Purpose: Investigate variability, predictability and smallest worthwhile performance enhancement in elite biathlon sprint events. In addition, the effects of race factors on performance were assessed. Methods: Data from 2005-2015 including >10,000 and >1000 observations for each sex for all athletes and annual top-10 athletes were included, respectively. Generalized linear mixed models were constructed based on total race time, skiing time, shooting times and proportions of targets hit. Within-athlete race-to-race variability was expressed as coefficient of variation (CV) of performance times and standard deviation (SD) in proportion units (%) of targets hit. The models were adjusted for random and fixed effects of subject identity, season, event identity and race factors. Results: The within-athlete variability was independent of sex and performance standard of athletes; 2.5-3.2% for total race time, 1.5-1.8% for skiing time and 11-15% for shooting times. The SD of the proportion of hits was ~10% in both shootings combined (meaning ±1 hit in 10 shots). The predictability in total race time was very high to extremely high for all athletes (ICC: 0.78-0.84), but trivial for top-10 athletes (ICC: 0.05). Race times during World Championships and Olympics was ~2-3% faster than in World Cups. Moreover, race time increased by ~2% per 1000 m of altitude, by ~5% per 1% of gradient, by 1-2% per 1 m/s of wind speed and by ~2-4% on soft vs. hard tracks. Conclusions: Researchers and practitioners should focus on strategies that improve biathletes` performance by at least 0.8-0.9%, corresponding to the smallest worthwhile enhancement (0.3×within-athlete variability).
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