Liv Kjersti Eikeland (born 20.3.1979)

Liv Kjersti comes from Eikelandsosen in Fusa. She is the youngest of four sisters. All of them have been doing biathlon, and Liv Kjersti tagged along since she was little. She started doing biathlon in Hålandsdal IL (Hålandsdal Sports Club) when she was 8-9 years old, and also did a lot of cross-country skiing. Liv Kjersti has always been extremely willing to train. She has won most of what there is to win in local championships in western Norway. She competed with Gro Marit Istad from Voss, who is one year older, and they took turns winning. In 1994 she competed in her first all-Norwegian race, where she showed that she was the best 14-year-old in the country in the individual event. She came second in the print, and competed in Hordaland county's team, which won the relay. The next year, she won the sprint.

Liv Kjersti started attending skiing-college in Geilo in the autumn of 1995, and in her first season as a junior, she won the bronze medal in the junior Norwegian championships in 1996. The next year she became junior Norwegian championship in the sprint. She first competed in the senior Norwegian championships at the age of 18. She then came fifth in the sprint, and won the relay together with her cousins Ann-Elen and Liv Grete Skjelbreid. She also took part in the junior Norwegian championships in cross-country skiing and won the bronze medal in the 10 km free-style event.

In 1998 the up-and-coming biathlete from Fusa reached another milestone, by making her mark internationally: She became junior European champion in the individual event, and won the bronze medal in the pursuit. She also took part in the junior world championships in Canada, and there she helped win the relay, together with the not unknown biathletes Linda Tjørhom and Gro Marit Istad. In the junior Norwegian championships she won gold medal in the relay.

Liv Kjersti finished skiing college at Geilo in the spring of 1998, and then started studying sports at Meråker college. Ever eager for training, she had to much and had to take a break due to over-training. In the autumn of 2000 she moved to Lillehammer and combined her studies with training. She has studied pedagogy, and is now training to be a nursery-school teacher. Cupid's arrows hit the Fusa-girl during the military world championships of 2000, and the lucky man was the Swedish biathlete Carl-Johan Bergman. The two of them have been living together in Lillehammer since the autumn of 2001.

Liv Kjersti was part of the junior national team while she was a junior, and afterwards on the recruitment national team until she turned it down before the 2003/04-season. She was then given an offer to train with the Swedish national team, and Wolfgang Pichler - Magdalena Forsberg's 'guru' - is now Liv Kjersti's personal coach.

Norwegian championships:

Liv Kjersti has taken part in winning several relay gold-medals with her cousins Ann-Elen and Liv Grete. Her big breakthrough in the Norwegian championships came in 2003, when she won two silver medals and one bronze, in addition to a silver in the relay.

Norwegian championships-results:

2001: 3 individual - 1 relay
2002: 5 individual - 5 sprint - 6 pursuit - 1 relay
2003: 8 individual - 2 sprint - 2 pursuit - 3 mass start - 2 relay
2004: 5 mass start

World Cup:

Liv Kjersti made her world cup debut in Ruhpolding in 1999 where she took part in the sprint and the relay, but that was the season when she suffered from over-training. She has taken part in several world cup races in the last three seasons. Her best result is 23rd in the sprint in Osrblie in the 2001/02-season. She then came 74th overall in the world cup. She also has two 24th places and one 30th place from the 2003/04-season. She has also taken part in relay gold- and bronze-medals.

International results:

Junior-world championships:

1998: - 8 individual - 14 sprint - 1 relay
1999: - 27 individual - 9 sprint - 6 pursuit - 6 relay

European championships:

2001: - 14 individual - 22 sprint - 27 pursuit
2002: - 32 individual - 3 sprint - 26 pursuit
2003: - 20 individual - 21 sprint - 16 pursuit - 7 relay

Liv Kjersti's strength has definitely been the shooting. So far in the 2003/04-season, her prone shooting has reached an amazing 94% percent hit-rate! She has also, slowly but surely, recovered from her over-training problems, and her speed in the track is steadily improving. Liv Kjersti is a biathlete with her future ahead of her!