World Team Challenge

The World Team Challenge is an international biathlon competition, which has been held every year between Christmas and New Year since 2002 in Veltins-Arena in Gelsenkirchen. Previously a similar competition was held at the same time of year in Ruhpolding, but since 2001 the venue was changed due to financial troubles.[1] The competition isn't part of the World Cup.

World Team Challenge
Status	active
Genre	sports event
Date(s)	December
Frequency	annual
Location(s)	Gelsenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia
Country	Germany
Inaugurated	2002 (2002)

Statistics

Winners by edition

#	Years	Winners
1	2002	Michael Greis	Martina Glagow
2	2003	Ole Einar Bjørndalen	Gunn Margit Andreassen
3	2004	Ole Einar Bjørndalen	Liv Kjersti Eikeland
4	2005	Ole Einar Bjørndalen	Linda Tjørhom
5	2006	Ole Einar Bjørndalen	Linda Grubben
6	2007	Dmitri Yaroshenko	Ekaterina Iourieva
7	2008	Andriy Deryzemlya	Oksana Khvostenko
8	2009	Christoph Sumann	Kati Wilhelm
9	2010 ^a	Evgeny Ustyugov	Svetlana Sleptsova
10	2011	Carl Johan Bergman	Kaisa Mäkäräinen
11	2012	Anton Shipulin	Ekaterina Yurlova
12	2013	Florian Graf	Laura Dahlmeier
13	2014	Serhiy Semenov	Valj Semerenko
14	2015	Martin Fourcade	Marie Dorin-Habert
15	2016	Simon Schempp	Vanessa Hinz
16	2017	Alexey Volkov	Ekaterina Yurlova-Percht
17	2018	Lukas Hofer	Dorothea Wierer
18	2019	Vetle Sjåstad Christiansen	Marte Olsbu Røiseland

• ^a The 2010 event was rescheduled for March 2011 because of the roof destruction.

Successful nations

Rank	Country	Victories
1	Norway	5
2	Russia	4
3	Germany	3.5
4	Ukraine	2
5	France	1
	Italy
7	Austria	0.5
	Finland
	Sweden

Participating nations

Country	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
Austria							*	* *	• *	•		•	•	•	•	•	•	•
Belarus	•		•					*									*
Belgium																*
Canada															•	•
China				•		•
Czech Republic		•		•								•	•	•	•	•	•	•
Finland	•	•							*	*	*
France	•	• •	•	•	• •	• •	•	•		•	•		•	•	•	•	•	•
Germany	• • • •	• • • • •	• • • •	• • • • •	• • • • • •	• • • • •	• • • *	• * *	• • •	• •	• • •	• •	• •	• •	• •	• •	• •	• •
Italy	•				•	•				•		•	•	•	•	•	•	•
Japan																•	•
Norway	• •	• •	• •	• •	• •	• •	• •	•	• •		•	• •	•		•		*	•
Poland			•					•
Romania								*
Russia	• •	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•
Slovakia			•
Slovenia			•								•	•		•
Sweden										• *	*			•
Switzerland										•			•					•
United States							•	•	•		•
Ukraine				•			•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	•	*	•	•

Legend to the table

• - one pair; 
•• - two pairs and so on; 
* - one athlete in a mixed pair.

References

1. "From crazy idea to a successful biathlon competition" (in German). FC Schalke 04 Arena Management. Retrieved 2014-06-13.

External links

Media related to World Team Challenge at Wikimedia Commons

• Official web page of the event