Tora Berger

Personal background

Tora Berger was born in Ringerike but grew up in the mountainous municipality of Lesja, in Oppland county, and lives in Meråker, Nord-Trøndelag. Her sports club is Dombås IL of Dombås, Oppland. She is the younger sister of biathlete and cross-country skier Lars Berger.

Berger married in 2010, having met her husband at high school. They have two dogs Tussi (Eeyore in English) and Tarzan – Tarzan often joins her on training runs. Whilst away from home during the biathlon season she enjoys knitting and reading (especially books about crime). Outside biathlon she enjoys hunting and fishing. She had consistently said that she will continue with her biathlon career until the 2013/14 season and the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, but then intended to retire.

Her career finished with a 17th gold medal at the Norwegian National Biathlon Championships on 30 March 2014.

Since retiring, Tora has been coaching the Norwegian junior girls team, alongside Roger Grubben. Tora and her husband Trond Teveldal had a baby boy in April 2015.

Career

She has been a member of the Norwegian women's biathlon team since 1999. She has 28 individual victories in the World Cup.

At the 2008 World Championship, she received three 4th places, before earning the silver medal in the mass start.

On February 18, 2010, she became the first Norwegian woman to win an Olympic gold medal in biathlon by winning the women's 15 km individual at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. By doing this, she won Norway's 100th Olympic gold medal at the Winter Olympic Games, as well as winning the 10th Norwegian biathlon gold medal. This historic medal makes Norway the first ever nation to win 100 gold medals at the Winter Olympic Games.

At the Biathlon World Championships 2013 in Nove Mesto, she won gold in the Mixed relay, silver in the sprint and gold in the pursuit before becoming the first woman to defend her 15k individual title. She followed this up with a stunning final-leg performance in the relay, making up a deficit of nearly 40 seconds on the leaders to take another gold medal, before taking silver in the mass start. As the holder of 18 world championship medals she is second in the table of total medals, one medal behind Uschi Disl. At the same championships, she also became the first biathlete (male or female) to win 6 medals at a single Biathlon World Championships, with four golds and two silvers.

Berger competed in Biathlon at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi where she won 3 medals. Gold in the Mixed relay together with Tiril Eckhoff, Ole Einar Bjørndalen and Emil Hegle Svendsen, a silver in the Women's Pursuit, and a bronze in the Women's relay,

World Cup

Although Tora Berger had been part of the Norwegian women's biathlon team since 1999, up until the end of the 2011/12 season she had never been the world cup winner either overall or in any of the individual disciplines. Her highest finish was third in the overall standings in the 2008/09 and 2011/12 seasons, second in the Pursuit discipline in the 2008/09 season, and second in the Mass Start discipline in the 2011/12 season.

Success came in the 2012/13 world cup season, with Tora taking 11 wins and missing the podium only seven times. Her 19 podium finishes equalled Magdalena Forsberg's record for the highest number of podium finishes in a single season. She won all three races at Oslo Holmenkollen to secure the crystal globes for both the Overall women's world cup and the Pursuit discipline. By the end of the season she had also won the crystal globe for the Individual, Sprint and Mass Start disciplines, completing a clean sweep of the five women's crystal globes (a feat last achieved by Magdalena Forsberg in the 2001/2 season). With Berger's contribution, Norway also won the 2012/13 season's Women's Nation Cup, Women's Relay Cup and Mixed Relay Cup.

*Statistics as at 17 March 2013.

Individual victories

28 victories (7 Sp, 9 Pu, 5 In, 7 MS)

Awards and nominations