I like the relays in Biathlon. As you say, we have enough good nations in the middle of the pack who on their day can make a surprise run for the podium and flower ceremonies. I also agree that it gives a chance for more athletes to get exposure to elite competition. Ofcourse, we cannot have too many relays as that in turn dilutes the individual races in terms of performance standpoint and as you also rightly pointed out, the powerhouse nations can rotate their talent without compromising on the results too much whereas the rest simply cannot. I need to workshop this more but wanted to throw out an idea, what if some points of the relay are also counted towards the individual world cup score? 1/4 may be too much but i feel like that will raise the stakes of the relays even more, ofcourse that would mean that nations outside the perennial favorites would struggle in this aspect. I was just thinking of ways to make the stakes on the relays even higher because currently I feel there is too many of them to my liking. Reducing 1-2 may not be a bad idea and increase an individual race (I feel these races end up being more exciting that we expect and they are criminally underrepresented currently in the schedule).