Category: XCFeeds

It was a banner day for North America, to be sure.  Let’s take a look at how the heats played out, starting with the semifinalists:

Tour de Ski men's freestyle sprint semifinalists.

Tour de Ski women's freestyle sprint semifinalists.

I’ve removed Roger Aa Djupvik from the men’s plot, as he ran into a spot of difficulty in the quarters and packed it in for a very slow time.  It’ll have to wait until the end of the season, after I’ve accumulated more of these sprint results, but I’m beginning to get the sense that there’s a real difference between the men/women in how the speeds of each round plays out.  My general sense is that the men’s heats are more likely to slow down as the day goes on, but that’s just based on my gut sense from looking at a bunch of these.  I’ll do something more formal later on.

There’s a clear difference in speed between the two semifinals for the men, less so for the women.  However, keep in mind the scale here, where differences that look large visually may be as small as 0.5-1.5 seconds.

Focusing in on the finalists themselves:

Jesper Modin went decisively in one direction and it wasn’t the right one.  However, we should be careful reading too much into the men having slower times in the semis, as those rounds were slower across the board.  So for instance, the drop off with Hellner and Oestensen was most likely as much tactical as it was fatigue.  Both Cologna and Kershaw seemed to pace themselves well, managing to ski relatively slower in the early rounds and still advance.

Petra Majdic was quite dominant again today, although not by quite as much as before.  It’s certainly a bummer for us Americans (and the Swedes, too, I imagine) that Randall got tangled up with Johansson Norgren in the final.  Without that unlucky break we could very easily have had two North Americans on the podium today.  Surprise finalist Laure Barthelemy did well to advance, but ran out of gas in the final.  Arianna Follis benefitted from drawing a very slow quarterfinal (#5), after which she skied successively faster rounds all the way through the final.

Amidst all the celebration on this side of the Atlantic today I’ll offer a note of caution.  To some degree, mixed up sprint results are to be expected mid-way through an event like the Tour de Ski.  We’ve seen several top skiers drop out (cf Emil Jönsson), and many of the top women failed to advance to the finals today, showing either fatigue or tactical savvy.  I don’t think that takes anything away from the accomplishments of Kershaw (or Harvey or Newell or Randall) today, but it does effect how cautious we should be about projecting these results forward.  Kershaw hasn’t displayed this kind of consistent sprinting ability outside the Tour, which is just a different animal than one-off World Cup sprints, so I wouldn’t be shocked if his best sprinting returned to the 13th-25th zone after the Tour.  It’d be nice if I were wrong, though.

Related posts:

1. <Düsseldorf Sprint Recap
2. <Recap: Davos Sprint Con’t
3. <2011 Tour de Ski Preview

It was a banner day for North America, to be sure.  Let’s take a look at how the heats played out, starting with the semifinalists:

Tour de Ski men's freestyle sprint semifinalists.

Tour de Ski women's freestyle sprint semifinalists.

I’ve removed Roger Aa Djupvik from the men’s plot, as he ran into a spot of difficulty in the quarters and packed it in for a very slow time.  It’ll have to wait until the end of the season, after I’ve accumulated more of these sprint results, but I’m beginning to get the sense that there’s a real difference between the men/women in how the speeds of each round plays out.  My general sense is that the men’s heats are more likely to slow down as the day goes on, but that’s just based on my gut sense from looking at a bunch of these.  I’ll do something more formal later on.

There’s a clear difference in speed between the two semifinals for the men, less so for the women.  However, keep in mind the scale here, where differences that look large visually may be as small as 0.5-1.5 seconds.

Focusing in on the finalists themselves:

Jesper Modin went decisively in one direction and it wasn’t the right one.  However, we should be careful reading too much into the men having slower times in the semis, as those rounds were slower across the board.  So for instance, the drop off with Hellner and Oestensen was most likely as much tactical as it was fatigue.  Both Cologna and Kershaw seemed to pace themselves well, managing to ski relatively slower in the early rounds and still advance.

Petra Majdic was quite dominant again today, although not by quite as much as before.  It’s certainly a bummer for us Americans (and the Swedes, too, I imagine) that Randall got tangled up with Johansson Norgren in the final.  Without that unlucky break we could very easily have had two North Americans on the podium today.  Surprise finalist Laure Barthelemy did well to advance, but ran out of gas in the final.  Arianna Follis benefitted from drawing a very slow quarterfinal (#5), after which she skied successively faster rounds all the way through the final.

Amidst all the celebration on this side of the Atlantic today I’ll offer a note of caution.  To some degree, mixed up sprint results are to be expected mid-way through an event like the Tour de Ski.  We’ve seen several top skiers drop out (cf Emil Jönsson), and many of the top women failed to advance to the finals today, showing either fatigue or tactical savvy.  I don’t think that takes anything away from the accomplishments of Kershaw (or Harvey or Newell or Randall) today, but it does effect how cautious we should be about projecting these results forward.  Kershaw hasn’t displayed this kind of consistent sprinting ability outside the Tour, which is just a different animal than one-off World Cup sprints, so I wouldn’t be shocked if his best sprinting returned to the 13th-25th zone after the Tour.  It’d be nice if I were wrong, though.

Related posts:

1. <Düsseldorf Sprint Recap
2. <Recap: Davos Sprint Con’t
3. <2011 Tour de Ski Preview

I’m squeaking this in just as the biathlon circuit gets going again.  This will be a really quick post just recapping how the US has done on the WC circuit so far this season.  I’m not even going to cover everyone that’s had a WC start, just the “major players” so far.

First up a look at the women, using percent back from the median skier:

Laura Spector hasn’t been terribly consistent, but she’s been quite a bit faster than last season on a few occasions.  Sara Studebaker has only been slightly more consistent, but has one more solid race under her belt so far this season.  They are both still struggling to break through the median skier barrier, but they’re both fairly young and seeing at least some results that are an improvement on last season.

Things are a little less rosy for the men so far:

Not enough data on Nordgren to say much, but Bailey, Burke and Teela have all taken a bit of a step backward it seems.  I’m not quite as up on USA biathlon gossip, so I’m less aware of stuff like illnesses, injuries or other training problems, which could be a factor here.

One thing that definitely could be a factor, though is poor shooting:

These are shooting statistics averaged over the whole US team for each season in WC, OWG or WBC races.  Keep in mind that the 2010-2011 statistics have a smaller sample size than the other seasons.  The women have been holding steady, despite some fluctuations in  their prone and standing shooting, but the men have generally seen a bit of a drop off.

Related posts:

1. <Biathlon and Cross Country Volatility Trends
2. <US Biathlon Preview: Men
3. <US Biathlon Preview: Women

It seems like just a short time ago that I was welcoming in 2010 and imagining the possibilities it could bring…how time passes! A lot has happened in just one year; I’ve met and surpassed many of my personal goals and seen some great things happen within the US Biathlon Women’s Team. I can’t wait to see what 2011 brings…let’s hope the successes and excitement keep coming!

I’m currently in Oberhof, Germany, site of World Cup 4. Laura Spector and I will race the sprint race on Saturday, but since it’s back to only two of us, we won’t have a relay team tomorrow. Since we only have one race, we’re treating this week as an extension of our holiday training block. Laura and I were both in Ridnaun, Italy, along with my boyfriend Zach Hall, who is competing in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic this weekend for a chance to make the World Cup team. It was a great couple weeks of training-a rarity for us during the winter. We race so much that often we end the season slightly out of shape since we’ve been racing and not really training. With World Championships being so late this year, it was really important for us to get in some good mid-season training, and Ridnaun was the perfect place. Thanks to Gabriel and his family at the Landhaus Rainer for a great place and warm hospitality! There were too many wonderful experiences to mention, so hopefully you’ll enjoy some pictures instead!

On an off day, we took a trip into the small town of Vipeteno/Sterzing to check out their Christmas Market.

We had a few cloudy days in the beginning of our vacation, but it was still beautiful.

The trails went through small villages and around a couple hills with churches on top.

Most days were sunny, though, which made for beautiful training and happy athletes!

Beautiful Val Ridanna.

A mini smörgåsbord on Christmas Eve!

View down the valley from the trailhead…though you could really jump on the trails from anywhere!

Happy New Year 2011!!

It seems like just a short time ago that I was welcoming in 2010 and imagining the possibilities it could bring…how time passes! A lot has happened in just one year; I’ve met and surpassed many of my personal goals and seen some great things happen within the US Biathlon Women’s Team. I can’t wait to see what 2011 brings…let’s hope the successes and excitement keep coming!

I’m currently in Oberhof, Germany, site of World Cup 4. Laura Spector and I will race the sprint race on Saturday, but since it’s back to only two of us, we won’t have a relay team tomorrow. Since we only have one race, we’re treating this week as an extension of our holiday training block. Laura and I were both in Ridnaun, Italy, along with my boyfriend Zach Hall, who is competing in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic this weekend for a chance to make the World Cup team. It was a great couple weeks of training-a rarity for us during the winter. We race so much that often we end the season slightly out of shape since we’ve been racing and not really training. With World Championships being so late this year, it was really important for us to get in some good mid-season training, and Ridnaun was the perfect place. Thanks to Gabriel and his family at the Landhaus Rainer for a great place and warm hospitality! There were too many wonderful experiences to mention, so hopefully you’ll enjoy some pictures instead!

On an off day, we took a trip into the small town of Vipeteno/Sterzing to check out their Christmas Market.

We had a few cloudy days in the beginning of our vacation, but it was still beautiful.

The trails went through small villages and around a couple hills with churches on top.

Most days were sunny, though, which made for beautiful training and happy athletes!

Beautiful Val Ridanna.

A mini smörgåsbord on Christmas Eve!

View down the valley from the trailhead…though you could really jump on the trails from anywhere!

Happy New Year 2011!!

It seems like just a short time ago that I was welcoming in 2010 and imagining the possibilities it could bring…how time passes! A lot has happened in just one year; I’ve met and surpassed many of my personal goals and seen some great things happen within the US Biathlon Women’s Team. I can’t wait to see what 2011 brings…let’s hope the successes and excitement keep coming!

I’m currently in Oberhof, Germany, site of World Cup 4. Laura Spector and I will race the sprint race on Saturday, but since it’s back to only two of us, we won’t have a relay team tomorrow. Since we only have one race, we’re treating this week as an extension of our holiday training block. Laura and I were both in Ridnaun, Italy, along with my boyfriend Zach Hall, who is competing in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic this weekend for a chance to make the World Cup team. It was a great couple weeks of training-a rarity for us during the winter. We race so much that often we end the season slightly out of shape since we’ve been racing and not really training. With World Championships being so late this year, it was really important for us to get in some good mid-season training, and Ridnaun was the perfect place. Thanks to Gabriel and his family at the Landhaus Rainer for a great place and warm hospitality! There were too many wonderful experiences to mention, so hopefully you’ll enjoy some pictures instead!

On an off day, we took a trip into the small town of Vipeteno/Sterzing to check out their Christmas Market.

We had a few cloudy days in the beginning of our vacation, but it was still beautiful.

The trails went through small villages and around a couple hills with churches on top.

Most days were sunny, though, which made for beautiful training and happy athletes!

Beautiful Val Ridanna.

A mini smörgåsbord on Christmas Eve!

View down the valley from the trailhead…though you could really jump on the trails from anywhere!

Happy New Year 2011!!

For some reason, this song has been running through my head all morning.  I wonder why?  Too bad Randall got tangled up in the final, though.

Related posts:

1. <Race Snapshots: Kuusamo Sprint
2. <Race Snapshots: Kuusamo 10/15km Freestyle
3. <Race Snapshots: IBU WC 1 Men’s Sprint

Our team chemistry this year has exceptionally fun and positive which has made training, traveling, and racing very enjoyable. As a whole, the team’s results have also been outstanding. One of my teammates wrote about this very thing and explained it quite elegantly. I wanted to share it with you.”The APU girls team definitely has something special right now. I’ve been trying to boil it down,

Our team chemistry this year has exceptionally fun and positive which has made training, traveling, and racing very enjoyable. As a whole, the team’s results have also been outstanding. One of my teammates wrote about this very thing and explained it quite elegantly. I wanted to share it with you.”The APU girls team definitely has something special right now. I’ve been trying to boil it down,

Our team chemistry this year has exceptionally fun and positive which has made training, traveling, and racing very enjoyable. As a whole, the team’s results have also been outstanding. One of my teammates wrote about this very thing and explained it quite elegantly. I wanted to share it with you.”The APU girls team definitely has something special right now. I’ve been trying to boil it down,

Our team chemistry this year has exceptionally fun and positive which has made training, traveling, and racing very enjoyable. As a whole, the team’s results have also been outstanding. One of my teammates wrote about this very thing and explained it quite elegantly. I wanted to share it with you.”The APU girls team definitely has something special right now. I’ve been trying to boil it down,

It was a phenomenal day for our women’s team on the first day of US National Championships in Rumford, Maine. Teammate Holly Brooks came home with her first National Championship title and Morgan Smyth, Sadie Bjornsen, and myself were the next three Americans! As training buddies and very close friends, we were all ecstatic to get to excel together at a high level.Morgan Smyth, Holly Brooks,

It was a phenomenal day for our women’s team on the first day of US National Championships in Rumford, Maine. Teammate Holly Brooks came home with her first National Championship title and Morgan Smyth, Sadie Bjornsen, and myself were the next three Americans! As training buddies and very close friends, we were all ecstatic to get to excel together at a high level.Morgan Smyth, Holly Brooks,

It was a phenomenal day for our women’s team on the first day of US National Championships in Rumford, Maine. Teammate Holly Brooks came home with her first National Championship title and Morgan Smyth, Sadie Bjornsen, and myself were the next three Americans! As training buddies and very close friends, we were all ecstatic to get to excel together at a high level.Morgan Smyth, Holly Brooks,

It was a phenomenal day for our women’s team on the first day of US National Championships in Rumford, Maine. Teammate Holly Brooks came home with her first National Championship title and Morgan Smyth, Sadie Bjornsen, and myself were the next three Americans! As training buddies and very close friends, we were all ecstatic to get to excel together at a high level.Morgan Smyth, Holly Brooks,

It was a phenomenal day for our women’s team on the first day of US National Championships in Rumford, Maine. Teammate Holly Brooks came home with her first National Championship title and Morgan Smyth, Sadie Bjornsen, and myself were the next three Americans! As training buddies and very close friends, we were all ecstatic to get to excel together at a high level.Morgan Smyth, Holly Brooks,