WHISTLER, British Columbia — The biathletes certainly looked like military men as they fired their weapons and hustled off into the woods this past week. And even though this was fun and Olympic games in the 21st century, many of them actually were military men.

Of the 60 competitors who took part in the pursuit event, nearly a third are in the army in their home countries, from Vincent Jay of France, who has already won two medals here, to Jeremy Teela of the United States and Zhang Chenye of China. Other biathletes competing in Whistler are members of the police, the military police, the customs agency or the border patrol at home.

The biathletes are hardly alone at these Olympics. Athletes from all the disciplines, including hundreds of women athletes, have such connections, and they run deepest in China and Russia and European nations like France, Germany and Italy, countries where elite athletes have been leading double professional lives for decades, even with the advent of all-volunteer armed services.

The sports recruits range from thick-necked bobsledders like Richard Adjei, who is in the German Army, to fine-boned figure skaters like Carolina Kostner, the European women’s champion, who is a member of Fiamme Azzurre, the Italian club that represents the country’s prison workers.

Do not conclude, however, that these Olympians are keeping an eye on cell blocks, inspecting open trunks at the border or firing at the enemy. While many of them draw salaries from the military or other law enforcement groups and some of them have even been through basic training, their mission is to excel in the art of sport, not the art of war.

“It’s not like we’re taking them to Afghanistan,” said Commandant Christian Persicot, the former French biathlete who is director of the French military ski team and travels the winter circuit supporting the 31 athletes in his program.

But some of the winter Olympians do at least have connections with troops in Afghanistan. Lee-Steve Jackson, a British biathlete, is officially part of an infantry battalion in the British regiment known as The Green Howards. “They’re in Afghanistan now, and I’m here representing Britain in cooler climates, or at least that’s what I hear from the guys out there,” said Jackson, a lance corporal who, despite being a fine shot, confessed that he was “highly unskilled in military matters.”

Teela, a sergeant who is in his third Olympics as a member of the U.S. Army’s World Class Athlete Program, serves in the Vermont Army National Guard, even if doing his duty means practicing his sport.

“I try to do my best and try to perform to my highest level, so I can give the soldiers over in Afghanistan something to cheer for, something to be proud of,” he said.

The biathlon has the most obvious connection with the military of any Winter Olympic sport. A demanding blend of cross-country skiing and target shooting, its origins go back to the 18th century and, like so many winter activities, to Norway.

At the first Winter Olympics, in 1924 in Chamonix, France, the relay event that would eventually become the biathlon relay was called “military ski patrol.” The Swiss were the winners, and biathlon did not return to the Games until 1968.

But the Winter Olympic event with the oldest military connections — long predating the firearm — is cross-country skiing. In his book on the history of skiing, “Two Planks and a Passion,” Roland Huntford reports on recorded instances of warfare on skis around the year 900 involving “Mu-Ma Turks” in China.

According to Huntford, the “first known use of the ski in regular warfare” was on March 6, 1200, when a Norwegian ruler, Sverre, ordered a patrol of skiers to reconnoiter a rebel army’s positions. Through the centuries, those who have made decisive use of the ski in battle include the Russians, Swedes and, of course, the Finns, who repelled the Soviet winter invasion in 1939 and 1940.

So it is easy to see why there might be an interest in the military recruiting and funding elite Nordic athletes. But the links go far beyond the obvious, and nowhere are they as broad as in Italy, where 80 of the 109 athletes sent to Vancouver are members of the military, the police, customs or forestry service and most have the option of continuing in their posts after their sports careers end.

“There are many of our top former athletes who are now normal soldiers around Italy in different capacities,” said Maj. Gen. Gianni Gola, an Italian who is president of the International Military Sports Council that stages quadrennial military games in summer and winter sports.

He is also a member of Fiamme Gialle, the club that represents the tax police corps and has the biggest bloc of Italian athletes in Vancouver, 27 in all, many of them Alpine skiers. Fiamme Gialle, or Yellow Flame, was founded in 1921 and is the oldest of the Italian military clubs with elite sports connections. The others were created in the 1950s.

According to Gola, the tipping point was a 1954 accord between the Ministry of Defense and the Italian Olympic Committee that guaranteed funding for military sports clubs in exchange for them putting facilities and personnel at the disposal of national sports federations.

More than half a century later, these clubs in Italy, as well as the armed forces in other nations, provide structure and financial support that is often critical in allowing an athlete to pursue a career, particularly in minor sports that lack year-round exposure and major sponsorships.

“At least in Italy, it’s impossible in most cases to find a normal civilian club able to assure the same salary and economic support, from the infrastructure to coaches to trainers and physicians,” Gola said.

National Olympic Committees or other entities carry more of this load elsewhere. “We’re not in the army, but at the same time, we have really good federal and provincial support, so it works out about the same,” said the Canadian biathlete Jean-Philippe Leguellec.

The difference is that the military clubs and law-enforcement services compete to attract the best athletes in places like France and Italy. In France, where there is also a customs service sports unit, Persicot observes the profiles and characters of skiers for a year before deciding who might join his army team. Once they sign on, he said their salaries range from €1,000, or $1,360, per month for new recruits to €2,000 per month for long-serving athletes like the cross-country skier Vincent Vittoz, a former world champion. The packages also include medical and social benefits.

So what’s in it for the military?

“It’s good exposure for us, and they are good role models,” Persicot said. “Sport has always been a motivator for the military man, be he American or French. When the military guys do well in sport, it’s good for morale. We saw that in Turin at the last Olympics when the biathlon did well.”

In exchange, the French soldier-athletes are expected to take part in occasional training camps, wear patches that read “Armée de Terre” on their ski-team uniforms and switch to military uniforms for the annual Bastille Day parade in Chamonix, France.