[@gfjmember]

Sorry Tom, but it's not clear at all on this or the other two videos that these are sponsored content. Doesn't this breach the regulations you were talking about in that video a month back?

[@dom1310df]

+gfjmember Apart from the big "AD" on the title card?

[@gfjmember]

+Dominic Davis-Foster ....I feel stupid now T_T

[@sphinx2k210]

+gfjmember It says "this is an ad for the Youth Winter Olympic Games!" in the description box, as well as the first line of the video is "The Youth Winter Olympic Games have brought me to Lillehammer" on each video. Seems pretty announced to me.

[@KerbalRocketry]

+Jimmy B "The Youth Winter Olympic Games have brought me to Lillehammer"; doesn't imply paid promotion, and the description isn't always easily read (for example if embeded), though good practice has been followed by making it the first line. I'd pursonally prefer it to be mentioned explicitly rather than as a passing mention in the opening, as the way it';s said implies they just paid travel expenses.

[@heyinterframe]

+Kerbal Rocketry Well he also put a big "AD" symbol on the thumbnail, that coupled with the rest of the things I feel as though it was fare warning. I actually enjoy the way Tom did this, these are the types of videos he would make regularly, so I actually love the sponsored content. I feel like Tom executed it properly

[@Mr89netrom]

I challenge you, Tom! I challenge you!

[@Vandoren333]

Don't watch biathlon for long time , can somebody answer me is Bjorndalen is still active?

[@xtremememestv1717]

you are my favorite

[@HM-sc4to]

did you run extra laps for those four misses? ;-)

[@Tiax776]

Good stuff but please turn of the automatic subtitles.

[@TheGullimonster]

This was shot with a different camera than your other videos wasn't it?

[@690_5]

I can hold my breath for 19 seconds after a 5 K run and hit 3/5 targets.

[@squireob]

I happen to know that the biathlon originated from Finnish ski troops fighting the Soviets in the Winter War, or at least that's what I recall. Many would not know that. It might have been mentioned.

[@mattpytlak]

The biathlon is a successor sport to the military patrol event which predates the Winter War.

[@joltz..2042]

" Linehamah *doot of piano* "

[@peterjackman1507]

Great video, really enjoyed it and I'm actually early for once 😂

[@kaliarecords1511]

I'm training to be a sniper in the Israel Defence Forces. this is something I do daily. yes. it is hard when you start, and it is hard to shoot under peessure. I recommend it to everyone wishing to hone their accuracy!