the relay teams consist of four biathletes legs  and  are done by the women legs  and  by the men the womens legs are  km and mens legs are  km every athletes leg is skied over three laps with two shooting rounds one prone one standing for every round of five targets there are eight bullets available though the last three can only be single-loaded manually one at a time from spare round holders or bullets deposited by the competitor into trays or onto the mat at the firing line if after eight bullets there are still misses one  m penalty loop must be taken for each missed target remaining the first-leg participants all start at the same time and as in cross-country skiing relays every athlete of a team must touch the teams next-leg participant to perform a valid changeover on the first shooting stage of the first leg the participant must shoot in the lane corresponding to their bib number bib  shoots at lane  regardless of their position in the race then for the remainder of the relay the athletes shoot at the lane in the position they arrived arrive at the range in th place shoot at lane five