GB Biathlon Athlete Elif Balances School and Sport
After a stellar performance in January 2024 to come 13th in her first European biathlon race against competitors from Austria, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic, Elif (Year 11, Robertson) was chosen to represent GB in the Youth and Junior World Championships in Otepää, Estonia in February (23 Feb – 2 March 2024). This is a big step up for Elif who hopes that this experience will help her if she is looking to compete in bigger international races and possibly the Olympics in a few years.
During term-time Elif has a challenging timetable of training, gym, running, roller skiing and shooting that she manages in addition to her school work. Elif’s House Mistress is instrumental in helping her to manage her GCSE studies whilst training; Elif’s subject teachers help by ensuring she has support and materials to complete work when she is travelling. After GCSE, Elif plans to study A levels in Chemistry, Psychology, Geography and an AS in French. Following a gap year during which she plans to focus on her biathlon career, Elif hopes to study law whilst continuing to compete.
What does a biathlon race look like?
There are various different types of races. There’s a pursuit where you start off in 30 second increments and you’re chasing the person in front of you, a mass start where you all go at the same time, and a sprint which is a fast race. Races are a round loop of (usually) 2.5k – so you’ll do a loop then you’ll shoot prone (which is lying down) and if you miss any you have to do a penalty lap (about 100m) per miss. Then you go again and next time you do a stand-shoot. In a pursuit you may have 4 rounds with 4 shoots; a prone then stand, then a prone and then a stand again.
It varies in each race but you’ll do some type of loop, a shoot, loop, shoot… again and again.
How nervous do you get when you compete?
On the start line its so nerve-wracking! Especially if there are lots of people watching you. But I find that being nervous helps drive me. Once the starting gun or whistle goes all of my nerves disappear and I just focus on my skiing and get going.
Where would you like your biathlon to take you?
If I continue as an athlete I could go to bigger and bigger races, I could get sponsors and ultimately I could go to the Olympics. After a couple of years I could go into coaching like some of the older athletes in my team. I haven’t really thought of it but it could be quite interesting to use my law degree to go into helping athletes.
Biathlon is comprised of two very different sports. Being at Sedbergh you’ve got great access to shooting practise, but how do you practise skiing?
In the UK we obviously don’t have much snow so we do roller-skiing! If someone driving past saw us they’d definitely give us funny looks! It’s really shorter skis on wheels and we go to a bicycle path to do it every Thursday. Other than that – there’s not much that we can do except keep up our cardio and work on our strength. When we are away we focus on our technique and if we go in with good strength and endurance then we can pick it up quickly.
What’s your biggest challenge in biathlon?
Because I’m newer to the sport I’m always worried that I’m going to be the least prepared. Most of the other people – especially in the Scandinavian countries – they’ve been doing the sport since they could walk. They get on skis really young. So, my biggest challenge is catching up to them. But I think that with hard work and really focusing on it, I can get there.
How involved are your parents?
They’ve been so supportive of me; they fly out with me to watch my races and they’ve encouraged me to carry on. When there’s a race that maybe hasn’t gone the way I wanted they always tell me its OK and that they’re proud of me. That keeps me going. I always want to make them proud because they’ve supported me all the way.
You are a great scholar and you are pursuing challenging academic goals; how do you manage your study?
Before going away I message all of my teachers to ask them to set me work and send me information I’ll need. I also travel with all of my books – which takes up quite a lot of space! Every day during training we tend to have quite long rest periods – because rest is really important when you’re training so much – so, while I still take time to relax, I’ll just get on with doing some work. My teachers always stress that I can contact them if I need any help; my teachers have been really supportive. It’s definitely difficult keeping on top of it, but it’s not impossible.
Have you needed to make any sacrifices to pursue your biathlon ambitions?
I wouldn’t say there has been much actually. Obviously I’m training quite a lot and so maybe I miss out on some things at School, but I think in the long run my sport is going to give me a lot of opportunities and I know I’ll see my friends when I get back. I think it’s worth it.
I was worried at the start that I’d miss out but my friends message me every day when I’m away and they all said, “you’ve got to do it” – even before they knew what biathlon was! My friends are really supportive and proud and their support has really meant a lot to me.