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As the sun rises on Mount Buller, Boris Standish is already on the slopes.
Long before the ski lifts start turning, the 19-year-old can be spotted via the snow cams on the Bourke Street ski run, climbing up the mountain with his cross-country skis on.
He is one of many Aussies spending their Southern Hemisphere winter training hard in the hope of making the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Standish competes in biathlon, an event that combines cross-country skiing with target shooting.
Biathletes cross-country ski with a rifle strapped to their backs, making the event an ultimate test of speed and accuracy.
A 'really weird' sport
Standish has skied all his life and was introduced to biathlon when his mum came across the sport on her Facebook feed.
"She was like: 'Oi, look at this, this is super cool you should totally go and try this out'," Standish says.
Standish tried out some laser shooting in Melbourne and loved it.
"Biathlon is a really weird sport," he says.
"I just kept on training and shooting and then I got into cross-country skiing a lot once I started growing and it just blew up from there."
While Standish trains with lasers, he competes with a .22 long rifle.
"We ski a long loop, come into the shooting range and shoot laying down [then] do another loop then shoot standing and then one more loop into the finish line," Standish says.
"Biathlon is all about who is the fastest to get to the finish line, but if you miss in shooting you're screwed because you get an extra 150 metres for every miss."
With less than two years until the 2026 Olympics in Italy, Standish is fully focused on training and giving himself the best chance of qualifying.
"We go out five days a week, skiing early in the morning," Standish says.
"We do some intervals on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays and then every other day we do gym and a slow session."
Biathlon was first introduced at the Winter Olympics in its current form at the 1960 Squaw Valley Games, with the women's competition making its Olympic debut at Albertville in 1992.
There are 11 biathlon events as part of the Olympics including men's and women's individual competition, sprint competition, pursuit competition, mass start, and relay as well as a mixed relay, which was introduced at Sochi in 2014.
Room to grow
Biathlon Australia board member and cross-country skier Katerina Paul says while biathlon is still quite a niche sport in Australia, it is huge overseas.
"In Europe, it's a huge business. I think for world championships they have 50,000 people watching … it's upwards of around 10 million viewers per race on TV," Paul says.
"The opportunities are definitely smaller here in Australia, [but] I think there is a lot more room to grow."
On top of his training commitments, Standish is spending a lot of time and energy growing and promoting what he believes is the "most interesting winter sport".
"It is bigger than [most Australians] could imagine," Standish says.
"Biathlon is so unpredictable. You have no idea what is going to happen until that person is done shooting."
"You're watching people fly up the track and fly down the track then all of a sudden a TV screen pops up and you see someone shooting and they might be winning the race by a minute but then they miss [in the shooting component] and they're done."
Hard for Aussies to qualify
Only seven Australian biathletes have ever made the Winter Olympics.
"It is pretty tough. We are ranked outside the top 20 nations of the world, so there are only wildcard spots for us," Paul says.
"To be selected as a wildcard, you need to be skiing at a certain individual rank."
Standish is aware of how challenging it will be but is willing to give it his best shot.
"For me to get into the Olympics and for it to be a done deal, I need to get a top 60 in the World Cup and under 90 points on the International Biathlon Union," he says.
"The IBU gives out a certain amount of points and the lower your points are the better you are.
"At the moment, the wildcards for the Olympics will be sitting somewhere between 50 and 100 points."
Australia's best chance for an Olympic biathlon qualification will be Darcie Morton, who is Australia's number-one-ranked biathlete.
This weekend, the 2024 Australian Biathlon Championships are being held at Mount Hotham.
Standish is hoping to defend his title in the Under 22 Junior Male Short Individual, which he won last year.
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