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Tag: Anton Babikov

  • Sunday Rundown: Diggins and Harvey 2nd, Bjornsen 3rd in Falun Pursuit; Dunklee 3rd in Oslo (Updated)

    Sunday Rundown: Diggins and Harvey 2nd, Bjornsen 3rd in Falun Pursuit; Dunklee 3rd in Oslo (Updated)

    Norway’s Marit Bjørgen celebrates her overall win in the last race of 2018 World Cup Finals, the 10 k freestyle pursuit, on Sunday in Falun, Sweden. (Photo: Svenska Skidspelen/Instagram)

    FIS Cross Country World Cup Finals (Falun, Sweden): 10/15 k freestyle pursuits

    Men’s report

    In the last women’s race of the World Cup season, U.S. Ski Team members Jessie Diggins and Sadie Bjornsen made it one they’ll remember for a long, long time as Diggins raced to second in the 10-kilometer freestyle pursuit and Bjornsen outlasted two Norwegians for third. The two finished the World Cup Finals mini tour in second and third, respectively, behind Norway’s Marit Bjørgen who won it in 24:18.9 minutes.

    Bjørgen started with a 36-second cushion to her Norwegian teammate Ingvild Flugstad Østberg in second. Diggins started third, 41 seconds back, just ahead of Finland’s Krista Pärmäkoski in fourth (+43.0), based on their cumulative performances over the last two days of the mini tour (skate sprint and 10 k classic mass start).

    While Østberg, Diggins and Pärmäkoski formed a chase pack, Diggins dropped them in pursuit of Bjørgen on the first lap. The American continued to push the pace throughout the three-lap race, coming within 16.7 seconds of Bjørgen at the finish.

    Meanwhile, during the pursuit, a chase group of five, which included Bjornsen, caught Østberg and Pärmäkoski. The group of seven dwindled to three on the last two climbs, where Bjornsen and Norway’s Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen and Ragnhild Haga broke away in a race for third.

    The three were even entering the finishing stretch, where Bjornsen then beat them in a final 100-meter push to the line. Bjornsen claimed third (+1:11.5) for her fourth podium of the season and first in a distance skate race. Haga followed in fourth (+1:12.0) and Jacobsen fifth (+1:12.8), while Pärmäkoski placed sixth (+1:16.2), Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla seventh (+1:17.9), Østberg eighth (+1:19.0), Sweden’s Jonna Sundling ninth (+1:30.5) and Ebba Andersson 10th (+1:44.7).

    Bjornsen now has five-career individual World Cup podiums to her name, and this is the first in a skate race longer than 5 k.

    Diggins clocked the fastest time of day in 23:54.4, while Haga was second-fastest (+10.7) after starting the race in 17th. Bjørgen’s time ranked third, Jacobsen was fourth-fastest and Bjornsen fifth-fastest.

    Diggins’s performance elevated her to second in the Overall World Cup standings, just 40 points behind Norway’s Heidi Weng (who placed 18th in the pursuit) in first for the second-straight year. Østberg slipped to third overall, 22 points behind Diggins. In the Distance World Cup, Weng took the title by 63 points over Østberg in second, while Diggins was another 32 points back in third.

    Bjornsen ended up sixth in the Overall World Cup and 10th in the distance standings.

    Also for the U.S., Caitlin Patterson raced from 46th at the start to 35th (+3:58.4) with the 22nd-fastest time of day, Sophie Caldwell placed 36th (+4:00.7), Kikkan Randall finished her last World Cup race in 43rd (+4:33.3) with the 29th-fastest time, Rosie Frankowski placed 46th (+4:41.3), Liz Stephen 50th (+4:57.2) in her final World Cup race, Kaitlynn Miller 56th (+6:13.8), and Ida Sargent 57th (+7:06.4).

    For Canada, Cendrine Browne picked off 10 places to finish 39th (+4:14.4) with 27th-fastest time of day, Emily Nishikawa finished 48th (+4:43.7), Dahria Beatty 54th (+6:04.3), and Zina Kocher 60th (+9:28.4).

    The men’s 15 k freestyle and 2018 World Cup Finals podium, with Russia’s Alexander Bolshunov (c) in first, Canada’s Alex Harvey (l) in second and Switzerland’s Dario Cologna (r) in third. (Photo: Svenska Skidspelen/Instagram)

    In the men’s 15 k freestyle pursuit that followed, Russia’s Alexander Bolshunov started 38 seconds clear of Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo in second, and Sweden’s Calle Halfvarsson and Italy’s Federico Pellegrino headed out together another second later in third and fourth, respectively.

    Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby started the race in seventh (+53.0), and Switzerland’s Dario Cologna followed in ninth (+56.0), while Canada’s Alex Harvey started 1:16 back in 18th.

    While Bolshunov skied the entire race on his own and won the weekend mini tour in 35:03.3, a number of racers battled for second, with Sundby moving into second in the chase pack, ahead of seven others, less than 2 k in. Several skiers found themselves at the front of that group, including Cologna, Halfvarsson, and even Harvey (with Harvey leading the chase at 9.3 k), while the time gap to Bolshunov grew.

    With about 2 k to go, the group was down to six. Harvey attempted an attack, but Cologna matched him. Then, on one of the course’s final climbs, Cologna made his move to get a slight gap, but lost his balance slightly on the downhill, allowing Harvey to catch back up.

    With one last uphill to go, Harvey was in the driver’s seat in second, Cologna in third and Sundby in fourth. That order held to the finish, with Harvey claiming second, 47.1 seconds behind Bolshunov, Cologna placing third (+47.5) and Sundby fourth (+48.7). Just behind them, Russia’s Maxim Vylegzhanin crossed in fifth (+50.3), ahead of Norway’s Hans Christer Holund in sixth (+51.7), Halfvarsson in seventh (+54.1), and Norway’s Sjur Røthe in eighth (+54.9). Nearly 10 seconds later, Norway’s Niklas Dyrhaug outlunged two Russians for ninth (+1:04.1): Denis Spitsov in 10th (+1:04.2) and Andrey Larkov in 11th (+1:04.3).

    Harvey, who finished the season in fourth in both the Overall and Distance World Cup standings, won the time of day in 34:34.3. Holund had the second-fastest course time, 1 second off Harvey’s time, after starting the race in 22nd.

    Harvey’s Canadian teammate Devon Kershaw tallied his fifth-straight distance top 30 in 28th (+2:21.9), after starting 27th, and Graeme Killick finished 56th (+4:33). Julien Locke did not start.

    For the U.S., Erik Bjornsen clocked the 22nd-fastest time en route to 38th (+3:10.4), after he started 51st. Simi Hamilton improved 10 places to finish 49th (+4:07.8), Scott Patterson and Paddy Caldwell worked together to move up from 72nd and 73rd, respectively, to 58th (+4:41.5) and 59th (+4:41.6), respectively, at the finish. Kevin Bolger placed 60th (+4:43.5) and David Norris 64th (+5:09.8).

    While Klæbo slipped from second to 25th in the pursuit (+1:45.8), the Norwegian still won his first Overall World Cup by 119 points over Cologna in second. Sundby placed third, 29 points out of second and 82 points ahead of Harvey.

    Cologna claimed the Distance World Cup Crystal Globe by 41 points over Sundby, and Holund reached the Distance World Cup podium in third, 58 points out of second and just 5 points ahead of Harvey in third. France’s Maurice Manificat had been third heading into the final day of racing, but finished the pursuit in 26th (+2:11.9) and dropped to fifth in the final distance rankings.

    Results: 

    Women: Pursuit | Time of day | Final Overall World Cup rankings | Final Distance World Cup rankings

    Men: Pursuit | Time of day | Final Overall World Cup rankings | Finals Distance World Cup rankings

    ***

    IBU World Cup (Oslo, Norway): Women’s pursuit + men’s relay

    Women’s pursuit report | Julia Ransom retires 

    Men’s relay report

    In her last race of the season, Susan Dunklee returned to the podium. The American started fourth in Sunday’s 10-kilometer pursuit at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Oslo, then made her way into third by the final shooting stage. Dunklee shot 18-for-20 (1+0+1+0) and finished 29.5 seconds behind the winner, Darya Domracheva of Belarus, who missed two targets as well (1+0+1+0) and finished first in 30:37.4. Slovakia’s Anastasiya Kuzmina started the race in first (ahead of Domracheva in second) and ended up second (+9.2) with four penalties (0+2+2+0).

    Canada’s Julia Ransom and Rosanna Crawford finished together in 51st and 52nd, respectively, both 4:52.4 out of first. Ransom had four penalties (0+1+1+2) while Crawford missed five (1+3+1+0). Emma Lunder did not finish.

    In the men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay on Sunday, Norway’s team of Lars Helge Birkeland, Henrik L’Abee-Lund, Tarjei Bø, and Johannes Thingnes Bø used just three spare rounds to clean eight shooting stages and took the win in 1:13:13.7 hours. Austria finished 50.3 seconds back in second place, with Dominik Landertinger, Felix Leitner, Simon Eder, and Julian Eberhard, with a total of five spares. Russia’s Maxim Tsvetkov, Anton Babikov, Dmitry Malyshko, and Anton Shipulin raced to third (+56.9) with just four total spares.

    The U.S. men placed seventh (+2:01.5) with eighth spares, after Lowell Bailey put the team in seventh on the first leg. Sean Doherty skied them up to sixth on the second leg, Tim Burke slipped to 10th on the third leg, and Leif Nordgren posted the seventh-fastest anchor leg to put them in seventh at the finish.

    Canada placed 16th (+5:42.4) with Christian Gow, Scott Gow, Brendan Green, and Macx Davies. The team had been in 19th at the final exchange, but Davies skied them up to 16th with the 14th-fastest anchor leg. In all, they used 10 spares.

    Results: Women’s pursuit | Men’s relay

  • Russian Olympians Announced: 12 Skiers, Four Biathletes to PyeongChang

    The Russian men finishing in unison to take first, second and third in the men’s 30 k skiathlon, the final race of 2017 U23 World Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. Alexander Bolshunov (8) was deemed the winner, Alexey Chervotkin (1) was second, and Denis Spitsov (11) third. All three will be going to the 2018 Olympics. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad.com)

    Earlier this week it was announced that cross-country skier Sergey Ustiugov and biathlete Anton Shipulin were among the Russian athletes excluded from the 2018 Olympic Games coming up in PyeongChang, South Korea, next month.

    The question arose: just who would be representing Russia?

    The list of the 169 athletes on the “Olympic Athletes of Russia” team (which is not supposed to be confused with the Russian Olympic Team, which has been banned) has now been released.

    For nordic sports, no athletes who had competed in the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia – where the anti-doping process was manipulated to protect Russian athletes who had used banned performance-enhancing drugs – are included.

    The cross-country ski team is nevertheless reasonably full. According to the Russian Ski Federation, the athletes set to compete are Alexander Bolshunov, Alexei Vitsenko, Andrei Larkov, Andrei Melnichenko, Alexander Panzhinsky, Denis Spitsov, Alexei Chervotkin, Julia Belorukova, Alisa Zhambalova, Natalia Nepryaeva, Anna Nechaevskaya, and Anastasia Sedova.

    Russia’s Ekaterina Yurlova reacts after sealing her first career victory and podium on the World Cup level at IBU World Championships in the women’s 15 k individual in Kontiolahti, Finland. Yurlova will not be PyeongChang. (Photo: Kontiolahden Urheilijat/Kari Kuninkaanniemi)

    The team size of five women and seven men is nearly identical to the team size from 2014, when five women and eight men represented Russia. Six of those 13 athletes who competed in Sochi have since been disqualified for doping.

    For biathlon, the team for PyeongChang is tiny: just four athletes, two men and two women. According to the Russian Biathlon Union, Anton Babikov, Matvei Eliseev, Uliana Kaisheva, and Tatyana Akimova have been invited to PyeongChang. They can thus form a mixed relay team but Russia will be out of both the men’s and women’s relay competitions.

    The International Olympic Committee (IOC) released information this week about how the list of invited athletes had been chosen. Some criteria were as expected: it had been previously announced that no athletes who had previously served doping suspensions would be on the list, barring biathletes Irina Starykh and Alexander Loginov as well as cross-country skier Natalia Matveeva.

    “I think that the current situation around the Games is not easy, but we are Russian, and we will all survive,” Loginov – who just today won a silver medal in the sprint at Open European Championships – said in a Russian Biathlon Union press release (according to a translation). “I will sincerely support our guys who are going to the Olympics. ”

    If an athlete’s name appeared on the “Duchess List”, a list of athletes allegedly receiving performance-enhancing drugs and whose anti-doping samples were covered up or manipulated, then that was also a disqualification, as expected.

    But the IOC also used more evidence, for instance the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS), a database which was copied from the Moscow anti-doping laboratory by a whistleblower and delivered to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). The IOC relied, too, on information from international winter sports federations, checked Russian athletes’ whereabouts reports for discrepancies, and re-tested all previously collected anti-doping samples.

    Finally, the IOC used “intelligence extracted from WADA’s ‘Speak-up’ whistleblower programme and other sources.”

    The women’s podium for the first race of the 2017/2018 World Cup season, the Ruka classic sprint in Kuusamo, Finland, with (from right to left) American Sadie Bjornsen in second, Sweden’s Stina Nilsson in first, and Russia’s Yulia Belorukova in third. (photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)

    For most of the athletes who were expected to represent Russia but were then found to be excluded – like Ustiugov and Shipulin – it is not known which one of these information sources led to them being disinvited from PyeongChang.

    Additional notable absences are Ekaterina Yurlova-Percht, the 2015 World Champion biathlete in the 15 k individual, and Gleb Retivykh, who made the sprint finals in both of the last two cross-country World Cup weekends.

    Instead, the Russian biathlon team will feature two World Cup podium finishers: Babikov, who won a World Cup and was part of Russia’s gold-medal winning men’s relay team at 2017 World Championships, and Akimova, who likewise has a win and a third-place World Cup finish to her name.

    Those two have each competed in two World Championships. Neither Kaisheva nor Eliseev have ever competed in a senior World Championships. Eliseev has three World Cup top-tens in his career.

    The cross-country team’s biggest stars will be its rising U23 athletes: Bolshunov, Chervotkin, Spitsov, Belorukova, Sedova, and Nepryaeva. All have their own collections of World Cup top-tens this season, including podiums by Belorukova and Bolshunov, and Sedova’s seventh-place finish in the multi-stage Tour de Ski.

    Much older is Larkov, who also had a World Cup podium this season and was a member of Russia’s 2015 and 2017 World Championships teams, and 2010 Olympic sprint silver medalist Panzhinsky.

  • Friday Rundown: Antholz IBU World Cup; Western Canadian Championships

    Friday Rundown: Antholz IBU World Cup; Western Canadian Championships

    Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø racing to another win in the men’s 10 k sprint on a bluebird day on Friday at the IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: Manzoni/NordicFocus)

    IBU World Cup (Antholz, Italy): Men’s 10 k sprint

    One prone penalty wasn’t enough to keep Johannes Thingnes Bø from his third-straight victory (and ninth this season, including relays) as the 24-year-old Norwegian won the men’s 10-kilometer sprint on Friday at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Antholz, Italy.

    Bø started 42nd of 109 men and had to navigate tricky wind conditions, along with the rest of the field. After missing one target in the prone shooting, Bø left the range in third, 4.8 seconds behind the race leader at the time, Austria’s Julian Eberhard, and 2.6 seconds behind his Norwegian teammate Lars Helge Birkeland in second.

    Throughout the race, Bø set the fastest course times and took a sizable lead over Birkeland and Eberhard after standing, which he cleaned and left the range 33.5 seconds ahead of Birkeland, who had also hit all five standing targets. Eberhard missed two to slip 1:11.6 minutes back.

    Bø went on to cross the finish line in 23:19.3 minutes, faster than France’s Martin Fourcade (who started behind him in bib 48 and cleaned both stages), as Fourcade finished 12.8 seconds back in second.

    The men’s 10 k sprint podium at the IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy, with Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Boe (c) in first, France’s Martin Fourcade (l) in second, and Germany’s Arnd Peiffer (r) in third. (Photo: Manzoni/NordicFocus)

    Germany’s Arnd Pfeiffer started 47th, just ahead of Fourcade, and raced to third (+42.2) with clean shooting as well.

    “In the sprint, you almost always have to shot clean,” Bø reflected after, according to an IBU press release. “After my prone miss, I knew a podium would be hard, but you never know; you fight hard. With zero in standing, I knew there was a chance … I had the times from the start and knew I had good speed today … Martin is almost always stronger than me on the last lap, but today I was not tired.”

    Fourcade pointed out that this was his best sprint result in Antholz, a high-elevation venue at some 5,200 feet above sea level, since 2011, “so I am pretty satisfied,” he told the IBU.

    Pfeiffer told German broadcaster ARD that he latched onto Fourcade for the last loop.

    “At least I was clean on the shooting range today, that was not so easy,” Pfeiffer said, according to a translation. “I am pretty proud I managed to do that today. This was not my best day on the course, even if the position might insinuate something else. I had to toil quite a bit, and was lucky that Martin came by for the final [loop], who also wasn’t in his top shape today.

    “In the end of course the result was great, I haven’t been on the podium in an individual-start race so far this season,” Pfeiffer continued. “So I am happy about 100 percent shooting accuracy and hopefully being on the podium if everything works out.”

    Russia’s Anton Shipulin missed the podium by about four seconds in fourth (+46.3) with one standing miss (0+1), France’s Emilien Jacquelin placed fifth (+53.7) with clean shooting, Birkeland ended up sixth (+1:07.8) with zero penalties as well, Eberhard was seventh (+1:21.7) with two misses (0+2), Russia’s Anton Babikov eighth (+1:27.8; no penalties), Vladimir Chepelin of Belarus ninth (+1:32.3; one penalty), and the Czech Republic’s Ondrej Moravec 10th (+1:35.4; no penalties).

    US Biathlon’s Lowell Bailey racing to 41st in the men’s 10 k sprint at the IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: US Biathlon/NordicFocus)

    Three out of five Americans qualified for Saturday’s pursuit, with Lowell Bailey leading them in 41st (+2:22.0) after one standing miss (0+1). Notably, he had the fifth-fastest overall shooting time.

    Tim Burke was just another 0.4 seconds back in 43rd (+2:22.4) with three penalties (1+2), and Leif Nordgren finished 50th (+2:33.1) with two penalties (1+1) and the second-fastest overall shooting time and third-fastest range time.

    Russell Currier missed the top 60 by 5 seconds in 63rd (+2:55.4) with two misses (1+1), and Sean Doherty finished 75th (+3:15.9) with four penalties (3+1). All five men were recently named to US Biathlon’s Olympic team.

    Macx Davies, who was selected to Biathlon Canada’s Olympic team, was the top Canadian in 66th (+2:58.2) with three misses (1+2). Carsen Campbell finished 82nd (+3:27.9) with two penalties (2+0), Matthew Hudec was 89th (+3:40.6) with one miss (0+1), and Aidan Miller 107th (+5:00.3) with five penalties (3+2).

    The men’s and women’s pursuits will be held Saturday in Antholz at 7:15 a.m. for the women and 9 a.m. for the men EST. Watch live on the Olympic Channel.

    Results

    ***

    Western Canadian Championships (Red Deer, Alberta): Freestyle sprints

    Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt (c) holds off Zina Kocher (l) and Annika Hicks (r) to win the women’s 1.2 k freestyle sprint final on Friday at the NorAm Western Canadian Championships in Red Deer, Alberta. (Photo: Doug Stephen)

    The NorAm series shifted west to to Red Deer, Alberta, for the fourth weekend of racing.

    Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt (Rocky Mountain Racers) won the women’s 1.2-kilometre freestyle sprint A-final in 3:09.12, edging out Zina Kocher (Foothills Nordic) and Annika Hicks (Alberta World Cup Academy) by 0.4 and 0.77 seconds, respectively. They qualified in the same order in a small women’s field of 20. Organizers opted to skip the quarterfinals and pinned the top 10 women from the qualifier in two semifinals.

    Jess Cockney (302) winning the men’s 1.2 k freestyle sprint final ahead of Russell Kennedy (r) on Friday at the NorAm Western Canadian Championships in Red Deer, Alberta. (Photo: Doug Stephen)

    The men’s 1.2 k qualifier had 38 starters, and 22 advanced to the quarterfinals. After qualifying in second, 0.16 seconds off the top time set by Russell Kennedy (Team R.A.D.), Jess Cockney (Canadian World Cup Team) won his quarterfinal and semifinal and ultimately the men’s final in 2:24.29, 1.09 seconds ahead of Kennedy in second. Patrick Stewart-Jones (Alberta World Cup Academy) grabbed his first podium of the season, taking third (+1.70).

    Western Canadian Championships usually draw a smaller field than Easterns: more Canadians live within reasonable driving distance of Eastern Canadian Championships (hosted by Nakkertok in Cantley, Quebec) than live in all three times zones of western Canada combined.

    With many of the top athletes in Europe doing final elevation camps for the Olympics and U23s/Junior World Championships, the Western Championships’ open and junior categories were particularly small this year with 287 athletes total.

    Results: Qualifier | Heats | Complete results

  • Friday Rundown: Ruhpolding Men’s Relay

    Friday Rundown: Ruhpolding Men’s Relay

    The Norwegian men’s relay after winning the 4 x 7.5 k on Friday at the IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany, with Lars Helge Birkeland (l), Tarjei Bø (far r), Emil Hegle Svendsen (second from r), and Johannes Thingnes Bø (second from l). It was their second win of the season (after winning with Ole Einar Bjørndalen, Henrik L’Abée-Lund, and Erlend Bjøntegaard, and Birkeland in the first men’s relay of the 2017/2018 season in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)

    IBU World Cup (Ruhpolding, Germany): Men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay

    Less than a week after Sweden won the men’s 4 x 7.5-kilometer relay in Oberhof, Germany, with an up-and-coming group, Norway posted its second win (in three relays) this season, with an all-star lineup on Friday in Ruhpolding, Germany.

    Lars Helge Birkeland, Tarjei Bø, Emil Hegle Svendsen, and Johannes Thingnes Bø took the lead during Johannes Bø’s anchor leg and ultimately the win in 1:13:11.1 hours, 24.9 seconds ahead of France in second and 53.4 seconds ahead of Russia in third.

    On a bluebird day with no wind in the range, according to an International Biathlon Union (IBU) press release, the Norwegians avoided the penalty lap and used seven spares to clean. First-leg skier Birkeland put them in second with near-perfect shooting (0+0, 0+1), just 0.4 seconds behind Germany’s Erik Lesser, who cleaned without any spares, in first. (Birkeland was also on the Norwegian team that won the first relay of the season in Hochfilzen, Austria.)

    Norway remained in second during Tarjei Bø’s second leg, in which he had to use three spares to clean prone (0+3, 0+0). He tagged Svendsen in second, 0.6 seconds behind Italy, which had risen to first thanks to Lukas Hofer’s fast skiing and solid shooting (0+0, 0+2).

    Svendsen slipped slightly to third place by the final exchange despite only needing one spare to clean (0+0, 0+1), but was still just a second out of first at the tag. France had moved into first place with a predictably strong third leg from Martin Fourcade (0+0, 0+0), in which he brought the team from seventh to first place, just ahead of Italy’s Dominik Windisch and Norway’s Svendsen.

    Johannes Bø skied the third-fastest anchor leg and cleaned prone and used two spares in standing (0+0, 0+2) to overtake France’s Antonin Guigonnat and Italy’s Thierry Chenal, who slipped to second and seventh, respectively, by the finish.

    Guigonnat shot well, requiring just one spare (0+1, 0+0), but finished nearly 25 seconds after Bø for second place. Russia reached the podium with Anton Shipulin picking off two places, after being tagged in fifth.

    In all, France had zero penalties and six spares, with Simon Desthieux, Quentin Fillon Maillet, Fourcade, and Guigonnat, and Russia used a total of just four spares and had no penalties with Alexey Volkov, Maxim Tsvetkov, Anton Babikov, and Shipulin.

    Germany finished fourth (+1:26.5) with zero penalties and 10 spares, with Lesser, Benedikt Doll, Arnd Peiffer and Simon Schempp. After Doll dropped to fifth on the second leg, they skied in fourth on the last two legs.

    Austria took fifth (+1:39.8) with zero penalties and six spares, with David Komatz, Simon Eder, Daniel Mesotitsch, and Dominik Landertinger. Sweden followed in sixth (+1:50.6) with zero penalties, six spares and three of the same men who won last Sunday’s relay (Sebastian Samuelsson, Martin Ponsiluoma and Fredrik Lindström) with new member Torstein Stenersen. Italy finished seventh (+1:58.5) with one penalty and 11 spares.

    Of 26 teams in the relay, Canada placed 14th (+3:22.3) with one penalty and 10 spares, and the U.S. finished 24th (+16:21.6) with eight penalties (four of which stemmed from cross-firing) and 13 spares.

    Notably, the U.S. had been fourth and just 3 seconds out of first after Lowell Bailey’s first leg, which he cleaned without any spares (0+0, 0+0). Leif Nordgren then dropped to 22nd with a penalty in each of his shooting stages (1+3, 1+3) and the 25th-ranked second-leg time. Tim Burke as the team’s third leg had to ski two penalty laps as well (0+2, 2+3), and anchor Sean Doherty was penalized for cross-firing in his last standing stage (0+1, 4+1), according to a US Biathlon press release, and the team was hit with four additional penalties.

    “We have a solid team and I know we didn’t show our true potential today,” Bailey said, according to the release. “But the most important relay is still to come. We’ll just have to wait until then.”

    “I was happy to put together a good race on the track and in the range,” he said. “The first lap was a bit of a roller derby with no easy way to get to the front. I was fortunate to clean without extra rounds because this allowed me to leapfrog up to the lead pack exiting the range. I tried to keep an even pace for loop two and I thought I would be able to hang in second or third, but no one wanted to pass so I had to lead for most of the loop.

    “I had struggled in standing in the previous race so I wanted to get back to taking good shots in standing,” he added. “Although I didn’t shoot as quickly as some of the other guys, I felt good about the stage and the fact that I didn’t have to use extras. It was a fight to catch the lead group on the last loop, but fortunately I had some help from [Italy’s Thomas] Bormolini (of Italy) and we worked together to get back in contact with the lead group.”

    Canada finished 14th with Christian Gow, Scott Gow, Macx Davies, and Brendan Green. On the opening leg, Christian Gow put them in 11th with clean prone shooting and just one spare needed to clean standing (0+0, 0+1), but they slipped one spot to 12th with a penalty on Scott Gow’s second leg (0+0, 1+3). Davies then dropped two more places to 14th despite avoiding the penalty lap (0+3, 0+1), and Green held that position to the finish (0+1, 0+1).

    The women’s 4 x 6 k relay will be held Saturday in Ruhpolding, with Canada starting Emma Lunder, Julia Ransom, Sarah Beaudry, and Rosanna Crawford. For the U.S., it will be Susan Dunklee, Clare Egan, Emily Dreissigacker, and Joanne Reid. Watch it live on the Olympic Channel at 8:30 a.m. EST.

    Results

  • Norway’s Bø Crushes Östersund 20 k; Three North Americans in the Points

    Norway’s Bø Crushes Östersund 20 k; Three North Americans in the Points

    Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø celebrates his more than 2-minute victory in the men’s 20 k individual race at the 2017/2018 IBU World Cup opening week in Östersund, Sweden. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)

    Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø routinely races with a rifle completely coated from the stock to the barrel in a bright golden paint, and on Thursday, in the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup men’s 20-kilometer individual race in Östersund, Sweden, that display of his ambitions to be the best biathlete in the world didn’t even seem ostentatious.

    The 24-year-old, three-time world champion didn’t just win the race, he won by a huge margin distancing the rest of the field by over two minutes.

    “This is a big day for me, first win in the individual, I have waited for it and it feels good to now have won every [discipline] in the World Cup,” Bø later said in the IBU press conference. “Today was clean shooting for me and the others made mistakes, and then you get a minute for every mistake and suddenly it’s two minutes.”

    Martin Fourcade, the perennial World Cup Total Score leader and last season’s individual discipline World Cup champion, remained clean through three shooting stages and looked to be on his way to another victory, but then the usually dependable French athlete missed two targets in his final standing shooting to incur two penalty minutes (0+0+0+2). Starting a few bibs behind Fourcade, his opponent Bø hit all targets also in the final stage, and with the third-best course time of the day, raced the final lap to a convincing victory.

    In the finish Bø had a 2:14.3-minute lead on Fourcade, who, thanks to his fast skiing, managed to claim the third place on the podium.

    “Sometimes you can only congratulate the winner and be satisfied with what you get with two mistakes,” Fourcade said at the press conference.

    “I think I went too much attack on the last shooting,” Fourcade said in an English interview with German broadcaster ZDF. “I was really concentrated on my first three shootings, I knew what I had to do and it was pretty easy to apply. But in the Iast one I started thinking about clean shooting and a lot of negative thoughts […]. It’s a good lesson for the following races. Anyway, Johannes shot faster than I did today, so I [would have] had no chance to be on the first place even with no mistakes. It was not the result I was expecting, but it’s a quite good start, an OK start.”

    Regarding his decision to go all-out on the final lap even though he knew he had a huge lead, Bø explained at the press conference: “I didn’t want to slow down and suddenly there is one guy like Ole Einar [Bjørndalen] coming from behind to beat me, so I tried to race as hard as I could, and that was a good training for the races to come.”

    Starting late in bib 80, the 43-year-old veteran Bjørndalen did not seriously challenge Bø in this race, finishing 18th (+3:43.7) with one penalty (1+0+0+0).

    France’s Quentin Fillion Maillet shooting clean on his way to second place in the men’s 20 k individual race at the 2017/2018 IBU World Cup opening week in Östersund, Sweden. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)

    Yet Fourcade was bested by his teammate Quentin Fillon Maillet, who placed second after starting a few positions behind him and shooting clean. But ultimately, Maillet had more than a two-minute gap to Bø, finishing 2:01.0 back with no penalties.

    “Three yeas ago I had two fourth places and one podium here [in Östersund] so it’s a good place for me,” Fillon Maillet explained at the press conference. “Last year I had a lot of difficulties with my shooting, a lot of mistakes, a lot of penalty loops. So I am happy to start the season with a perfect shooting… I didn’t really change anything important with my shooting, just my head [laughs], something to think during the race. I work very hard to be better, so I am very happy to start with a good result.”

    Austria’s Julian Eberhard finished fourth, just three seconds behind Fourcade with one penalty in his final shooting stage (+2:17.5; 0+0+0+1). Russia’s Anton Babikov in fifth (+2:34.1), Switzerland’s Benjamin Weger in seventh (+2:34.1) and Slovenia’s Jakov Fak in 12th place (+2:44.3) were the only other athletes besides Bø and Maillet to hit all 20 targets.

    “I think Martin was on the podium in every race last year, so I should do the same to hold him behind me,” Bø joked at the press conference, when asked about wearing the yellow bib of the World Cup Total Score leader for the next race and his chances of winning  the Overall World Cup this season.

    “I am mostly focused on the Olympics,” Fourcade replied regarding this topic. “If I decide I need to skip some events I will, I already did that in 2014 [ahead of Sochi]. For now I am just focusing on the next competition… Many things to do before the Olympics… I am satisfied with the level I am at today.”

    Also questioned by German broadcaster ZDF about recent revelations in the ongoing fight against doping and next week’s pending IOC decision on whether Russian athletes should be allowed to start at the upcoming Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang or not, Fourcade had this to say:

    “Regarding your question about the IOC, they will have a meeting soon and they will decide about the Russian issue. We [the biathletes] have no new information about it. But as an athlete I will keep the same position [as in the past]: I am mostly against collective sanctions, because I am sure there are really good Russian athletes who don’t use doping. Anyway, with what we heard about the Sochi Olympic Games, if it’s true – and the IOC should know that – it’s a big shame, and the ones who were involved need to be punished. You know, it’s strange because in a way I am against collective sanctions, but in another way with all the positive tests in the past year I lost faith. And I am really disappointed about that. You know, I am a big fan of sport, I dream of watching sport on TV. And I think when you lose faith it is not good for the sport. And as an athlete I sometimes lose it, so I can imagine the people on the other side of the TV also must have this feeling. So I know the IOC will take a good solution, but I have not, you know, only one solution, so it’s a pretty hard choice.”

    Previously after Fourcade had just crossed the finish line, Russian biathlete Babikov immediately walked over to Fourcade to congratulate him on his race performance.

    During last season’s IBU World Championships, there had been some harsh words between Fourcade — an outspoken critic of the use of performance-enhancing drugs and the way the IBU handled the situation following the release of the McLaren report — and some Russian athletes, especially past doping offender Alexander Loginov following the mixed relay race there. In Thursday’s World Cup race, Loginov placed ninth with one penalty (+2:38.1).

    Burke 32nd, Doherty 38th for U.S.; Smith 37th for Canada

    US Biathlon’s Tim Burke racing to 32nd in the men’s 20 k individual race at the 2017/2018 IBU World Cup opener in Östersund, Sweden. (Photo: US Biathlon/NordicFocus)

    For the first time in an individual race in several years, US Biathlon started five men, thanks to the men’s team’s strong performance to clinch 10th in last season’s Nation Cup score. (For the Olympics, even the best teams can only start four athletes for the sprint, the pursuit and the individual race, whereas in World Cups, the highest-ranked teams by this score can enter up to six.)

    Starting in bib 44, Tim Burke incurred three penalties, all in the first two shooting stages (1+2+0+0), on his way to the 32nd place in his first race of the season, 5:24.2 minutes back to Bø and 3:10 to the podium positions.

    “There was some light wind on the range today but we have seen much worse here in the past,” Burke explained in an email to FasterSkier. “The wind was up a little but it stayed pretty consistent from the time that we zeroed [target practice] before the race. I felt like I needed to get some of the rust off in the first two stages after not racing a World Cup since last February. I was simply a bit too conservative and controlling in the first two stages but was able to adjust and shoot more from reaction in the last two stages.”

    Burke had the 37th-fastest course time of the day, while his shooting and range time ranked 14th and 13th, respectively.

    “Considering everything, I think this was a solid start for me and I feel like I can build from this result,” he summed up his first race day. “After ending last season early due to illness, and taking a long time to get completely healthy again, I definitely had a lot of unknowns heading into this season. That combined with the fact that I have only been here one week and was unable to train on snow the previous 10 days at home, gives me confidence that things are headed in the right direction.”

    Starting very early in bib 3, 2016 Junior World champion Sean Doherty placed 38th, 5:50.0 minutes back with two penalties (0+1+0+1).

    The other three Americans all finished within 10 seconds of one another. In a field of 108 starters, Leif Nordgren was 63rd, 8:06.0 minutes back with three penalties (1+0+0+2). Lowell Bailey, the 2017 world champion in this discipline, placed 67th (+8:11.0) with four penalties (1+1+0+2) in his first race of the season after having to skip the mixed relay races last weekend due to an illness, and Paul Schommer was 69th (+8:12.3) with four penalties (1+2+0+1).

    “Tough start,” Bailey commented on his race, according to a US biathlon press release. “I definitely felt a bit stale today, both on the ski course and in the shooting range. With the fresh snow that fell overnight, the conditions were really challenging and I definitely didn’t feel like I was at my best on the tracks. I’ll regroup tomorrow and start looking toward the next race on Saturday.”

    “The first World Cups can be some of the most challenging for our team,” Burke explained in his email. “We have less snow time, less [offseason/pre-season] racing and jet lag to deal with [compared to many competitors], which can be a big hurdle to overcome at the beginning of the season. Luckily it’s a long season!”

    The Canadian men couldn’t quite match the peak performance Julia Ransom had achieved a day earlier in the women’s 15 k individual, with a clean shooting performance on her way to a career-best ninth place.

    Nathan Smith, who, similar to Bailey had missed last weekend’s mixed relay races with an illness, achieved Biathlon Canada’s best result in 37th place (+5:47.2), just ahead of Doherty. With a light wind blowing from the front or left, Smith cleared 18 of 20 targets and only incurred two penalties in his second shooting stage (0+2+0+0) while firing fast to post the 12th-ranked shooting time of the day.

    “Conditions were fairly good by Östersund standards,” Smith wrote in an email to FasterSkier. “Not as perfect as the women’s race yesterday but still pretty good. I’m not sure what happened on my first standing. I felt pretty in control but the misses were quite far out. I think maybe it was a timing thing where I didn’t have a fast enough reaction when it was in the black.”

    In contrast to his fast shooting, Smith’s skiing time ranked in the middle of the field of 108 starters, with the 61st-best course time of the day. Last weekend Smith had to cancel a planned start in the single mixed relay race with Rosanna Crawford. In that race, Christian Gow replaced Smith, and Crawford tumbled in a downhilll crash.

    “It was nice to get back to racing but on the other hand disappointing to have come down with a cold a few days ago,” Smith explained. “I had been 100% healthy all training year. It didn’t turn into anything too severe thankfully but definitely didn’t help me out at all today. Skiing conditions were really slow (even the winning time). I expect to feel better this weekend in the sprint but will have to be realistic considering the cold and being ‘rusty’ after not racing last year, other than a few races.”

    Teammate Christian Gow placed 45th on Thursday (+6:20.2) with one penalt  in the final shooting stage (0+0+0+1). His brother Scott Gow placed 53rd (+7:16.1) with four penalties (1+2+0+1), and Brendan Green was 68th (+8:11.5) with five penalty minutes (1+2+0+2).

    Results 

  • Saturday Rundown: Otepää and Hochfilzen (Updated)

    Saturday Rundown: Otepää and Hochfilzen (Updated)

    The men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay podium at 2017 IBU World Championships on Saturday in Hochfilzen, Austria, with Russia (c) in first, France (l) in second, and Austria (r) in third. (Photo: IBU World Champs/Twitter)

    IBU World Championships (Hochfilzen, Austria): Men’s relay

    [UPDATED] Russia’s four-man relay team hit nearly every target on Saturday, using a total of just three spares to clean 40 targets, and stayed out of the penalty loop to capture gold in the men’s 4 x 7.5-kilometer relay at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria.

    It was the last team event and the second-to-last day of the championships, with the men’s and women’s elite mass starts remaining on Sunday. Anton Shipulin anchored the Russians to first, 5.8 seconds ahead of France’s Martin Fourcade, after Shipulin cleaned his prone stage and used one spare in standing to hold onto the lead his team built. Fourcade cleaned both stages to secure silver for his team, and Austria took bronze (+20.1) with anchor Dominik Landertinger.

    After Russia’s Alexey Volkov used one spare in each of his shooting stages and came through the exchange in seventh, Maxim Tsvetkov and Anton Babikov both cleaned without any spares to bring the team into fourth, then first, respectively.

    France’s first leg Jean-Guillaume Béatrix shot clean as well and tagged Quentin Fillon Maillet in second. Fillon Maillet then needed one spare in prone, but cleaned standing to take the lead, tagging Simon Desthieux in first. Desthieux used three spares in prone, but avoided the penalty lap before tagging Fourcade in third, 12 seconds behind Austria in second. Fourcade closed the gap and clinched second, and France combined for a total of just four spare rounds.

    Austria achieved bronze in front of a home crowd with Daniel Mesotitsch, Julian Eberhard, Simon Eder, and Landertinger combining for 10 spares and no penalties.

    Finishing 8.5 seconds after Austria, Germany placed fourth. Italy was a minute and a half out of first in fifth, Ukraine took sixth (+1:41.3), and the U.S. placed seventh (+1:50.5) with Lowell Bailey, Leif Nordgren, Tim Burke, and Sean Doherty. Bailey initially put the team in fourth at the first exchange, 12.4 seconds out of first, then Nordgren tagged Burke in sixth, 17 seconds behind. Burke used four spares to clean and tagged Doherty in seventh, about a minute back. The Americans used a total of eight spares but had no penalties.

    Canada finished 13th (+3:35.5) with Christian Gow, Scott Gow, Macx Davies, and Brendan Green. They were 39 seconds out of first and in 12th place after Christian Gow’s first leg, then slipped to 14th before Davies moved them back into 12th by the last exchange. Canada had a total of 10 spares and zero penalties.

    Results

    ***

    FIS Cross-Country World Cup (Otepää, Estonia): Freestyle sprint

    In the last World Cup before the upcoming 2017 International Ski Federation (FIS) Nordic Ski World Championships next week in Lahti, Finland, five U.S. women qualified in the top 12 of the women’s 1.3-kilometer freestyle sprint, and Jessie Diggins reached the final on Saturday in Otepää, Estonia.

    Diggins started the day by placing 12th in the qualifier, 3.93 seconds behind Sweden’s Stina Nilsson in first (and her U.S. teammates Kikkan Randall in third, Sophie Caldwell in fourth, and Ida Sargent in 10th) before winning her quarterfinal and semifinal. In the final, Diggins wad gapped by the leaders on the final climb and finished fifth (+6.82).

    The women’s freestyle sprint podium at the Otepaa World Cup on Saturday in Estonia, with Swedish winner Stina Nilsson (c), Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla (l) in second and Heidi Weng (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)

    Nilsson won the final in a time of 2:49.96 minutes, just ahead of Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla (+0.27) who lost her balance and her speed with it on the last corner. The two had broken away from third place and Nilsson led into the final straightaway and held Falla off for the win. Norway took second through fourth with Heidi Weng in third place (+3.75) and Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen in fourth (+4.91).

    Randall initially finished her quarterfinal in third position and would have been out, but advanced when Russia’s Natalia Matveeva was relegated to last for obstruction. In the same semifinal as Diggins, Randall fell cresting a small hill over a tunnel and finished fifth (+13.30) for ninth overall on the day.

    Caldwell placed second in her quarterfinal heat behind the day’s winner Nilsson, then stumbled halfway up a climb early in her semifinal, but stuck with the pack to finish fifth (+1.83) for 10th overall.

    Sargent raced in the same quarterfinal as Falla and narrowly missed advancing to the semifinal in third place, fewer than 0.2 seconds behind Switzerland’s Laurien van der Graaff in second and 0.35 seconds behind Falla, who won that heat. Sargent placed 13th on the day.

    Sadie Bjornsen qualified 25th and finished fourth (+2.82) in the same quarterfinal as Randall for the 25th overall.

    Canada’s Dahria Beatty also qualified for the sprint heats in 30th place, and finished sixth in her quarterfinal for 29th overall.

    Also for Canada, Cendrine Browne finished the qualification in 48th place and Katherine Stewart-Jones was one position behind in 49th.

    Also for the U.S., distance specialists Chelsea Holmes and Rosie Brennan placed 58th and 60th, respectively.

    The men’s freestyle sprint podium on Saturday at the World Cup in Otepaa, Estonia, with Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (c) taking his first World Cup win, Norway’s Finn Hågen Krogh (l) in second, and Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)

    In the men’s 1.6-kilometer sprint, Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo achieved the first World Cup victory of his career in a time of 3:06.53 minutes, holding onto a lead he had created with an attack right out of the start gate in the final. His teammate Finn Hågen Krogh placed second (+0.60), taking the inside lane in the last turn to push reigning Tour de Ski winner Sergey Ustiugov of Russia to third (+1.0).

    For the North Americans, it was a day of narrow misses.

    For the U.S., Simi Hamilton started his race day by qualifying in seventh position, and placed second in his quarterfinal. He then closely missed out on the final after placing fourth in his semifinal in a four-way sprint photo finish (+0.33), just 0.04 seconds behind the third place and lucky loser time of Norway’s Håvard Solås Taugbøl, who advanced. Hamilton ended the day in  eighth overall.

    Canadian World Cup Team member Alex Harvey snuck into the sprint heats in 29th place in the qualifier, then just missed out on advancing from his quarterfinal in a photo finish for second with Great Britain’s Andrew Young, who took it by 0.04 seconds. Harvey finished third in that heat, 0.6 behind Italy’s Federico Pellegrino, for 15th for the day. Young went on to finish sixth in his semifinal for 12th overall, and Pellegrino advanced as a lucky loser from the same semifinal and was fourth in the final (+4.77).

    American Andy Newell qualified 16th and finished sixth (+1.89) in his quarterfinal for 27th overall.

    Canada’s Len Valjas missed qualifying for the heats in 40th place, as did his teammate Devon Kershaw in 50th.

    American Erik Bjornsen was 53rd, and for Canada, Jesse Cockney 54th and Knute Johnsgaard 56th. In his World Cup debut, Benjamin Lustgarten placed 64th in the qualifier.

    Results: Women | Men

  • Saturday Rundown: Ulricehamn, Antholz, Chaux-Neuve, Zuoz, Whistler, & Truckee (Updated x6)

    Saturday Rundown: Ulricehamn, Antholz, Chaux-Neuve, Zuoz, Whistler, & Truckee (Updated x6)

    Ben Lustgarten (Craftsbury Green Racing Project) with his $750-dollar check for winning the men's SuperTour classic sprint on Saturday near Truckee, Calif. Stratton's Ben Saxton (l) placed second and APU's Reese Hanneman (r) was third.
    Ben Lustgarten (Craftsbury Green Racing Project) with his $750-dollar check for winning the men’s SuperTour classic sprint on Saturday near Truckee, Calif. Stratton’s Ben Saxton (l) placed second and APU’s Reese Hanneman (r) was third.

    U.S. SuperTour (Truckee, Calif.): Classic sprints

    [UPDATED] Less than a week after being named to the U.S. team for 2017 World Championships, Ben Lustgarten — the men’s 30 k classic mass start champion at this year’s U.S. nationals — won Saturday’s SuperTour classic sprint as well.

    Lustgarten, of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project, raced to a 1.58-second victory in the men’s A-final at the Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif., finishing in 3:03.4. Ben Saxton, of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) Elite Team, placed second, and Reese Hanneman, of Alaska Pacific University (APU), was third (+2.77).

    Hannenman’s younger brother Logan also reached the final and placed fourth (+4.5), Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess (Bend Endurance Academy) was fifth (+5.86), and the third APU skier in the final, Tyler Kornfield sixth (+18.69).

    Blackhorse-von Jess started the day off as the fastest qualifier in 2:58.8. Saxton qualified second, 4.1 seconds back, Logan Hanneman qualified third (+4.2), and Lustgarten fourth (+6.5). Blackhorse-von Jess went on to win his quarterfinal and place second in his semifinal, while Lustgarten and Saxton both won their quarterfinals and semifinals.

    Jennie Bender (3) of the Bridger Ski Foundation leading Stratton's Julia Kern (2) and Sun Valley's Deedra Irwin (5) during the second women's classic sprint semifinal at Saturday's SuperTour near Truckee, Calif. Bender went on to win the semifinal, as well as the final.
    Jennie Bender (3) of the Bridger Ski Foundation leading Stratton’s Julia Kern (2) and Sun Valley’s Deedra Irwin (5) during the second women’s classic sprint semifinal at Saturday’s SuperTour near Truckee, Calif. Bender went on to win the semifinal, as well as the final.

    In the women’s A-final, Jennie Bender of the Bridger Ski Foundation, coming off a classic sprint win at nationals, scored another victory in 3:29.07. She edged Craftsbury’s Kaitlynn Miller by just seven-hundredths of a second, and Stratton’s Julia Kern placed third (+3.42). Racing at home, Hannah Halvorsen (Sugar Bowl Academy) finished fourth (+3.88). Craftsbury had three in the women’s final with Caitlin Patterson in fifth (+3.93) and Heather Mooney in sixth (+27.35).

    Miller proved to be the woman to beat throughout the day, winning the qualifier in 3:30.9, along with her quarterfinal and semifinal. Kern qualified second (+3.2) and Bender third (+4.6). Bender went on to win her quarterfinal and semifinal as well before facing off with Miller in the final.

    Results: Men | Women

    ***

    NorAm Western Canadian Championships (Whistler, B.C.): 10/15 k classic 

    It was interval-starts day at Western Canadian Championships at Whistler Olympic Park and national-team veteran Emily Nishikawa completed the four laps of the women’s 10 k classic in 30:35.5 to win ahead of teammate Dahria Beatty, 16.5 seconds behind. Maya MacIsaac-Jones completed the national team and Alberta World Cup Academy (AWCA) sweep in third (+1:36.5).

    Sovereign Lake’s Hannah Mehain, of the national junior team, was the top junior for the second-straight day in eighth overall (+3:22.1).

    In the men’s 15 k, Lappe Nordic’s Andy Shields won the six-lap race in 40:34.2, showing some of the form that won him the NorAm overall last season. National-team member Jess Cockney collected his second-straight podium, finishing second, 4.3 seconds behind Shields. Evan Palmer-Charrette (NTDC Thunder Bay) completed the podium in third (+55.1).

    Results

    ***

    FIS Cross-Country World Cup (Ulricehamn, Sweden): 10/15 k freestyle

    The men's 15 k freestyle podium at Saturday's World Cup in Ulricehamn, Sweden, with Canadian winner Alex Harvey (c), Norwegian runner-up Martin Johnsrud Sundby (l), and Sweden's Marcus Hellner (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
    The men’s 15 k freestyle podium at Saturday’s World Cup in Ulricehamn, Sweden, with Canadian winner Alex Harvey (c), Norwegian runner-up Martin Johnsrud Sundby (l), and Sweden’s Marcus Hellner (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)

    Men’s report | Women’s report

    First individual win of the season (second straight, after winning last weekend’s team sprint), fifth individual victory of his career. That’s the latest news on Canada’s Alex Harvey, who won the World Cup men’s 15-kilometer freestyle individual start on Sunday in Ulricehamn, Sweden, for his first victory in a 15 k skate race and fourth individual podium of 2016/2017.

    To say Harvey is on a roll is an understatement. On Saturday, he beat Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby by 6 seconds after starting a minute behind the Norwegian defending World Cup champion. Harvey’s fastest time across the line in 32:46.2 held up through 76 finishers, with Sweden’s Marcus Hellner coming somewhat within range after starting a minute behind him. Hellner ended up 14.3 seconds back from Harvey at the finish for third place, behind Sundby.

    Switzerland’s Dario Cologna missed the podium by 0.5 seconds in fourth (+14.7), and Norway’s 24-year-old Daniel Stock broke through in fifth (+16.2) for his first World Cup top 20.

    Great Britain’s Andrew Musgrave placed sixth (+18.7), Sweden’s Daniel Rickardsson was seventh (+25.0), Norway’s Finn Hågen Krogh eighth (+32.2), Russia’s Petr Sedov ninth (+33.9), and Japan’s Keishin Yoshida 10th (+34.2).

    American Erik Bjornsen landed in the points as he tied Norway’s Simen Andreas Sveen for 28th (+1:09.2), leading fellow U.S. Ski Team members Noah Hoffman, who placed 41st (+1:28.8), and Simi Hamilton in 53rd (+1:56.2). Also for the U.S., Matt Gelso, the Period 1 SuperTour leader from the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF) Gold Team, finished 68th (+3:00.3).

    Harvey’s Canadian World Cup teammates Len Valjas finished 35th (+1:17.7) and Devon Kershaw 38th (+1:22.2). Knute Johnsgaard (Canadian U25 Team) did not start.

    The women's 10 k freestyle podium on Saturday in Ulricehamn, Sweden, with Norwegian winner Marit Bjørgen (c), Finland's Krista Parmakoski (l) in second and Sweden's Charlotte Kalla (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
    The women’s 10 k freestyle podium on Saturday in Ulricehamn, Sweden, with Norwegian winner Marit Bjørgen (c), Finland’s Krista Parmakoski (l) in second and Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)

    In her first World Cup race in over a month and at a brand-new World Cup venue, Norway’s 36-year-old Marit Bjørgen returned to her winning ways, topping the women’s 10 k freestyle on Saturday in Ulricehamn.

    Bjørgen started 40th out of 61 finishers and took the lead from Finland’s Krista Parmakoski at the finish with a time of 23:46.3 minutes. Parmakoski, who started a minute ahead of her in bib 38, ended up second, 10.7 seconds back. Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla reached the podium for the second time this season in third (+24.9).

    “It is always great to win,” Bjørgen said, according to an International Ski Federation (FIS) press release. “I stayed at home for five weeks and was training. It is great to come back with a victory. I know that the training I had done was good. It was an amazing atmosphere today by the course. There were people cheering everywhere.”

    Norway swept fourth through sixth with Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen in fourth (+25.7), Ragnhild Haga in fifth (+32.3) and Heidi Weng in sixth (+34.0).

    American Jessie Diggins raced to seventh (+34.9), ahead of Sweden’s Hanna Falk, who recorded her best distance result in eighth (+36.4). Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg finished ninth (+44.8), and Germany’s Sandra Ringwald was 10th (+56.6).

    “I didn’t have the snappy good feelings I was hoping to have in my body today, but it was a solid race,” Diggins wrote in a post-race email to FasterSkier. “It’s always hard when you know that on your best days you are capable of more, but at the same time we had great skis, and it was really fun for me to be able to ski with my teammates today!”

    The U.S. had three in the top 20 and four in the top 30 with Sadie Bjornsen in 12th (+1:00.5), Liz Stephen in 16th (+1:07.3) and Rosie Brennan in 24th (+1:30.7).

    Cendrine Browne as Canada’s lone woman in the race achieved 35th (+1:52.0) for her career best in an individual race. Also for the U.S., Kikkan Randall placed 40th (+1:59.6) and Liz Guiney of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project 52nd (+2:33.2).

    Results: Men | Women

    ***

    IBU World Cup (Antholz, Italy): Men’s relay & women’s mass start

    Men’s report | Women’s report

    The photo finish of the men's 4 x 7.5 k relay on Saturday at the IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy, with Germany's Simon Schempp outlunging Norway's Emil Hegle Svendsen. (Photo: IBU screenshot)
    The photo finish of the men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay on Saturday at the IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy, with Germany’s Simon Schempp outlunging Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen. (Photo: ZDF broadcast screenshot)

    For the U.S. men, top six was a target for the 4 x 7.5 k relay on Sunday in Antholz, Italy, according to US Biathlon Men’s Coach Jonas Johansson.

    Mission accomplished. In the final team event before 2017 World Championships, Lowell Bailey, Leif Nordgren, Tim Burke, and Sean Doherty combined for sixth, finishing 1:04.9 minutes behind the German winners. The Americans used a total of 10 spares but avoided the penalty loop, as did the Germans who used seven spares to clean the eight-stage race and won it in 1:13.57.2.

    Germany’s Simon Schempp narrowly outlasted Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen in the finishing stretch to secure the victory for Germany (with teammates Erik Lesser, Benedikt Doll and Arnd Peiffer) by one-tenth of a second. Norway finished second with nine spares and no penalties (with Lars Helge Birkeland, Henrik L’Abee-Lund, Johannes Thingnes Bø, and Svendsen), and Russia secured third (+33.6) with nine spares and zero penalties as well (with Maxim Tsvetkov, Evgeniy Garanichev, Dmitry Malyshko, and Anton Babikov).

    Ukraine used a total of just five spares and had zero penalties for fourth (+46.7), and Austria took fifth (+49.2) with eight spares and no penalties, after Austria’s Dominik Landertinger skied away from Doherty on the final loop and finished 6.9 seconds ahead of him for fifth place.

    For the U.S. men, sixth was close to their team-best fifth with the same lineup in last year’s World Cup relay in Presque Isle, Maine. The same group also took sixth in Ruhpolding, Germany, last year as well.

    With all four making US Biathlon’s World Championships team, announced Saturday, they will likely be aiming for a best championships result early next month in Hochfilzen, Austria.

    Canada (Christian Gow, Scott Gow, Macx Davies, and Brendan Green) finished 16th (+4:13.8) on Saturday with two penalties and 11 spares. Scott Gow skied them up to 15th by the second exchange but they dropped to 18th after Davies had two penalties on the third leg. With Green anchoring and using just one spare, they recouped two places before the finish.

    In the women’s race, Germany’s Nadine Horchler achieved a lifetime dream with her first World Cup win, after starting in bib 30 and earning her start as a reserve athlete. Germany took first and second with Laura Dahlmeier in second, and the Czech Republic’s Gabriela Koukalova placed third. Susan Dunklee of the U.S. was the lone North American starter and finished 24th after leading at the start of the second loop.

    Results: Men’s relay | Women’s 12.5 k mass start

    ***

    FIS Nordic Combined World Cup (Chaux-Neuve, France): Individual large hill/10 k

    Saturday's Nordic Combined World Cup podium in Chaux-Neuve, France, with German winner Johannes Rydzek (c), German runner-up Fabian Rießle (l) and Japan’s Akito Watabe (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Nordic Combined/Twitter)
    Saturday’s Nordic Combined World Cup podium in Chaux-Neuve, France, with German winner Johannes Rydzek (c), German runner-up Fabian Rießle (l) and Japan’s Akito Watabe (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Nordic Combined/Twitter)

    The first part of Saturday’s Nordic Combined World Cup individual large hill/10 k competition was a shining moment for U.S. Nordic Combined skier Ben Berend, who jumped to second for a total of 127.5 points, trailing only Norway’s Jarl Magnus Riiber with 139 points in Chaux-Neuve, France.

    Berend flew farther than Germany’s Eric Frenzel, who jumped to third on the Chaux-Neuve large hill.

    Later in the day, they started the 10 k Gundersen in that order, with Riiber heading out first, followed by Berend 46 seconds later, then Frenzel 53 seconds back in third.

    Germany’s Johannes Rydzek started 1:15 minutes back in 12th and skied the fastest 10 k to take the victory at the finish (in 23:01.7). He held off his German teammate Fabian Rießle by 2.8 seconds for the win, after Rießle started sixth and 1:01 back. Japan’s Akito Watabe reached the podium in third (+5.7) after jumping to seventh and starting the race 1 second behind Rießle.

    Frenzel ended up fourth (+8.3), and the fourth German in the top five, Björn Kircheisen improved to fifth (+22.6) after starting 11th.

    Riiber dropped to 15th (+54.0), and Berend fell outside the top 30 to end up 32nd (+2:26.0) with the 39th-ranked course time.

    Berend finished 12.2 seconds ahead of his U.S. teammate Taylor Fletcher, who placed 34th (+2:38.2) after the jump put him in 48th.

    Bryan Fletcher was 49th after the jump but did not start the 10 k.

    The Nordic Combined World Cup continues Sunday in Chaux-Neuve with another large hill/10 k.

    Results

    ***

    Ski Classics #5: La Diagonela (Zuoz, Switzerland): 50 k classic

    [UPDATED] Under “blue skies, no wind and perfect track conditions” in the Swiss Engadin Valley on Saturday, according to a Ski Classics press release, Russia’s Ilya Chernousov and the Czech Republic’s Kateřina Smutná won the men’s and women’s La Diagonela, respectively, in Zuoz, Switzerland.

    Chernousov, of Team Pioneer Investments, and Tord Asle Gjerdalen (Team Santander) led a large pack of men into the final major climb on the 50 k course. There, Gjerdalen attacked and Chernousov matched him, accelerating away from his competitors up the last steep pitch to the finish, according to the press release. He finished in 2:03:39.6 hours, holding off Gjerdalen by 1.5 seconds, while Øystein Pettersen (Team BN Bank) finished third (+3.0).

    In the women’s race, Smutná (Team Santander) pushed to break up the field around the halfway point, where the men caught the women. Britta Johansson Norgren (Lager 157 Ski Team) hung with Smutná, but lost contact over the last 5 k. After finishing second in the last two Ski Classics races, Smutná took the win by 1:03.2 minutes in 2:20:49.2. Nordgren finished second, ahead of Sara Lindborg (Team Serneke) in third, who finished more than three minutes later (+4:17.4).

    Results

     

  • Fourcade Unshaken by Oberhof Winds; Burke 26th and Season-Best 34th for Currier

    Fourcade Unshaken by Oberhof Winds; Burke 26th and Season-Best 34th for Currier

    France’s Martin Fourcade celebrates his victory in the men’s 12.5-kilometer pursuit on Saturday at the 2017 IBU World Cup in Oberhof, Germany. (Photo: IBU)
    France’s Martin Fourcade celebrates his victory in the men’s 12.5-kilometer pursuit on Saturday at the 2017 IBU World Cup in Oberhof, Germany. (Photo: IBU)

    With cold, fierce gusts of wind blowing over the biathlon range in Oberhof, Germany, the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup men’s 12.5-kilometer pursuit on Saturday was decided in the first standing stage. Out of a top group of seven athletes, only France’s Martin Fourcade was able to shoot clean to create a 35-second gap. In the final shooting, he cleared his targets in a slow but controlled rhythm, avoiding the penalty lap once again, while his pursuers missed more shots to increase the gap to an insurmountable lead.

    Fourcade, the dominant athlete of the season so far who only missed the podium in the sprint two days ago, crossed the line in a time of 36.45.7 minutes with only one penalty (0+1+0+0), clapping and waiving to the crowd on the long finish stretch.

    “That is a difficult situation, something I fight with during a lot of competitions in my career,” Fourcade commented on his final shooting at the press conference. “On some days it’s a good decision to wait, like it was today. Some days you just regret afterwards to not join the penalty loop as fast as possible.”

    “My fingers were very cold, and in biathlon we can’t use big gloves for the shooting,” Fourcade said of the challenging conditions to German broadcaster ZDF. “Getting them warm was my main occupation during the race … I knew shooting was the key today. In French I would say I have a ‘hard head’, when I am not satisfied about one competition I am often good the day after. So I am very happy to do it again today.”

    Germany’s Arnd Peiffer thought he had lost all chances for a podium finish with two penalties in the final standing shooting, but managed to refocus to hit his last two shots and with all of his closest competitors incurring at least as much — e.g. Austria’s sprint winner Julian Eberhard missed every target in that stage — he still was able to secure second place by a comfortable margin for his best result of the season (+1:09.9 with 3 penalties).

    “In the last shooting with two misses I already thought I had gambled the race away,” Peiffer told ZDF after the race. “It was very difficult to shoot with the wind, very turbulent. I am glad that I made the last shot today… I felt pretty good on the skis and was able to close gaps. But the snow is very cold, very blunt, so the skiing is pretty energy-sapping especially on the second part of the loop with headwinds… Only on the last one I didn’t have as much stress anymore with a large gap behind me. There is nothing better than skiing into the finish relaxed like that.”

    Four athletes, who each had to ski five penalty laps during the race, fought for the third spot on the podium. Italy’s Dominik Windisch was able to repeat his third place from the sprint (+1:32.4), edging out Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen by 0.2 seconds (+1:32.6).

    Italy’s Dominik Windisch (l) celebrates after beating Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen (r) in the race for third place in the men’s 12.5-kilometer pursuit at the 2017 IBU World Cup in Oberhof, Germany. (Photo: IBU)
    Italy’s Dominik Windisch (l) celebrates after beating Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen (r) in the race for third place in the men’s 12.5-kilometer pursuit at the 2017 IBU World Cup in Oberhof, Germany. (Photo: IBU)

    “During the last lap, I was thinking about my strategy, I saw him in the uphill a bit tired, but I think it was a fake,” a smiling Windisch said at the press conference on his last loop with Svendsen. “I tried to attack there, but saw that he was still behind me. I then thought maybe this was a mistake. When he passed me on the last uphill again I thought maybe that’s my chance, because on the finish stretch you have the wind against you. … So I could stay behind and attacked at the end. I am happy that my strategy at the finish was good.”

    “He was a little stronger than me in the end. I felt like a log,” Svendsen told Norwegian broadcaster NRK. “I was a little too aggressive toward the end. I thought he looked tired and I thought I could pass him. I ended the long lane in the final stretch with lots of wind. I think he came out from behind me and got a little rest during the decisive seconds.”

    Behind them Germany’s Erik Lesser (+1:36.1) and Russia’s Anton Babikov (+1:40.7) placed fifth and sixth, respectively. They had closed a gap of more than ten seconds to Svendsen and Windisch on the final loop, but then had no energy left to pass them up the last climb and sprint finish stretch.

    No athlete managed to shoot clean in the windy conditions, and aside from Fourcade, only Ukraine’s Vladimir Semakov was able to limit his penalties to one, finishing 13th (0+0+1+0, +2:08.2). His teammate Artjom Pryma made an even bigger leap in the results after starting in 57th place to finish ninth with two penalties (+1:55.3).

    US Biathlon's Tim Burke (r) racing to 26th for his second-best individual result of the season on Saturday in the IBU World Cup 12.5 k pursuit in Oberhof, Germany. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
    US Biathlon’s Tim Burke (r) racing to 26th for his second-best individual result of the season on Saturday in the IBU World Cup 12.5 k pursuit in Oberhof, Germany. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

    US Biathlon’s Tim Burke had his second-best individual result of the season in 26th (+3:18.9). After starting in 35th, he improved to 17th with two clean shooting performances in the prone stages, before four penalties in his standing bouts (0+0+2+2) put him outside the top 20 in the second half of the race.

    “Today was another challenging race with extremely windy and cold conditions,” Burke said, according to a US Biathlon press release. “Considering the conditions, I am happy with my performance today. It’s always good to move up in the pursuit and I feel like my ski shape is getting better with each race. Hopefully I can continue this trend next week in Ruhpolding.”

    American Russell Currier racing to 34th for his best result of the season and first time in four years scoring IBU World Cup points on Saturday in the men's 12.5 k pursuit in Oberhof, Germany. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
    American Russell Currier racing to 34th for his best result of the season and first time in four years scoring IBU World Cup points on Saturday in the men’s 12.5 k pursuit in Oberhof, Germany. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

    The other American in the pursuit, Russell Currier moved up 12 spots from a 46th starting position to 34th at the finish (+4:29.8) with five penalties (2+0+1+2), for his best race result of the season.

    “It’s been four years since I last finished in the points,” Currier told US Biathlon. “It was frustrating knowing I could do it, but never being able to execute on the few chances there were. Today was the sign of progress I’ve been training for all year.”

    Scott Gow was the lone Canadian to qualify for the pursuit in the sprint’s top 60. He finished the race in 45th (+5:45.7), after starting in 43rd, with seven penalties (1+1+2+3).

    The biathlon weekend in Oberhof concludes with mass starts on Sunday. No North American representative is qualified for the men’s race, with Lowell Bailey, who currently is in 17th place in the overall standings skipping this World Cup in Oberhof for a training block.

    For the women’s mass start, US Biathlon’s Susan Dunklee qualified with her 17th ranking in the World Cup standings. Biathlon Canada’s Rosanna Crawford is next in line on the list of “reserve standby athletes”, based on her results in Oberhof, should another qualified athlete have to cancel (e.g. due to illness).

    Stay tuned for separate women’s report.

    Results

  • Sunday Rundown: La Clusaz, Nove Mesto, Ramsau, Klingenthal, Obertilliach, & Rossland (Updated x4)

    Sunday Rundown: La Clusaz, Nove Mesto, Ramsau, Klingenthal, Obertilliach, & Rossland (Updated x4)

    Eric Frenzel (r) leads German teammates Vinzenz Geiger (c) and Fabian Rießle (l) toward a sweep of the podium in the Nordic Combined World Cup individual normal hill/10 k on Sunday in Ramsau, Austria. (Photo: FIS Nordic Combined/Facebook)
    Eric Frenzel (r) leads German teammates Vinzenz Geiger (c) and Fabian Rießle (l) toward a sweep of the podium in the Nordic Combined World Cup individual normal hill/10 k on Sunday in Ramsau, Austria. (Photo: FIS Nordic Combined/Facebook)

    Welcome to The Rundown, your quick primer of need-to-know information about the day’s racing. We’ll be updating this digest as the day goes on with additional results, photos and quotes. The Rundown is NOT a race report; stay tuned for complete race reports later today with interviews from the day’s top racers.

    ***

    FIS Nordic Combined Continental Cup in Klingenthal

    [UPDATE] Ben Loomis tallied two top 10’s and his U.S. Nordic Combined teammate Ben Berend notched eighth place this past weekend at the Continental Cup in Klingenthal, Germany.

    Loomis ended the three-day series on Sunday by placing fifth in the large hill/10 k for his second-best result at the Continental Cup level (he finished fourth last year in the normal hill/10 k competition in Park City, Utah). Loomis put himself in position by jumping to sixth then racing to fifth, 49.9 seconds behind Japan’s winner Go Yamamoto, who finished in 24:06.4.

    Florian Dagn of Austria placed second (+6.0) after jumping to first. Yamamoto jumped to second and headed out on the course seven seconds behind him.

    Norway’s Sindre Ure Soetvik placed third (+28.8), after starting the 10 k in third. Germany’s David Welde finished fourth (+36.0), moving up after jumping to eighth.

    Also on Sunday, Berend placed 15th (+2:25.3) and Jasper Good was 35th (+3:07).

    Berend started the long weekend out with an eighth-place finish in the large hill/5 k on Friday. He jumped to fourth and finished the ski race in eighth, 1:09.2 minutes behind Germany’s Maximilian Pfordte, who won in 10:58.9.

    Pfordte posted the best jump to start the 5 k first, then held his lead for a 16.4-second victory over Yamamoto in second. Dagn placed third (+18.3) after jumping to second, and Yamamoto’s jump ranked third.

    Also for the U.S., Good finished 21st (+2:05.8) for his best result of the weekend, Loomis was 28th (+2:50.5) and Stephen Schumann 29th (+2:52.1).

    On Saturday, it was Loomis who tallied another eighth place for the U.S. in the large hill/10 k. He jumped to 10th then improved to eighth, finishing 58 seconds behind German winner Tobias Simon. While Simon dominated the jump as well as the race, winning by 10.1 seconds, Yamamoto repeated in second place and Austria’s Thomas Joebstl reached the podium in third (+38.3).

    Berend finished 25th (+1:45.9) and Good 45th (+3:24.9) on Day 2.

    Results: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3

    ***

    FIS Nordic Combined World Cup in Ramsau

    The Nordic Combined World Cup resumed this weekend in Ramsau, Austria, with Germany not only topping but sweeping the podium in both individual normal hill/10 k competitions.
    On Saturday, Team Germany swept the top four, with Johannes Rydzek notching his third individual win of the season, ahead of teammates Fabian Rießle (+1.5) and Eric Frenzel (+8.7). Vinzenz Geiger completed the sweep in fourth (+15.0), a career best for the 19 year old after placing seventh earlier this month in Lillehammer, Norway.
    Frenzel led after the jump on the 98-meter hill, which put him 2 seconds ahead of the second-best jumper, Austria’s Mario Seidl, in the 10 k Gundersen start. (Seidl went on to place seventh.)
    Rydzek posted the third-best jump and started 10 seconds back, while Rießle started another 10 seconds later in seventh. Rydzek went on to ski the fifth-fastest course time and Rießle was third fastest en route to first and second at the finish.
    Americans Taylor Fletcher and Bryan Fletcher finished 27th (+1:17.6) and 29th (+1:18.4), respectively, and Adam Loomis was 47th (+3:16.2).
    Taylor started 41st, 1:18 back, and Bryan started five seconds later in 43rd. Bryan posted the seventh-fastest course time and ended with a photo finish with Finland’s Arttu Maekiaho, which Maekiaho took by 0.1 seconds for 28th. Loomis started 50th.
    Day 2 in Ramsau went to Frenzel, who won the normal hill/10 k in 22:49.4. Rießle repeated in second (+0.8) and Geiger improved on his career best for his first podium in third (+23.4). Seidl again jumped to first and this time ended up fourth (+24.3).
    Frenzel started third and raced to first, Rießle moved up from fourth in the jump to second, and Geiger made the most of his second-best jump.
    Taylor Fletcher skied the third-fastest course time to move up from 46th after the jump to 22nd at the finish (+1:20.2). Bryan Fletcher finished 32nd (+1:33.5), losing one place after starting 31st.
    The Nordic Combined World Cup goes on holiday break until resuming Jan. 7-8 in Lahti, Finland.
    Results: Saturday | Sunday 
    ***

    NorAm Mini Tour in Rossland: Classic pursuits

    The NorAm mini tour in Rossland, British Columbia, wrapped up with a classic pursuit race on Sunday.

    In the women’s 10 k classic, APU’s Chelsea Holmes continued her strong form, winning the mini tour with an aggregate time of 1:08:04.4. Holmes finished the 10 k in 35:35.4 minutes, 6.2 seconds behind fastest woman of the day, Katherine Stewart-Jones (NTDC Thunder Bay).

    SMS Elite’s Erika Flowers continued her podium-filled visit to Canada with the third-fastest ski of the day, 48.1 seconds behind Stewart-Jones, to take second overall, 2:23.9 behind Holmes. AWCA’s Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt was the fifth fastest in the 10 k to hold on to third overall (+3:25.2), while Stewart-Jones was just 0.5 seconds back in fourth overall.

    NTDC Thunder Bay’s Evan Palmer-Charrette used a fourth-fastest ski in the 15 k to keep the overall title, with an aggregate time of 1:28:54.0. Alexis Dumas (CNEPH) skied 1:14.7 faster than Palmer-Charrette to climb from sixth at the start to second overall (+52.2). AWCA’s Jack Carlyle had the second-fastest time of the day, 29.9 seconds behind Dumas, to climb into third overall (+1:10.1).

    National Para-Nordic guide Erik Carleton had the third-fastest 15 k time, 1:01.3 back, but it wasn’t enough to catch Team R.A.D.’s Russell Kennedy, who placed fourth overall (+1:20.8).

    Full results (with tabs for the overall and time of the day)

    ***

    FIS Cross-Country World Cup in La Clusaz: Men’s and women’s relays

    Team Norway I emerged victorious in Sunday’s men’s 4 x 8 k mixed relay event in La Clusaz, France, with Didrik Tønseth leading the winning group’s first classic leg.

    After crossing in seventh, Tønseth handed off to Martin Johnsrud Sundby for a second classic leg. Sundby dropped a spot, finishing his classic leg in eighth. Sundby tagged off to Anders Gløersen for the first freestyle leg.

    Gløersen rocketed the team to first, and held the position straight through his 7.5 k. The final leg for Norway’s winning team went to Finn Hågen Krogh. The Norwegian men’s team completed the relay event in a total time of 1:11:25.7

    Second place overall, two-tenths of a second behind, was team Russia, led by Evgeniy Belov for the first classic leg. Belov handed off to Alexander Legkov for the second classic leg, with Legkov putting down the third fastest time by the time he returned to the exchange zone.

    The third and first freestyle leg for Russia went to Alexey Chervotkin, who maintained the team’s third place position. Anchoring the team was  Sergey Ustiugov, who managed to maneuver the team from third place to second during his final freestyle leg.

    The men's 4 x 7.5k relay podium on Sunday in La Clusaz, France with Russia in second (left four) Norway first (center four) and France third overall. (Photo: FIS Cross-Country twitter)
    The men’s 4 x 8 k relay podium on Sunday in La Clusaz, France, with Russia in second (left four) Norway first (center four) and France third overall. (Photo: FIS Cross-Country/twitter)

    Rounding out the men’s mixed relay podium on Sunday was France I (+7.7).

    Jean-Marc Gaillard led team France’s first classic leg, racing in a sixth position into the exchange zone. Gaillard handed off to Alexis Jeannerod, who moved up to fifth place by the end of his classic leg.

    Skiing the third and first freestyle leg was Clement Parisse who held onto fifth place and tagged off to Maurice Manificat for the final freestyle leg. Manificat managed to move around Sweden’s Axel Ekstrløm and Germany’s Lucas Bøgl for third place overall.

    Neither Canada or the U.S. entered a men’s relay team due to illness.

    In the women’s 4 x 4 k relay event, it was another Norwegian team who stood atop the podium.

    Ingvild Flugstad Østberg led the women’s first classic leg, skiing in first place until her hand-off to Marit Bjørgen. Bjørgen maintained the first place position during her classic leg, tagging off to Ragnhild Haga.

    Haga completed the first freestyle leg for Norway, handing off to Heidi Weng, who anchored the team’s last freestyle leg. The Norwegian women finished in a total time of 39:23.3.

    In second was team Finland, 50.2 seconds behind Norway’s winning time. Aino-Kaisa Saarinen started the first classic leg for Finland, passing off to Anne Kyllønen.

    The women's 4 x 4 k mixed relay podium on Sunday in La Clusaz, France. Norway (c) took the win ahead of team Finland in second (l) and Sweden in third. (Photo: FIC Cross-Country/Twitter)
    The women’s 4 x 4 k mixed relay podium on Sunday in La Clusaz, France. Norway (c) took the win ahead of team Finland in second (l) and Sweden in third. (Photo: FIC Cross-Country/Twitter)

    Taking on the first freestyle leg for Finland was Riitta-Liisa Roponen, who tagged off to Laura Mononen for the final freestyle leg.

    Rounding out the relay podium in third overall was team Sweden (+1:08.9). Emma Wiken raced the first classic leg, who tagged off to Stina Nilsson for the second classic leg. Maria Rydqvist raced the first freestyle leg and handed off to Anna Dyvik, who anchored the team to third.

    Only one U.S. women’s relay team was entered on Sunday, with both Jessie Diggins and Sadie Bjornsen out due to illness. Sophie Caldwell led the U.S.’s first classic leg, followed by Rosie Brennan. Liz Stephen followed Brennan, taking on the first freestyle leg. Anchoring the team was Kikkan Randall in the final freestyle leg. The Americans finished in seventh overall (+2:26.0).

    Canada also entered a women’s team in Sunday’s relay. Emily Nishikawa led the first classic leg, and handed off to Cendrine Browne for the second classic leg. Dahria Beatty raced the first freestyle leg and tagged off to Sophie Carrier-Laforte, who anchored the team to 12th overall (+4:07.9).

    Results: Men | Women

    ***

    IBU World Cup in Nove Mesto: Men’s and women’s mass starts

    Gabriela Koukalová of the Czech Republic looks to her home crowd as she wins the women's 12.5 k mass start on Sunday at the IBU World Cup in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. She fended off Germany's Laura Dahlmeier (r), who took second. (Photo: IBU)
    Gabriela Koukalová of the Czech Republic looks to her home crowd as she wins the women’s 12.5 k mass start on Sunday at the IBU World Cup in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. She fended off Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier (r), who took second. (Photo: IBU)

    Despite skiing in 14th at one point in the men’s 15 k mass start on Sunday, France’s Martin Fourcade came back to win the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic.

    That makes him seven for eight in individual races so far this season.

    Fourcade started with bib 1 as the overall World Cup leader and finished first in 36:18.9 minutes, despite a penalty on his second prone that put him in 14th and 22 seconds back heading out on his third loop.

    He rebounded with a clean third shooting to move into third, 2.5 seconds behind Ukraine’s Dmytro Pidruchnyi in first and 1.3 seconds behind Russia’s Anton Babikov in second.

    By the final shooting stage, Fourcade was back in first with clean shooting (0+1+0+0), 28 seconds clear of Babikov in second. Babikov had his first penalty of the day on the final stage (0+0+0+1) to drop out of contention.

    Germany’s Simon Schempp (1+1+0+0) came out on top of an eight-way battle for second place on the final loop. Schempp took it, 8.3 seconds after Fourcade and 1.1 seconds ahead of Babikov in third (+9.4).

    The Czech Republic’s Ondrej Moravec was 0.3 seconds off the podium in fourth (+9.7), Pidruchnyi placed fifth (+10.2), Russia’s Matvey Eliseev finished sixth (+11.0), Norway’s Ole Einar Bjørndalen was back in the top 10 in seventh (+11.3), France’s Quentin Fillon Maillet notched his second-straight top 10 in eighth (+13.7), and Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø finished at the back of that pack in ninth (+19.8).

    American Lowell Bailey missed the top 20 by 10 seconds in 21st (+1:17.1). He had three penalties, two of which came on the last stage (0+1+0+2) to drop him from ninth to 20th at the start of the final loop.

    Bailey retained his spot in ninth in the overall World Cup standings, while Fourcade continues to lead, 158 points ahead of Shipulin in second.

    In the women’s 12.5 k mass start, Gabriela Koukalová delivered to her home fans in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, racing to her second win of the season in 34:42.1.

    “I was so nervous before the race so it was amazing,”  Koukalová said, according to an IBU press release. “I have so many emotions; it’s even more emotional than at the Olympics. I would like to say thanks to all the spectators and I hope I was able to make a nice Christmas present to all of them.”

    The defending World Cup champion beat the current World Cup leader, Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier, by 3.1 seconds after shooting a single penalty and cleaning the last two stages (0+1+0+0) to move into first. Dahlmeier missed two on the first stage to drop 23rd, but cleaned her last three stages (2+0+0+0) to capture second at the finish. She passed three athletes on the last lap, including Italy’s Dorothea Wierer, who ended up third (+9.7) with one miss (1+0+0+0).

    “I don’t really know what happened with those two misses,” she told German broadcaster ARD. “But in terms of skiing I had a great day on the course, and I had skis that were the bomb. It’s just a lot of fun when you can make the podium reaching the second place despite a large deficit in the beginning. I am overjoyed.”

    Germany’s Vanessa Hinz rebounded from Friday’s sprint (where she placed 73rd) to end up fourth (+15.5) with a single penalty (0+0+1+0). None of the 29 finishers hit every target, and American Susan Dunklee did not start.

    Dahlmeier leads the overall World Cup standings by 98 points over Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen, and Koukalova is third, just seven points behind Mäkäräinen. Dunklee is 11th.

    The IBU World Cup now goes on holiday break until resuming Jan. 5 in Oberhof, Germany.

    Results: Men | Women

    ***

    IBU Cup in Obertilliach

    The third IBU Cup was held on Dec. 16-17 in Obertilliach, Austria. In the men’s 20 k individual on Friday, the top three finishers were France’s Antonin Guigonnat, with a winning time of 49:58.6, Russia’s Yury Shopin in second (+32.2), and Germany’s Florian Graf in third (+35.6). Each of the top three had one miss, and Canada’s Matthew Hudec was the top North American in 34th (+4:11.3) with two penalties (0+2+0+0). Also for Canada, Carsen Campbell finished 38th with three penalties (1+2+0+0), Matthew Neumann was 53rd with three penalties (0+2+0+1) out of 118 finishers.

    In the women’s 15 k individual on Friday, Germany’s Karolin Horchler took the win with clean shooting (0+0+0+0) in 44:54.7. France’s Coline Varcin was 1.1 seconds back in second with one penalty (1+0+0+0), and third went to Russia’s Daria Virolaynen (+30.2), who had one miss as well (0+1+0+0). Canada’s Nadia Moser was the top North American in 35th (+5:10.8) with two penalties (0+1+1+0). Also for Canada, Erin Yungblut placed 66th with five penalties (0+3+0+2).

    In the men’s 10 k sprint on Saturday, two Norwegians took first and second with Henrik L’Abee-Lund winning in 23:29.9, and Vetle Sjastad Christiansen 13.9 seconds back in second. Third was claimed by Germany’s Phillipp Nawrath (+29.5) and all of the top three shot clean. Neumann led Canada in 47th (+2:20) with one miss (1+0). Campbell missed two (1+1) and finished 59th (+2:47.4), and Hudec was 64th (+2:58.9) with two penalties as well (1+1). Canada’s Pearce Hanna finished 87th, with two misses (2+0), out of 125 finishers.

    In the women’s 7.5 k sprint, Russia swept the podium with Virolaynen winning in 20:31.5, followed closely by Uliana Kaisheva (+3.7), and then Anna Nikulina (+23.1). Virolaynen missed one (0+1), Kaisheva cleaned (0+0) and Nikulina had a standing miss as well (0+1).  The top North American was Canada’s Megan Bankes in 30th (+2:08.1), with one prone penalty (1+0). Also for Canada, Sarah Beaudry finished 34th (+2:18.1), with two standing misses (0+2), Yungblut was 45th (+2:40.6) with clean shooting (0+0), and Moser finished 49th (+2:45.5) with two misses (1+1), out of 85 women.

    Results: Men’s individual | Women’s individual | Men’s sprint | Women’s sprint

     

  • Fourcade Makes It Three in a Row in Nove Mesto; Bailey 21st in Mass Start

    Fourcade Makes It Three in a Row in Nove Mesto; Bailey 21st in Mass Start

    France’s Martin Fourcade skiing up a climb on his way to winning the men’s 15-kilometer mass start on Sunday at the IBU World Cup in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. (Photo: IBU)
    France’s Martin Fourcade skiing up a climb on his way to winning the men’s 15-kilometer mass start on Sunday at the IBU World Cup in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, while leading Germany’s Simon Schempp (6) and Ole Einar Bjørndalen. (Photo: IBU)

    “The soft the supple step and sturdy pace,
    that in the smallest of all circles turns,
    moves like a dance of strength around a core
    in which a mighty will is standing stunned.”

    – The Panther, second verse, by Rainer Maria Rilke. English translation by Stanley Appelbaum

    At the turn of the 19th century, the Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist Rilke frequently visited the town of Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, on holidays with his family. Later he spent several years in Paris, France, where in 1902 he was inspired by his observation of a panther pacing through its cage in a menagerie.

    These days, French biathlete Martin Fourcade is turning circles through the woods of Nove Mesto with all the elegance and strength of a panther, only he is in no way caged in, frequently leaving his opponents “standing stunned”.

    On Sunday in the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup men’s 15-kilometer mass start, Fourcade only once struggled with his shooting accuracy in the second prone stage, having to ski a penalty lap and falling back half a minute to 14th place in the middle of the field of 30 starters. But in the end, his victory was once more not in doubt, while behind him an exciting sprint finish developed on the final loop with eight athletes vying for the remaining two positions on the podium.

    Fourcade crossed the line in a time of 36:18.9 minutes with one penalty (0+1+0+0) to win the first mass start of the season, skiing at a slower pace only on the last loop, knowing he had a secure lead of almost 30 seconds after the final shooting.

    “It was a really tense race,” Fourcade said during the press conference. “It was a really nervous [atmosphere] on the shooting range, and I think all the athletes felt it. So I really enjoyed it.”

    Fourcade completed the hat trick of winning the sprint, pursuit and mass start in Nove Mesto, and it was his seventh win in eight individual races of the season.

    “I had a wonderful beginning of the season so far,” Fourcade explained. “I just try to enjoy it … In the sprint my shape was good, but in the competitions yesterday and today I felt really, really good on the skis. I had extra power and could push a lot, and recovered really fast. Just wonderful days on the skis today and yesterday as well.”

    Germany’s Simon Schempp celebrates his second place as he crosses the line of the men’s 15 k mass start on Sunday at the IBU World Cup in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. Russia’s Anton Babikov (16) secured third place ahead of seven others. (Photo: IBU)
    Germany’s Simon Schempp celebrates his second place as he crosses the line of the men’s 15 k mass start on Sunday at the IBU World Cup in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. Russia’s Anton Babikov (16) secured third place ahead of seven others. (Photo: IBU)

    On the last loop Germany’s Simon Schempp created a small gap to win the second-place battle between eight athletes (+8.3), and Russia’s Ivan Babikov secured the third position on the podium (+9.4). Schempp had two penalties in the prone stages (1+1+0+0), while Babikov had one in the final standing shooting (0+0+0+1).

    “I did it the way I already had planned it yesterday,” Schempp, who had lost a photo finish for third place in Saturday’s pursuit, told German TV broadcaster ARD. “Today it worked great, today there was no icy patch in my way. I had a bit of strength left on the last loop, and that result is sensational.”

    “This actually is the first season for me where I have been at three World Cups in a row,” Babikov commented on his good recent races and the finish sprint via a translator during the press conference. “I am very glad that I had enough strength to be with such high-profile athletes.”

    They were helped somewhat by a fall of Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø on a left turn in a downhill. He had led the chase group until that point, but lost a pole and fell back to the back of that group, finishing ninth (+19.8).

    “It’s really annoying since I felt really good, I feel like I had a good chance,” Bø told Norwegian broadcaster NRK. “It’s unnecessary to fall, it’s all my fault, and it’s disappointing. I’ve been really close in many of the past races and then this happens. I’m determined to come back strong.”

    “I managed to barely jump over his ski,” Schempp recounted the situation to ARD. “I narrowly avoided falling over him and crashing myself. There is just an icy patch on that downhill, and he hit it. It’s not easy to ski down there, especially on the final loop when the podium is on the line and everyone is already enormously tired.”

    In front of a home crowd of more than 33,000 enthusiastic fans, Ondrej Moravec of the Czech Republic, who had broken his rifle stock in half in a crash during the pursuit a day before and thus had to start Sunday’s race with a spare rifle, finished fourth (+9.7), just behind Babikov.

    “I missed one in the last standing, it was too much risk maybe,” Moravec, who shot two penalties (1+0+0+1), told the IBU in an interview. “It was 50/50 if I can beat Simon and Anton Babikov. But I am happy. I felt quite good during the last loop, but it was not enough for the first three. But still I am satisfied with the fourth place, [being in the] flower ceremony and the home crowd.”

    Bailey in the Hunt for Most of Race 

    Lowell Bailey (US Biathlon) racing to 21st in the men's 15 k mass start on Sunday at the IBU World Cup in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
    Lowell Bailey (US Biathlon) racing to 21st in the men’s 15 k mass start on Sunday at the IBU World Cup in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

    US Biathlon’s Lowell Bailey was the lone North American starter qualified for the elite mass start, which is comprised of the 25 athletes leading the overall World Cup standings at that time (Bailey is currently ranked ninth), plus five athletes not among those with the best results of the competition week.

    Bailey started his race day strong, remaining in the top 10 on the first loop and shooting clean in the first prone stage. He left the range in fourth place, just 6.2 seconds behind the Russia’s Anton Shipulin, who was leading the race at that time. On that loop, the leaders slowed the pace and the field bunched up again, with 20 athletes within ten seconds of one another.

    In the second prone stage, Bailey missed one, leaving the penalty lap in 15th and 23.1 seconds back, just one place behind Fourcade, who had also incurred a penalty in that stage.

    Bailey was unable to ski with Fourcade, but held a position near the top 20 and managed to shoot clean in the first standing stage while a number of his nearest competitors missed. The American returned to the course in ninth position and only 22 seconds out of first.

    While losing a few more seconds to a hard-charging Fourcade, who decided the race on that next loop, Bailey moved up to eighth place entering the final shooting, but then had two more misses and had to ski twice through the penalty lap again, which cost him almost a minute to the top of the field.

    He ended his race in 21st, 1:17.1 minutes back, with three penalties (0+1+0+2). In the two other races in Nove Mesto, Bailey placed 20th in the sprint and ninth in the pursuit, his best result in an individual race since the 2013/14 season.

    “Today was a solid race until the end,” Bailey commented in a US Biathlon press release. “Sometimes things just don’t go your way and today was one of those days. Still satisfied with the start of the season and looking forward to some down time at home.”

    The IBU World Cup takes a two-week break for the holidays, before returning on Jan. 5 with a men’s sprint in Oberhof, Germany.

    “I am a bit sad about this [upcoming break] because I want this to never stop,” a smiling Fourcade told reporters during the press conference. “And now it will be two weeks of Christmas time, I will eat a lot of chocolates and I will be back in a poor shape! So we will see. But I am also happy to be back home. I will see my daughter tomorrow, and it has been a long time since I saw her. So, yeah, it will be cool.”

    The panther is resting.

    Results

  • Sunday Rundown: Davos, Pokljuka & Sovereign Lake (Updated x3)

    Sunday Rundown: Davos, Pokljuka & Sovereign Lake (Updated x3)

    The French men's relay team after their IBU World Cup win on Sunday in Pokljuka, Slovenia, with (from left to right) Martin Fourcade, Quentin Fillon Maillet, Simon Desthieux, and Jean-Guillaume Béatrix. They beat Russia by 15.7 seconds for the win. (Photo: IBU)
    The French men’s relay team after their IBU World Cup win on Sunday in Pokljuka, Slovenia, with (from left to right) Martin Fourcade, Quentin Fillon Maillet, Simon Desthieux, and Jean-Guillaume Béatrix. They beat Russia by 15.7 seconds for the win. (Photo: IBU)

    Welcome to The Rundown, your quick primer of need-to-know information about the day’s racing. We’ll be updating this digest as the day goes on with additional results, photos and quotes. The Rundown is NOT a race report; stay tuned for complete race reports later today with interviews from the day’s top racers.

    ***

    Note: This recap has been updated to reflect the correct positions each of the four Canadian women exchanged in during Sunday’s 4 x 6 k IBU World Cup relay. 

    IBU World Cup in Pokljuka: Men’s & Women’s Relays

    Germany and France reached the podium in both the men’s 4 x 7.5-kilometer and women’s 4 x 6 k sprints on Sunday, the final day of the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia.

    France won the men’s race by 15.7 seconds over Russia with a total of seven spare rounds and zero penalties. Jean-Guillaume Béatrix started off by putting the French team in fourth, then Quentin Fillon Maillet elevated them to first, a position both Simon Desthieux and Martin Fourcade held for the victory in 1:11:56.5.

    “When we started the relay, we thought that winning was possible,” Béatrix said, according to an IBU press release. “At the same time, the competition was very tough. There were many strong teams today.”

    “I was very happy to tag Martin with a 20-second lead,” Desthieux said. “This is good for my confidence.”

    Russia placed second with Maxim Tsvetkov, Anton Babikov, Matvey Eliseev, and Anton Shipulin, the four of which combined for one penalty (on Eliseev’s third leg) and six spare rounds.

    Germany rounded out the podium in third, 21.5 seconds behind France, with Erik Lesser, Matthias Dorfer, Benedikt Doll, and Simon Schempp. In ninth after Lesser’s first leg, Dorfer brough the team to eighth and Doll raced them into second before Schempp lost one place to end up third. They used a total of 11 spares but avoided the penalty lap.

    Canada placed 10th of 22 teams, 1:44.7 out of first with one penalty and seven spares. Christian Gow started the team out with clean shooting and tagged off in sixth at the first exchange, and his older brother Scott Gow also shot clean without any spares to move up to fourth at the second tag. Macx Davies required three spares and had to ski a penalty lap on his prone stage, then used another spare to clean standing and tagged off in 14th place. Brendan Green anchored the Canadians to 10th, using three spares but avoiding a penalty in prone, then cleaning standing without any spares.

    “I had a somewhat disappointing pursuit race yesterday, and my goal for today was to refocus on the range and push the ski speed as much as possible,” 28-year-old Scott Gow told Biathlon Canada, according to a press release. “I was happy with the overall performance I was able to put forward for my leg of the relay, and I was especially happy with another clean shooting day.

    “Today was an acceptable result for the team,” he added. “Christian and I are very proud of our results so far this season. We worked very hard all year to try and elevate our racing abilities to the next level, and we saw our hard work pay off today with great skiing and perfect shooting for both of us. It’s also a big confidence boost going forward with the season knowing we are capable of competing among the best.”

    Germany's Karen Hammerschmidt (l) tagging her teammate Laura Dahlmeier in second place at the final exchange of the women's 4 x 6 k relay at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. Dahlmeier anchored the team to the win by 10.1 seconds over France. (Photo: IBU)
    Germany’s Karen Hammerschmidt (l) tagging her teammate Laura Dahlmeier in second place at the final exchange of the women’s 4 x 6 k relay at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. Dahlmeier anchored the team to the win by 10.1 seconds over France. (Photo: IBU)

    In the women’s relay on Sunday, Germany took first by 10.1 seconds over France, using nine spares but no penalties.

    Vanessa Hinz started the Germans out and tagged off in fifth, and second-leg Franziska Hildebrand moved them up into second by the halfway point. Karen Hammerschmidt held that position, which was enough for Laura Dahlmeier who anchored them to the win in 1:11:31.1.

    “This was a brutally beautiful race today,” Dahlmeier told German broadcaster ZDF after her third win in as many races in Pokljuka. “It was very fun, and I was very relaxed because I knew we were competing as a team. Even if you don’t have as much power left there are still three others. I was on top of my game and just enjoyed it. I really looked forward to the race, although yesterday I was knocked out. But on the course I had a good feeling right from the start.”

    France in second and Ukraine in third (+37.7) both required just three spare rounds and no penalties per team. France secured second place with Anais Chevalier (who initially tagged off in 11th), Justine Braisaz (who picked off eight places to move into third), Celia Aymonier (who tagged off in first), and Marie Dorin Habert (who cleaned without any spares but came up 10 seconds short of Dahlmeier at the finish).

    Ukraine reached the podium with Iryna Varvynets, Yuliia Dzhima, Olena Pidhrushna, and Anastasiya Merkushyna.

    Canada placed 11th (+3:33.1) with a total of just four spares and no penalties. Sarah Beaudry initially tagged off in 23rd, Rosanna Crawford skied them into 18th, Megan Tandy shot clean without any spares and tagged off in 14th, and Julia Ransom anchored them to 11th out of 23 teams.

    The U.S. did not field a men’s or women’s relay team, with just three men and three women in Pokljuka.

    Results: Men | Women

    ***

    FIS Cross-Country World Cup in Davos: Freestyle Sprints

    In the men’s 1.6-kilometer freestyle sprint on Sunday it was Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov who emerged victorious, besting Finn Hågen Krogh of Norway and his Norwegian teammate Sindre Bjørnestad Skar for first.

    After qualifying 29th overall, Ustiugov crossed first in his quarterfinal and held the led through his semifinal and into the final, winning in a time of 2:24.65. Krogh crossed 0.59 tenths of a second behind him for second place and Skar took the final podium spot, crossing 3.29 seconds after Ustiugov.

    Also in the sprint final was Russia’s Alexey Petukhov, who finished just off the podium in fourth (+3.47), Norwegian Emil Iversen in fifth (+5.52) and France’s Lucas Chanavat — who won the qualifier — ended the day in sixth (+11.48).

    Lucas Chanavat of France had the fastest men's qualifying time in the Davos World Cup freestyle sprint on Sunday.
    Lucas Chanavat of France had the fastest men’s qualifying time in the Davos World Cup freestyle sprint on Sunday.

    Canada’s Lenny Valjas was the top North American finisher for the day, qualifying 12th and advancing to the quarterfinals where he finished in 14th overall. No other Canadians made the sprint heats, with Alex Harvey left just outside advancing in 33rd, Devon Kershaw ending the day in 49th, Knute Johnsgaard 60th, Bob Thompson 67th, and Andy Shields 73rd. Jesse Cockney did not finish the race.

    Simi Hamilton led the U.S. in 24th (+3.88). Andy Newell was just outside the heats in 36th, and Eric Packer placed 95th (+21.62).

    In the women’s 1.6 k freestyle sprint, Maiken Caspersen Falla of Norway took the overall win, crossing in a time of 2:44.63. Just 0.53 tenths of a second behind Falla was her Norwegian teammate Ingvild Flugstad Østberg in second place overall. The final women’s podium finisher, Hanna Falk of Sweden was 0.60 tenths of second off Falla in third.

    U.S. Ski Team member, Jessie Diggins made the final, racing to a fifth place overall (+5.91), behind Sweden’s Jonna Sundling in fourth (+1.04) and ahead of Russia’s Natlalia Matveeva in sixth (+6.80).

    The United States put three other women into the heats, including Sophie Caldwell who finished 11th, Sadie Bjornsen 15th, and Ida Sargent 20th.

    American Caitlin Patterson ended the day 47th, Kikkan Randall 58th, and Liz Stephen 61st.

    Dahria Beatty was the top Canadian on Sunday, finishing in 25th overall. Cendrine Browne ended the day 53rd and Sophie Carrier-Laforte 59th.

    Qualifier Results: Men | Women

    Final Results: Men | Women

    ***

    NorAm/SuperTour at Sovereign Lake: 10/15 k Freestyle

    [UPDATE] It was Americans owning the podium again Sunday at Sovereign Lake, and a little bit more. It was warmer on Sunday, -7 Celsius, and snowed lightly throughout.

    The men’s 15 k freestyle was first on the schedule.  APU’s Scott Patterson won in 40:00.2, followed by Saturday’s A-finalist Matt Gelso at 13.2 seconds and Vail’s Tad Elliot at +26.6.

    The top Canadian was Team R.A.D.’s Russell Kennedy in ninth, at 1:38.8 behind.

    In the women’s 10 k freestyle, the podium was owned by APU’s Chelsea Holmes in 30:42.9. SMS Elite’s Katharine Ogden was second at 13.4 seconds, also winning the junior category. Her teammate Erika Flowers was third, 36.4 behind.

    AWCA’s Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt was the top Canadian for the second day, placing 13th at 1:51.8.

  • Sunday Rundown: Lillehammer, Östersund & West Yellowstone (Updated x6)

    Sunday Rundown: Lillehammer, Östersund & West Yellowstone (Updated x6)

    Matt Gelso (SVSEF) topping the SuperTour podium for the second-straight day on Sunday in West Yellowstone, Mont. Joining him on Sunday's 15 k classic podium: CGRP's Ben Lustgarten (l) in second and APU's Scott Patterson (r) in third.
    Matt Gelso (SVSEF) topping the SuperTour podium for the second-straight day in West Yellowstone, Mont. Joining him on Sunday’s 15 k classic podium: CGRP’s Ben Lustgarten (l) in second and APU’s Scott Patterson (r) in third.

    Welcome to The Rundown, your quick primer of need-to-know information about the day’s racing. We’ll be updating this digest as the day goes on with additional results, photos and quotes. The Rundown is NOT a race report; stay tuned for complete race reports later today with interviews from the day’s top racers.

    (Note: This Rundown has been updated to include comments from U.S. Nordic Combined’s Bryan Fletcher, who placed ninth on Sunday at the World Cup in Lillehammer, Norway.)

    ***

    U.S. SuperTour opener in West Yellowstone: 10/15 k classic

    Matt Gelso made the case that he can win any discipline and format when it comes to cross-country skiing, topping the SuperTour podium for the second-straight day of the circuit’s opening weekend in West Yellowstone, Mont. Gelso, of the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF) Gold Team, won the men’s 15-kilometer classic individual start in 42:57. He finished 32.2 seconds ahead of Ben Lustgarten of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP) in second, and Scott Patterson, of Alaska Pacific University (APU), clocked in 1:16.8 back in third.

    In the women’s 10 k classic, Liz Guiney (CGRP) tallied the distance victory in 33:52.8. Katharine Ogden, of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) and U.S. Ski Team D-team, finished 7.7 seconds back in second place, while Craftsbury put two on the podium with Kaitlynn Miller in third (+28.4).

    Results

    Nordic Combined World Cup in Lillehammer: Two individual comps and a relay

    German winner Eric Frenzel (c) with teammate Björn Kircheisen (l) in second and Norway's Jørgen Graabak (r) in third on Day 3 of the Nordic Combined World Cup in Lillehammer, Norway. (Photo: FIS Nordic Combined/Twitter)
    German winner Eric Frenzel (c) with teammate Björn Kircheisen (l) in second and Norway’s Jørgen Graabak (r) in third on Day 3 of the Nordic Combined World Cup in Lillehammer, Norway. (Photo: FIS Nordic Combined/Twitter)

    [UPDATE) Twenty-second in the jump. Ninth at the finish. That’s a bit more like it for U.S. Nordic Combined’s Bryan Fletcher. The American jumped to 22nd on Sunday on the large hill in Lillehammer, Norway, then raced to ninth in the 10 k Gundersen start cross-country race. He finished 1:22 minutes behind race winner Eric Frenzel, who notched his second-straight individual victory and third win (including Friday’s team event) of the Nordic Combined World Cup’s long weekend in 25:13.6.

    “Going into the race on Sunday I was confident that with a good race I could move up quite well,” Fletcher wrote in an email. “So I just set out to ski my own race and right from the start I was moving up. Top 10 was the goal and I was happy to accomplish that.”

    Germany went 1-2 with Björn Kircheisen in second (+10.8) and Jørgen Graabak of Norway finished third (+23.4) on Day 3 in Lillehammer. Fletcher’s younger brother Taylor Fletcher placed 26th (+2:21.1), moving way up from 48th in the jump (with the fastest overall course time). Also for the U.S., Ben Berend placed 49th (+4:30), and Ben Loomis was 52nd (+5:16).

    The Nordic Combined World Cup is turning out to be all about Germany (most) all of the time, with Frenzel and Johannes Rydzek at the forefront, after Rydzek won both opening World Cup competitions last weekend.

    On Friday, the German teammates started off the three-day series with a victory in the first 4 x 5 k team event of the season. They teamed up with Kircheisen and Fabian Riessle for first, beating Norway by 31.5 seconds with a winning time of 49:34.9.

    Norway’s squad, with Mikko Kokslien, Espen Andersen, Håvard Klemetsen, and Graabak, finished second without anyone else in sight. Austria took third (+1:23.7) with David Pommer, Mario Seidl, Wilhelm Denifl, and Phillipp Orter.

    Finland placed fourth, Japan was fifth, France sixth, the Czech Republic seventh, Italy eighth, and the U.S. ninth (+4:19.1), ahead of Russia in 10th.

    The order for the U.S. team was Bryan Fletcher, Berend, Loomis, and Taylor Fletcher. They rose as high as sixth during Bryan’s first leg, but dropped to eighth and finally ninth.

    On Saturday, in the individual normal hill/10 k competition, Frenzel overtook Rydzek for the win in 24:35. Rydzek started the day by winning the jump, and Frenzel ranked fourth heading into the 10 k Gundersen start. Frenzel overcame a 24-second deficit at the start to pass Rydzek and beat him by 15 seconds at the finish. Germany ended up sweeping the podium with Riessle in third (+25.8), after Riessle improved from 11th at the start with the second-fastest course time.

    Also on Saturday, Taylor Fletcher led the Americans in 26th (+1:51.2) after jumping to 44th and starting 2:02 minutes back from Rydzek. Fletcher skied the ninth-fastest course time.

    Bryan improved from 43rd at the start to 32nd (+2:32.9), Loomis ended up 43rd (+5:02.6) and Berend 44th (+5:33.4).

    “Going into this weekend I was feeling good and had some solid jumps in training so I knew that I was capable of a decent performance,” Bryan wrote on Sunday. “However, I struggle to put all the pieces together through the weekend. The team event was a good performance on my part and it was fun to ski with our young guys too. In Saturday’s event, I was close but had a rather unusual race in which I just couldn’t get going and fell off the pace quickly. Sunday however it all came together with a decent jump and race to finish 9th. This is more indicative of my true level at the moment so I was happy to finally fall into form.

     

    “This is definitely a result that I was hoping for in this period,” he continued. “I would like to finish in the top 10 consistently this year and it was a bit of a shaky start but I am starting to find the rhythm now. I hope to continue this momentum in Ramsau.”

    Results: Friday’s relay | Saturday’s normal hill/10 k | Sunday’s large hill/10 k

    ***

    IBU World Cup in Östersund: 10/12.5 k pursuits

    Men’s report | Women’s report

    Lowell Bailey came oh-so-close to fourth place on Sunday. Just two fewer misses and he could’ve been in the hunt, but that’s how biathlon goes.

    US Biathlon’s top man so far this season, Bailey started 13th in the IBU World Cup 12.5 k pursuit on Sunday in Östersund, Sweden, and by the first prone stage, he was up to seventh with clean shooting. Two-and-a-half kilometers later, he was back in the range and shooting without a miss again. Bailey headed out on his third loop in fourth, and more or less held that position through the third shooting — cleaning yet again in standing.

    Russia went 1-2 in the men's 15 k pursuit on Sunday at the IBU World Cup in Ostersund, Sweden, with Anton Babikov (l) winning his first World Cup and Maxim Tsvetkov (r) placing second. (Photo: IBU)
    Russia went 1-2 in the men’s 15 k pursuit on Sunday at the IBU World Cup in Ostersund, Sweden, with Anton Babikov (l) winning his first World Cup and Maxim Tsvetkov (r) placing second. (Photo: IBU)

    But two misses on the final standing dropped him to ninth, and on the final loop, Bailey slipped six spots to 15th at the finish. With two penalties (0+0+0+2), Bailey finished 1:21.8 behind the winner, Russia’s Anton Babikov, who hit 19-of-20 targets en route to his first World Cup victory and podium. Russia took second place as well with Maxim Tsvetkov shooting clean (0+0+0+0) and finishing 10.5 seconds behind his teammate, and France’s Martin Fourcade pushed through four penalties (2+0+0+2) to place third (+15.2).

    Fourcade started the day in first, after winning Saturday’s sprint, and lost the lead on the final stage, with two misses sending him to the penalty lap. On that last shooting, Babikov (the seventh starter) took control, and Tsvetkov (who started 11th) moved up from skiing in third for most of the race to second place.

    Also for the U.S., Tim Burke placed 35th (+2:39.2) after starting 29th, with four penalties (0+1+2+1).

    Canada’s Scott Gow finished 47th (+3:34.8) with three misses (0+0+2+1), Brendan Green was 50th (+3:45.5) wit five misses (1+3+0+1), and Macx Davies 51st (+3:54.6) with four penalties (0+0+2+2).

    Gabriela Koukalová of the Czech Republic with her first-place prize after winning Sunday's 10 k pursuit at the IBU World Cup in Ostersund, Sweden. (Photo: IBU)
    Gabriela Koukalová of the Czech Republic with her first-place prize after winning Sunday’s 10 k pursuit at the IBU World Cup in Ostersund, Sweden. (Photo: IBU)

    In the women’s race, Gabriela Koukalová (formerly Soukalova, you’ll get used to it, we promise), took her third-place finish in Saturday’s sprint and catapulted herself into first on Sunday in the 10 k pursuit. Koukalova shot 19-for-20, missing just one on the first standing (0+0+1+0) to cross the finish line first, 8.4 seconds ahead of Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier.

    While Koukalova, of the Czech Republic, took the win in 31:43.3, Dahlmeier placed second (after starting fourth) with two penalties (0+1+1+0). Italy’s Dorothea Wierer improved from 19th to third (+21.4) at the finish, with perfect shooting (0+0+0+0).

    Switzerland’s Lena Häcki also cleaned for fourth (+36.3), after starting 12th.

    The first out of the gate (the winner of Saturday’s sprint), France’s Marie Dorin Habert dropped to seventh, more than a minute and 15 seconds back, with six penalties (2+1+2+1).

    American Susan Dunklee moved up to 22nd (+2:55.7) after starting 27th, despite five penalties (2+2+0+1).

    Also for US Biathlon, Clare Egan improved to 30th (+3:35.4), up from 44th, with three misses (0+0+1+2).

    Joanne Reid (US Biathlon) finished 47th (+4:59.6) with four misses (1+1+1+1), and Canada’s Julia Ransom finished 58th (+6:36.8) with eight misses (2+0+4+2).

    Results: Men | Women 

    ***

    FIS Cross-Country World Cup in Lillehammer: 10/15 k classic pursuits

    Women’s report | Men’s report 

    Martin Johnsrud Sundby is the man to beat once again after winning the men’s 15-kilometer classic pursuit on Sunday in Lillehammer, Norway. The Norwegian started seventh and overcame a 50-second deficit to Sweden’s Calle Halfvarsson, the leader going into the final day of the mini tour. Halfvarsson dropped to fifth, while Sundby rose to first and brought another Norwegian Johannes Høsflot Klæbo to the top with him. Klæbo started sixth, 3 seconds ahead of Sundby, and placed second, 2.3 seconds behind him. Finland’s Matti Heikkinen took the final spot on the podium in third (+2.7), by 0.9 seconds over Norway’s Emil Iversen in fourth. Halfvarsson was 6.3 seconds back in fifth, his Swedish teammate Marcus Hellner sixth (+6.8), Norway’s Pål Golberg and Finn Hågen Krogh seventh (+9.9) and eighth (+15.0), respectively, and Canada’s Alex Harvey ninth (+16.2), ahead of Finland’s Iivo Niskanen in 10th (+52.0)

    Canada had two in the points with Devon Kershaw rising from 43rd to 27th (+2:08.5). Len Valjas placed 48th (+3.44), Graeme Killick was 53rd (+3:53.9), Knute Johnsgaard 72nd (+6:20.3), Bob Thompson 81st (+8:16.3), Andy Shields 83rd (+9:57.3).

    For the U.S., Noah Hoffman rose to 36th (+2:39.5) after starting 48th, Erik Bjornsen finished 57th (+4:33.3), and Eric Packer finished out his first overseas mini tour in 68th (+5:45.1).

    Heidi Weng (c) held onto her lead to win the Lillehammer mini-tour by 16.1 seconds over Norwegian teammate Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (l). Finland's Krista Parmakoski was third after losing a shot at second thanks to a crash. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
    Heidi Weng (c) held onto her lead to win the Lillehammer mini-tour by 16.1 seconds over Norwegian teammate Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (l). Finland’s Krista Parmakoski was third after losing a shot at second thanks to a crash. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)

    Heidi Weng of Norway started the 10 k pursuit in first place, and that’s where she finished it, 16.1 seconds ahead of teammate Ingvild Flugstad Østberg. Finland’s Krista Parmakoski rounded out the podium in third, after skiing up from a fifth place starting position and passing Østberg near the end of the race but then crashing on a downhill and losing valuable seconds. Nevertheless her effort gave Parmakoski the fastest ski time of the day.

    Jessie Diggins, who started the race in third position after winning yesterday’s 5 k skate, made an early bid to ski with Østberg but ultimately lost ground, ending eighth, +1:39.4.

    Instead it was Marit Bjørgen who took fourth, +57.5. Stina Nilsson of Sweden was one of the biggest movers of the day, skiing from 27th at the start all the way up to fifth, +1:26.1.

    Following Diggins, Sadie Bjornsen finished 11th, +1:51.2. The American had started in a pack of skiers and stayed there for most of the race. Liz Stephen was 38th (+3:31.8), and Rosie Brennan and Caitlin Patterson 41st (+3:50.2) and 42nd (+3:56.8). Ida Sargent rounded out the U.S. results in 57th (+5:39.7).

    Emily Nishikawa led the Canadians in 46th (+4:08.5), with Cendrine Browne and Dahria Beatty 52nd (+4:41.5) and 59th (+6:08.2).

    Results: Women | Men

  • Third-Straight Top 15 for Bailey After Shot at 4th in Östersund

    Third-Straight Top 15 for Bailey After Shot at 4th in Östersund

    Lowell Bailey (US Biathlon) racing in the men's 12.5 k pursuit on Sunday at the IBU World Cup in Östersund, Sweden. He placed 15th after starting 13th, but skied in fourth for much of the race. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
    Lowell Bailey (US Biathlon) racing in the men’s 12.5 k pursuit on Sunday at the IBU World Cup in Östersund, Sweden. He placed 15th after starting 13th, but skied in fourth for much of the race. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

    Starting with just under a minute separating him from first place, Lowell Bailey made sure he didn’t get too caught up on what could be.

    A veteran member of US Biathlon’s national team, Bailey started the men’s 12.5-kilometer pursuit on Sunday in 13th, exactly 59 seconds behind the first man out of the gate, Martin Fourcade of France.

    Fourcade had won the sprint the day before (and every race so far this season) and started 42 seconds ahead anyone else in the pursuit in Östersund, Sweden, with sprint runner-up Fredrik Lindström of Sweden chasing in second.

    Could anyone catch Fourcade? Maybe — but it was going to take some shakeups with Fourcade making errors and others shooting perfectly under pressure.

    Bailey was among those given the opportunity to move up significantly in the field. He tried not to overthink it, nor the fact that has led the U.S. in every International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup race so far this season.

    “I’m trying to approach every race as an isolated event this year; trying to focus on what I can control that day,” Bailey explained in an email on Sunday.

    So far this season, he’s finished 13th in the 10 k sprint and 15th in the 20 k individual races held in Östersund, the first World Cup stop on the circuit. Sunday marked the final day of a weeklong race series.

    “I just went into today with the goal of executing all of the things I had worked on throughout the training year,” Bailey continued.

    On the first of five 2.5 k loops, Bailey found himself fighting for second.

    “The first loop was an incredibly fast pace,” he recalled. “The group I was in ended up catching 2nd place, so by the time we hit the range, there was a group of fifteen or so guys from 2nd to 17th. It made for an exciting start to the race.”

    Once on the range, Bailey cleaned the first prone stage and left the range in seventh. He moved into fourth with another clean prone, followed by a flawless standing — his third-straight stage without a miss. With two loops to go and one more shooting, Bailey remained in fourth, about 39 seconds behind the leader and five seconds behind third place.

    The wind was blowing throughout the race, even gusting at times, but it was “manageable,” according to Bailey.

    “I didn’t really think about the fourth place,” he said of his mindset during the race. “I just wanted to execute a quality shooting bout.”

    On that standing stage, which he entered in fourth place, Bailey missed his first two shots. He cleaned the remaining three, but had to ski two costly penalty laps.

    “There was definitely some wind, but I can’t blame those two misses on wind,” he wrote. “I lost my focus for those two shots and sent them outside the targets.”

    Without much left in the tank for the final 2.5 k, Bailey, who left the range in ninth, slipped to 15th at the finish, 1:21.8 seconds behind the winner.

    Russia went 1-2 in the men's 15 k pursuit on Sunday at the IBU World Cup in Ostersund, Sweden, with Anton Babikov (l) winning his first World Cup and Maxim Tsvetkov (r) placing second. (Photo: IBU)
    Russia went 1-2 in the men’s 15 k pursuit on Sunday at the IBU World Cup in Ostersund, Sweden, with Anton Babikov (l) winning his first World Cup and Maxim Tsvetkov (r) placing second. (Photo: IBU)

    A 25-year-old Russian who spent most of last season on the IBU Cup, Anton Babikov won the pursuit with near-perfect shooting (0+0+1+0) for his first World Cup podium. He finished in 31:22.3, and his 24-year-old teammate Maxim Tsvetkov followed 10.5 seconds later in second, thanks to clean shooting, to tie his career best.

    (Babikov started seventh and skied the fourth-fastest overall course time, and Tsvetkov started 11th and was one of just two men to clean all four stages. Michal Krcmar of the Czech Republic was the other. He rocketed from 38th at the start to seventh at the finish.)

    Fourcade, the first starter, ended up third (+15.2) with an uncharacteristic four misses (2+0+0+2).

    “From the very beginning, I knew that everything could be possible,” Babikov told the IBU, according to a press release. “We were going very close. Before going to Östersund, I was a little worried, it’s always curious to see how well you are prepared for the season.”

    Tsvetkov skied in third for most of the race, concentrating on his shooting and capitalizing when Fourcade missed two on the final stage. There, Babikov took the lead for the first time from Fourcade, now 10 seconds back in third, and Tsvetkov left the range four seconds behind in second.

    “This is my first medal in pursuit,” Tsvetkov told the IBU. “It was very tough for me, I knew that Martin was very close, I knew that I have to work hard ’til the end.”

    “I had my chance today, and I didn’t take it,” said Fourcade, who had entertained the possibility of winning three individual races in a row. “At my last shoot I was a bit nervous, there was also some wind. My skis were also not perfect at the end of race.”

    While Bailey felt like he was missing some snap, especially on the last loop (which he attributed to a hard first loop), he was pleased with his start to the season and is ranked ninth overall on the World Cup.

    “I have been ranked this high in the past coming out of Ostersund, but I am definitely happy with the solid start to the season,” he told US Biathlon, according to a press release. “You train all season in a bit of a vacuum — just you and your teammates — and there is very little for you compare yourself to. Because of this, the start of the season can be a bit of an unknown. I’m happy to see that my ski times are competitive and that I’m able to reach the podium on a great day.”

    Of 59 finishers on Sunday, Bailey’s course time ranked 36th.

    “I hoped to have competitive ski speed and accurate, fast shooting,” he wrote to FasterSkier. “Mostly, I’m satisfied with my performances so far. As always, there’s plenty of things I need to improve, but I’m happy with this a solid start to the season.”

    Tim Burke (US Biathlon) racing to 35th in the men's 12.5 k pursuit on Sunday at the IBU World Cup in Östersund, Sweden. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
    Tim Burke (US Biathlon) racing to 35th in the men’s 12.5 k pursuit on Sunday at the IBU World Cup in Östersund, Sweden. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

    Two American men started the pursuit, with Bailey finishing 15th and Tim Burke placing 35th (+2:39.2). Despite a clean first prone, Burke, who started 29th, tallied four penalties (0+1+2+1), yet still finished in the top 40 required for points. His course time ranked 35th overall.

    Scott Gow was Canada’s top finisher in the pursuit in 47th (+3:34.8) and found himself up in 38th after hitting all 10 targets through the first two stages. He then missed two on the third stage and one more in the final standing (0+0+2+1), costing him time in penalty laps.

    About 11 seconds later, Brendan Green finished 50th (+3:45.5) with five penalties (2+1+0+2). His teammate Macx Davies finished 51st (+3:54.6). After two clean prone stages, Davies had skied in 35th, but two misses on each standing bout (0+0+2+2) brought him outside the top 50.

    Results | World Cup total score (overall standings)