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But the question I’m asking is: How stable is their gaze in these critical moments?
When most people think of eye tracking (if they think of it at all — and they absolutely should be!), they likely imagine heat maps and fixation points showing where people are looking.
In my latest project with elite biathletes, that’s not what interests me. I care far more about how they are looking — and by using a Tobii Pro Spectrum eye tracker, I am able to investigate just that.
Why where they look isn’t the point (this time)
Biathlon, a winter sport combining cross-country skiing and precision shooting — demands incredible control. And let’s be honest: if an athlete isn’t looking at the target while shooting, we’ve got bigger problems than eye tracking can fix.
Each shooting bout in biathlon involves hitting five black circular targets. For every miss, there’s a time penalty or extra skiing. Unsurprisingly, success depends on being able to manage pressure, recover from physical exertion, and steady oneself for an accurate shot.
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Gaze stability under pressure
In the current study, I’m examining athletes’ ability to hold their gaze steady for just five seconds on target-like images — both when they are rested and when fatigued. If fatigue reduces their ability to keep their gaze stable, and if that links to poorer shooting performance (which we're measuring too), we may uncover a trainable factor to improve accuracy under pressure.
Learning from the past
This is my third year researching visual control in biathlon. Initially, I used
Tobii Pro Glasses 3 to measure gaze behavior during live shooting, looking for signs of the “Quiet Eye” — the final fixation before initiating a movement. But gun sights interfered with the glasses’ ability to record clean data, and we couldn’t reliably track where the athletes were focused.
Despite these technical issues, the Quiet Eye intervention we trialed appeared to boost performance and altered gaze patterns in a promising way. So, while the data was imperfect, the practical results were encouraging.
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A shift in focus: From real-time to controlled lab testing
In the following year, I moved to a Tobii Pro Spectrum eye tracker — trading ecological validity for cleaner data. This shift definitely paid off.
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A biathlete using a Tobii Pro Spectrum eye tracker for target testing.
We discovered that “time to first fixation” (how quickly an athlete had their first look at each target) was negatively correlated with shooting success. In other words, faster isn’t always better — even in a sport built on speed. Athletes performed better when they allowed their eyes to linger slightly after a shot before transitioning to the next target.
This was a valuable insight: efficient gaze strategy isn’t just about being fast — it’s about being deliberate.
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Future research
This time around, we’ve introduced fatigue into the protocol for the first time — I’m excited to see whether tired eyes are less stable ones. I’ve also added a new, rapid test of saccadic eye movement speed. In last year’s study, saccadic performance (measured using basic alternating-letter charts) showed strong correlations with shooting outcomes. So, I’m curious to see whether a quick, sub-30-second eye tracking task might give us further insight into this key visual skill.
Final thoughts
Eye tracking is often used to determine where athletes focus their attention. But that’s just scratching the surface. Gaze stability, saccadic control, and fixation timing may be just as vital — and perhaps even more telling — in sports where performance hinges on precision under pressure.
Keep exploring
Find out more about how Tobii offers specialized eye tracking solutions tailored for sports research, facilitating scientific understanding and improving athletic performance.
In collaboration with
Dr. Zoe Wimshurst
Owner, Performance Vision
Dr Zoe Wimshurst is a world expert in using the visual system to enhance performance. She works with elite athletes from a wide range of sports including Formula 1 World Champion Max Verstappen and Football player Cristiano Ronaldo. She has also applied her work to military, counter-terrorism teams as well as police forces and large-scale professional service organizations such as NASDAQ. A former elite athlete herself, Zoe has been working with high performance teams for over a decade. She was approached to work as part of the British Olympic Association prior to London 2012 and around this time she also completed her PhD looking at the visual, perceptual and decision-making skills of elite athletes. Since this time, Zoe has continued to research what it is that sets the elite apart from more novice performers and has published several scientific papers in this field. She regularly uses eye-tracking as a way of gaining insight into the mechanisms underlying high performance behaviors. Zoe is a Chartered Psychologist and Vision Scientist exploring and applying how our visual world can impact on our decision-making and performance.
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