The 70-year-old former Swedish national team captain – in several rounds – is on site during the World Championship in Lenzerheide and now works as a consultant for the Bulgarian national team.
This is part of the International Biathlon Union's (IBU) effort to support smaller nations in the sport, writes DN. This is so that biathlon does not become like cross-country skiing – where only a few nations compete.
It's very important for biathlon. In Germany, we saw (last year) how the Norwegian men dominated, with six at the top of the total… then the TV ratings clearly drop. And so does the interest, says Pichler to the newspaper.
The German sees a hint of a similar trend within biathlon, but sees the bright side of the effort on the weaker national teams and thinks that cross-country skiing should take a lesson from IBU.
If you compare with cross-country skiing, we have a very large audience, at all World Cup competitions, says Pichler and continues:
But when I see cross-country skiing, I feel sorry for them. Often they compete in front of a thousand people.
