Long-form
/ ReportageWinter Games, Off Season
What a Norwegian biathlon team does for the six months the snow is gone, and what those six months taught me about concentration.
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Photograph — Anders Holm
In Tromsø in June the sun does not really set. The biathletes train in a world that refuses to get dark, firing at steel targets in conditions the sport was not designed for.
It is, I decide on the second day, a useful rehearsal. They are practising concentration against the exact wrong environment — a white, unending day — and the idea is that when the real winter returns, and with it the stakes, their attention will have gotten sharper by being asked to do the impossible.
The author
Investigations, Athletics & Cycling
Desmond has broken three major doping investigations and one wonderfully strange story about a stolen bicycle in the Pyrenees. He will read one more document, always.
In this issue
The Unfinished Mountain
Long-form · 22 min
What the Archive Knows
Long-form · 14 min
The Long Quiet of a Goalkeeper
Football · 18 min
Investigations, Athletics & Cycling
Desmond has broken three major doping investigations and one wonderfully strange story about a stolen bicycle in the Pyrenees. He will read one more document, always.
