From the FasterSkier archive — posts syndicated from athletes’ and coaches’ own blogs between 2004 and 2012, kept online as published. Current coverage is at fasterskier.com.
Dresden, Germany looking good for the city sprints. (Photo: @skiweltcupdresden Instagram screenshot)
FIS World Cup Dresden, Germany 1.6 k Freestyle Sprint
The city of Dresden resting alongside the River Elbe hosted a 1.6-kilometer freestyle sprint for the second year running.
Hannah Falk of Sweden, last year’s sprint winner in Dresden, won the qualifier in a time of 3:41.85 minutes. The U.S. Ski Team’s (USST) Sophie Caldwell was the second fastest qualifier (+0.49), with Falk’s teammate, Stina Nilsson, qualifying in third (+0.80).
Canada’s Dahria Beatty placed 20th (+8.72) in qualification, while Julia Kern (USST D-Team) in her first European based World Cup qualified in 23rd (+10.84).
Both Beatty and Kern were eliminated in the first heat which was won by Nilsson in 3:43.87. Beatty placed third (+1.18), Kern fourth (+1.25).
Beatty ended the day in 16th place overall, Kern 19th.
Caldwell advanced to the finals where she finished in fifth place, 2.61 seconds behind the day’s sprint winner Nilsson. Nilsson won the final in 3:48.49 minutes. It was an all Sweden podium as Maja Dahlqvist placed second (+0.24) and Jonna Sundling third (+0.54).
No other North American women advanced to the heats.
Hannah Halvorsen (USST D-Team) racing in her first World Cup placed 35th overall. Ida Sargent (USST) placed 38th, first time World Cup participant Hailey Swirbul (USST D-Team) 41st.
For the men, Italy’s Federico Pellegrino qualified first in 3:21.12 minutes. Britain’s Andrew Young was second fastest (+0.47), and Gleb Retivykh third (+1.27).
In his return to World Cup skiing after racing the domestic circuit, American Andy Newell was the highest ranked North American in qualification, placing 19th (+5.58). Kevin Bolger (USST) qualified in 28th (+6.76).
Newell and Bolger both raced the third heat where they were eliminated from the rounds. Newell placed fifth (+1.31), Bolger sixth (+1.45) in the third heat, which was won by Richard Jouve of France in 3:28:24.
In the final standings, Newell ranked 25th, Bolger 29th overall.
The race was won by Norway’s Sindre Bjørnestad Skar in 3:25.95 minutes. Retivykh placed second (+0.11), and Erik Valnes of Norway third (+2.83).
Erik Bjornsen (USST) finished in 33rd (+7.43), Simi Hamilton (USST) did not start due to illness.
For Canada, Bob Thompson placed 32nd overall, Lenny Valjas 47th (+9.55).
IBU World Cup Oberhof, Germany 10 k / 12.5 k Pursuit
In the women’s pursuit Lisa Vittozzi of Italy, who was the first skier off today as she won Thursday’s sprint, also won the 10 k pursuit in a time of 32:32.9 minutes. Vittozzi had two penalties (0+1+1+0) on her way to the win.
Anastasiya Kuzmina of Slovakia was second with four penalties (2+1+1+0), 14.5 seconds back. Kuzmina was the seventh starter, and began the race 30 seconds behind Vittozzi. Anaïs Chevalier of France place third (+27.9, 2+1+2+0). Chevalier was the second starter, beginning with a five second deficit.
Susan Dunklee of the US Biathlon Team had a season best result, placing seventh overall (+1:01.2). Dunklee was the 10th starter, setting off 41 seconds back. Dunklee had five penalties (2+1+1+1) on her way to seventh place.
Also for the U.S., Clare Egan, who place 13th in the sprint, fell back to 33rd in the pursuit after skiing seven penalty laps.
For Canada, Emma Lunders placed 39th (+3:31.4) with six penalties on her day. Rosanna Crawford placed 52nd (+5:23.4) also with six penalties.
In the men’s pursuit, Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø claimed the win in a time of 34:29.8 after three missed shots (0+1+1+1).
Arnd Peiffer of Germany place second on Saturday, finishing 15.1 seconds back from Bø after one penalty (1+0+0+0). Italy’s Lucas Hofer snagged the third and final podium, finishing 15.8 seconds behind the winner after shooting clean.
Two North Americans competed on Saturday, with American Sean Doherty finishing in 18th (+2:29.9) after skiing two penalties (2+0+0+0). Canadian Christian Gow also skied into the top 30, finishing in 27th (+2:57.4). Gow had two misses (1+0+0+1).
Stoked Biathletes after a record-setting day. From left to right, Susan Dunklee, women’s coach Armin Auchentaller, and Clare Egan. (Photo: @usbiathlonwomen Instargram screenshot)
The International Biathlon Union (IBU) came off a two-week break for the holidays today in Oberhof, Germany. The women raced the 7.5-kilometer sprint under mostly calm conditions on a course that had received fresh snow. The fir trees lining Oberhof’s ski tracks were loaded down from recent storms that have passed through the region.
The relatively calm and non-blizzard conditions were noted by US Biathlon’s Susan Dunklee in an email to FasterSkier.
“The sun peeked out in Oberhof this afternoon, truly a seldom occurrence,” Dunklee wrote. “The last couple days we trained in a blizzard but today the wind was relatively calm. The tracks were glazed but not too deep.”
In a clean shooting blitz, Italy’s Lisa Vitozzi earned her first career IBU World Cup win in a time of 22:34.6 minutes. With the shooting range flags sitting noticeably stagnant, clean shooting was also the pattern for the remaining two podium spots.
Anais Chevalier from France finished in second place, 5.3 seconds back, for her best result of the season. Hanna Öberg of Sweden was third after crossing the finish line 15 seconds back.
Beyond her clean shooting in her two shooting bouts, Vitozzi had the second fastest and third fastest course times for her first and second ski loops respectively. Vitozzi’s third lap was the 11th fastest.
Susan Dunklee on the range during Thursday’s sprint in Oberhof, Germany. (Photo: NBC Gold screenshot)
The U.S. women’s biathlon team posted two top-15 performances on the day. Thirty-two-year-old Susan Dunklee placed a season-best 10th place while the thirty-one-year-old Egan placed 13th.
“I can’t remember a time when the US has put two women in the top 13 of a World Cup,” Dunklee wrote. “It has been a lot of fun to watch Clare come alive this season after years of hard work and it’s exciting to join her with a great result today.”
Prior to the holiday break, Dunklee’s best individual result was in Pokljuka, Slovenia’s individual race where she placed 11th after amassing a single penalty.
On Thursday, Dunklee was 40.8 seconds off the winning time while skiing one penalty loop after missing a single target in her prone stage. Dunklee’s performance displayed consistent ski speed and efficiency on the range. Her first ski lap was the 13th fastest, her second ski loop ranked 29th and her third ski course time improved to the 17th fastest.
Dunklee’s range times (defined by the time at the shooting range) were ranked ninth and 20th for her first and second shooting bouts in Thursday’s sprint.
“I spent the holiday break in Austria with the Canadian team and got in a high quality training block. It sure is nice to not have to fight jetlag right now,” Dunklee added. My shooting speed benefited a lot from working alongside the Canadians. My ski speed sometimes takes weeks to sharpen during the season and I think it is finally getting there.”
Clare Egan during her second shooting stage in Oberhof’s sprint on Thursday. (Photo: NBC Gold screenshot)
Today was one of my best results and yet it felt normal- and that’s a great feeling,” wrote Egan.
Her return to competition on Thursday was seamless despite the break. Her skiing and shooting showed no rust.
“My race today was definitely a ‘blowing-out-the-cobwebs’ experience,” Egan emailed. “But I still managed a top-20 ski time, only +:35. It’s very motivating to know that even on a day when I don’t feel great skiing, I am competing with the best.”
On Thursday, Egan’s 13th place was a result of her finishing 49.0 seconds back in a field of 100 starters.
“Today was a great day for both Susan and me- the first time that US Biathlon has had two women in the top-15 (AS FAR AS WE KNOW!),” Egan continued. “We are both competing at a high level right now, so it will be exciting to work together in Saturday’s pursuit to move up. The top 20 starters (today’s top 20 finishers) are all within 1 minute, so in a 10k race with 4 shooting stages, anything is possible.”
For Canada, Emma Lunder placed 46th (+1:49.2, 1+1), Rosanna Crawford 56th (+2:06.3, 1+1), Megan Bankes 87th (+3:07.9, 1+1), and Sarah Beaudry 89th (+3:21.2, 2+1).
Lunder and Crawford both qualified for the pursuit.
The women race again in Oberhof on Saturday in a 10 k pursuit.
The Holmenkollen women’s 30 k freestyle mass start podium on Sunday in Oslo, Norway, with Jessie Diggins (l) in second, and Norway’s Marit Bjørgen (c) in first and Ragnhild Haga (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
FIS Cross Country World Cup (Oslo, Norway): Women’s 30 k freestyle mass start
Marit Bjørgen, the Norwegian queen of distance cross-country events, racked up another victory at Holmenkollen in the women’s 30-kilometer freestyle mass start on Sunday for her seventh win in the World Cup’s ultimate distance event at the famed Norwegian venue. (She had previously won in 2005, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2017).
But she did so in not-so-typical fashion. Instead of breaking the field mid-race and skiing to a comfortable win, like she did in the last race of the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea (a 30 k classic mass start), Bjørgen came from behind to win Sunday’s Holmenkollen 30 k and wasn’t able to let off too much before finish. She didn’t take the lead until less than a kilometer to go and put just enough time into her competition to take the win in 1:18:12.4 hours, while American Jessie Diggins outlasted the chase group of three to place second (becoming the first American woman to reach the Holmenkollen podium), 3.6 seconds behind Bjørgen. Norway’s Ragnhild Haga edged Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla by 0.1 seconds for third place (+4.3), while Kalla settled for fourth (+4.4).
The rest of the field was strung out, with Norway’s Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen finishing fourth (+11.5) and Ingvild Flugstad Østberg nearly another 1 1/2 minutes back in fifth (+1:39.5). Finland’s Krista Pärmäkoski placed seventh (+1:51.7), Germany’s Stefani Böhler notched eighth (+2:10.2), Austria’s Teresa Stadlober ninth (+2:10.2), and Sweden’s Ebba Andersson 10th (+2:11.9). Less than a second behind Sweden’s Ida Ingemarsdotter in 11th (+2:22.8) was American Sadie Bjornsen in 12th (+2:23.4).
In the Distance World Cup standings, Diggins gained some valuable points to keep herself in third, now 63 points ahead of Pärmäkoski in fourth. Heidi Weng, who finished 18th on Sunday, still leads the distance standings by 104 points and Østberg is second, 51 points ahead of Diggins.
In the Overall World Cup, Weng leads by 153 points over Østberg. Diggins is another 104 points back in third, 100 points ahead of Pärmäkoski in fourth. At World Cup Finals next week in Falun, Sweden, a total of 300 points is up for grabs for the winners (50 for freestyle sprint, 50 for classic individual start, and 200 for freestyle pursuit).
The U.S. had three in the top 20 and four in the points (top 30) in Sunday’s 30 k, with Kikkan Randall in 19th (+3:21.9) and Caitlin Patterson in 28th (+4:13.1). Rosie Frankowski (Alaska Pacific University) missed the top 30 by about 28 seconds in 31st (+4:45.4), Liz Stephen placed 51st (+10:01.7) and Kaitlynn Miller (Craftsbury Green Racing Project) finished 53rd (+16:05.0).
Cendrine Browne led four Canadian women in 36th (+6:16.1), Emily Nishikawa was 44th (+7:36.1), Zina Kocher (Foothills Nordic) finished 47th (+8:52.0), and Dahria Beatty placed 49th (+9:45.1).
Germany’s Vanessa Hinz celebrates her first IBU World Cup win and podium in the women’s 12.5 k mass start on Sunday in Kontiolahti, Finland. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
IBU World Cup (Kontiolahti, Finland): Men’s and women’s mass starts
(Note: This rundown has been updated to include comments from Lowell Bailey and Rosanna Crawford.)
Germany’s Vanessa Hinz won her first International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup race (and achieved her first World Cup podium) and Austria’s Julian Eberhard won his first race of the season (and first mass start of his career) in the women’s 12.5 k and men’s 15 k mass starts on Sunday in Kontiolahti.
Germany’s Vanessa Hinz celebrates her first IBU World Cup win and podium in the women’s 12.5 k mass start on Sunday in Kontiolahti, Finland. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
Hinz shot an impressive 20-for-20 with the third-fastest range time and fifth-fastest shooting time to take the win in 35:47.9 minutes. Third after the first prone stage, she moved into second, then third after cleaning the next two stages. After knocking down her final five targets in the last standing, Hinz left the range almost 24 seconds ahead of France’s Anaïs Chevalier in second and 26 seconds ahead of Italy’s Lisa Vittozzi in third. Hinz stayed ahead of her challengers on the final loop, finishing 13.5 seconds clear of Vittozzi, who claimed second. Chevalier finished third, 16.8 seconds back, while Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen was next across the line in fourth (+43.4) with a gap to Sweden’s Hanna Öberg in fifth (+1:02.1).
Vittozzi and Chevalier both cleaned the first three stages then had to ski a penalty lap after the last standing bout (0+0+0+1). Mäkäräinen missed three (1+0+1+1) yet skied the second-fastest course time on her home course, and Öberg missed two (0+0+2+0). The fastest course time of the day was clocked by Darya Domracheva of Belarus, who had to ski five penalty laps (0+1+1+3) and ended up 10th (+1:18.2).
“I always dreamed of shooting four times clean and today I did it,” Hinz, 25, said, according to an IBU press release. “I was so often close to the podium. I knew I could do it. Today, I said, ‘OK, let’s try it and if it works, it is OK … and if not there is another season waiting and other races.’ Now I am on top of the podium and it is crazy.”
Vittozzi, who placed fourth in the mass start at the 2018 Olympics, was glad to improve on a third-place finish in Friday’s sprint by placing second on Sunday.
“I have been third so many times and that was not satisfying for me,” Vittozzi said, one day after she won the mixed relay with her team in Kontiolahti. “Today I am very happy about my second place.”
For Chevalier, it was her first individual podium of the season and it came a day after she and Antonin Guigonnat won the single mixed relay. Chevalier, 25, was severely injured when she was hit by a car last spring, according to an IBU press release.
“I am very happy to be here today, because it was a very hard season,” she told the IBU. “I forgot how nice it is to be on the podium … I forgot that it was not easy, so I am very happy … I did my best on the last lap; [Vittozzi] was faster, but I am third and happy with that!”
Canada’s Rosanna Crawford shot 19-for-20 to place 13th (+1:25.9) with her only miss coming in the second prone stage (0+1+0+0). Her overall shooting and range times were 10th fastest of the 30-woman field, compared to her 26th-ranked ski time. Crawford had been in 11th after cleaning the final standing stage, then slipped two spots to finish 13th in her second mass start of the season.
“Since the skiing wasn’t feeling great today I made sure I was super focused in the range,” Crawford wrote in an email to FasterSkier. “I knew that was my only chance to get a good result today. My one prone miss was a bad trigger pull, but the rest were nice solid hits. I made sure to have a solid set up and then just trusted my rhythm and shooting.
“I knew that I wanted that top 15, so I just kept fighting and trying to stick with the women when they caught me,” she wrote of her last loop. “The last time up the wall I managed to stay close to [France’s] Anais Bescond, and hold off the two people behind me. Really happy to be in the top 15 again.”
Clare Egan was the lone American woman to qualify for Sunday’s mass start, and it was the second mass start of her career. She was on track for a top-15 result after missing just one target in the first three stages, but she had to ski three penalty laps on the last standing (0+1+0+3), which put her in 23rd by the finish (+2:05.6). Notably, she skied the 14th-fastest overall course time.
“I didn’t have quite the same energy level tonight as the last two days, but I still had the 14th rank course time and that means anything is possible in the race,” Egan wrote in an email to FasterSkier. “To put it in perspective, the winner of the race, Hinz, had the 13th rank, just 2 seconds faster than me. This is the first time I’ve felt totally comfortable skiing with the fastest women, and I certainly hope I can maintain this speed for one more week of World Cup racing.”
Egan was pleased with her 9-for-10 prone shooting and her clean standing stage (“which is the first time I’ve cleaned a standing stage in an individual race this entire year, believe it our not,” Egan wrote).
“But when I missed my second shot on the final stage, I let that throw me off my game, and really blew the rest of the stage,” she explained. “It’s so hard to keep 100% focus in every scenario, and I find it gets harder and harder towards the end of the race when I’m not necessarily the most lucid. I know that I have to work on so I have a goal to manage the final stage better next week and in the future.”
Her 23rd-place finish was one better than her previous World Cup mass start finish, which was 24th last season in Hochfilzen, Austria.
“In my only other mass start, which was last year at World Championships, I felt like an imposter,” Egan reflected. “Maybe because I was the first ‘reserve’ to get called up when one of the top women [did not start]. But this was totally different. I knew I deserved to be there today and was confident about competing with the other top women.”
“In my only other mass start, which was last year at World Championships, I felt like an imposter … This was totally different. I knew I deserved to be there today and was confident about competing with the other top women.” — Clare Egan (US Biathlon) on Sunday’s mass start
While the women raced Sunday night, the men’s 15 k mass start took place in the afternoon, when Eberhard passed the likes of France’s Martin Fourcade and Russia’s Anton Shipulin after a tangle late in the race to take the win.
The Austrian team celebrating Julian Eberhard’s fourth career victory, his first this season and his first in a mass start on Sunday after the IBU World Cup men’s 15 k mass start in Kontiolahti, Finland. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
The Austrian had cleaned the first two prone stages to move into third by the race’s halfway point, behind Germany’s Benedikt Doll and Arnd Peiffer in first and second, respectively. Eberhard missed one in the next standing stage, yet left the range in second, 15 seconds behind Peiffer (who cleaned) in first, while Doll missed one as well to slip into third, 19 seconds back.
With two loops to go, Fourcade was coming back from two early prone penalties and found himself in fifth after a clean standing stage, less than a second behind Shipulin in fourth. On the next standing stage, Fourcade cleaned to take the lead and left the range about five seconds ahead of Shipulin (who also cleaned) in second.
Eberhard missed one yet remained in contention in third, 17 seconds behind Fourcade. On the last loop, Shipulin caught Fourcade before the course’s notorious climb known as “The Wall”, and Eberhard closed on the two frontrunners as they ascended it. Still several seconds behind over the top, he caught Shipulin on the bridge before the stadium, but the two tangled skis and Shipulin fell. Eberhard stayed upright and pulled even with Fourcade, passing him to take the win in 38:04.8. Fourcade finished second (+6.9) and Shipulin third (+19.3).
Austria’s Julian Eberhard (l) and Russia’s Anton Shipulin after the finish of the men’s 15 k mass start the IBU World Cup in Kontiolahti, Finland. Shipulin fell when his skis tangled with Eberhard’s. While Eberhard raced to the win, Shipulin placed third. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
“I wanted to be in a sprint with all three, but the bridge is too small for this,” Eberhard said, according to an IBU press release. “I came up the bridge with too much speed. Anton and I were in the same track and there was an accident. I apologized to Anton at the finish but he said these things can happen and it was OK with him.”
“I hold no grudge against Julian,” Shipulin told the IBU. “This can happen in sports and is all fair … I am in good shape and want to preserve this and perform my best in the last World Cups.”
Fourcade explained that illness caused him to sit out Thursday’s sprint, and he was only able to train three hours this week.
“It is really difficult to race in this situation without any feeling or training,” Fourcade told the IBU. “I did not know what to expect today but I am quite satisfied. I would have liked to win, but I used too much energy trying to come back in the early laps and had no energy when it was time to attack.”
Behind them, Doll picked off one place on the final loop to finish fourth (+21.9), passing his German teammate Erik Lesser, who finished fifth (+23.9). Peiffer followed in sixth (+27.1) as Germany had three in the top six.
American Lowell Bailey raced to 14th (+1:06.3) with two penalties, both of which came in the standing stages (0+0+1+1). Bailey had been fourth after cleaning the second prone, 16 seconds behind Doll in first, but slipped to 10th after missing one on the next bout. He had to ski another penalty lap on the last stage, and left the range in 14th.
Overall, Bailey posted the 10th-fastest shooting time, 15th-fastest range time and 18th-fastest course time.
“I finally felt like I was back in the spot that I ended last season,” Bailey wrote in an email when asked about his consistency. “I felt controlled and able to keep the pace with the top of the field throughout the race. It was nice to be back in the mix.
“Although I would have liked to see this ski speed a few weeks ago, better late than never!” he continued.
Next week’s World Cup in Oslo, Norway, will be his last of the season and his career.
“After nearly two decades of international racing, Oslo will be my final World Cup as a U.S. Biathlete,” Bailey wrote. “I’m sure it will be emotional but I hope to end my World Cup career on a high note!”
The top finishers in the men’s 20 k freestyle mass start at 2018 NCAA Skiing Championships in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, with Northern Michigan University’s Ian Torchia (c) in first. (Photo: Dartmouth Sports/Clarkson Creative)
NCAA Skiing Championships (Steamboat Springs, Colorado): 15/20 k freestyle mass starts
On the fourth and final day of NCAA Skiing Championships at Howelsen Hill in Steamboat Springs, Katharine Ogden skied to her second-straight national title, Ian Torchia became an NCAA champion and the University of Denver (DU) won its 24th NCAA National Championship.
Dartmouth freshman Katharine Ogden racing to her second-straight victory of the 2018 NCAA Skiing Championships in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. She won Saturday’s 15 k freestyle mass start by more than 38 seconds. (Photo: Dartmouth Sports/Clarkson Creative)
Ogden, a Dartmouth College freshman, raced to a 38.4-second victory in the women’s 15-kilometer mass start, finishing in 43:22.0 minutes for her second win in as many races at 2018 NCAA Championships. She won the 5 k classic on Thursday and with her win on Saturday, she became the first Dartmouth skier in 56 years to win two national titles in the same year, according to a Dartmouth press release.
On the second of three laps, Ogden broke away early with close to 10 k to go. According to the press release, she had a “quick fall” near the end of the second lap, but that didn’t derail her as she had time to grab sunglasses from Dartmouth men’s coach Brayton Osgood and a Dartmouth Lone Pine flag before the finish.
At this year’s championships, Ogden’s two titles are accompanied by victories from Dartmouth men’s alpine skiers Brian McLaughlin (who won the giant slalom) and Tanguy Nef (who won the slalom). This marked only the second time that Dartmouth’s Big Green won four individual titles in a single NCAA Championships; that also occurred 61 years ago.
“Katharine absolutely wanted this one, and she really likes to win,” Dartmouth Director of Skiing and Women’s Nordic Head Coach Cami Thompson Graves said in the press release. “She wasn’t about to let a fall slow her down, she has such a great competitive fire. But she also showed her playful side grabbing Brayton’s glasses and smiling all the way to the finish line!”
Hailey Swirbul of the University of Alaska Anchorage placed second and Linn Eriksen (DU) reached the podium in third (+46.3). Denver had three in the top 10 with Jasmi Joensuu in ninth and Taeler McCrerey in 10th. Also landing in the top 10 for All-American honors were Guro Jordheim of the University of Utah in fourth, Emma Tarbath (Montana State University) in fifth, Petra Hyncicova of the University of Colorado Boulder (CU) in sixth, Christina Rolandsen (CU) in seventh, and Lauren Jortberg (Dartmouth) in eighth.
Torchia, an Northern Michigan University (NMU) junior and U.S. Ski Team Development Team member, became the seventh NCAA champion in NMU Wildcats nordic skiing history, according to an NMU press release. Fredrick Schwenke was the Wildcats’ last nordic champion; he won the 2015 NCAA Championships 20 k classic.
Torchia drew bib 1 for Saturday’s 20 k freestyle mass start and crossed the finish line first in 54:21.0, just 2 seconds ahead of CU’s Alvar Alev. Eivind Kvaale (DU) finished just four seconds back in third, and Denver had three in the top seven with Dag Frode Trollebø in fourth and Lars Hannah in seventh. Darmouth’s Cal Deline placed fifth, Zane Fields of Colby College finished sixth, and the 20 k freestyle’s 2017 NCAA champion Martin Bergström (Utah), who also won Thursday’s 10 k classic, placed eighth. CU’s Petter Reistad and Sondre Bollum finished ninth and 10th, respectively.
In the team standings, Denver beat Colorado by 41 points for the overall win with a total of 604 points between the nordic and alpine events at this year’s championships. Dartmouth placed third, 114.5 points behind Colorado, and Utah was another 63 points back in fourth.
According to a DU press release, Denver has won at least one national championship in each of the last five athletic seasons (skiing: 2013/14, 2015/16, 2017/18; hockey: 2016-17; men’s lacrosse 2014/15), joining only Stanford on the list of schools that have done so in the last five seasons. (Oregon, West Virginia, Penn State, Oklahoma, Ohio State and Florida could potentially join that list later this year.)
“It feels incredible,” said DU head coach Andy LeRoy said in the press release. “I am so happy for all of our athletes, they’ve been training all week and all season and to do it in Steamboat in front of our crowd is special.”
The Holmenkollen men’s 50 k freestyle mass start podium on Saturday at the World Cup in Oslo, Norway, with Switzerland’s Dario Cologna (c) in first, Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby (l) in second, and Russia’s Maxim Vylegzhanin (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
FIS Cross Country World Cup (Oslo, Norway): Men’s 50 k freestyle mass start
A four-time Olympic champion, Dario Cologna of Switzerland won his first 50-kilometer World Cup race on Saturday, topping the podium in the famous Holmenkollen 50 k freestyle mass start after outlunging Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby (who won the event last year) for the win in 2:01:48.1. Sundby finished one-hundredth of a second behind for second place, ahead of Russia’s Maxim Vylegzhanin, who was 1.1 seconds back in third in his first World Cup race since November of last year.
The photo finish for first between Switzerland’s Dario Cologna (near) and Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby at the Holmenkollen 50 k freestyle mass start on Saturday in Oslo, Norway. Cologna got it by 0.01 seconds. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
Norway’s Sjur Røthe came out on top in a race for fourth (+4.2), ahead of Russia’s Denis Spitsov in fifth (+4.4) and his Norwegian teammate Hans Christer Holund in sixth (+4.5). Great Britain’s Andrew Musgrave followed in seventh (+15.1), Germany’s Florian Notz placed eighth (+25.9) and Canada’s Alex Harvey finished ninth (+32.4), ahead of France’s Robin Duvillard in 10th (+33.5).
Scott Patterson led the U.S. in 16th (+56.3) coming off an 11th place in the 50 k classic mass start at last month’s Olympics, and Canada’s Devon Kershaw finished in the points in 28th (+3:43.6). Just outside the top 30, Canada’s Graeme Killick finished 34th (+4:55.1).
Also for the U.S, David Norris placed 38th (+6:19.7), Paddy Caldwell was 46th (+8:12.3), Noah Hoffman 49th (+10:27.9), Kevin Bolger 52nd (+12:44.2), and Simi Hamilton did not finish.
Canada’s fourth man in the race, Andy Shields finished 47th (+8:13.6).
Italy’s Lukas Hofer celebrates his team’s win in Saturday’s mixed relay at the IBU World Cup in Kontiolahti, Finland. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
IBU World Cup (Kontiolahti, Finland): Single mixed relay & mixed relay
(Note: This rundown has been updated to include comments from Christian Gow and Sean Doherty.)
In the last single mixed relay and mixed relay of the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup season, France and Italy came out on top, with France winning the two-person single mixed relay and Italy taking first in the coed mixed relay.
France’s Anaïs Chevalier and Antonin Guigonnat after winning Saturday’s single mixed relay at the IBU World Cup in Kontiolahti, Finland. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
France’s Anaïs Chevalier and Antonin Guigonnat combined for zero penalties and six spares to finish first in the single mixed relay in 33:29.1 minutes. Guigonnat as the team’s anchor secured the win by just 2.4 seconds over Austria’s Julian Eberhard while Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø finished 4.4 seconds back for third.
Chevalier put France in fifth after the first leg, 15.5 seconds behind Ukraine’s Iryna Varvynets in first. Guigonnat used just one spare on his first leg to move them into fourth, 9.2 seconds back while Norway led at the second exchange. On Chevalier’s second leg, she shot clean in both stages to lead through the final exchange, with Ukraine skiing just 6.2 seconds back in second.
On the final leg, Guigonnat used two spares and stayed out of the penalty lap, keeping the team in first through the finish. Eberhard skied the second-fastest course time on that leg to elevate Austria (with Lisa Theresa Hauser) from fourth at the tag to second place at the finish, and Bø skied all the way up from eighth to third place for Norway (with Marte Olsbu) with the fastest course time.
Ukraine’s Artem Tyschenko used just one spare but slipped to fourth with the 11th-ranked course time on that leg, as he finished 10.8 seconds behind Norway.
Behind Russia in fifth and Italy in sixth, Canada placed seventh (+23.8) with Rosanna Crawford and Christian Gow. The duo combined for zero penalties and six spares, and put themselves in third place early in the race. Crawford skied them into third on the first leg, using just two spares and tagging Gow 7.4 seconds out of first.
Gow went on to take the lead after cleaning prone without any spares, and he cleaned standing as well but slipped back to third while Bø took the lead. Gow tagged Crawford in third, 8.9 seconds behind Norway in first.
“I didn’t think too much about being tagged in third,” Gow recalled in an email to FasterSkier. “It was exciting for sure, but I let it fade to the background so that I could focus on my job both on the track and in the range. It was great to leave prone in first place! It was also surprising, but it was a good place to be in.
“My skiing was ok today,” he continued. “It is a really challenging and demanding race format that we don’t get a lot of practice with. I was sick after the Olympic Games and only finally coming around the past couple days. The Sprint race was horrendous for me, so today was much better than that. In the range I just focussed on myself and trusted my shooting. I tried my best not to get caught up in the race going on around me and it worked to my benefit.”
Crawford then slipped to seventh and 21 seconds back with three prone spares, but avoided the penalty lap, and Gow held onto seventh through the finish, using just one spare and skiing the eighth-fastest course time on that leg.
“We are both happy with this result,” Gow wrote. “I think that we are both looking at the 23 second gap to first and thinking that if things had worked out just a bit better we could be there. It can be both exciting and frustrating to be that close to the podium. We know we can do it, it’s just a matter of putting it together on the right day. We are happy with 7th, but hungry for more.”
Susan Dunklee and Lowell Bailey finished 14th for the U.S., 1:13.0 out of first with one penalty and 14 spares. The penalty came on Dunklee’s first leg during her standing stage, after she had cleaned prone without any spares. She tagged Bailey in 14th and he brought them up to 11th, using three spares on that leg, then Dunklee came through the final exchange in 13th after using four spares to clean. Bailey lost one place on the final leg, using four spares but staying out of the penalty lap.
Twenty-six teams competed in the single mixed relay, compared to 23 in the mixed relay that followed.
Team Italia celebrates its win in the IBU World Cup mixed relay on Saturday in Kontiolahti, Finland, with its relay members Dorothea Wierer, Lisa Vittozzi, Dominik Windisch, and Lukas Hofer. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
In Saturday’s 2 x 6 + 2 x 7.5 k mixed relay, Italy nabbed a 1.5-second victory over Ukraine in 1:15:08.3. Dorothea Wierer, Lisa Vittozzi, Dominik Windisch, and Lukas Hofer — the same Italian team that took bronze in the mixed relay at last month’s Olympics, although in a different order — combined for the win with one penalty and 13 spares.
Ukraine, with Anastasiya Merkushyna, Vita Semerenko, Artem Pryma, and Dmytro Pidruchnyi, had zero penalties and just three spares throughout the whole race. For the second-straight relay on Saturday, Norway placed third (+9.1) with Synnøve Solemdal, Tiril Eckhoff,Henrik L’Abée-Lund, and Tarjei Bø totaling zero penalties and nine spares.
Italy’s lone penalty came in Vittozzi’s second leg, but it didn’t derail the team as it improved from sixth to fifth with Vittozzi, who skied the third-fastest course time on that leg. She tagged Windisch 6.8 seconds out of first, and Windisch, who had anchored the team in the Olympics, took the lead by the final exchange after using two spares to clean. Hofer left the exchange just 3.3 seconds ahead of Norway’s Bø but used just one spare and skied the second-fastest anchor leg to finish first, beating his rivals up Kontiolahti’s infamous climb known as “The Wall”. Ukraine’s Pidruchnyi also shot clean with a single spare and clocked the fastest anchor leg to move his team from fourth to second place. Bø lost one place and finished third after using one spare as well and skiing the third-fastest anchor leg.
Russia followed in fourth, France fifth, Sweden sixth, Germany seventh, Austria eighth, and the U.S. ninth (+2:48.4). The U.S. team, with Clare Egan, Joanne Reid, Tim Burke, and Sean Doherty, had one penalty and 11 spares. Egan cleaned her first prone but had to ski a penalty lap after her standing stage, tagging Reid in 17th, 58.7 seconds out of first.
Reid used three spares on the second leg and moved up to 13th by the second exchange, and Burke used three spares as well to pick off one more place and tag Doherty in 12th. Doherty skied the eighth-fastest anchor leg and used two spares to clean to put the team in ninth at the finish.
“I don’t consider two spares to be anything special, but today it was enough to make up some ground,” Doherty wrote in an email to FasterSkier.”I felt strong skiing, more like myself which is fun even if it’s a little late in the season. We had very good skis which always helps. I have done quite a few laps on this course over the years so the lines and transitions are pretty refined, so that is where I made time on the course.
“I am happy with my leg. I enjoyed my little battle for 9th,” he continued. “I can’t speak too much for the other members of the relay tonight but I think 9th is a solid effort.”
Canada finished 17th (+4:34.9) with Emma Lunder, Julia Ransom, Scott Gow, and Brendan Green combining for one penalty and 13 spares. Lunder put them in 12th at the first exchange and Ransom skied up to 10th, but Scott Gow had a penalty on his standing stage to drop to 16th. Green lost one more place on the last leg despite only requiring two spares.
The Belarusian women’s biathlon team, with (from left to right) Nadezhda Skardino, Iryna Kryuko, Dzinara Alimbekava, and Darya Domracheva, celebrates winning a historic gold for their nation in the 4 x 6 relay at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. They were ranked 10th coming into the day. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — Some things were the same on Thursday night: the attention-grabbing biathlon stadium announcer generating an atmosphere of stoke, thumping house music, and shivering yet engaged fans. Making it feel like true winter, a heavy snow squall settled in over the Alpensia Biathlon Center for the women’s 4 x 6-kilometer relay.
Ultimately, Belarus won gold in a time of 1:12:03.4 hours with Nadezhda Skardino, Iryna Kryuko, Dzinara Alimbekava, Darya Domracheva. Sweden’s Linn Persson, Mona Brorsson, Anna Magnusson, and Hanna Öberg took silver (+10.7), while France’s Anaïs Chevalier, Marie Dorin Habert, Justine Braisaz, and Anaïs Bescond claimed bronze (+17.6).
For the first few legs, however, all three medaling teams seemed an outside shot at the podium. On a windy and, for the first time at the Olympics, snowy evening, the win was up for grabs from the start.
After the first lap, a rainbow of suits came into the shooting range together, 7.8 seconds separating the leader from the field’s tail. America’s lead-off skier, Susan Dunklee, skied out of the range first after shooting clean in prone. The U.S. skier was followed by Ukraine, 2.9 seconds back. And Canada’s Sarah Beaudry had also cleaned without any spares to put her team in third, 7.1 seconds back.
Dunklee held her lead through the 2.9 k checkpoint and by 3.6 k, she was up to 8.1 seconds ahead of Japan chasing in second. Canada had fallen to 12th, 14.9 seconds back. With dumping snow and blustery wind before their second shooting round, it was Dunklee all entering the range all alone that was featured on the stadium’s jumbotron.
For her standing stage, Dunklee missed one target, but cleaned it with one spare. She left the range 5.2 second behind Italy’s Lisa Vittozzi, who had also cleaned with one spare. After the first leg’s final shooting stage, the field started to spread out. Beaudry used three spares to clean standing and avoided the penalty lap, returning to the course in 13th, 50.5 seconds out of first.
Susan Dunklee skiing the first leg of the mixed relay on Tuesday at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. She tagged the team in fifth and they went on to place 15th. On Thursday, she skied the U.S. women’s 4 x 6 k relay into second by the first exchange. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
“There’s some, as a friend of mine would call it, Disneyland snow, falling from the sky so it makes it exciting in the relay,” Beaudry told FasterSkier after her race. “Everyone shoots at the same time so I wouldn’t say anything is unfair. It makes opportunity. So hopefully my teammates can take advantage of that.”
Dunklee came through the 5.6 k checkpoint trailing Vittozzi by 7.2 seconds. At the first exchange, Italy tagged off first and Dunklee handed off to Clare Egan 7.6 seconds back in second.
“It has been a tough Games. We came in here with a lot of expectations and certainly haven’t really lived up to them,” Dunklee told FasterSkier after her leg. “It’s extremely frustrating. To think about every decision you make in your life over four years, with your best training in mind and your best performance in mind, and then getting sick at the wrong time is tough. The guys have struggled.
“We have had some bright spots with the girls; Emily and Joanne have carried us, they have had PR’s here. That is exciting,” Dunklee added, before looking up at the screen to see Egan skiing in third. “And this is exciting today. This is really exciting! Anything is possible.”
Beaudry tagged Canada’s Julia Ransom in 15th, 1:15 minutes out of first.
“I was really happy with my first lap and my prone,” Beaudry said after her first Olympic relay. “I tried to keep with the group on my second lap and I think that left me a little shaky in standing. I’m not too pleased with my two spares, but I mean, I missed three and I didn’t miss a spare, so at least shoot a spare, hit a spare.”
After the first loop of the second leg, Italy was still in first, with Dorothea Wierer at the helm. In prone, there was a reshuffling of leaders as Slovakia’s Anastasiya Kuzmina cleaned with one spare to move into first, 15.3 seconds ahead of Norway’s Tiril Eckhoff, who had cleaned with a single spare, in second. Egan cleaned without a miss and left the range in third (+17.3). Meanwhile, Wierer still had two targets standing after using all three spares, leaving her with two costly penalty laps and 1:11 minutes back in 13th.
Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen shot clean to put her team in fourth, 23.9 seconds behind Kuzmina. France was sixth (+32.6), and Belarus ninth (+46.6). Canada’s Ransom shot clean without any spares and left the range in 12th (+1:08.3) while Sweden was 15th (+1:16.4).
While Kaisa Mäkäräinen moved into second behind Kuzmina on the next loop, Eckhoff and Egan followed them into the range in third and fourth, respectively. There, during an especially blustery standing stage, Kuzmina missed her first three shots and ended up with a penalty lap, which put her 20 seconds back in eighth. Wierer cleaned to reclaim first for Italy, just 0.9 seconds ahead of Mäkäräinen in second, who used two spares to avoid a penalty. Belarus’s Kryuko shot clean to leave the range in third (+7.9), and Egan hit five more shots without any spares to follow her in fourth (+10.7).
Ransom used three spares to avoid the penalty lap and headed back on the course in 10th (+44.2) for her final 2 k loop.
“Oh my gosh, I was really due for this,” Egan said after. “It’s by far my best race of the season so I couldn’t be more happy with my race.”
By the time the skiers came in for the second exchange, the order had changed again. Finland handed off in first, Italy second, 14.2 seconds back, Slovakia third (+16.1) and U.S. fourth (+16.8). Canada came through in 10th (+1:09.5).
“Kuzmina kept being behind me and then passing me,” Egan reflected. “I think every lap Kuzmina passed me so there is a lot of really fast skiers, most teams put their fastest skiers on their second legs. I tried to stay with them, but I can’t always do that. I did have people around me the whole time though so I was able to keep fighting.”
“All you can do is just leave it all on the track no matter what it is,” Ransom said of her race. “My standing was a little bit precarious, missing three from the clip. But I’m happy I was able to hit the precious spares. It was very gusty.”
Egan tagged off to Joanne Reid for the third of four legs. Reid slipped to sixth on her first loop and during her first prone shooting, she used three spares and had to ski a penalty lap, returning to the course in ninth, 33.6 seconds behind Italy’s Nicole Gontier, who cleaned with three spares, in first. Gontier skied just 0.4 seconds ahead of Slovakia’s Terezia Poliakova, who used one spare to clean.
Belarus had moved into third (+2.4), France into seventh (+19.2), while the Swedes sat in 11th (+1:33.6) and Canada, with Emma Lunder who had to ski a penalty, was still in 12th (+1:45.7).
As the leaders came in for their standing bout, it was Italy, France, Belarus, Norway, Finland, Slovakia, Poland, and U.S.A. Belarus’s Alimbekava took the lead after using one spare, Poland chased in second (+6.2), Slovakia was next, followed by Italy. The U.S. was back up to fifth (+28.1) after Reid used one spare to clean. France was sixth (+29.2) and Sweden eighth (+1:10). Lunder cleaned to put Canada in 11th (+1:24.7).
“I had a pretty good standing, but we need every second we can get,” Reid said after. “You never know what will happen in the next stage and the wind picking up. So even if we’re in fifth you never know. I was just trying to hang on on that uphill and give it everything I had.”
“I didn’t feel amazing, skiing, but I ripped off my standing with no spares, like, record fast, so I was really pumped about that,” Lunder reflected. “I moved up like a ton in the range there. So I think I tagged Rosanna in a decent position to be with some girls and fight a bit.”
Poland’s Krystyna Guzik caught Belarus’s Alimbekava and by the final exchange, it was Poland in first, France in second, Italy in third, and Belarus in fourth. Reid handed off to Emily Dreissigacker in sixth (+21.4) while Lunder tagged Rosanna Crawford in 13th (+1:22.6). Sweden exchanged in eighth (+59.1)
The skiers had maintained their order as they approached the range for the seventh round of shooting. Belarus’s anchor leg, Domracheva, shot clean to take the lead. France was now in second, Poland third, and the U.S. in seventh (+41.1), after Dreissigacker used two spares to clean. Sweden was back in ninth (+41.9), while Crawford cleaned with one spare and out for her second loop in 12th (+1:28.6).
Coming into the final shooting shooting round, Belarus teetered on a lock for gold, 24.8 seconds ahead of France in second. Poland still clung to third, 34.5 seconds back, while Sweden was now ranked seventh, 56.4 seconds back. The U.S. had moved back to tenth, while Canada was right behind them in 11th.
Domracheva missed three targets standing, but used three spares to clean and avoid any penalties to hang onto first. France’s Bescond needed three spares to clean but stayed out of the penalty lap and headed out on the final loop in second (+6.4). Sweden’s Öberg cleaned her second-straight stage without any misses to move all the way up into third (+10.9).
For the U.S., Dreissigacker used her three spares to clean standing, but experiencing unsteady winds, took her time to steady her shot and left the range in 12th (+1:20.2). Canada’s Crawford used one spare to clean and moved up to 11th (+1:19.9).
“It was really windy for my standing,” Crawford noted. “I really waited it out.”
“It wasn’t great,” Dreissigacker, a first-time Olympian, said of her race. “I didn’t feel that great skiing, might’ve went out a little hard, and the shooting just wasn’t good either. I was happy to at least hit them all with my spares, but standing especially, I took all three spares and the wind came up like crazy, right before I started shooting my spares, so I had to like stand there and wait out the wind, which cost me a lot of time.”
The Belarusian women’s biathlon team, with Nadezhda Skardino, Iryna Kryuko, Dzinara Alimbekava, and Darya Domracheva, snaps a podium selfie after winning their first relay gold on Thursday at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
Over the last 2 k of the race, Domracheva kept her competition behind her and crossed the line first for Belarus’s first relay gold in 1:12.03.4 (after its mixed relay team placed fifth two days ago).
Öberg passed Bescond to claim silver for Sweden, 10.7 seconds back, while Bescond anchored France to bronze (+17.6), ahead of Norway in fourth (+29.7), Slovakia in fifth (+38.4), Switzerland in sixth (+43.5), Poland in seventh (+43.6), Germany in eighth (+53.9), Italy in ninth (+1:04.1), and Canada in 10th (+1:33.4). The U.S. finished 13th (+2:01.9) of 18th teams.
With the first-place finish, Domracheva is the most decorated female biathlete in Olympic history, with six medals (four golds, a silver and a bronze) between three Olympics. Her husband, Ole Einar Bjørndalen of Norway, is the most successful Olympic biathlete of all time with 13 medals.
“I didn’t think that before you said it,” Domracheva, 31, said of her medal record during the post-race press conference. “Of course it was a lot of challenges for me on the way. Such days and such medals mean that it’s important to believe in yourself, important to believe in your team and overcome some difficulties, and then all doors are open for you.”
In the last four Winter Olympics, France has claimed three relay medals. Before Thursday’s bronze, their most recent was silver in 2010 and prior to that, bronze in 2006.
Sweden’s silver medal was its first in the women’s 4 x 6 k relay at the Olympics.
“This team worked together really hard for the last couple of years,” said Öberg, who won her first medal — gold — in the 15 k individual race earlier in the Games. “That we are here today is unbelievable. I’m really happy to share this medals with the rest of the girls.”
Crawford caught Ukraine’s Anastasiya Merkushyna in her final lap to anchor Canada to 10th while the U.S. finished three places later in 13th.
“My last loop I could hear Julia [Ransom] and Sarah [Beaudry] all around the course,” Crawford told FasterSkier. “They managed to be everywhere really cheering me on, and that fueled me to catch the Ukrainian.
“I’m just so proud of this women’s team,” Crawford added. “We fought so hard out there today. We’ve been through a lot this summer and really supported each other. And I’m just really proud of the team and I think biathlon in Canada has the potential to have a bright future.”
The Belarusian women’s biathlon team of Nadezhda Skardino, Irina Kryuko, Dzinara Alimbekava, and Darya Domracheva celebrates winning gold in the relay. They were ranked 10th coming into the day. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld.com)
Ranked just 10th coming into today’s women’s relay, the team from Belarus stole the show with Darya Domracheva skating across the line to claim the fourth Olympic gold of her career after strong efforts from Nadezhda Skardino and Iryna Kryuko, both of whom have stood on the World Cup podium before, and newcomer Dzinara Alimbekava, a 22-year-old newcomer with just 11 World Cup starts to her name. It was the first relay medal ever won by Belarus at the Olympics.
The setting was windy and snow-blown and the race was extremely tight, with seven teams with one penalty loop (or a few spare bullets) worth of time going into the final leg. The Belarusians’ nine spare rounds were the best shooting of the day; while that spare-round tally was matched by Slovakia, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, and Japan, those teams had penalty loops as well.
Sweden actually wasn’t one of them, but with perfect shooting and a fast ski time 15 k gold medalist Hanna Öberg brought the team to silver after starting the anchor leg in eighth, a minute back. She benefitted from many missed shots by the leaders, and then passed France’s Anais Bescond on the final loop to claim second, 10.7 seconds back, for her teammates (Linn Persson,Mona Brorsson, and Anna Magnusson) while France (Bescond, Anais Chevalier, Marie Dorin Habert, and Justine Braisaz) took bronze (17.6). These medal-winning teams used 12 and 14 spare rounds, respectively, an unusually high tally.
Norway (Synnøve Solemdal, Tiril Eckhoff, Ingrid Tandrevold, and MarteOlsbu) finished fourth, +29.7, Slovakia fifth (+38.4), Switzerland sixth (+43.5) after winning a photo finish against Poland (+43.6), and Germany finished seventh (+53.9).
The Canadian team of Sarah Beaudry, Julia Ransom, Emma Lunder, and Rosanna Crawford finished 10th, +1:33.4. Their shooting of eleven spare rounds and one penalty loop was among the better scores of the day.
The United States had a strong start, with Susan Dunklee tagging off in second place, Clare Egan maintaining a good position in fourth, and Joanne Reid rebounding from one bad shooting stage to tag off in sixth. Anchor leg Emily Dreissigacker crossed the finish line in 13th, +2:01.9.
2018 Olympics (PyeongChang, South Korea): Nordic Combined Team Competition
After sweeping the medals in the large hill competition, perhaps it was not a surprise that Germany won the nordic combined team event. It was a blowout: ranked second after the jumping round but starting the cross-country ski relay just six seconds behind Austria, the Germans quickly took the lead and then just extended it. Their team of Vinzenz Geiger, Fabian Riessle, Eric Frenzel, and Johannes Rydzek won by 52.7 seconds over Norway’s Jan Schmid, Espen Andersen, Jarl Magnus Riiber, and Jørgen Gråbak. Austria hung on for third, +1:07.8, with Wilhelm Denifl, Lukas Klapfer, Bernhard Gruber, and Mario Seidl.
The United States team of Taylor Fletcher, Ben Berend, Ben Loomis, and Bryan Fletcher lost out on a photo finish with Poland and finished 10th out of 10 teams, +5:16.7.
APU’s Tyler Kornfield (126) leads APU’s Eric Packer (118) and DU’s Eivind Romberg Kvaale (124) to the line in the men’s 30 k classic mass start at 2018 U.S. Cross Country Championships on Sunday in Anchorage, Alaska. Kornfield, Packer, and Kvaale finished first, second and third, respectively. Kris Freeman (10, second from left) was fourth overall and the third American.
U.S. Cross Country Championships (Anchorage, Alaska): 20/30 k classic mass starts
Sweden’s Hedda Bångman denied Caitlin Patterson of her first outright victory of the week at 2018 U.S. Cross Country Championships, but Patterson as the first American racked up her third-straight national title in the women’s 20-kilometer classic mass start at Kincaid Park on Sunday in Anchorage, Alaska.
The top-three Americans in the women’s 20 k classic mass start on Sunday at 2018 U.S. nationals in Anchorage, Alaska, with Caitlin Patterson (1) of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP) in first, Rosie Frankowski of APU (l) in second, and Kaitlynn Miller (r) of CRGP in third.
Bångman, a 22-year-old freshman at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU), pulled off a 15.9-second win in the mass start, crossing the line in 1:00:55.3 hours. Patterson, of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP), finished second, but was the top American in the event for the third time this week, and Rosie Frankowski, of Alaska Pacific University (APU), notched third (second American), 19.6 seconds back.
Rounding out the top 10 was Jessica Yeaton, who trains with APU and races for Australia, in fourth (+44.1), Kaitlynn Miller (CGRP) as the third American in fifth overall (+1:13.5), Alayna Sonnesyn of the University of Vermont (UVM) in sixth (+1:25.3), Chelsea Holmes (APU) in seventh (+1:55.4), Norwegian CU skiers Christina Rolandson and Anne Siri Lervik in eighth (+1:55.7) and ninth (+1:56.1), respectively, and Erika Flowers of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) Elite Team in 10th (+2:14.6).
The men’s 30 k classic mass start was incredibly close, with APU’s Tyler Kornfield taking his first-ever distance national title (he was the 2012 classic sprint national champion) in 1:21:43.6. He edged his teammate Eric Packer by 0.7 seconds at the line, and Eivind Romberg Kvaale, a sophomore at the University of Denver (DU), finished 1 seconds back in third.
Kris Freeman (Caldwell Sport) was just off the overall podium in fourth (+1.6), but was the third American. Another DU skier, Dag Frode Trollebø, also from Norway, finished fifth (+2.0), and APU had three in the top six with David Norris in sixth (+2.5). Noah Hoffman (Ski & Snowboard Club Vail) finished seventh (+2.6), Scott Patterson (APU) eighth (+3.6), and Craftsbury’s Adam Martin and Ben Lustgarten followed in ninth (+14.7) and 10th (+14.9), respectively. With Brian Gregg (CXC/LNR/Team Gregg) in 11th (+16.1), the men’s top 11 were separated by less than 17 seconds.
IBU World Cup (Oberhof, Germany): Men’s and women’s relays
Racers on the range during the men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay on a foggy Sunday at the IBU World Cup in Oberhof, Germany. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
The Swedish men’s team and French women won the second relays of the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup season on Sunday, with Sweden winning the men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay by 1:10.8 over Italy, and France besting Germany by 32.4 seconds.
Notably, most of the top teams didn’t start all of their “A” teamers.
In the men’s race, Sweden’s Martin Ponsiluoma, Jesper Nelin, Sebastian Samuelsson, and Fredrik Lindström combined for their first win together — and the first win for most of the members on the team.
“It is a dream when you are a kid to compete in a World Cup,” Samuelsson said, according to an IBU press release. “To have a win is really amazing!”
The Swedish women’s team also landed on the podium in third (+48.2).
“What a race by the whole team,” said Lindström, who also has one non-relay World Cup win (from 2012) to his name. “It could not be better.”
Conditions could not have been much more difficult for shooting on Sunday, with the fog that had descended early in the day for the women’s race worsening for the men’s race. When there wasn’t fog, there was wind.
Misses were common throughout the two races, and even with racers being able to use three spares per shooting stage to clean, there were a high number of penalty laps.
But the Swedish men kept their penalties to a minimum, with just one for the entire team and a total of nine spare rounds used among them. After Ponsiluoma came through the first exchange in sixth, Nelin skied them into third, Samuelsson picked off another place despite skiing a penalty after his standing stage to put them in second, and Lindström anchored them to first.
“The conditions today were so special. Somehow I felt not so nervous, I was calm and had luck on my side,” Lindström said at a post-race press conference about his nearly flawless shooting (0+0; 0+1).
“I have never [been first] before,” he added. “Not like this in a relay at least. That’s really fantastic.”
“I had to look up to see if I was aiming the right way,” Nelin said after cleaning prone (0+0) then using two spares to clean standing (0+2). “I had no idea where I was aiming, so it was really difficult. But I hit, and it was good. Maybe these conditions fit me and I should never see anything.”
Italy placed second with Thomas Bormolini, Lukas Hofer, Dominik Windisch, and Thierry Chenal combining for two penalties and 11 spares. Hofer had skied them up from eighth to second, and Windisch then took the lead on the third leg to put them in first at the final exchange, 1 minute ahead of Sweden. But Chenal slipped with the seventh-fastest last leg time and a penalty after standing.
“Being on the podium with the team is always a special feeling,” Hofer said at the press conference. “For Thierry, it’s the first year in the World Cup, and he does a really good job, not just today. I am really happy that he could close out this relay. Second place is like a win for us.”
Norway placed third (+2:04.6) with Vetle Sjåstad Christiansen, Henrik L’Abée-Lund, Lars Helge Birkeland, and Tarjei Bø. Together, they had three penalties (two from L’Abée-Lund and one from Birkeland) and 14 spares.
“I grew up on Holmenkollen so I practiced a lot there [in fog],” L’Abée-Lund said. “But today was really really hard, I didn’t see anything in prone. Standing was OK, but prone was really difficult.”
“It’s great to be on the podium,” Christiansen said. “Of course Norway always wants to win, but today we are very happy for our brothers in our neighbor-country Sweden.”
The Canadian men placed 10th (+6:23.1) out of 25 teams with Christian Gow, Scott Gow, Brendan Green, and Carsen Campbell having a combined six penalties and 20 spares. Three of those penalties came on Scott Gow’s second leg, two from Campbell’s anchor leg, and one on Christian Gow’s first leg.
After a penalty on his first prone stage (1+3), Christian cleaned standing with a spare (0+1) and tagged Scott in 11th, 53 seconds out of first. Scott then had two penalties in prone and three in standing, but managed to improve to eighth given how much everyone else was struggling with the shooting as well. Green kept them in eighth with two clean stages (0+2, 0+3), and Campbell, in his first World Cup relay, cleaned prone (0+2) but had two standing penalties (2+3) to put the team in 10th at the finish.
In an interview with German broadcaster ARD halfway through the race, Canadian coach Matthias Ahrens called the range conditions, which ranged from thick fog to unpredictable wind, “very hard to assess.”
“… To be honest, the good thing was that conditions were very bad,” he later added. “So regarding visibility, almost everyone was on the range at the same time [with the same irregular conditions]. They had to wait very long, and of course had bad conditions to shoot, but much of the field was there at the same time.”
The French women’s team, of Anais Bescond, Anais Chevalier, Celia Aymonier, and Justine Braisaz, celebrate their relay victory on Sunday at the IBU World Cup in Oberhof, Germany. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
In the women’s race, with better shooting visibility, France’s Anais Bescond, Anais Chevalier, Celia Aymonier, and Justine Braisaz took the win in 1:12.42.4, with one penalty and 10 spares. After Bescond put them in first through the first exchange, 6 seconds ahead of Italy in second, Chevalier had to ski a penalty loop after prone but cleaned standings (1+3, 0+0) and tagged off in second, 23 seconds behind Italy, now in first.
One loop later, France was back in first thanks to Aymonier, who cleaned with just two spares (0+0, 0+2), and they extended their lead from 0.8 seconds at the last exchange to 32 seconds at the finish with Braisaz, who shot 0+1, 0+3, and skied the fastest anchor leg.
“I know that it’s always good for Justine to start in the first position, so I really wanted to pass the relay to her in that,” Aymonier said in a press conference after.
“I was nervous, too,” Braisaz said. “That kind of shooting turned my mind upside down, actually. The crowd was very loud, and … I wasn’t very focused on what I did. It was a bit foggy, too, so that made it harder. But finally it was a French day, maybe.”
“In my mind the whole team is really strong, and really able to get the first place,” Bescond said. “After years and years and years behind Germany’s team we finally did it. So just Oberhof spirit I think.”
Germany placed second with Vanessa Hinz, Denise Herrmann, Franziska Preuss, and Maren Hammerschmidt. They combined for two penalties and 13 spares; with a penalty on Hinz’s first leg and one more on Hammerschmidt’s last shooting. After being tagged in 14th, Herrmann skied them into fourth, 40 seconds out of first, and Preuss elevated them to second, which Hammerschmidt held onto.
“I was struggling a little bit in the prone shooting,” Herrmann said. “But the skiing was good today, and also the standing [shooting]. I tried to go fast on the track and catch some girls.”
Sweden, with Linn Persson, Anna Magnusson, Elisabeth Högberg, and Mona Brorsson, avoided the penalty loop and used eight spares to reach the podium for the first time in six seasons. In sixth place at the first exchange, they slipped one place to seventh on the second leg, but Högberg raced them up to fourth with near-perfect shooting (0+0, 0+1) with one leg to go. Brorsson then anchored them to third with clean shooting (0+2, 0+1) and the third-fastest last leg.
“It’s just super nice for us! I am super happy,” Magnusson said. “We were very emotional at the finish.”
When Brorsson was asked if she believe she could fight for the podium, she responded, “Not really. But I said to Linn, ‘Maybe it is our day today. Please let it be our day today.’ ”
The Canadian women finished 14th (+6:37.5), out of 20 teams, with two penalties and 13 spares. Sarah Beaudry initially put them in 15th after shooting 0+1, 0+2, then Julia Ransom had a standing penalty (0+2, 1+3) to slip one place to 16th. Megan Tandy picked off three places with clean shooting (0+0, 0+2) and tagged Emma Lunder in 13th, and Lunder had a penalty in prone but cleaned standing (1+3, 0+0) to finish in 14th.
The men’s overall 2018 Tour de Ski podium atop Alpe Cermis after the final Stage 7 hill climb: with Switzerland’s Dario Cologna (c) in first, Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby (l) in second and Canada’s Alex Harvey (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
Dario Cologna of Switzerland added a fourth Tour de Ski (TdS) title to his list of accolades on Sunday, winning the 2018 edition of the race in dominant fashion, with a 1:26.5-minute win over Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby. And Canada’s Alex Harvey scored his first TdS overall podium in third.
The 31-year-old Cologna started the 9-kilometer freestyle pursuit up Alpe Cermis 1:15 ahead of Kazakhstan’s Alexey Poltoranin in second. Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov, slated to start third, did not start due to a back injury. Thus Harvey was the third man off the start line, 1:23 behind Cologna.
(Sweden’s Marcus Hellner, 13th after Saturday’s Stage 6, also did not start the Tour’s final stage.)
Early on, Cologna started putting time into his competitors, extending his lead on Poltoranin to 1:20.5 and Harvey to 1:24 at 1.8 k.
By 4 k, however, Harvey had used his speedy skiing on the flatter portions of the race leading up to the climb to catch Poltoranin, and the two clocked through that checkpoint 1:19.4 behind Cologna. Behind them, Russia’s Alexander Bolshunov skied just ahead of Sundby, another 21 seconds and 22 seconds back, respectively, in fifth and sixth.
While Harvey clawed back a few more seconds on Cologna, he was still 1:17.8 back at 6.2 k, with Poltoranin just 0.7 seconds behind him in third.
Harvey remained in second until around 8.5 k; with just a half kilometer to go, Sundby had caught both Poltoranin and Harvey, passing them both. Sundby held that position and finished second, 1:26.5 behind Cologna, who won in 28:52.1.
Harvey stayed strong for third (+1:30.6) while Poltoranin dropped off the Canadian’s pace in the final half kilometer and finished fourth (+1:41.7). Norway’s Hans Christer Holund placed fifth (+2:17.8), Bolshunov lost a spot to finish sixth (+3:09.7), France’s Jean-Marc Gaillard finished seventh (+3:16.7), Sweden’s Daniel Rickardsson eighth (+3:20.8), and Russia’s Alexey Chervotkin and Andrey Larkov took ninth (+3:33.5) and 10th (+3:37.8), respectively.
France’s Maurice Manificat, known for his strength in freestyle hill climbs and pursuit races, rose from 14th to 11th (+3:45.7) with the second fastest time of day, 12.8 seconds slower than Sundby as the time of day winner in 28:36.4. Cologna’s time was fourth fastest (+15.7), behind Russian U23 skier Denis Spitsov in third (+14.3) (Spitsov started 20th and finished 13th). Holund’s time ranked fifth (+20.6) and Harvey’s time was sixth fastest (+23.6) of the 43 men that finished the race.
The lone American man to complete this year’s Tour, Paddy Caldwell (U.S. Ski Team) skied the 22nd fastest time of day for 38th overall (+11:54.8).
Heidi Weng (center) celebrates her second Tour de Ski victory, with teammate Ingvild Flugstad Østberg second and the U.S. Ski Team’s Jessie Diggins third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
In the women’s hill climb that kicked off the day, Heidi Weng raced to her second consecutive TdS title. The Norwegian started the day within two seconds of teammate Ingvild Flugstad Østberg, and the two skied together for the flat section of the nine-kilometer stage of the competition. But when the climbing got steep on Alpe Cermis, Weng left her teammate behind and eventually racked up a 48.5-second win.
The battle for third was less predictable. Jessie Diggins of the United States started the day in fourth, but made up the ten seconds to third-place KristaPärmäkoski of Finland in the first few kilometers. The pair climbed together for a while before Diggins attacked. Pärmäkoski tired on the final sections of the Alpe Cermis and Diggins took the podium in definitive style, 2:23.2 behind Weng and 24 seconds ahead of Pärmäkoski. It’s the first overall Tour de Ski podium for Diggins or any American athlete.
Teresa Stadlober of Austria finished fifth (+3:09.4), Kerttu Niskanen of Finland sixth (+4:17.0), Russia’s Anastasia Sedova seventh (+4:49.6), and Switzerland’s Nathalie von Siebenthal eighth (+4:56.1).
Sadie Bjornsen started eighth and slipped one spot to finish ninth (+6:15.0), giving the U.S. two top-ten finishers in the Tour de Ski for the first time. Liz Stephen finished 16th (+8:25.8) and Rosie Brennan 24th (+10:59.6).
En route to her win, Weng notched the fastest time of the day on the 9 k stage. Stadlober’s time was second, Diggins third, Østberg fourth, and Stephen fifth.
32 women finished this year’s edition of the Tour de Ski.
Susan Dunklee and Lowell Bailey celebrate after finishing second in the World Cup single mixed relay in Kontiolahti, Finland. Austria won the competition. (Photo: IBU/Twitter)
The single mixed relay is a relatively new format, and one that is not yet contested at World Championships or the Olympics.
And so when a single mixed relay (two athletes) and a ‘normal’ mixed relay (four athletes) are held on the same day, the U.S. Biathlon World Cup team’s policy has always been clear: prioritize the mixed relay, and get the World Champs and Olympic team the most practice possible for their big days.
All that changed in Kontiolahti, Finland, today.
The U.S. decided to put Susan Dunklee and Lowell Bailey – both medalists at 2017 World Championships – on the single mixed relay. Even before the race began, expectations were high. The Americans were calling themselves the “dream team”.
After the race? Oh, yeah.
The duo finished second, claiming the first relay podium by an American biathlon team since 1994, when Beth Coats, Joan Smith Miller, Laura Tavares, and Ntala Skinner finished second in the women’s 4 x 6 k in Canmore.
“We have known that if we had our best day on the right day, that it was possible in the mixed relay even a few years ago,” Dunklee said of having a relay podium. “For that mixed relay it just quite hasn’t happened for us. I think maybe we psyched ourselves out a few times… I have dreamed for a long time being able to run into the finishing pen and with a bib on and a rifle, and greet my teammates as they come in. It’s so cool to finally do that. It’s definitely a dream come true.”
But if she pictured running into the finishing pen of a normal biathlon event, the single mixed relay might not have come to mind. The format of the newest World Cup competition is unusual. Loops are 1.5 kilometers, shorter than any other ski loops on the World Cup. The women ski (and shoot) twice, then tag off to the men just after shooting so the men can ski (and shoot) twice, then the women twice again, then the men twice, and finally the men getting to ski one last 1.5 k loop to reach the finish line.
That unfamiliarity came with excitement: the team knew ahead of time that they had a good chance of a top finish. With a flat course, both Americans felt good about their power skiing. The format also has the highest shooting-to-skiing ratio of any biathlon competition, and the pair had been shooting almost unbelievably well in the second half of the season.
“The stuff Susan and I have been working on throughout the training year in shooting, which is namely trying to reduce our shooting times and shoot quicker, lends itself to a race format like the single mixed relay,” Bailey said. “It was my first single mixed relay and Susan’s as well, and we were totally psyched. It’s a great moment to see both programs, both the men’s and the women’s teams, have a joint success like this.”
Despite the new format, Dunklee found herself leading on the second loop, thanks to a fast and clean prone shooting.
Then — she fell on a downhill.
“It just happened so fast and before I knew it I was on the ground, and my rifle fell on the back of my head where I have a nice sore bruise now,” Dunklee said. “After that I just got up. I had a few hundred meters before I need to be ready to shoot, and that’s more important than freaking out and worrying about it too much.”
She blamed “snow snakes,” but Dunklee managed to re-gain some determination. By the time she reached the shooting range she had re-focused. Dunklee hit all five targets in quick succession, claiming the fastest standing shooting time of all the women.
She tagged off to Bailey in third place — just 8.9 seconds behind Kazakhstan and Germany — and the U.S. was back on track.
Bailey, for his part, completed the second leg of the relay with two spare rounds, skiing comfortably near the front of groups and tagging off in fifth, +17.2 seconds.
“What’s interesting about this course is that it’s pretty flat except for one relatively modest uphill,” Bailey said. “Today there was quite a bit of wind on the course so to be leading was a disadvantage in a group. So you saw some tactical play up at the front of the race. I felt like I could’ve gone harder in the initial loops, but I also knew that with such a short, 1.5 k loop, the shooting really is where the race is won or lost. So my strategy was to just stay in contact with the lead group.”
Meanwhile, Simon Eder of Austria had gone to the front and Austria would hang onto the lead for the rest of the race. Lisa Theresa Hauser had used two spare rounds in her first standing, but through both of Eder’s relay legs and Hauser’s second leg the team used only three. That turned out to be untouchable.
“Once Austria got far enough off the chase pack, I felt it was more of a risk to try to go all out in my last leg to try to catch Austria, than try to hit my targets,” Bailey said.
That’s because behind Austria, it was still a fight. After Bailey quickly hit his extra shots, it was Dunklee’s turn. She again cleaned prone before needing two spare rounds in standing. But the wind on the range in Kontiolahti had been tricky all day, and most of the other leaders also used spares. So despite the missed shots, Dunklee still managed to move up to second place.
“I think everyone was struggling, especially standing,” Dunklee said. “I would not normally expect to be even with, or not lose a whole lot of places on, the leaders [with two spares], but since everybody else was struggling too it was okay… I think with this short format, you get a little bit more adrenaline and you are pushed a little bit harder in skiing. You get the shaky legs going when you’re standing.”
With Austria seemingly untouchable, Bailey was left to battle it out with France, Germany, Switzerland, and Kazakhstan.
After one more clean prone, he was fifth, but still with the group.
In standing, Bailey needed a spare round. But again, he loaded them extremely fast – allowing him to leave the range in third place anyway. In his haste to hit the trails, he almost fell on the sharp corner leading out of the range and into the stadium. But he kept his balance, and then hit the gas.
“The tactics at the front of the race in the third and fourth loops for me, the pace was not all that high, so I really felt pretty fresh when I came out of standing for that last 1.5 k loop,” Bailey said. “I knew that it was basically just a really long sprint finish. So I just tried to sprint from the mat essentially and hoped that I didn’t run out of gas by the finish line.”
Ahead of Bailey: Roman Rees of Germany, just four seconds away. Rees is one year out of the junior ranks, and had only ever competed in one other World Cup relay of any kind. Twelve years older, Bailey set out to catch him.
But behind: Jean Guillaume Beatrix of France, another veteran with as many podiums to his name as Bailey had. Leaving the range Beatrix was less than a second behind Bailey, and wanted to get onto the podium.
Between Germany, France, and the United States, there was only room for two on the podium. As the 1.5 k loop wore on, Beatrix faded – only a few seconds, but enough to keep him and his French teammate Anais Chevalier in fourth place.
By the time the race came to the stadium, Bailey had caught Rees. He tried to use all of his power to pass on the inside corner, but Rees held strong. The two ended up dueling down the finishing straight, with Bailey prevailing by just half a second.
“YES!” he screamed as he crossed the finish line, 32.8 seconds behind the Austrian team. Dunklee ran out to meet him.
“That was a first and it’s a great feeling,” Bailey said. “In a lot of ways it’s better than just going out and having a great race on your own, but to have a great team result like that, it’s a new experience. I shouldn’t say that, we’ve had some great team results in both the mixed relay and the men’s relay — we were fourth place last year in the mixed relay [in Canmore], but no one really wants to go out and celebrate in the finish zone with fourth place. This was the first time that you could hug your teammate in the finish zone. I’ve watched that phenomenon throughout my career so it’s nice to experience it.”
The U.S. had matched the Austrians on the range, using just five spares to Germany’s six, but the timing was off: Austria had gone, and so Bailey had concentrated on winning second, not potentially blowing up in chase of first place.
That turned out to be a good strategy, because Eder had knocked down his final five standing targets with scorching speed of 17.9 seconds. By comparison, Dunklee’s best mark among the women was 21.4 seconds.
“I actually talked to Simon Eder after the race because I knew his last shooting was blistering fast, and I said, ‘Hey, what was your strategy there? You didn’t have to shoot that fast’,” Bailey said. “And he said, ‘I came in and the wind died right when I got into position so I knew I had just a few moments there to take advantage of it.’ By the time [our] chase group, which was 30 seconds or less behind him hit the mat, [the wind] was back to being gusty.”
The Canadian team of Julia Ransom and Christian Gow finished 19th, +2:27.0, with eight spare rounds.
In the mixed relay later in the day, the French team of Marie Dorin Habert, Anais Bescond, Simon Desthieux, and Quinton Fillon Maillet took the win, followed by Germany (+11.0 seconds) and Ukraine (+27.1).
The American team of Clare Egan, Joanne Reid, Paul Schommer, and Sean Doherty finished eighth, +1:37.4.
The Canadian team of Emma Lunder, Megan Bankes, Scott Gow, and Brendan Green finished 22nd in the mixed relay, +6:09.5.
“I would just reiterated that I was just psyched to see the whole team do well, both in the single mixed and the mixed relay,” Bailey said. “It’s Nations Cup points, so it counts for our Nation Cup overall total score for the women and the men. It was a pretty important race in that regard. I’m really happy for the team. Everyone deserves it, the techs and everyone, it’s been a really long season and they’re still working as hard as ever so I’m really thankful for that.”
Germany’s Maren Hammerschmidt (left) and Canada’s Julia Ransom fist-bump for a job well done halfway through the 4 x 6 k relay at the IBU World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea, on Sunday. Germany won the race, and Canada ended up eighth.
To nobody’s surprise, Germany came out on top in the women’s World Cup relay in PyeongChang, South Korea, where biathletes are checking out next year’s Olympic venue.
Nadine Horchler, Maren Hammerschmidt, Denise Herrman, and Franziska Hildebrand cruised to 22.8-second win over Norway in the 4 x 6 k event, completing a clean five-for-five sweep of all the relays this season despite resting top star Laura Dahlmeier and relay regular Vanessa Hinz.
Sure, France made a valiant effort to best the Germans, and nearly succeeded, before Celia Aymonier – who had come into the last shooting even with Hildebrand – was stuck with two penalty loops. After that disaster, the French ended up sixth.
But perhaps the biggest surprise was to see Canada constantly in the podium mix through three of four legs of the relay. Canada’s best-ever women’s relay finish, fourth place, came in 2014, and so far this season their results had landed between 10th and 18th place.
The women’s podium of Germany, Norway, and Czech Republic after the IBU World Cup relay in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: IBU/Twitter)
Yet several team members were feeling the best on skis that they had all season, and Rosanna Crawford, Julia Ransom, Megan Tandy, and Emma Lunder combined for just seven spare rounds and no penalty loops, tying them for the best shooting of the day with Sweden.
“It has been a bit disappointing for us this year in relays,” Crawford wrote in an email. “In the first two relays we only used four and three spares total for the team, but we were really missing the ski speed. So it’s nice to have things come around for the final relay.”
Crawford started out by using four spare rounds, more than half the team’s total, and yet found herself constantly at the front of the race. She left the standing stage in tenth, and tagged off even with Anais Chevalier of France in first place.
“Even though I was quite disappointed with my shooting and needing four spares, it felt amazing to be able to ask my body to go faster and for it to respond,” Crawford wrote. “My last loop was really great… I just keep chasing each woman down, until it was just me and France!”
Crawford actually had the fastest ski time of all scramble-leg athletes. With that as a start, Ransom took the tag and cleaned both stages, although she said that doing so was harder than it looked.
“Today I had to work very hard for every standing shot,” she explained in an email. “It definitely wasn’t an easy shooting day for me (regaining my confidence after the relay at World Campionships). However, I was so happy to pull it together and hit them all. It’s a confidence-booster for me for the next two weekends of racing.”
Ransom’s confidence was also boosted by the previous day’s pursuit, where she had clocked the 25th-fastest ski time. For several loops, she skied with Germany’s Hammerschmidt and France’s Anais Bescond.
“Yesterday’s pursuit ski speed proved to me that I can really trust my fitness and perhaps push for faster times,” she wrote. “Skiing today with Anais and Maren felt comfortable! I felt like I belonged there.”
On the final loop of their relay leg, Hammerschmidt put the hammer down and left Bescond and Ransom behind. But Ransom still tagged off in third, 17 seconds behind Hammerschmidt and 2.4 seconds behind Bescond.
Tandy cleaned prone, regaining second place as other teams struggled on the range.
“When I left prone in second position I was pretty excited, but also a little bit surprised and relieved that I was still up there,” she wrote. “I didn’t feel too nervous, I mostly felt determined and excited. I was just reminding myself of my own game plan: how I wanted to ski, what I wanted to focus on during shooting.”
Tandy then used a spare in standing; she tagged off in fourth, 36 seconds behind the leaders. While she had felt good in the pursuit, her legs lost her a few places on the trails in the relay.
“I felt much more tired today than yesterday and it was a very tough fight out there,” she wrote in an email. “My poor legs were just done…I guess three races with a cold that to you! But I was composed on the shooting range, handled the wind well and gave it my best effort. Of course I wish I hadn’t missed my last standing shot, but I can be satisfied with one spare.”
That left it to Lunder to either win or lose sight of a podium position. For Lunder, the newest member of Canada’s World Cup team, it was a new experience.
“I’ve definitely never been tagged in a position like this in a World Cup relay before,” she wrote in an email. “Although it was a bit nerve-wracking to continue seeing Canada in the top three, I decided to just see what I could do today and not worry about any result or placing. I was pretty happy with how I handled things – I was our World Champs anchor as well, so that was a good practice run for today.”
Like Tandy, Lunder had been feeling under the weather, and got sick after World Championships. The top three slipped away, more because of skiing than shooting. Lunder used two spares in prone, but then quickly cleaned standing. She simply couldn’t hold her position on the trails.
“My skiing has felt quite weak this week, but even with slow skiing I’m happy to have brought my shooting up to a higher level,” she wrote. “I definitely felt a bit shaky in prone, but after hitting my two spares I was fairly confident in the rest of the race. I’ve been so happy with my consistent standing this year, and knew if I just focused on my cues it would be a good shooting bout, which it was.”
The team was thrilled to hang on to an eighth-place finish (+ 1:34.0) at the end of the day, even if some members wished they had skied or shot better.
“I am really proud of our women’s team right now,” Crawford wrote. “Julia did an incredible job skiing with Anais [Bescond] and cleaning both stages, Megan was also clutch on the range and holding her own on the skis, and Emma has been so amazing at standing this year that I knew she would be able to keep up in the top eight.”
“The relay was a good indicator of our potential,” Ransom agreed. “We all fought hard and put together a great performance. I was obviously thrilled to be tagged off right at the front! It’s very motivating to be going head to head with the top teams.”
Susan Dunklee collected the fastest ski time of all women on the second leg of the 4 x 6 k relay in PyeongChang. (Photo: US Biathlon Association/NordicFocus.com)
The United States had immediately gotten a tough start, with leadoff racer Clare Egan skiing a penalty loop in standing; she tagged off to Susan Dunklee in 19th place. Dunklee had collected fifth-place finishes in both the sprint and pursuit this week and skied the fastest of all second-leg skiers in the relay, but was still able to make up only 5.5 seconds on Hammerschmidt and move the team to 14th.
Joanne Reid, the third American, also used two spare rounds, moving the team up another three places to 11th. Finally, Maddie Phaneuf used three spares in standing and the Americans finished 14th (+3:08.3).
“Today’s relay was mediocre for me,” Phaneuf wrote in an email. “I felt okay on the skis but still not great. I was really happy with my prone, I took some wind clicks coming in and was pleased that it worked. Our team was the only team that cleaned all of the prone stages from the clip [without spares]! So that was exciting. I was pretty bummed with my standing, missing three from the clip, but was happy with how I handled the pressure to hit them with my spare rounds. I still can’t remember exactly what happened, I do recall it being a bit gustier when I was shooting. I felt like I was making progress on my standing during training and the Sprint race, but today I just wasn’t focused I guess.”
The women were not particularly satisfied with the result, but knew that they could do better.
“There are a lot of fighting hearts on this team,” Reid said in a USBA press release. “We’re not always the team with the best shooting, but I think every one of us has enough love for our teammates that we choose to fight for them, and for our staff that have put so much work into making our race successful… we are aware of every piece we have to work on, and every one of us is dedicated to the process of learning and training and practicing until we can make it to the top. One team, one goal. See you in 2018, PyeongChang, and we’ll be stronger then.”
Susan Dunklee racing to fifth in the women’s 7.5 k sprint at the IBU World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea, site of the upcoming 2018 Winter Olympics. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
For a while in Thursday’s 7.5-kilometer sprint, the first International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup race since IBU World Championships two weeks earlier, it looked like Susan Dunklee was on track for another podium.
The 35th starter on Thursday in PyeongChang, South Korea, she crossed the finish line in third, 59.7 seconds behind Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier in first and 51.3 seconds behind Norway’s Tiril Eckhoff in second. Dunklee had cleaned the prone shooting stage then missed her second shot in standing to leave the range in fourth as she started her final loop.
Early in that 2.5 k loop, Dunklee’s time slipped slightly to fifth. She was racing the clock and for precious places, and she clawed her way into third at the finish.
American Susan Dunklee (35) at the flower ceremony with Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen (70), who placed fourth, and Ukraine’s Yuliia Dzhima (4), who finished sixth, in the IBU World Cup women’s 7.5 k sprint on Thursday in PyeongChang, South Korea. Dunklee placed fifth for her fifth top five of the season (including World Championships). (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
Ultimately, Dunklee was bumped off the podium to fifth — for her fifth top five of the season (say that five times fast).
Dahlmeier won it, as the 18th starter with clean shooting and a finishing time of 20:43.7 minutes. France’s Anaïs Chevalier in bib 51 raced to third with fast, clean shooting (posting the second-fastest range time and third-fastest shooting), ending up 41.6 seconds off Dahlmeier’s time.
Then there was Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen, the 70th starter, who had to ski two penalty loops after standing (0+2) but skied the second-fastest overall course time to put herself in fourth at the finish (+58.7), just one second ahead of Dunklee.
Reflecting on her race, Dunklee explained in an email that she tried to be patient, especially on the final loop. Conditions in at the brand-new Olympic venue in PyeongChang weren’t easy with what Dunklee described in an email as “a patchwork of glazed, icy and slow patches.”
She explained that volunteers had been working with hand tools before the start to smooth out the course, which she felt helped “substantially.”
“I think the course is good for me: big climbs with technical descents,” Dunklee wrote. “I focused on pushing the last half km of the loop where I thought other people would be tired. And our techs made great skis for these challenging conditions.”
On that last loop, Dunklee received splits that she was seconds out of the top three.
“That helped me fight,” she wrote. “I also caught a good ride with Marie Dorin Habert my last loop…”
Dorin Habert, of France, who had started 67th and left the range for the last time in third with perfect shooting, did not finish her final loop. She reportedly withdrew after feeling nauseous.
Dunklee, who spent three days on a mini vacation in Barcelona before training in Ruhpolding, Germany, and arrived in South Korea last Sunday, will start Saturday’s 10 k pursuit in fifth, exactly one minute behind Dahlmeier in first and one second behind Mäkäräinen. Beyond that, she has 18 seconds to make up to third.
She wrote that she was looking forward to sticking with Mäkäräinen out of the start, “but I still plan to race my own race,” and “as always the key is to stay focused on the process of performing well.”
Asked how she was feeling at this point in the season, Dunklee wrote, “More relaxed and carrying a good dose of confidence after Hochfilzen.”
Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier racing to her fifth-straight win on Thursday in the IBU World Cup 7.5 k sprint in PyeongChang, South Korea. She shot clean and skied fastest for her eighth individual victory of the season. (Photo: IBU)
Dahlmeier raced to her fifth-straight win on Thursday, holding off Eckhoff (in bib 29) by 8.4 seconds after all three podium finishers (including Chevalier) shot a perfect 10-for-10 despite tricky wind. Dahlmeier posted the fastest overall course time and gradually sped up each loop for her eighth individual win this season. At World Championships, she took gold in five out of six races (two being relays).
“I try to keep the focus high, to give everything every time for the competitions,” the 23-year-old Dahlmeier told German broadcaster ARD. “That is not completely easy, there were a few days of distraction in between [World championships and now] where I tried to relax and do something very different away from biathlon. Then we had a long and arduous travel, but that’s true for everyone. Now the start times are also a bit weird, 8:15 p.m. local time. I just tried to take that as it is and managed to do that very well.”
She tried not to be overly critical of the course conditions, yet explained they weren’t ideal.
“To me it felt like ski-club championships. We used to have self-made loops there. That’s pretty much how the course was today,” she said. “… Conditions were really not easy. Very wavy, uneven, old snow with freshly fallen snow on top. In some parts also very dirty. So really changing conditions, in some parts a shaky track with icy patches. Not easy, but I think I got lucky with my first start group, conditions were probably still better for that. And in those conditions, the gaps on the course became a bit bigger today.”
Germany’s head coach Gerald Hönig told ARD he was “incredibly impressed” with Dahlmeier, who leads the World Cup Total Score by 86 points over Gabriela Koukalová, who finished 21st (+1:43.4) on Thursday with two penalties (1+1).
The women’s 7.5 k sprint podium at the IBU World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea, with Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier (c) in first, Norway’s Tiril Eckhoff (l) in second and France’s Anaïs Chevalier (r) in third. (Photo: IBU)
“The Laura Dahlmeier success story is continuing here,” Hönig said. “She really confirmed her level of consistency, and the successes in Hochfilzen are a difficult baggage to carry into the next races. Really difficult days for her in the aftermath of the World Championships, respectively the trip here, though that is true for most of the athletes. But I can only say hats off to how Laura always manages to execute her goals.”
She’ll start the pursuit 8 seconds before Eckhoff. Asked how she’d spend her rest day on Friday, Dahlmeier said she didn’t have an exact plan.
“I probably won’t go on the range and the courses are not so inviting that I need to go cross-country skiing. Maybe some cross-running and coordination,” she said. “And if the timing works out then I’d like to visit some local temple.”
Three out of four U.S. women qualified for Saturday’s pursuit, and all four Canadian starters qualified with a top 60 in the sprint.
Rosanna Crawford led the Canadians in 30th (+1:54.9) with one prone miss (1+0). She was followed by teammates Megan Tandy in 39th (+2:14.8), Julia Ransom in 41st (+2:19.5) and Emma Lunder in 51st (+2:38.2), all of which had one standing penalty (0+1).
Americans Clare Egan and Joanne Reid finished 33rd (+1:59.5) and 35th (+2:07.6), respectively. Each had one standing miss as well (0+1). Maddie Phaneuf finished 68th (+3:07.7) with one standing penalty (0+1), missing the top 60 by 14.4 seconds.
The men’s 10 k sprint takes place Friday morning at 5 Eastern time, 7 p.m. Korea time.
The women’s 4 x 5 k relay podium at 2017 Nordic World Championships on Thursday in Lahti, Finland, with Norway (c) in first, Sweden (l) in second, and Finland (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross-Country/Twitter)
FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Women’s 4 x 5 k relay
The Norwegian women’s team got a much-needed lift from Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen, the third leg of its 4 x 5-kilometer relay, on Thursday, who tagged her teammate Marit Bjørgen nearly a minute ahead of anyone else. From there, Bjørgen anchored the Norwegians to a 1:01.6-minute victory for her third gold of 2017 Nordic World Championships in Lahti, Finland.
Meanwhile, Sweden and Finland battled for silver, with Sweden’s anchor Stina Nilsson overtaking Finland’s Krista Parmakoski coming out of the final downhill into the stadium then leading her down the finishing stretch. Nilsson finished half a second ahead of Parmakoski for second place, while Finland claimed bronze (+1:02.1).
The U.S. was next across the line, after Jessie Diggins worked to close a 21.5-second gap to third place at the final exchange. While Diggins came within roughly 16 seconds of Nilsson and Parmakoski, that was as close as she could get and she finished fourth (+1:33.8), 31.7 seconds out of the medals.
The Canadian women’s 4 x 5 k World Championships relay team, (from left to right) Emily Nishikawa, Dahria Beatty, Katherine Stewart-Jones, and Cendrine Browne, after tallying the third-best relay result for the Canadian women at a World Championships on Thursday in Lahti, Finland. (Photo: CCC/Twitter)
Canada placed 10th (+4:16.2) out of 16 teams in the women’s relay, for the best result for the Canadian women’s program since a sixth place in the 4 x 5 k relay at the 2001 World Championships (and third-best result ever), according to Cross Country Canada.
Norway took control during the first 5 k leg, where Maiken Caspersen Falla stuck with Poland’s Justyna Kowalczyk, who set a fast pace out of the start. Only three were able to remain with Kowalczyk: Falla, Finland’s Aino-Kaisa Saarinen and Sweden’s Anna Haag, while Kikkan Randall of the U.S. fell off the pace and skied alone in fifth. Randall came through the first exchange 24.5 seconds behind Falla in first and 16.4 seconds behind Haag in fourth.
On the second classic leg, Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla set a blistering tempo out of the start to catch Norway’s Heidi Weng 8 seconds ahead. Finland’s Kerttu Niskanen went with Kalla as the two bridged the gap to Norway. Later in that leg, Kalla began to fade while Niskanen took control and entered the exchange in first, just 0.4 seconds ahead of Weng. Kalla came through another 12.3 seconds later in third. American Sadie Bjornsen had worked hard to close the gap to third but tagged 23.5 seconds out of third in fourth (+36.2).
On the third leg, Jacobsen opened the race up for Norway, building a 56.7-second gap to second place during her skate leg, while Sweden’s 19-year-old Ebba Andersson pushed hard in the final kilometers to put her team in second. Finland’s Laura Mononen struggled with Jacobsen’s pace and dropped to third (+58.3). Meanwhile, Liz Stephen of the U.S. held onto fourth and tagged Diggins 21.5 seconds out of third at the final exchange.
From there, the Sweden/Finland fight for second place began. A minute ahead of them, Bjørgen skied comfortably in first, and behind them, Diggins skied alone in fourth.
Russia’s anchor Anastasia Sedova was tagged 45.5 seconds behind the U.S. in eighth (behind Germany, Poland and Switzerland), but passed those three teams to end up fifth (+2:28.6), 54.8 seconds behind the U.S.
Germany finished sixth, Switzerland seventh, Poland eighth, Italy ninth, and Canada 10th, with Katherine Stewart-Jones, Emily Nishikawa, Cendrine Browne, and Dahria Beatty racing for Canada. Stewart-Jones put them in eighth at the first exchange, Nishikawa slipped one spot to ninth, then Browne lost another spot for 10th, which Beatty held to the finish.
IBU World Cup (PyeongChang, South Korea): Women’s 7.5 k sprint
[UPDATED] The International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup circuit resumed on Thursday after nearly a two-week break coming off IBU World Championships, drawing competitors to PyeongChang, South Korea, the site of the upcoming 2018 Winter Olympics.
The women’s 7.5 k sprint podium at the IBU World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea, with Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier (c) in first, Norway’s Tiril Eckhoff (l) in second and France’s Anaïs Chevalier (r) in third. (Photo: IBU)
Coming off five gold medals (in six races) at World Championships, Germany’s overall World Cup leader Laura Dahlmeier picked up where she left off, winning the women’s 7.5-kilometer sprint by 8.4 seconds with perfect shooting and a finishing time of 20:43.7 minutes.
Norway’s Tiril Eckhoff came closest to her in second, after also shooting clean, and France’s Anaïs Chevalier put herself in the mix with clean shooting as well to end up third (+41.6).
One second behind Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen, who finished fourth (+58.7) despite two standing misses (0+2), was American Susan Dunklee in fifth (+59.7). The 35th starter, Dunklee initially finished third (before being bumped off the podium by Chevalier, then one more spot by Mäkäräinen).
Dunklee missed one shot during the standing stage (0+1) and posted the eighth-fastest course time for her fifth top five of the season (including her second place in the mass start at World Championships).
“I tried to be patient,” Dunklee wrote in an email after Thursday’s race. “I focused on pushing the last half km of the loop where I thought other people would be tired. And our techs made great skis for these challenging conditions.”
She passed two competitors on her last loop, one of which had passed her earlier in the final 2.5 k. Dunklee described the conditions as “a patchwork of glazed, icy and slow patches. A large number of volunteers were working on it with hand tools right before the start and I think that helped substantially,” she wrote. “I think the course is good for me: big climbs with technical descents.”
Rosanna Crawford led the Canadians in 30th (+1:54.9) with one prone miss (1+0), and Megan Tandy placed 39th (+2:14.8) with one standing penalty (0+1), just ahead of Julia Ransom in 41st (+2:19.5), who had one standing miss as well (0+1). All four Canadian women qualified for Saturday’s pursuit, with Emma Lunder placing 51st (+2:38.2) after one penalty (0+1).
For the U.S., Clare Egan and Joanne Reid finished 33rd (+1:59.5) and 35th (+2:07.6), respectively, both with one standing penalty (0+1). Maddie Phaneuf missed the top 60 to qualify for the pursuit in 68th (+3:07.7) with one miss (0+1).
After being in contention for a podium, France’s Marie Dorin Habert did not finish, reportedly because she felt nauseous.
Germany’s Vanessa Hinz leading the first leg of the women’s relay, followed closely by France’s Anais Chevalier and Norway’s Kaia Woeien Nicolaisen on Friday at IBU World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: Glen Crawford)
HOCHFILZEN, Austria — Coming into the women’s 4 x 6-kilometer relay at World Championships, there was certainly one overwhelming favorite: Germany.
Not only had the German women won every relay in the World Cup season so far, but the German mixed relay team won gold to kick off the Championships. Plus, anchor leg Laura Dahlmeier had two individual gold medals to her name and one silver so far.
“As a team we tried to put no additional pressure on us, at least not more than we already had,” Maren Hammerschmidt told German broadcaster ARD. “For me, I can say that it was not easy to resist the pressure today. I think that was similar for my colleagues.”
While the weather in Hochfilzen changed today from the hot, bright sun athletes had adapted to all week – instead, a snowstorm dumped wet flakes onto the course and slowed down the skis — the German team weathered the storm and again came out on top.
It hadn’t seemed like a given. On the first leg of the relay, it looked like it was going to be a fight.
Vanessa Hinz led the race out of the start and cleaned prone, just like you would expect from the best team in the world. Then she used two spare rounds in standing, which provided an opening for other teams.
“In standing the second miss annoyed me greatly,” Hinz told ARD. “I just wanted to do it too fast because I noticed Anais [Chevalier] next to me had already begun shooting, so I got too distracted by that. At least I managed to hit the spares so it was alright.”
France’s Chevalier used only one spare round, leaving the range in first place. Lisa Vitozzi of Italy also used just one spare, and left 6.3 seconds back. Chevalier, the bronze medalist from the sprint, extended her lead by another 1.2 seconds by the time she tagged off.
“For sure everybody wants to hand over first, but not everybody could,” Hinz said in a press conference. “With ten seconds back, it was quite okay.”
Hammerschmidt received the tag in third place, and despite four spare rounds, pulled the Germans into second.
That was partly because the previous leader, Celia Aymonier of France, struggled, using all three spares to hit her standing targets, and slowly.
Germany’s Franziska Hildebrand (c) tagging her team’s anchor Laura Dahlmeier (l) in first during the women’s 4 x 6 k relay on Friday at IBU World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: Glen Crawford)
“I’m in good shape, but on the last shooting my leg was shaking and the mat was wet, so I [slipped] a little bit,” she said of the snowfall. “So it was really hard for me to shoot. But I am happy to put all my extra [bullets] in, so it’s okay, it’s enough for my teammates. They are strong.”
On the third leg, Alexia Runggaldier – the bronze medalist in the pursuit – faltered on the range, losing Italy’s lead with two spare rounds in prone. That gave Germany’s Franziska Hildebrand all the room she needed. With two clean sheets, she moved her team into the lead and they never looked back.
“I was very happy to shoot two times clean and I could give a little bit of time forward to Laura,” Hildebrand said.
Laura: the one everyone was waiting for. Dahlmeier didn’t disappoint, skiing the fastest anchor leg despite already being in the lead. She used three spare rounds, but even then held the lead and delivered another gold medal for Germany – and her fourth of the Championships, a feat no other German biathlete has ever accomplished.
The German team of (l-r) Laura Dahlmeier, Franziska Hildebrand, Maren Hammerschmidt, and Vanessa Hinz celebrate World Championships relay gold. (Photo: Evgeny Tumashov/IBU/Twitter)
“Of course that is gigantic,” Dahlmeier told ARD. “But I mostly want to point out that we were a really really good relay today, like already during the whole season. It’s just a lot of fun that we are now on the podium together, a great day for us.”
The other Germans agreed, and emphasized that despite the high expecatations, they were simply happy to work together.
“I think we are a strong team, and we had very good results in the past during World Championships,” Hildebrand said. “We can do it all together and have fun.”
While Italy had faded to just out of the picture, the fight for silver was intense. Gabriela Koukalova of the Czech Republic, Olena Pidhrushna of Ukraine, and Marie Dorin Habert of France all left the final stage within 10 seconds of Dahlmeier, and more than that, within four seconds of each other.
“During the last loop I was remembering the last year all the time,” Pidhrushna said. “In every relay last year, it was the fight on the last loop for me.”
The three women skied together for about half a loop, until Pidhrushna’s skis proved superior on a downhill and she glided past the other two. She took the opening and put in a surge up the next hill. Koukalova dropped first, undone by seemingly slower skis, and Dorin Habert couldn’t hang on either. Silver belonged to Ukraine.
“When I overtook the girls under the bridge I realized, this was my chance and now I have to jump for a medal,” Pidhrushna said. “And so I did, and it worked and I’m really happy.”
She finished 6.4 seconds back. France earned bronze (+8.1) and the Czech Republic was left in fourth place (+14.0).
“I’m very happy about this medal with all the team,” Dorin Habert said in a press conference. “It was very stressful for me. I know that Olena is a very good finisher. And of course Gabi is just crazy, she is the top this season, so in my head it wasn’t very easy to make it. So I’m happy to get this.”
Perhaps the happiest woman on the podium was Anastasiya Merkushina of Ukraine. Just 22 years old, she was appearing at her first senior World Championships.
“I have no words because it’s too much emotions for me,” she said in the press conference. “I cannot believe that this is my first World Championships and silver medal, it’s too big. I did not expect this result. Of course I believe in my team, but it’s really great.”
U.S. 14th, Canada 16th
Neither the U.S. nor Canada had perfect shooting days, with 13 spare rounds apiece; Canada also had two penalty loops.
Clare Egan racing the first leg of the U.S. women’s 4 x 6 k relay at IBU World Championships on Friday in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: Glen Crawford)
Both teams had good, yet frustrating starts.
The U.S. started in bib 22, after they did not field relay teams for the first part of the season and thus lost out on team ranking points.
“The first leg, it’s so slow [with the new snow] to pass and it takes so much energy that my coaches basically said, ‘Unless there’s room in a good track to go around, don’t bother’,” Clare Egan said. “So I looked at it almost as a 4 k race after the first stage.”
She used one spare round in prone, and then took all three in standing. Despite that, she managed to move up on the trails on every single loop, and tagged off in 16th.
“I was really hoping to clean the prone so that I would be in a good position for that second lap, but I missed my first shot,” Egan said. “Then standing, maybe that 4 k approach meant I was a little over the redline in my shooting. I went really slowly [with the shooting], that was the problem, but I hit my targets. I missed two and then I missed the first spare. Then I had two targets, two bullets, and I’m just really happy that I managed that situation well.”
Susan Dunklee took over and skied the fastest second-leg time among all teams, cleaning prone and then using two spares in standing. Like Aymonier, she struggled with the copious wet snow falling on the range.
“The standing, the mats are really slippery, and I almost fell over just trying to stand up on the mat,” Dunklee said. “Then I just didn’t really take the time to set up in my position, I just felt like my legs were going out from under me the whole time.”
By the time her work was done the U.S. was in seventh place, and had moved from 1:20.7 back to just 36.7 seconds back from the lead.
“I really like having big packs of people in front of me,” Dunklee said. “It’s just really thrilling to chase them down. The course… it’s one of those glazed days where your shin muscles get all tight and it is hard to sprint. So you have to stay right in the middle where people have skied. I had to be a little patient, and when I went I had to go hard, 100%, for a few cycles just to get around people.”
Joanne Reid (r) tagging U.S. teammate Maddie Phaneuf (l) in 12th during the final exchange of the women’s 4 x 6 k relay on Friday at IBU World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: Glen Crawford)
Joanne Reid took over, using four spares, then Maddie Phaneuf used three spares on the anchor leg. The team finished +3:37.0.
“The last loop was so hard,” Phaneuf said. “The snow was just so slow compared to every other day this week. The Swiss girl [Elisa Gasparin] I was with when I left the range did one long impulse up a hill when she passed me and I didn’t have any energy to stay with her. I tried, but nope. I knew there was nobody behind me anywhere, so I just tried my hardest to get to the finish line.”
For Canada, Rosanna Crawford kicked things off by using just two spare rounds, and shot fast, but was tripped up on the trail.
“I was pretty angry on my first loop,” she said. “I had moved up quite a few spots and then the Austrian [Dunja Zdouc] kind of shoved into me, and I spun around facing the wrong way so I lost a lot of time on that first loop, which I’m super pissed about. But the rest was good and the last loop was good, I was catching some girls.”
Austria was later disqualified when Julia Schwaiger used four spare rounds in her prone shooting stage; only three are allowed.
Canada’s Rosanna Crawford (l) tagging her teammate Julia Ransom in 13th in the women’s 4 x 6 k relay on Friday at IBU World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: Glen Crawford)
Crawford tagged off in 13th. But with Julia Ransom skiing two penalty loops in standing, the team dropped to 20th. Megan Tandy pulled Canada back to 16th, and Emma Lunder regained 16th after slipping to 17th after a few more spare rounds on the range. The team finished +5:59.4.
“Even though we weren’t in an amazing position, it was still my first World Championships relay, so I wanted to make sure I enjoyed it,” Lunder said. “Last year here at the World Cup in the relay we were 10th. And we also had a 10th in Ruhpolding this year where we shot super well. But I think maybe it just wasn’t there for everyone today. Korea is our last chance this year, so we’ll see what we can make happen.”
Gabriela Koukalová of the Czech Republic celebrating her first individual victory at a World Championships (or Olympics) on Friday after winning the women’s 7.5 k sprint at 2017 IBU World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: Glen Crawford)
It was a day of redemption. Both for a biathlon superstar and for the best North American in the women’s 7.5-kilometer sprint at the 2017 International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria.
A year ago, Czech Republic’s Gabriela Koukalová (back then starting under her maiden name Soukalová) was disappointed when she failed to win any medal at the Oslo World Championships, twice placing fourth, once fifth, and twice sixth with her team. She won the overall World Cup that season, but not being on the podium at the highlight event of the year still stung.
Gabriela Koukalová (Czech Republic) racing to her first individual World Championships gold on Friday in the women’s 7.5 k sprint at 2017 IBU World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: Glen Crawford)
“I had a lot of expectations,” Koukalová recalled in a post-race press conference on Friday. “And I was only fourth all the time. A lot of ‘potato medals’ as we say in the Czech Republic.”
Now after a sprint race that had been suspenseful from the first to the very last starters, she stood on the top of the podium at the flower ceremony in Hochfilzen, smiling but with tears welling up in her eyes after winning her first individual title at IBU World Championships (or Olympic Games) in a time of 19:12.6 minutes with no penalties.
“I am not able to describe my feelings,” Koukalová told the IBU in an interview afterwards. “I had a lot of thoughts about this position in the last months. It’s amazing. I did not believe that I am able to win a World Championship.”
A day ago, US Biathlon’s Clare Egan was also disappointed when she ran out of spare rounds and shot a penalty in the mixed relay, causing her team to fall back.
“It is a horrible, horrible feeling to take your team from podium contention to 17th place at world championships,” Egan stated in a US Biathlon press release on Thursday.
She vowed to focus on the sprint race, and she sure did.
“I know that a positive outlook is a prerequisite for a good race,” Egan wrote in an email to FasterSkier after Friday’s sprint. “My performance in yesterday’s mixed relay was one of the more brutal failures of my biathlon career, and I certainly struggled to rebound and lost some sleep over it. One decisive factor in my mental turnaround was a message I got this morning from my cousin Liz Egan. She reminded me of my very own words from my recent blog post: ‘How you do one day has absolutely no bearing on how you might do the next.’ It’s so true and I needed the reminder!”
Clare Egan (US Biathlon) racing to 20th place in the women’s 7.5 k sprint at the 2017 IBU World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
Taking her time on the range (with the 92nd-ranked shooting time among 101 starters in the sprint) became beneficial when Egan shot clean in both stages to avoid any penalty laps on Friday.
“I had a good plan for my shooting execution today and I stuck to it for 10 shots and it worked,“ Egan wrote. “That doesn’t always happen so I’m grateful it worked today. I had to take 4 clicks in prone (about the distance from the center of the target to the edge), which is fairly significant but clearly the right choice. In standing I focused on getting the set up perfect, which took a while but paid off.“
Egan skied the 31st-ranked course time overall, and was able to pick up the pace on the last loop when she knew she was fighting for a top position (22nd loop time).
“I started my last loop as [Biathlon Canada’s] Megan Tandy was starting her first. Knowing I had someone right behind me pushed me.“
She crossed the line in a time of 20:25.0 in 20th place, 1:12.4 back from Koukalová.
For Egan it was her second-best result in an individual World Cup race, only behind a 16th place in Östersund, Sweden, at the beginning of the 2015/2016 season. And it was her best result (excluding relays) in her third World Championship, improving 20 positions on a 40th place (also in the sprint) from 2015 in Kontiolahti, Finland.
Throughout the race, the athletes at the top changed repeatedly as some of the favorites including France’s Marie Dorin Habert in bib 1 and Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen in bib 4 had picked the first start group, while others such as Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier chose positions in the middle, and Koukalová in bib 96 or Norway’s defending world champion Tiril Eckhoff starting in bib 101 had opted for a start at the very end of the field.
On a clear and sunny day with mild wind, it seemed unclear which starting positions would be the most advantageous. Several of the favorites starting early incurred penalties, and it took a while until the first starter remained clean in both stages.
That was Russia’s Irina Uslugina, replacing her teammate Ekaterina Glazyrina at the last moment after Glazyrina had been provisionally suspended by the IBU and taken out of the start list about an hour before the race began, creating additional unrest. Uslugina emerged as Russia’s top finisher on Friday, but was ultimately a bit too slow on the course to contend for the medals and ended up 15th (+1:03.6).
After missing just one target and skiing fast, Dorin Habert initially held the lead in the finish narrowly ahead of Slovakia’s Anastasiya Kuzmina, before she was bumped out of first by her teammate Anaïs Chevalier. Then, two Italians secured preliminary positions on the podium, but it was not Italy’s star Dorothea Wierer (who went on to finish one position behind Egan in 21st), but Wierer’s teammates Lisa Vittozzi and Federica Sanfilippo.
Starting with bib 64, Germany’s Dahlmeier began the race at a controlled pace for her ability level, and also took her time on the range (with the 43rd-ranked shooting time) in order to stay clean in both stages. Then on the last loop, Dahlmeier skied the fastest time of the day, and in the finish she had improved on Chevalier’s time by 21.1 seconds.
But the last word in this race had not yet been spoken, as Koukalová had only just started. She set the best time after her prone stage, narrowly ahead of Kuzmina, and kept pushing hard on the next loop coming into the standing stage with a lead on the field. Shooting clean again, Koukalová left the range with a 10.5-second lead on Dahlmeier.
With her coaches shouting split times from the side of the track, Koukalová did everything to carry her lead into the finish, but after initially expanding it to 12 seconds, it began to shrink up the last climbs.
Pushing out of a tunnel and up the inclined finishing stretch in Hochfilzen with her long earrings dangling side to side, Koukalová rescued a 4-second lead to Dahlmeier into the finish, which also knocked Chevalier down to third place (+25.1) and Vittozzi off the podium by a mere 0.2 seconds (+25.3).
Despite the ungrateful place, it was Vittozzi’s best career result in an individual race, and also the second-best career and best World Championship result for Sanfilippo in fifth place (+31.9).
“I am a little bit disappointed, because yes of course I dreamed about the medal,” Sanfilippo told the IBU in an interview. “But today with my fifth place I have to be happy. And in any case, we will see what happens in the next days.”
All of the top six, including Dahlmeier’s teammate Vanessa Hinz (+37.9), shot clean in both stages.
“I think it was a very clever decision by our coaches,” Koukalová told the IBU when asked about her late start group. “I think it helped me a lot, because I was feeling that my skis [were] faster and faster every loop … And I heard a lot of information about Laura, that she was just 10 seconds behind me [in the split times]. I did not believe it [would be] enough because I know her very well, and I realized she was very fast mainly on the last part of the track.”
Gabriela Koukalová of the Czech Republic catches her breath on the ground after winning the women’s 7.5 k sprint at 2017 IBU World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: Glen Crawford)
“When I saw four seconds [lead] in the finish I thought that I am sleeping, but I hope it is real,” Koukalová said at the press conference. “Is it real?”
Yes it is. And it is the fifth gold medal for the Czech Republic at IBU World Championships. The women’s relay team won the first title in 1993, then Kateřina Holubcová won a title in the women’s 15 k individual race in 2003, Roman Dostal in the men’s 20 k individual in 2005, and Koukalová herself won the mixed relay title in 2015 in Kontiolahti with Veronika Vitková, Michal Šlesingr and Ondrej Moravec.
Dahlmeier, the current overall World Cup leader ahead of Koukalová, was pleased with her result, following up her gold medal in the mixed relay a day before with another silver on Friday.
“This was the perfect race for me,” Dahlmeier told German TV broadcaster ZDF. “I shot clean, I felt great on the shooting range, and I was able to execute on the course what I had set out to do. This was my best race and I gave it everything I had. Today, Gabby was just stronger, that’s how you have to look at it… The second medal is a dream.”
“In the last part of the track, she is amazing and she is able to run fast like a horse,” a smiling Koukalová said at the press conference, drawing a big laugh from the attending media as well as Dahlmeier.
The women’s 7.5 k sprint podium at 2017 IBU World Championships on Friday in Hochfilzen, Austria, with the Czech Republic’s Gabriela Koukalová (c) in first, Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier (l) in second, and France’s Anaïs Chevalier (r) in third. (Photo: Glen Crawford)
At last year’s World Championships in Oslo, Dahlmeier finished third in the sprint before winning the following pursuit race.
“I will enjoy today’s success, and then I am already excited like crazy for the pursuit,” Dahlmeier told ZDF. “I think that is just my type of race. Four shooting stages, 10 kilometer, and then I will attack the very top again.”
For Chevalier, it was her first individual medal at IBU World Championships and her third medal overall. Similar to Dahlmeier, she instantly followed up on her silver medal with the French mixed relay from the previous day, and previously earned silver with the women’s relay in Oslo a year ago.
“I am really happy because I did not expect to have an individual medal,” Chevalier stated in the press conference, also echoing Dahlmeier’s comments. “I did a perfect race today, and two of the girls were better than me. So I have no regrets.”
Chevalier is going to celebrate her 24th birthday on Sunday, the day of the pursuit race.
Four North Americans Qualify for Pursuit
The second-best North American starter on Friday was Biathlon Canada’s Rosanna Crawford in 26th place with one penalty (+1:23.2).
Rosanna Crawford (Biathlon Canada) racing to 26th in the women’s 7.5 k sprint on Friday at 2017 IBU World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: Glen Crawford)
Despite some tricky wind conditions, Crawford shot fast (with the 10th-ranked shooting time overall) and stayed clean in her prone stage, before incurring a penalty in standing.
“I struggled in zero [pre-race target practice] today, so am really happy to have cleaned my prone,” Crawford wrote in an email. “It was quite windy during zero and I had to make a big correction, but once the race started it was a much more manageable wind.”
Initially posting one of the best times after starting early in bib 12, she was pushed down in the standings as more and more athletes finished the race ahead of her, partly due to her middle-of-the-pack, 45th-ranked overall course time.
“This is one of my better ski ranks of the year,” Crawford commented. “I felt more normal out there today, we had good skis and the course held up well. I had a few people to chase down on my last loop, but for the most part skied the race alone. I skied better than the mixed relay.”
It was Crawford’s second-best result in a sprint this season, following her 21st place last month in Oberhof, Germany.
Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) racing to 29th in the women’s 7.5 k sprint on Friday at 2017 IBU World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: Glen Crawford)
Three positions behind her, US Biathlon’s Susan Dunklee finished 29th (+1:27.4) with three penalties.
Dunklee started very early in bib 3, getting some time on the TV broadcast. Just like the other early starters, the American had to deal with a bit more challenging wind conditions, though according to her they were consistent with the zeroing target practice and the course remained fair throughout the race.
“Every team had a different idea about when the track would be fastest,” Dunklee wrote in an email. “I have no complaints about my start position. I think the spectators enjoyed having the favorites spread out.”
On the range Dunklee took the opposite approach to Egan, shooting very fast (tied for the eighth-ranked shooting and fifth-ranked range time), yet unlike her teammate she missed one shot in her prone shooting stage and two more in standing, having to ski 450 extra meters.
Thanks to skiing the 11th-ranked course time overall and even faster on the last loop where she could ski behind Finland’s Mäkäräinen (who had the second-best course time of the day), Dunklee improved by 18 positions on the last loop to finish 29th.
“Kaisa was a great ride for my last loop and I enjoyed the opportunity to ski together with her and Julia [Ransom of Canada, who started a loop later],” Dunklee wrote. “It helped me dig into a deeper gear for my finishing push.”
“I was psyched to see Clare and Rosanna throw down strong performances when it counts the most,” Dunklee commented regarding the performances of Egan and Crawford. “Biathlon is one of the most mentally challenging sports out there because of the extreme ups and downs, and they have proved their resilience this season.”
In her first start at IBU World Championships, Joanne Reid finished 49th (+1:57.6) with a penalty in each of her shooting stages (1+1). With this result, Reid qualified for the pursuit with the third-best individual World Cup result of her career, the best being a 29th place from a 15 k individual race in Östersund, Sweden, earlier this season. The former standout cross-country skier switched to biathlon a little over a year ago.
“I absolutely love this course and had a great time,” Reid commented on her race, according to US Biathlon. “I can’t wait for the pursuit.”
For Canada, Megan Tandy finished 64th with one penalty (1+0), 2:20 minutes behind the winner.
“What can I say?” Tandy posted on her Facebook page. “I am satisfied with 9/10 shooting. I did my job today and while I am sad and frustrated with 64th place, I am also at peace knowing I did everything possible: every detail of training, sleeping, eating, activation, warmup, etc. but my body was just not able to deliver. I fought my hardest but felt empty. Whatever is going on with me, I am not in the shape I expected [this] season and my best is simply not enough. Tough.”
Julia Ransom (Biathlon Canada) racing to 65th in the women’s 7.5 k sprint on Friday at 2017 IBU World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: Glen Crawford)
Her teammate Julia Ransom was one position behind in 65th with two penalties in her standing stage (+2:24.7, 0+2).
“Unfortunately the race today didn’t play out as I’d hoped, but I skied my heart out, soaked up some sunshine, and enjoyed those incredible fans!” Ransom wrote after on Instagram.
Starting late in the field in her first start at senior World Championships, US Biathlon’s 21-year-old Maddie Phaneuf shot clean in her prone stage, then missed two targets in standing to finish in 78th place (+2:56.6, 0+2).
“Well…frustrated with today’s results,” Phaneuf commented on her Facebook page after the race. “I was happy with my skiing on the first two loops and my prone shooting but not psyched on my standing shooting… hoping for better days here at World Champs. On the other hand, this is my second best result on the World Cup (out of the 5 individual races I’ve done). So happy to see my teammates doing well, all three placing in the top 50…Clare with clean shooting and getting her second best result ever in 20th!”
Emma Lunder (Biathlon Canada) racing to 84th in her first IBU World Championships race on Friday, the women’s 7.5 k sprint in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: Glen Crawford)
Also competing in her first senior World Championships race, like Reid and Phaneuf, Canada’s fourth woman Emma Lunder missed qualifying for the pursuit in 84th, after incurring three penalties in her prone shooting stage before shooting clean in standing (+3:10.1, 3+0).
The IBU World Championships continue on Saturday with the men’s 10-kilometer sprint, followed by pursuits for both the women and men on Sunday.
Gabriela Koukalová of the Czech Republic celebrates her first individual victory at a World Championships or Olympics on Friday at 2017 IBU World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria. She won the women’s 7.5 k sprint by 4 seconds. (Photo: IBU)
IBU World Championships (Hochfilzen, Austria): Women’s 7.5 k sprint
Gabriela Koukalová, formerly Soukalova, had been so close to a World Championships individual gold medal, yet through five World Championships and two Olympic Games, a world title still eluded her — until Friday.
In the second race of 2017 IBU World Championships (and first individual competition), the 27-year-old Koukalova, of the Czech Republic, raced to first in the women’s 7.5-kilometer sprint, edging Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier, the World Cup Total Score leader.
Koukalova started 96th and cleaned both prone and standing before finishing with the fastest time in 19:12.6 minutes. That bested Dahlmeier’s time by 4 seconds, after the German (in bib 64) also cleaned both stages and took the lead from France’s Anais Chevalier (bib 17). Chevalier remained on the podium in third, 25.1 seconds off Koukalova’s winning time.
Italy’s Lisa Vittozzi missed a medal by 0.2 seconds in fourth (+25.3).
US Biathlon’s Clare Egan shot clean and landed 20th (+1:12.4) for her best individual World Championships result by 20 places (she previously raced at 2015 and 2016 World Championships). Egan led three Americans in qualifying for the pursuit, with Susan Dunklee placing 29th (+1:27.4) with three penalties (1+2) and Joanne Reid in 49th (+1:57.6) with two misses (1+1). Maddie Phaneuf missed the top 60 necessary for the pursuit in 78th (+2:56.6) with two standing penalties (0+2).
Biathlon Canada’s Rosanna Crawford placed 26th (+1:23.2) with one standing penalty (0+1) and was the lone Canadian to qualify for the pursuit. Megan Tandy missed the top 60 in 64th (+2:20.9) with one miss (1+0), Julia Ransom followed 65th (+2:24.7) with two misses (0+2), and Emma Lunder was 84th (+3:10.1) with three penalties (3+0).
The mixed relay podium on the opening day of 2017 IBU World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria, with Germany in first (c), France (with Martin Fourcade at far left) in second, and Russia in third (r). (Photo: Glen Crawford)
Germany was front and center for the first race of 2017 International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Championships on Thursday in Hochfilzen, Austria, but there was a sideshow that stole a good chunk of the limelight between France (namely Martin Fourcade) and Russia (namely Alexander Loginov).
The action began with the 2 x 6 + 2 x 7.5-kilometer mixed relay, a co-ed event where teams start women for the first and second legs, followed by men for the third and fourth legs.
Germany ran away with the lead with a rock-solid performance from third-leg Arnd Peiffer, who cleaned both his prone and standing stages without using any spare rounds, but the team had to credit second-leg Laura Dahlmeier, who built the lead in the first place.
Dahlmeier, the World Cup Total Score leader, raced from sixth to first after getting the tag from her teammate Vanessa Hinz just 9.8 seconds out of first. Dahlmeier used two spares to clean prone and another two to clean standing, yet she avoided the penalty lap and remained in third for much of her race — behind Italy’s Dorothea Wierer and France’s Marie Dorin Habert.
As she left the range for the last time and embarked on her last loop, Dahlmeier remained in third, nine seconds behind Wierer in first. Dorin Habert remained on Wierer’s heels, 1.6 seconds back.
Dahlmeier caught both by the second exchange and tagged Peiffer in first, 0.8 seconds ahead of France and 3.8 seconds ahead of Italy.
The rest was history as Peiffer extended the gap to 11.1 seconds over Italy’s Lukas Hofer after the first shooting stage on the third leg. With another clean bout one loop later, Peiffer was up to 20 seconds ahead of Hofer, who used one spare in prone and cleaned standing without a miss.
“After the prone shooting I was alone on the loop, that is a pretty thankless job,” Peiffer told German broadcaster ZDF after. “Then I tried to focus on my tempo, to keep pushing into the standing shooting, and that worked well. But it was not clear to me while on the course that it would work out like that.”
Germany’s Arnd Peiffer (r) tagging his teammate Simon Schempp during the final exchange of the mixed relay at 2017 IBU World Championships on Thursday in Hochfilzen, Austria. Peiffer tagged in first, and Schempp held the lead through the finish. (Photo: Glen Crawford)
Peiffer tagged German anchor Simon Schempp 21.2 seconds ahead of Italy’s last leg, Dominick Windisch, and 46.5 seconds ahead of France’s Martin Fourcade in third. Russia entered the final exchange with France, with Loginov tagging Anton Shipulin just 0.9 seconds behind France.
That’s where things got interesting. Schempp executed as needed to secure the win — cleaning prone without any spares and using just one in standing — and Windisch as his most immediate threat fumbled on the last stage when the he missed two and left the range in fourth, 32 seconds behind Schempp.
There, Fourcade moved into second with his second-straight flawless stage (0+0, 0+0), 17.9 seconds behind Schempp, and Shipulin remained in third (+18.6) after cleaning both stages as well (0+0, 0+0). Fourcade and Shipulin started the race together and jockeyed between third and fourth for the first two loops, until both moved ahead of Windisch and had the opportunity to battle for second place on the last loop.
For Fourcade, who had already won 10 races (including relays) this season and entered the World Championships mixed relay as a defending champion with France, it wasn’t so much about the silver. It was about beating Russia.
As Fourcade and Shipulin descended a downhill together on the last loop, Fourcade took the lead by the bottom and attacked on the long uphill that immediately followed. Shipulin remained on his heels as the two came within view of Schempp, who was skiing what appeared to be a casual pace off the front — although Schempp would later say he was going full speed.
“I think you could see that they wanted to get back up to [Schempp],” German men’s head coach Mark Kirchner told ZDF of Fourcade and Shipulin on the last loop. “But when they reached the highest point of the course it looked like they rather skied tactically, who becomes second and who becomes third. Then I was sure that this would end well for us.”
About 100 meters before the finish, Schempp glanced back to see Fourcade and Shipulin charging hard. Schempp appeared unfazed and maintained his pace, holding his arms up to celebrate before he crossed the line first.
Germany’s Simon Schempp (2) celebrates his team’s victory in the mixed relay on the opening day of 2017 IBU World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria, after he held off France’s Martin Fourcade (second from r) in second and Russia’s Anton Shipulin in third. (Photo: Glen Crawford)
Germany took the relay gold in 1:09.06.4 hours, while Fourcade finished 2.2 seconds later to secure silver for France. One second later, Shipulin anchored Russia to bronze (+3.2).
“Fourcade really attacked enormously,” German men’s assistant coach Andreas Stitzl told ZDF. “Thank God Fourcade and Shipulin were not totally in agreement, so it went our way.”
Schempp later said he realized those two were getting closer, “but there was a bit of a buffer,” he told ZDF. “I wasn’t certain, so I still skied full speed … Of course this is an enormously cool start for our team into the World Championships, immediately with a first place. And I think I am speaking for everyone that we are overjoyed.”
It was the first mixed-relay win for Hinz and Dahlmeier.
“These are big emotions, winning it all in a team together with the men,” Dahlmeier told ZDF. “I have never won a mixed relay before, and this is only my second one ever. I think this means a lot to the whole team, that we became world champions right in the first race.”
“I am still a little bit speechless,” Hinz said. “I was very happy that the coaches trusted me with this assignment, and it means quite a lot to me.”
During the flower ceremony, Germany’s four racers stood on the highest step of the podium. France followed them to the second step, with Anais Chevalier, Dorin Habert, Quentin Fillon Maillet, and Fourcade, and Russia was introduced third, with Olga Podchufarova, Tatiana Akimova, Loginov, and Shipulin.
As the four Russians approached the French team to shake hands in usual fashion, Fourcade shook the hands of the two women, but did not come in contact with the two men. As Russia proceeded to its spot on the podium, Fourcade clapped sarcastically, then stepped down from the podium and attempted to leave the ceremony. Not long after, he returned, likely having been instructed to.
“I’m a bit sad,” Fourcade said at the post-race press conference. “I just want to remember that one week ago the president of the Russian federation asked the IBU to take disciplinary sanctions against me because I did a tweet about Loginov and today they decide to not shake my hand on the podium so I’m a bit surprised the president of the Russian federation wants to disqualify his own athletes.”
While it’s tough to pin down exactly which tweet Fourcade was referring to, he wrote on Twitter, “We didn’t think it was possible so they did it………….” on Wednesday, the day before the opening race of World Championships, likely when he learned Loginov would be starting the relay. Loginov is coming off a two-year ban for EPO use and dominated the competition at last month’s IBU Open European Championships.
Russia’s Alexander Loginov (l) takes a tumble after tagging his teammate Anton Shipulin (third from l) in the final exchange of the 2017 IBU World Championships mixed relay in Hochfilzen, Austria. France’s Martin Fourcade (second from l) skated left after getting the tag from his teammate Quentin Fillon Maillet (far r). (Photo: ORF screenshot)
Whether the Russian men didn’t shake Fourcade’s hand on the podium, or vice versa; whether they were upset about his tweet or the fact that he appeared to go out of his way to trip Loginov in the exchange zone on Thursday (after Loginov had tagged Shipulin right after Fourcade), one thing is clear: there is some definite tension between Fourcade and Team Russia.
And it’s not all on Fourcade; this has been months in the making after World Cup athletes demanded that the IBU implement stricter anti-doping policies and measures. Fourcade walked out of a meeting last month, telling NRK, “I am pissed off.” The next day, the IBU Executive Board announced it would hold an “Extraordinary Congress” before World Championships to vote on rule changes. The IBU announced the Congress decisions on Wednesday, which included plans to impose higher fines and reduced quotas for nations that violate anti-doping rules. Moreover, 2021 World Championships will not be held in Tyumen, Russia.
An IBU press release on Thursday didn’t get into details beyond the mixed relay itself: “Today is not the best example of a sprint finish battle that I could have done,” Shipulin said, according to the release. “I hope the rest of the World Championships it will be better.”
In terms of shooting performance, Russia was the best of the 25-team field with a total of four spares (three of which came on Loginov’s standing stage) and zero penalties. France had eight spares and overcame one penalty (on Fillon Maillet’s standing stage), and Germany used a total of seven spares but avoided the penalty lap.
“I was expecting us to be in the mix and fight for the medals,” Kirchner told ZDF, “but you can’t plan it working out like this, standing on the first position is always a surprise.”
Norway’s Marte Olsbu (front left) and Italy’s Lisa Vittozzi (front right) leading early in the mixed relay at 2017 IBU World Championships on Thursday in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: Glen Crawford)
Italy (Lisa Vittozzi, Wierer, Hofer, Windisch) placed fourth, 28.7 seconds out of first and 25.5 off the podium, with six spares and zero penalties.
Vittozzi initially put the team in first at the first exchange, 1.8 seconds ahead of Norway’s Marte Olsbu in second. There, Austria’s Lisa Theresa Hauser followed 5.7 seconds back in third, and American Susan Dunklee was fourth, 7.6 seconds out of first.
Dunklee used two spares to clean prone and another two in standing (0+2, 0+2), but posted the second-fastest course time of the first-leg skiers to stick with the leaders through the first exchange. While Vittozzi hit all 10 of her targets (0+0, 0+0), Olsbu used a spare (0+1, 0+0) and Hauser required two (0+2, 0+0).
“It wasn’t overly tricky wind but there is more mental pressure in championship situations,” Dunklee wrote in an email about the conditions and why many of the top racers struggled on the range on Thursday. “The days when it matters most can be the days that it’s hardest to perform normally.”
She explained that she was disappointed with her shooting percentage but happy with her speed.
“My skiing feels sharper than it has all year and my body feels ready. That’s a big confidence booster going into the rest of the week,” Dunklee added.
Susan Dunklee racing the first leg of the 2017 IBU World Championships mixed relay for the U.S. She tagged off in fourth and the U.S. went on to finish 16th. (Photo: Glen Crawford)
The U.S. finished 16th (+3:20.2), with two penalties and 13 spares. Second-leg Clare Egan remained in the top 10 until her standing stage, where she skied a penalty lap (0+1, 1+3) and slipped to 17th by the exchange, 2:01 minutes out of first. There, Lowell Bailey took over and used one spare in each stage (0+1, 0+1) and skied the sixth-fastest third leg to hand off in 16th, 2:24.2 back. The team’s anchor, Sean Doherty had the team’s second penalty in his prone, but cleaned standing without any spares (1+3, 0+0) to finish 16th.
“We had a disappointing result as a team, but the Championships are long,” Dunklee wrote. “The most important thing is to take one day at a time and come to the venue fully focused and ready to make the most of each opportunity.”
Canada’s Julia Ransom (r) tagging teammate Rosanna Crawford after the first leg of the mixed relay at 2017 IBU World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria. Canada went on to finish 13th. (Photo: Glen Crawford)
Canada finished more than a minute ahead of the U.S. in 13th (+2:18.2), with nine spares and zero penalties. Julia Ransom started the Canadians off and used four spares (0+3, 0+1) to tag Rosanna Crawford in 18th, 59 seconds out of first. Crawford used three spares as well in prone but also avoided the penalty lap, and cleaned standing (0+3, 0+0) to tag her boyfriend Brendan Green in 15th, 1:29 back.
Green improved one place to 14th, using just one spare in his prone stage (0+1, 0+0) and tagged Scott Gow 2:06.8 out of first. Gow cleaned prone and used one spare in standing (0+0, 0+1) to finish 13th, just 0.6 seconds ahead of Switzerland in 14th.
“The goal during my leg was to ski hard and push the shooting as much as I could,” Gow wrote in an email.
Both his shooting and range times were sixth-fastest among the anchor legs.
“My shooting was good, and all I can attribute it to is my prep the last two weeks,” Gow explained. “Shooting conditions were quite good, a little bit of wind here and there, so the environment wasn’t too much of a factor. I spent the last two weeks adding extra stress to my shooting and making sure all the fundamentals were in place, and that is what helped me today.
“I’m happy with my race and our team is optimistic for what is to come,” he added. “There were a lot of positives from the past two weeks within the whole team, so there a lot of possibilities.”
Personally, Gow’s main focus for the championships is the men’s relay after Canada earned a historic bronze in the event at 2016 World Championships.
“Last year our team had an incredible result in the relay and it would be great to have another awesome team result at these championships,” he wrote. “Aside from the relay, I’m looking most forward to the sprint. I’ve had some great sprints this year and I’d like to continue the good trend.”
IBU World Championships continue Friday with the women’s 7.5 k sprint at 8:45 a.m. Eastern time. Watch it live on Eurovisionsports.tv.
US Biathlon’s Susan Dunklee ahead of Sweden’s Chardine Sloof during the second leg in the women’s 4 x 6 k relay at the 2017 IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
As they had done in the first two relays this season, Germany and France occupied the top two positions on the podium in the women’s 4 x 6-kilometer relay on Sunday at the IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy. And to the joy of over 20,000 raucous fans in the sunny arena, home team Italy claimed the third place. So far, so not very unusual.
But at the halfway point of the race, Susan Dunklee had moved the U.S. team into second position, just 33 seconds behind Germany in first. A potential surprise was in the air.
“Head-to-head shooting and hunting people down on skis are two of my favorite racing experiences, so I was thrilled with today,” Dunklee stated, according to a US Biathlon press release.
Starting the race in bib 22 out of the last start row, her teammate Clare Egan had slightly moved up on the course coming into the first prone stage, and with a clean shooting performance left the range in fourth place just 3.1 seconds behind the leaders.
US Biathlon’s Clare Egan on the course skiing the opening leg of the women’s 4 x 6 k relay at the 2017 IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: IBU/Christian Manzoni)
“I rarely get to do mass starts but I love them,” Egan wrote in an email to FasterSkier. “I shot clean and was the first athlete off the mat so my plan worked. I just tried to position myself as best I could and then pass on the shooting range.”
She was able to keep up with the teams around her on the next loop, and with one spare in the standing shooting, she managed to hit all her targets, skiing back on the course in ninth place.
“Last week I also hit 9/10 targets, but then I had to use all three spares to get that last target down, because I got so nervous,” Egan explained. “So this week I really tried to prepare mentally for shooting my spares and it helped.”
On the final loop she managed to overtake the Austrian team while getting passed by Switzerland, and while Egan lost a bit more time to the French and German teams leading the race at that point, she tagged off to Dunklee in the ninth and just 21 seconds behind France and Germany.
Dunklee quickly began to close gaps and overtook several of the teams around her, including Sweden, Belarus, Slovakia and Norway.
“I felt sharper on skis than earlier this week,” Dunklee wrote in an email. “I think my body adjusted better to the altitude each day. I did not follow any sort of pacing plan today; I saw people ahead of me early and I went after them, and then held on as best I could on the last loop.”
In her prone shooting stage Dunklee needed two spares to hit all targets, leaving the range in fourth position. But she kept gaining ground on the loop and with a clean standing stage, while most of the athletes around her needed spares.
“I was disappointed to miss my last two shots in prone again, but standing felt good,” Dunklee wrote. “I took a few extra breaths before the first shot and then used an assertive cadence.”
Keeping Italy and Norway behind her on the final loop and only losing a few more seconds to Germany’s Maren Hammerschmidt, Dunklee tagged her teammate Joanne Reid in second (+32.9).
Reid, who is in her first full season with the US Biathlon World Cup team, was able to keep up with the leaders on the first loop, skiing close to the eventual podium finishers Anaïs Bescond of France and Alexia Runggaldier of Italy.
Reid cleaned the prone stage without any spares, but as most of the teams around her did the same, several teams remained close together. On the next loop, Reid was nearly able to hold her distance to the leaders, but was passed on the biggest climb by Ukraine’s veteran Valj Semerenko.
She may have invested a bit too much energy trying to keep up with the best teams on that loop, and in the following standing shooting Reid missed her first shots and eventually ran out of spares, having to ski twice through the 150-meter penalty lap to lose more than a minute and a half.
Reid tagged teammate Maddie Phaneuf in 13th position (+2:24.3). For Phaneuf, it was only her second time anchoring a U.S. World Cup relay.
“My very first World Cup two seasons ago, I anchored for our team (Susan Dunklee, Hannah Dreissigacker, and Annelies Cook) in Ruhpolding,” Phaneuf wrote in an email. “I remember our team did not have a very good race, and I got lapped.”
This time, it went better, especially due to her shooting performance only requiring one spare in standing (0+0, 0+1) and achieving a top-10 range time.
“I was pleased with my shooting today, especially coming out of the Individual race from earlier this week with so many mistakes,” Phaneuf explained. “The wind was much calmer on the range, which helped. The biggest thing for me was that I found myself less distracted by the atmosphere and more focused on my shooting, which I’ve been trying to deal with the past few races. It can be tough with all the TV cameras, excited crowds, and announcers!”
On the final loop Phaneuf was able to keep Slovakia’s Jana Gerekova behind her, but was unable to bridge the gap to two other teams due to a small mishap.
“By the last loop I was hanging with the Polish and Norwegian girls [Krystyna Guzik and Rikke Andersen], but I caught my ski on some fencing coming around a corner into a downhill and lost a lot of momentum,” she wrote. “I was really bummed, because then I lost the chance to draft these girls into the finishing stretch. But I am happy to see that my ski speed is improving with every race, and it’s making me more and more excited for World Championships in a couple of weeks.”
Back again in 13th place where she had begun, Phaneuf crossed the finish in 1:11:58.9 hours, 2:46.5 minutes behind the winners. The U.S. had two penalties and seven spares.
“Today was a great day for our team and I am proud of how all of my teammates performed and the effort they gave,” Dunklee commented. “We can see that we are not far off a top 10 or even better, and that is motivating.”
While the U.S. team faded back a bit in the second half of the race, several of the more experienced teams fought for the places on the podium.
From left to right: Germany’s Vanessa Hinz, Maren Hammerschmidt, Franziska Hildebrand and Laura Dahlmeier celebrate their victory in the women’s 4 x 6 k women’s relay at the 2017 IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy. (Photo IBU/Christian Manzoni)
Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier struggled to control her last shots, gasping heavily in the thin air of the Antholz biathlon arena some 1,600 meters above sea level during the final standing stage. But with her last spare, she managed to avoid the penalty lap and secured the victory for her team with Vanessa Hinz, Hammerschmidt and Franziska Hildebrand. Dahlmeier even had enough time to grab a flag from a fan on the finishing stretch before crossing the line in 1:09:12.4 hours, with 12 spares and zero penalties.
“That’s why you have six spares in the relay,” Dahlmeier said with a laugh when asked by German broadcaster ZDF about her shooting stages, where she needed five spares to clean. “And when you ski over the line in first, you can’t have done all that much wrong. I wasn’t actually scared [of a penalty lap], but I made it a bit too suspenseful with my shooting and was happy the other girls had given me a lead.”
Germany had also won the two prior relay races of the season in Pokljuka, Slovenia, and Ruhpolding, Germany.
“Three relay competitions in this season, three victories – of course that makes us the favorites for the World Championships,” Hildebrand said, according to an IBU press release. “I think as a team we are strong enough to handle this pressure.”
Crossing the line 24.2 seconds behind Dahlmeier, France’s Marie Dorin Habert comfortably secured second place for her team on the final loop, with eight spares and zero penalties. Despite requiring fewer spare rounds, the French team of Anaïs Chevalier, Justine Braisaz, Bescond, and anchor Dorin Habert was not quite able to keep up on the course on Sunday.
“Maybe at the last shooting, almost,” Bescond said at the press conference when asked if, during the race, she thought her team might claim the victory. “Unfortunately we were not strong enough to catch the German team today.”
Just like it was the third victory for Germany, it was also the third second-place finish of the season for the French women. “We are happy, but we want to beat Germany, maybe at World Championships,” Chevalier said at the press conference.
On the final round Italy’s Dorothea Wierer tried everything to get a podium on her home course, following two weaker performances in the individual and mass start races, but Ukraine’s 22-year-old Anastasiya Merkushyna didn’t make it easy for her, fighting back to take a small lead. But on the last small climb into the arena, Wierer broke her resistance, celebrating her third place when she skied into the arms of the teammates Lisa Vittozzi, Federica Sanfilipo and Runggaldier awaiting her. Like the other teams on the podium Italy had no penalty, and required nine spares.
“I was going away from the shooting range with Merkushyna,” Wierer commented in the press conference on her last loop. “I felt really good, and I don’t know if she was only playing with me, but she seemed not so strong on skis. But then she made a little sprint and I pushed so hard to keep [up with] her. And on the last uphill I made another sprint hoping she would not take me anymore, but I wasn’t sure.”
“We are not always shooting so well,” she said when asked about Italy’s chances for the World Championships relay. “But I think we are getting better and more confident. And I think we will beat the German and also the French team!”
“I am kidding,” she added with a laugh, turning to Germany’s Hildebrand sitting next to her. “I am not kidding!”
Ukraine’s relay with Yuliya Zhuravok, Yulia Dzhima, Semerenko and Anastasiya Merkushyna finished fourth (+37.5), with six spares and zero penalties.
Canada 18th Despite Strong Shooting
Biathlon Canada’s Megan Tandy (center, bib 11) skiing the opening leg of the women’s 4 x 6 k relay for the 2017 IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: IBU/Christian Manzoni)
The Canadian relay of Megan Tandy, Julia Ransom, Emma Lunder, and Rosanna Crawford shot as well as some of the teams on the podium, requiring only eight spare rounds and incurring zero penalties, but could not keep up with the leaders.
After starting in the fourth row in bib 11 and skiing close to the top group on the first loop, Tandy required four spare rounds (0+2, 0+2) setting her back early in the race. She improved by two positions on the final loop, but tagged off in 18th place, more than a minute behind the leaders. Ransom improved one place to 17th with two solid shootings (0+0, 0+1) but doubled the deficit, and Lunder kept them in that position with a clean standing before losing one spot again on her last loop (0+1, 0+0) to exchange in 18th. Crawford (0+2, 0+0) was only briefly able to move the team up to 16th place before losing those positions to China’s Xuelan Wang and the Czech Republic’s Veronika Vitková (who rested their star Gabriela Koukalová on Sunday) on the last loop to ultimately finish 18th (+4:12.1).
“I think we were hoping for another top 10 today,” Crawford wrote in an email. “Antholz even on a calm day has tricky shooting, the altitude and the flat run into the range I think catches people off guard. We had some good skis today but [it] just wasn’t enough to keep us in contention. We had some great results though this week, with Emma’s 21st [in the individual race] and Scott [Gow] making his first Mass Start.”
Recently struggling a bit to get her speed up to her level from last season, Crawford posted the 15th-ranked course time on the fourth leg of Sunday’s relay after an extended recovery.
“We had decided to change the training plan around because skiing was just getting worse and worse each race,” Crawford explained. “So I didn’t race the pursuit in Ruhpolding or the Individual here, took a few days off and kept this week really easy … So hopefully the rest I took will pay off for World Champs.”
The IBU World Cup now enters a two-week break ahead of the World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria, which begin on Feb. 9 with a mixed relay.
During this period, there will also be the 2017 Open European Championships beginning this Wednesday in Duszniki-Zdrój, Poland, which several World Cup starters including representatives from the U.S. and Canada plan to race in.
Emma Lunder (Biathlon Canada) racing in last weekend’s IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany, where she placed 89th. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
The next time your order a cup of joe, remember to be nice to the person on the other side of the counter; they could just be a World Cup skier. In a press release, Biathlon Canada was quick to point out that one of its national-team members, Emma Lunder, is a Starbucks barista in Canmore, Alberta.
But on Thursday, thousands of miles away at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Antholz, Italy, Lunder raced to a career-best 21st in the women’s 15-kilometer individual race. It was her first time racing that distance. In fact, it was twice as long as the 7.5 k sprint she had done in eight of her nine previous World Cup starts (not counting relays).
Emma Lunder (Biathlon Canada) on course during the women’s 15 k individual on Thursday at the IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: ARD broadcast screenshot)
The Biathlon Canada B-team member started last on Thursday, wearing bib 99. It’s a tall order waiting around that long in the longest-format race on the circuit, complete with four shooting stages, but the 25-year-old Lunder was generally unfazed.
“I would say this year I am definitely used to starting in the fourth seed, and getting a hang of dealing with the wait,” she wrote in an email after Thursday’s race. “I quickly ski tested with our techs, zeroed my rifle and then headed back to our wax room where I lay on a pile of ski bags and read my book for 45 minutes before warming up.”
Fortunately, the wait played to her favor. Gusting winds across the range gave most of the field troubles. But when Lunder set out on the course, those winds seemed to be less of an issue.
“I had absolutely no wind when I zeroed, which I found made it easier to make corrections during the race,” she wrote of her pre-race target practice. “I think I had fairly consistent wind for both prone and standing, and was happy not to have any big gusts blowing me around!”
Lunder explained that she had been working with her coaches and sports psychologist on improving her focus while shooting. She had struggled with her prone shooting over the last few weekends (including last week’s World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany, and the IBU Cups in Martell, Italy, before that). On Thursday, Lunder was hoping to execute some new strategies.
Canada’s Emma Lunder leaving the range en route to second place in the IBU Cup 7.5 k sprint last season in December 2015 in Canmore, Alberta. (Photo: Pam Doyle)
With a clean first prone stage, she was already on par with a personal best as she left the range in 35th. (Lunder previously placed 30th in her first-ever World Cup three years ago in Pokljuka, Slovenia. With that result, she qualified for the 10 k pursuit, and went on to place 41st for her second-best result to date — up until Thursday.)
Lunder then cleaned her second shooting and first standing stage to put herself in 10th halfway through Thursday’s race. But she had no idea where she stood. Fortunately, she had plenty of skiers within sight, after race organizers started the fourth seed — which included Lunder — in 15-second intervals (as opposed to 30 seconds between racers).
“Skiing was a fun but extremely tough battle,” Lunder wrote. “… There were way more girls close to me that I could chase and ski with. … I actually wasn’t given any information of where I was until I’d finished in the range and was heading out for my last lap — I think the techs and coaches didn’t want to excite me before any of my shooting bouts, and I’m quite happy for it.”
She missed her first and only target of the day on her second prone, which put her in 24th with two loops to go, and cleaned her final standing stage, moving her back up into 15th. Leaving the range for the last time, she realized she was in a best-ever position.
“I really hoped I was fighting for points, and when I left the range after my last standing … I almost had an ‘oh crap’ moment because I knew I had to ski absolutely as hard as I possibly could for another 3km and I was already feeling the hurt,” she explained.
Canadian Emma Lunder, of Vernon, B.C., finishing 21st for her career-best IBU World Cup result on Thursday at the women’s 15 k individual (her first time racing that distance) in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: ARD broadcast screenshot)
“We had really competitive skis today thanks to our hardworking wax-tech crew, and they were all over the place for my last lap, screaming for me to fight up every hill and they got me all the way to the finish line!” Lunder added. “I was feeling the pain for my whole last lap, and it turned into just trying to survive rather than really being able to fight, but I know I did absolutely everything I could on the skis today, and I am so, so happy with my race.”
The Vernon, B.C., native ended up 21st, 3:29.7 minutes out of first, with one penalty (0+0+1+0). Lunder was one of just four out of 99 that shot 19-for-20. No one cleaned.
The winner, Laura Dahlmeier of Germany, had two misses (1+1+0+0) — for a total of two minutes added to her finishing time. Dahlmeier secured the win in 44:48.7 minutes, thanks to perfect shooting in the last two stages. It was her 11th World Cup victory.
“It was incredibly difficult today,” Dahlmeier told German broadcaster ZDF after starting 15th. “I tried to make it a little easier on myself. That’s why I twice went to the outmost positions [on the range]. But honestly it was just as windy, I had to fight just the same. It was hard to get into the race after those two misses. I just tried to do my own thing, and shoot clean in the end.”
Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier racing to her 11th IBU World Cup win on Thursday in the women’s 15 k individual in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: IBU)
Dahlmeier’s 11th World Cup win on Thursday gave her the overall World Cup lead and with it, the yellow bib, and allowed her to keep the red bib of the 15 k individual discipline leader.
“It is a dream come true to win in this beautiful setting,” Dahlmeier said of sunny Antholz. “That I can keep the red jersey and get the yellow one back, it doesn’t get better than that.”
Behind her France’s Anaïs Chevalier started 32nd and came within 3.8 seconds of Dahlmeier’s finishing time. Chevalier was one of the four women that missed just one target (0+1+0+0), along with third-place finisher Alexia Runggaldier of Italy (+46.0, 0+1+0+0).
For Runggaldier, it was her first World Cup podium.
“This morning I was a little anxious, and just thought, ‘Give it your best.’ I really wanted to qualify for the mass start [on Saturday],” she told ZDF. “I just told myself to do the best I can, just do that, and now I can’t believe it!”
Italy’s Alexia Runggaldier celebrating her first IBU World Cup podium in third on Thursday at the women’s 15 k individual in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: IBU)
The 25-year-old Runggaldier qualified for the 30-woman mass start based on that result. On Thursday, she said conditions weren’t easy even as a later starter in bib 59.
“It has already been difficult the last few days,” she said of target practice during training. “Yesterday it didn’t work well for me, so today I just told myself to focus, 20 shots, four series. And my coach told me out on the course ‘be patient!’ and I just tried to execute that.”
As for Lunder, she wrote that she was “extremely happy” with her shooting performance and pointed out that the last time she scored World Cup points was in 2014.
“… To be just out of top-20 today feels pretty amazing,” Lunder wrote. “Today was a huge day for me on the range, and I think there’s still work to be done on the skiing side of things, but I know I’m headed in the right direction.”
As of Thursday, Biathlon Canada had not made any formal announcement about its World Championships team.
“Today I left it all out there so no matter what happens [with selections] I am super proud of what I accomplished in this race!” Lunder noted.
Also on Thursday, Megan Tandy of Biathlon Canada’s A-team (officially the “Eh! Squad”) finished 33rd (+5:02.0) for a season best. She started 69th and shot four penalties (1+1+0+2) with the 61st-ranked overall course time.
“I can easily say this is my slowest season since I was a Junior!” Tandy wrote in an email. “That being said I was really pleased with today’s race because it represented a baby step forward in both skiing (I didn’t feel dead tired racing today and actually enjoyed skiing which is a first this season) and on the result list as well. Finally some points — what a relief!”
She described the wind as “up and down” with more wind for her first and last bouts, but “nothing unmanageable.”
“I made fairly aggressive sight adjustments in prone. The women had quite windy conditions during training the 2 previous days so even though the conditions were challenging at times I felt confident about clicking,” Tandy reflected.
Megan Tandy (Biathlon Canada) during her final shooting stage of the women’s 15 k individual on Thursday at the IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: ZDF broadcast screenshot)
After just two misses in her first two bouts and a clean third stage, Tandy was in contention for a top 30 with one shooting stage to go. In that final standing stage, she missed two, which left her disappointed.
“I am still so angry with myself especially because I missed the last 2 shots and up until those misses the potential for a good race was there!” she wrote. “But thats biathlon for you! I didn’t really think about bouncing back after my last shooting — it was the last loop so I gave everything I had, simple as that!”
Her final loop time was her fastest of the day, ranking 51st. At the end of the day, Tandy was pleased to feel “normal” again during a race.
“It was such a pleasure compared to a lot of races this year where I feel like after the first 1km my only goal becomes to survive until the finish line,” she wrote. “Shooting I think I did good work in 3 of my 4 bouts, particularly reacting to the wind prone so I feel confident and am looking forward to the relay this Sunday! 6km is also going to feel short and sweet after that 15km!!”
The women race a 4 x 6 k relay on Sunday in Antholz.
Canada’s third woman on Thursday, Julia Ransom finished 55th (+6:28.2) with four penalties (0+3+0+1). Rosanna Crawford did not race, but tweeted after, “Well if I had to sit out today’s race and be a fan instead I sure am glad @emmalunds made it an exciting race to watch, finishing 21st for a new personal best! Lucky number bib 99! #gretzky #ANT17 #gocanada”
Four U.S. women competed on Thursday, with Clare Egan leading the team in 59th (+6:58.6) with six penalties (1+4+0+1) that added six minutes to her finishing time. She started 80th and recalled some wind issues on her second shooting.
“I had the fastest skis I’ve ever had in my life today, and three out of four good shooting stages,” Egan said, according to a US Biathlon press release, of her first, third and fourth stages. “Unfortunately, a stupid mistake in the first standing stage foiled any chance I had at a good result. I tried to shoot through gusting wind instead of waiting until I could take a good shot. I made a strong comeback from that point on, but 59th place is hardly what I was hoping for.”
Joanne Reid (US Biathlon) racing to 60th in the women’s 15 k individual on Thursday at the IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
Her US Biathlon teammate Joanne Reid followed in 60th (+7:05.2), also with six misses (2+2+1+1). Reid started 23rd.
“There were definitely some gusts out there today, and what could be tricky conditions if you didn’t adapt correctly to them,” Reid told US Biathlon. “Wind is a lifetime learning experience — every race, every range, every point, and every day is different, so you’ll never know exactly what you’re supposed to do, or what you should have done in any situation. Biathlon is by its very nature sinusoidal, and it’s unfortunate when those troughs hit us all at the same time.”
Also for the U.S., Susan Dunklee started 46th and and finished 71st (+7:58.0) with eight penalties (0+4+2+2), and 21-year-old Maddie Phaneuf in bib 92 finished 81st (+9:18.9) with seven penalties (3+1+1+2).
“I think as a team we displayed some incredible bravery out there,” Reid noted. “It can be mentally very tough to keep fighting when you know how many minutes you lost. I especially salute Susan for her ability to come back from races like this with incredible grace, considering the high expectations constantly placed upon her. And Maddie, of course, our youngest, who is trying to adjust to a whole different level of skiers in an unfamiliar environment. Everyone has to start somewhere, and it’s tough to remember that sometimes with veterans on the team like Tim [Burke] and Lowell [Bailey], who have been starting biathlon races for almost as long as Maddie has been alive.”
“I know the four of us are eager to redeem ourselves in Sunday’s 4x6k women’s relay,” Egan said.
Dunklee will have another individual shot in the last set of races before World Championships (Feb. 9-19 in Hochfilzen, Austria) this Saturday in the 12.5 k mass start, as Dunklee is ranked 17th overall in the World Cup.
The men’s 20 k individual takes place Friday, starting at 8:15 a.m. EST. Watch it live on Eurovisionsports.tv.
Biathlon Canada’s Emma Lunder finishing 21st for her career-best IBU World Cup result on Thursday at the women’s 15 k individual (her first time racing that distance) in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: ARD broadcast screenshot)
IBU World Cup (Antholz, Italy): Women’s 15 k individual
In her first-ever 15-kilometer individual race, Canada’s 25-year-old Emma Lunder captured a career-best 21st at Thursday’s International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Antholz, Italy.
The last time Lunder scored World Cup points was at her very first IBU World Cup in 2014 in Pokljuka, Slovenia. There, she placed 30th in the sprint and went on to finish 41st in the pursuit, which stood as her best World Cup finishes — until Thursday.
In the women’s 15 k individual, a four-stage race that penalizes one minute for every missed shot, Lunder was one of the best shooters out there, shooting 19-for-20, missing one shot on her second prone stage (0+0+1+0). Out of 99 competitors, Lunder was one of four who missed just one. No one cleaned all four stages.
Lunder started last in bib 99 and ended up 21st at the finish, 3:29.7 minutes behind winner Laura Dahlmeier of Germany, who won in 44:48.7 with two one-minute penalties (1+1+0+0).
Dahlmeier started 15th and battled windy conditions for the victory, with a time that was 3.8 seconds faster than France’s eventual runner-up Anais Chevalier, who started 32nd and missed one (0+1+0+0). Italy’s Alexia Runggaldier notched her first World Cup podium in third (+46.0) after starting 59th and missing just one target as well (0+1+0+0).
“I was extremely happy with my shooting performance and hitting 19/20 targets on a tough day!” Lunder wrote in an email. “I think I had fairly consistent wind for both prone and standing, and was happy not to have any big gusts blowing me around!
“… To be just out of top-20 today feels pretty amazing,” she continued. “Today was a huge day for me on the range, and I think there’s still work to be done on the skiing side of things, but I know I’m headed in the right direction.”
Also for Biathlon Canada, Megan Tandy tallied a season-best individual result of 33rd (+5:02) despite four penalties, including two on her last standing stage (1+1+0+2), and Julia Ransom placed 55th (+6:28.2) with four penalties (0+3+0+1). Rosanna Crawford did not race.
Clare Egan was the top American in 59th (+6:58.6) with six penalties (1+4+0+1) that added six minutes to her time, and US Biathlon teammate Joanne Reid was right behind in 60th (+7:05.2) with six misses as well (2+2+1+1). Susan Dunklee in bib 46 started at the tail end of the group that appeared to face the windiest conditions, and finished 71st (+7:58.0) with eight penalties (0+4+2+2). Maddie Phaneuf finished 81st (+9:18.9) for the U.S, with seven penalties (3+1+1+2).
The men’s 20 k individual starts Friday at 8:15 Eastern time. Watch it live on Eurovisionsports.tv.
The women’s freestyle-sprint prologue podium on Thursday, the final day of 2017 U.S. Cross Country Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. Canada’s Dahria Beatty (AWCA/NST U25 Team) took first, Hannah Halvorsen (Sugar Bowl Academy/USST) second, and Caitlin Gregg (Team Gregg) third.
U.S. Cross Country Championships (Soldier Hollow): Freestyle-sprint prologue
[UPDATED] One and done. That was the case Thursday for the U.S. Cross Country Championship’s freestyle sprint at Soldier Hollow (SoHo) where only a qualifier was held to determine the final standings — no heats were contested. With just-under-freezing temps and a light snow falling, the men set off at 15-second intervals.
The men’s podium was an all-Canadian affair as they swept the top-three positions. Jess Cockney of the Canadian World Cup B-team placed first in 3:15.20. Julien Locke of the Alberta World Cup Academy (AWCA) and Canadian National U25 Team skied to second (+2.69), his AWCA/U25 Team teammate Knute Johnsgaard was third (+2.72).
The top American skier was Alaska Pacific University’s Logan Hanneman in fourth (+3.37). The second-fastest U.S. skier was Sun Valley Ski Education Education Foundation (SVSEF) Gold Team skier Cole Morgan (+5.03). Morgan was the sixth-fastest athlete overall. The third American and seventh overall was John Hegman (+5.71) also of the SVSEF Gold Team.
The women’s skate sprint also featured a preliminary with no heats. Canada’s Dahria Beatty (AWCA/NST U25 Team) placed first in 3:13.60. Sugar Bowl Academy and U.S. Ski Team Development Team member Hannah Halvorsen was second (+3.15), and Team Gregg’s Caitlin Gregg third (+4.80). The third-fastest American was APU’s Chelsea Holmes (+7.24) who finished sixth overall.
The national championship week at Soldier Hollow has concluded.
IBU World Cup (Ruhpolding, Germany): 4 x 6 k women’s relay
[UPDATED: includes quotes from Canada’s Rosanna Crawford and Americans Susan Dunklee and Maddie Phaneuf]
The women’s 4 x 6-kilometer relay in Ruhpolding, Germany, came down to the very end, with Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier holding off France’s Celia Aymonier and Norway’s Marte Olsbu to the finish. Dahlmeier secured the win in the first women’s relay of 2017, crossing the line in 1:09:53, just 3.5 seconds ahead of Aymonier and 4.5 ahead of Olsbu.
The Germans used six spare rounds and avoided the penalty lap for the victory, with Dahlmeier lifting them from fifth at the final exchange to first at the finish.
While both Aymonier and Olsbu cleaned both shooting stages without any spares, Dahlmeier had to use one on the final standing stage. She had to pass Olsbu twice to secure the victory.
“I wanted to slowly pull myself up to her, not over-pace, and have enough energy left for the next climb,” Dahlmeier recalled in a post-race interview with Germany’s ARD. “At some point I knew we had the top equipment today. If I’m ahead for the last downhill then I will bring the win home.”
The German women’s 4 x 6 k relay team, with (from left to right) Vanessa Hinz, Maren Hammerschmidt, Franziska Preuss, and Laura Dahlmeier after winning Thursday’s IBU World Cup at home in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: IBU)
She teamed up with Vanessa Hinz, Maren Hammerschmidt and Franziska Preuss for the win. It was Preuss’s first race back after a long break due to illness. While she said she was “very nervous”, Preuss cleaned her prone stage and used two spares to clean standing.
On the second leg, Hammerschmidt and Fenne tangled on a downhill turn. The came through the exchange in second and fourth, respectively, behind Ukraine’s Anastasiya Merkushyna (who brought her team from 10th to first by the race’s halfway point).
“Thankfully, it still worked out fine in the end,” Hammerschmidt told ARD.
France took second, using a total of seven spares and no penalties, with Anais Chevalier, Justine Braisaz, Anais Bescond, and Aymonier, respectively.
Norway had near-flawless shooting all around with just one spare, used by third-leg skier Tiril Eckhoff, who teamed up with Kaia Wøien Nicolaisen, Hilde Fenne and Olsbu for third place.
The Norwegians held off Ukraine by 4.3 seconds for the final spot on the podium.
Canada placed 10th (+3:00.6), using just three spares and no penalties, with Megan Tandy, Rosanna Crawford, Emma Lunder, and Julia Ransom. Crawford elevated the team to eighth after the second leg, but they slipped two spots over the third and fourth legs.
“We had a great shooting day today, and some really fast skis,” Crawford said, according to a Biathlon Canada press release. “I think with just three spares for the whole team, our expectations should be quite a bit higher, but this year the ski speed seems to be below where we usually are.”
The U.S. women finished 17th (+5:08.2), with 11 spare rounds and no penalties, with Susan Dunklee, Maddy Phaneuf, Clare Egan, and Joanne Reid. Dunklee started the team off and raced to 11th at the first exchange, then they slipped back to 16th and finally 17th at the finish out of 23 teams.
“I enjoy the extra challenge of starting at the back of a mass start,” Dunklee said, according to a US Biathlon press release. “I’m good at weaving through crowds and it’s incredibly satisfying to pass lots of people.”
“Shooting on Point 2 is exactly where I wanted to be at that point in the race, and I felt comfortable there,” she added.
Dunklee tagged to Phaneuf, who, in her first World Cup race of the season, used two spare rounds to clean 10 targets.
“I’m happy to have the opportunity to be racing on the World Cup again,” Phaneuf told US Biathlon. “Today’s race went OK, the shooting was average for me and the skiing was tough. The atmosphere here in Ruhpolding is so amazing, so that made the racing very exciting. I’m looking forward to race the sprint on Saturday. Huge shoutout to the wax techs and staff for some fast skis and support.”
“It was wonderful to finally put together a full women’s team and we look forward to improving upon today’s performance in the coming weeks,” Dunklee added.
The women’s 7.5 k sprint podium at the 2017 IBU World Cup in Oberhof, Germany, with (left to right) Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen in second, Czech Republic’s Gabriela Koukalová in first, and France’s Marie Dorin Habert in third. (Photo: IBU)
Gabriela Koukalová achieved the closest equivalent to a start-to-finish victory possible in a race against the clock in the women’s 7.5-kilometer sprint on Friday at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Oberhof, Germany.
Starting and finishing the race as the very first athlete of the day in bib 1, the star biathlete of the Czech Republic managed to shoot clean in both stages, and because she also skied the second-fastest course time, no other athlete starting behind her in a field of 90 was able to beat her time of 22:28.5 minutes.
“I was a little bit afraid of the track profile,” Koukalová explained her race tactic for the difficult course during the press conference. “I had lots of experiences here where I was full of energy during the first loop, but it was missing on the last loop. […] I try to enjoy these races, and maybe it was easier to imagine that I was racing pursuit.”
Starting just one position behind Koukalová was Canada’s Rosanna Crawford.
“An early bib number is nice, I feel like I can do a better warm up and have less time sitting around,” Crawford wrote in an email to FasterSkier.
Like Koukalová, she also managed to shoot clean in both stages, but was slower on the course to finish the day in 21st (+1:32.3). Crawford skied the 52nd-ranked overall course time, losing over 30 seconds to the leader on the final lap. It was her best result of the season in an individual race and a steady improvement from venue to venue, but not quite what she regularly achieved in the previous two seasons.
Rosanna Crawford (Biathlon Canada) shooting clean in standing during the women’s 7.5 k sprint at the 2017 IBU World Cup in Oberhof, Germany. (Photo: ZDF broadcast screenshot)
“It was great to have good shooting today, but the ski speed is still way off,” Crawford explained. “The coaches and my self are still scratching our head as to where the ski speed is. Hopefully things will turn around in time for World Champs, but who knows. I am happy that my position on the finish list is getting better, but when you look at the analysis the ski speed is similar to what it was in December. We had good skis today and the techs did a great job.”
Skiing the fastest course time by almost 25 seconds over Koukalová, Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen placed second, 21.3 seconds back, despite two misses in the standing shooting (0+2). She bumped France’s Marie Dorin Habert, who started two bibs ahead and only had one penalty (0+1), down to third place (+24.0).
“I really like the course here, this is absolutely one of my favorite courses,” Mäkäräinen said at the press conference. “I felt quite confident before the standing [stage], but I think that I maybe tried shooting a little bit too fast. And I was a little bit confused when the first mistake came. After the second I thought, ‘OK, here we go again, I have to go to the penalty loop and let’s see [what happens]’. But with two penalties it’s really cool to be this high in the result list.”
“For the Christmas break my daughter made me a gift, a big stomach flu,” Dorin Habert joked in the press conference when asked about her time off. “So I had a big break during the preparation. But I had a lot of recovery, a lot of time in bed and on the toilet.”
Dorin Habert was just ahead of her 23-year-old teammate Anaïs Chevalier (0+0, +30.6), who achieved another top result following her two podium finishes in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, before the holiday break.
“I think the French team is very young, except me,” Dorin Habert, 30, said of the recent success of her team. “And they all want to be at the top of the race. They have a lot of ambitions. […] and they are very fast, and I am sure the shooting will follow very soon. It’s nice to have a French [athlete] every time at the top of the race.”
With Germany’s overall World Cup leader Laura Dahlmeier deciding to skip the sprint and pursuit in Oberhof (she plans to compete again in the mass start on Sunday), the podium finishers Koukalová and Mäkäräinen ranked directly behind her used their opportunity to make up points on Dahlmeier, and could overtake her in the pursuit on Saturday.
“I can understand Laura,” Koukalová said. “When you are a little bit tired, sometimes it’s better to just stay home and relax to find new energy, because you know we are going to have a lot of races during the season.”
But the home crowd in Oberhof still had something to cheer for when Dahlmeier’s teammate Maren Hammerschmidt shot clean in both stages. With a fifth place (0+0, +35.9) she achieved the third-best result of her career, and a direct qualification for Germany’s World Championship team.
“Going out of the range in standing with a zero [misses], with this audience, I am surprised about that myself and overjoyed I managed to do it,” Hammerschmidt told German broadcaster ZDF after the race. “I trained well before Christmas because I had a lot of ambitions to improve. And thank God that paid off today. […] It’s always great to shoot 0+0. That requires a bit of luck, but I was firmly determined to finally achieve that again, and that was just super, wicked cool.”
“It was a dream today out there, with conditions more like Canmore than Oberhof,” Crawford commented on the course and range conditions on Friday, after the men’s sprint race the day before had been drowned out in a snowstorm. “Who knew that my first clean shooting since the 2013/2014 season would come in Oberhof!”
Many athletes consider the shooting range in Oberhof one of the trickiest on the World Cup circuit, due to a long climb into the arena lined by rows of screaming spectators as well as frequently foggy conditions and changing winds.
“It’s my first World Cup in Oberhof,” Hammerschmidt told ZDF with a laugh. “And it’s crazy skiing up the Birxsteig [climb]. I unfortunately didn’t hear at all what [assistant coach] Andy told me, only what the spectators were telling me. But that was an insane feeling.”
“It is a little bit easier for me to race here than at home [in Nove Mesto],” Koukalová explained in the press conference. “It’s usually a bit harder to race against a home public. I can imagine that for German athletes it has to be very hard to race here.”
Three North Americans Qualify for Pursuit
American Susan Dunklee could not quite pick up where she left off before the holiday break when she had achieved three top-five results, including the third World Cup podium of her career (all in sprints) in Nove Mesto. On Friday, she incurred two penalties in the prone stage and added two misses in standing to finish 50th (+2:36.3).
American Susan Dunklee climbing during the women’s 7.5 k sprint on Friday at the 2017 IBU World Cup in Oberhof, Germany. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
“Oberhof was the most beautiful I have ever seen it with great snow, almost no wind and plenty of sunshine,” Dunklee stated according to a US Biathlon press release. “I felt a little rusty after the break, particularly on the shooting range. I don’t think the jet lag helped matters either. Missing two in prone is already more mistakes than I want in a race.”
Her teammate Clare Egan landed in the top 60 to qualify for Saturday’s pursuit as well, finishing just behind Dunklee in 52nd place (+2:40.5) with two misses in her prone stage (2+0).
“I for one am just happy to clean in standing,” Egan explained in the press release. “I changed my whole standing position before Christmas break and had only two weeks to practice it. Today my prone was off and my skiing a bit sluggish, but the work I put in on my new standing position is already paying off and that’s what I needed to see.
“Today was cold, calm and sunny with a stadium full of fans — a great day for biathlon,” Egan added. “Unfortunately, it was not a great day for our team as Joanne [Reid] is sick and neither Susan nor I achieved the results we came for. We have another chance tomorrow in the pursuit and will be out for redemption.”
Crawford was the lone Canadian to qualify as her Biathlon Canada teammate Megan Tandy missed the cutoff in 65th place (+3:17.1) with two penalties (0+2), as did Sarah Beaudry in 85th (+5:02.9) with three penalties (0+3) and Emma Lunder in 87th (+5:28.0) with five misses (4+1).
Also for Canada, Julia Ransom is skipping the races in Oberhof for a longer training block at home and planned to join her team next week for the World Cup in Ruhpolding, also in Germany.
Three Months After Baby, Domracheva is Back
Darya Domracheva of Belarus starting her first IBU World Cup in 656 days on Friday in Oberhof, Germany. Three months after having her first child, Domracheva finished 37th in the women’s 7.5 k sprint. (Photo: ZDF screenshot)
Friday also saw the comeback of a veritable biathlon star: Belarus’ Darya Domracheva, the three-time 2014 Olympic gold medalist with two more gold medals at World Championships.
Last summer Domracheva married Norway’s biathlon veteran Ole Einar Bjørndalen, but that was not the only news of her offseason. She stood at the start line in Oberhof just three months after giving birth to their daughter Xenia on Oct. 1. That is not completely unheard of in biathlon or cross-country skiing, but even faster than Dorin Habert managed to do during the 2014/2015 season. Domracheva had also missed the prior year of races because of mononucleosis, with German broadcaster ZDF calculating that it had been 656 days since she last competed in a World Cup race. While she wasn’t quite back to her normal standards, shooting just one miss in each stage (1+1) and skiing the 15th-fastest overall course time, she qualified for the pursuit in 37th (+2:02.8).
“From one side it’s of course really nice and I am happy to be here,” Domracheva told German broadcaster ZDF after the race in an English interview. “On the other side it felt a little bit tough today. You know it’s the first race, and it’s super like that.”
Asked about her goals for the season, potentially even trying to win another medal at the upcoming World Championships, she added: “It is important for me to have a goal for all this season, to get back the competition feelings, and try to be better and better from race to race. I will just go on and do my job and work race to race. Then we will see how I feel at the end of the season. I don’t expect so much.”
Results | Pursuit start list(women’s 10 k pursuit starts at 8:40 Eastern; men’s 12.5 k pursuit starts at 5:30 EST)
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![US Biathlon’s Susan Dunklee ahead of Sweden’s Chardine Sloof during the second leg in the women’s 4 x 6 k relay at the 2017 IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/image2-5.png")
![US Biathlon’s Clare Egan on the course skiing the opening leg of the women’s 4 x 6 k relay at the 2017 IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: IBU/Christian Manzoni)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/image1-5.png")
![From left to right: Germany’s Vanessa Hinz, Maren Hammerschmidt, Franziska Hildebrand and Laura Dahlmeier celebrate their victory in the women’s 4 x 6 k women’s relay at the 2017 IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy. (Photo IBU/Christian Manzoni)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/image3-4.png")
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![Emma Lunder (Biathlon Canada) racing in last weekend's IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany, where she placed 89th. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Lunder14012017cm15.jpg")
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![Canada’s Emma Lunder leaving the range en route to second place in the IBU Cup 7.5 k sprint last season in December 2015 in Canmore, Alberta. (Photo: Pam Doyle)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/12/EmmaLunder-skis_pamdoyle-ww.jpg")
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![Germany's Laura Dahlmeier racing to her 11th IBU World Cup win on Thursday in the women's 15 k individual in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: IBU)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/jpg.jpeg")
![Italy's Alexia Runggaldier celebrating her first IBU World Cup podium in third on Thursday at the women's 15 k individual in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: IBU)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/jpg-1.jpeg")
![Megan Tandy (Biathlon Canada) during her final shooting stage of the women's 15 k individual on Thursday at the IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: IBU)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Tandy-last-shooting-1.jpg")
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![The women's freestyle-sprint prologue podium on Thursday, the final day of 2017 U.S. Cross Country Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. Canada's Dahria Beatty (AWCA/NST U25 Team) took first, Hannah Halvorsen (Sugar Bowl Academy/USST) second, and Caitlin Gregg (Team Gregg) third.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/IMG_8925-e1484318336142.jpg")
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![The women’s 7.5 k sprint podium at the 2017 IBU World Cup in Oberhof, Germany, with (left to right) Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen in second, Czech Republic’s Gabriela Koukalová in first, and France’s Marie Dorin Habert in third. (Photo: IBU)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/image1-2.png")
![Rosanna Crawford (Biathlon Canada) shooting clean in standing during the women’s 7.5 k sprint at the 2017 IBU World Cup in Oberhof, Germany. (Photo: ZDF broadcast)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/image2.jpeg")
![American Susan Dunklee climbing during the women’s 7.5 k sprint on Friday at the 2017 IBU World Cup in Oberhof, Germany. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/image3-2.png")
![Darya Domracheva of Belarus starting her first IBU World Cup in 656 days on Friday in Oberhof, Germany. Three months after having her first child, Domracheva finished 37th in the women's 7.5 k sprint. (Photo: ZDF broadcast screenshot)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/domracheva_course_1024.jpg")