Tag: awards

Burke and Cook Shoot Straight to Biathlete of the Year Honors

Tim Burke and Annelies Cook, the 2013 Biathletes of the Year. Photos: USBA/Nordic Focus.

Male Biathlete of the Year: Tim Burke (USA)

In a season with many highlights, Burke easily had the most of all North American athletes – capped by a silver medal in the 20 k individual at World Championships in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. It was the first American medal at World Championships since 1987 when Josh Thompson earned silver, also in the 20 k. Burke landed 10^th in the year-end World Cup rankings as well as snagging third in the discipline rankings for both individual and mass start racing.

Tim Burke skiing with Andreas Birnbacher of Germany at World Championships.

It’s no yellow bib, but it was easily Burke’s best season in years. Besides the medal at World Championships, he was remarkably consistent from month to month on the World Cup, even despite a mid-season illness. After starting with two top-20’s in the opening weekend in Ostersund, Sweden, Burke had picked it up with a fourth-place finish in the Pokljuka sprint in mid-December, then a third-place finish to get on the podium in the mass start the same weekend.

At the end of the season he was still going strong, placing fourth in the mass start in Oslo in early March, fifth in the individual in Sochi a week later, then fourth again in the very last race of the season in the Khanty-Mansiysk mass start.

And that’s to say nothing of the many solid relay legs he turned in over the course of the season, including when the U.S. placed fifth in Oberhof, Germany.

Burke’s ability to be a podium threat week in and week out was what earned him top honors this year.

Honorable Mention: Jean Philippe Le Guellec and Sean Doherty

We’ve already written about U.S. junior Sean Doherty, who earned our Junior of the Year honors for winning a world title in the youth category as well as two silver medals. That dominance was extremely impressive and could easily earned him this honor as well – but let’s show the seniors a little love too, because there were plenty of great performances to go around.

Canada’s Jean Philippe Le Guellec made it tough to pick a winner in this category. He set his country’s biathlon world afire at the very first venue of the season, when he won the 10 k sprint in Ostersund. Arguably, his performance was a sign of things to come: watch out, biathlon, North America is back.

But while he provided Canada with some badly-needed inspiration, Le Guellec was not able to replicate that result for the rest of the season, or to be as consistently within striking distance as Burke. However, with tenth in the individual and 15^th in the pursuit at World Championships, he had a strong season and was a closer runner-up for this award.

Female Biathlete of the Year: Annelies Cook (USA)

As we’ll discuss later, this was an incredibly difficult award to pick, as several North American women had remarkably similar results and year-end rankings. But while Annelies Cook didn’t have the best single performance of the year, what made the 28-year-old stand out was the incredible breakthrough that she showed on the World Cup.

Annelies Cook. Photo: USBA/NordicFocus.

Of Cook’s twelve best career performances, ten have come this season, including her first top-20’s. That mark fell in Antholz, Italy, halfway through the season, but Cook also shone brightly in the pre-Olympic races in Sochi, Russia, where she finished 18^th in the sprint and 14^th in the individual.

The ability to take a big step and become a consistent performer for the team should be a an inspirational message to athletes of all stripes. She ended up ranked 45^th in the world – last season she was 83^rd – and scored points in eleven races at seven different venues.

Honorable Mention: Susan Dunklee, Rosanna Crawford, and Zina Kocher

But the category this year was ridiculously close. In the final World Cup standings, Susan Dunklee (USA) was 40^th, Rosanna Crawford (CAN) 44^th, Cook 45^th, and Zina Kocher (CAN) 48^th. None of the four women had the results that distinguished the North American men’s winners, but this is remarkable progress. Since 1999, the last year that World Cup Total Score data is easily accessible from the IBU website, not once has both the U.S. and Canada put two women in the top 50. In fact, in many of those years, neither team even put one woman in the top 50.

Congratulations on the progress, ladies.

Dunklee had the best individual performances of the year, placing seventh in the 15 k individual in Sochi; she also did the best at World Championships, where she was 15^th, also in the individual. The top-ranked American last season, it was a solid sophomore effort for Dunklee, who is a relative newcomer to the World Cup circuit, and her performance throughout the year proved that the fifth-place finish at 2012 World Championships was no fluke.

And like Cook (and Burke), her strong showing on the Sochi trails was, hopefully, a sign of things to come when the Olympics roll around next season.

Crawford, meanwhile, had an even bigger breakthrough than Cook; the Canadian had never actually scored World Cup points before this season, but she did so six times, including with a staggering 12^th-place finish in the sprint in Pokljuka, Slovenia, and with a 17^th-place showing in the individual at World Championships. But Crawford was mostly an early-season athlete; aside from the World Championships finish, her other five points-scoring races all came in either Pokljuka or Hochfilzen, both in mid-December.

Finally, it’s easy to forget Kocher’s success early in the season because she had a rough go at the end – and it’s particularly easy when one considers the regular top results Kocher saw last year, which just didn’t materialize in 2013. But in Ostersund, she placed tenth in the sprint, the second-best North American finish of the season, and like Crawford she scored points on six separate occasions.

Congratulations to all these biathletes on a great 2013.

Previous Winners:

2011
Lowell Bailey (USA)
Sara Studebaker (USA)

2010
Tim Burke (USA)
Zina Kocher (CAN)

2009
Tim Burke (USA)
Zina Kocher (CAN)

2008
Tim Burke (USA)
Caitlin Compton (USA)

See also:

Adaptive Skier of the Year

Nordic Combined Skier of the Year

Breakthrough Skier of the Year

Continental Skier of the Year

Junior Skier of the Year

Rookie of the Year

Collegiate Skier of the Year

April 29, 2013
Caldwell and Gow Score First World Cup Points, and FasterSkier’s Rookie Awards

Sophie Caldwell (Stratton Mountain School T2) and Scott Gow (Biathlon Canada National Team) are FasterSkier’s Rookies of the Year.

After yesterday’s Collegiate Skier of the Year awards, we’re moving on to Rookie of the Year, always a tough category to decide. We’ve focused on World Cup-level competition, and at that level it truly takes years to become a veteran – so we don’t define “rookie” strictly as someone who is starting their very first World Cups, just someone who is pretty new to the stage but has already impressed with strong results.

This year, our awards go to a pair of athletes who, at age 22, started their first World Championships and scored significant World Cup points despite not spending the whole season on the sport’s toughest circuit. Many of our past Rookie of the Year picks have gone on to incredible success – paging Alex Harvey, Lenny Valjas, and half the U.S. Ski Team – and we have no doubt that these two can, too.

Scott Gow, Biathlon Canada National Team

Scott Gow (second from right) was the youngest competitor to qualify for the 12.5 k pursuit at IBU Biathlon World Championships.

Gow’s first World Cup starts came at the beginning of last season, after he excelled at trials races in Canmore. The Canadian biathlon team offered him a spot for the openers in November 2011, but they went as first World Cups often do – they were tough. After placing 80^th and 101^st, Gow bounced back down to a lower level of racing.

But he returned this season an older, stronger athlete, and secured two 50^th-place finishes in his first weekend of World Cup starts, the third event of the season. A few weeks later in Ruhpolding, Germany, Gow earned his first points, and his first top-30 finish, after shooting clean to place 29^th in a 10 k sprint.

Gow, a successful racer at the junior worlds level a few years ago, had clinched a spot at his first World Championships. There, he collected a 31^st-place finish in the 20 k individual.

His best season to date came at a good time for Canada, too, as Brendan Green, one of their best racers the year before, was out with a back injury. In fact, in several competitions late in the season, Gow was the top performer for Canada.

“I try to just pretend that it’s like racing at home, but it’s a little overwhelming at times,” he told FasterSkier at World Championships. “I don’t know how I did it. I just came out to training and to race like, don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t think about it. Don’t worry about the crowds or the enormous amount of people or any of that stuff. It has paid off so far.”

Sophie Caldwell, SMS T2

Sophie Caldwell (USA) on her way to the 30th-fastest qualifier in the classic sprint at World Championships. She followed it up with 20th overall after placing fourth in her quarterfinal.

In many ways, Caldwell is everything you’d think an American World Cup rookie might be: after a strong junior career and an impeccable college resumé, she hit her first season as part of an elite senior team and skied strong domestic races early in the season to earn her way on to the World Cup. But not many rookies can realistically hope to achieve what Caldwell did: making the quarterfinals in her very first World Cup sprint, in Quebec. In fact, Caldwell only narrowly missed the semis.

She hit the heats again in Canmore, which solidified her spot as a sprinter almost on par with the U.S. Ski Team’s own, even though she was still learning how to race the heats at that level of competition. That gave the Stratton racer a few more starts in Europe and a chance at World Championships, where she placed 20^th in the sprint, the only race she was picked to start. She finished as the second American, one place behind Kikkan Randall.

“She skied great and she’s been demonstrating all season long that she’s been able to make a big step forward,” U.S. Ski Team coach Chris Grover told FasterSkier at the time. “She’s going to be one of our contenders for the future.”

And oh yeah – Caldwell also made the time to compete at U23 World Championships, where she qualified fifth and placed ninth in the sprint. Despite three trips to World Juniors, this was her first U23 Championships.

With just seven sprints to her name – she also contested the 10 k classic and the skiathlon in Canmore, as well as Quebec’s team sprint – Caldwell landed 53^rd in the World Cup sprint rankings, hinting that she could have had an even bigger presence with more starts. As such, her performances earned her a nomination to the U.S. Ski Team for 2014, no small task this season.

Honorable Mention:

Jesse Cockney on his way to qualifying second in the 1.3 k skate sprint qualifier in at the Alberta World Cup.

APU athlete and U.S. Ski Team D-teamer Erik Bjornsen saw his first year of World Cup action, and could have been considered for this award. On the domestic circuit, his racing was impeccable. That earned him World Cup starts in Canada, Davos, and Liberec, as well as a spot at World Championships, where unlike Caldwell he started nearly the whole slate of events. Bjornsen finished 48th in the 15 k skate, and paired up with Andy Newell to place 14th in the team sprint. The fact that we ultimately picked Gow, whose top-30 on the World Cup and 31^st place at World Championships put him a notch above Bjornsen, just highlights how difficult it was to pick a male winner this year.

There were lots of other World Cup rookies this season, since skiing’s circuit traveled to Canada so North American teams were allowed to field nations group racers. Among the other standouts were Jesse Cockney, who notched a surprise second-place qualification round for Canada in the Canmore sprint before ultimately placing ninth, and American Rebecca Rorabaugh, who placed 18th in the sprint in Quebec.

In Europe, too, there were rookies. Hannah Dreissigacker and Audrey Vaillancourt made their first World Championships appearances for the American and Canadian biathlon teams, and skier Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess started World Cup sprints for the U.S. in Davos, Lahti, and Drammen based on his domestic results. And, of course, there were the racers that earned their starts through being SuperTour and NorAm leaders, like Rosie Brennan and Mike Somppi.

But what set Gow and Caldwell apart from the rest was their seeming ability to – with a fair degree of consistency – translate their ski speed in domestic racing directly to the World Cup. It’s not something that many rookies can do: look at Bjornsen and Blackhorse-von Jess, for instance, who had strong results at U.S. Nationals against Torin Koos. All three skiers made appearances on the World Cup later in the season, but while veteran Koos was able to seamlessly jump back to that level and qualify for sprint heats, Bjornsen and Blackhorse-von Jess had more rookie moments: they were clearly adjusting to the new scene and often finished in the 50’s or lower. That experience will allow them to succeed in the future, but it won’t be a quick or automatic transition.

Caldwell, on the other hand, if anything upped her game on the biggest stage. She performed well at U.S. Nationals, U23’s, and European Continental Cup racing, but hitting the top 20 on the World Cup probably represented her best racing of the season, and it came when it counted. Gow, too, as able to fare about as well against his usual Canadian competitors on the World Cup as he probably would have at home – if not better. All that “not thinking about it” allowed him to overcome the overwhelmingness that often confronts rookies, and earned him top honors along with Caldwell.

Previous Winners

2011

Lenny Valjas (CAN)

Jessie Diggins (USA)

2010

Simi Hamilton (USA)

Holly Brooks (USA)

2009

Alex Harvey (CAN)

Morgan Arritola (USA)

2008

Garrott Kuzzy (CAN)

Liz Stephen (USA)

April 23, 2013
Johnny Klister Announces First Annual Johnny5

JohnnyKlister.com completed the week-long announcement of the first annual Johnny5, awarded to five people that are changing Nordic skiing in the US.

Johnny Klister provides comprehensive descriptions of how each winner is impacting the sport.

The Winners:

Zach Caldwell

Kikkan Randall

FasterSkier (Topher Sabot & Matthew Voisin)

The Nordic Combined Team

Pete Vordenberg

Visit the links above or just go to www.johnnyklister.com for the full announcements and photos.

June 20, 2009
The Johnny5: 3 Days Left To Nominate

Johnny Klister, providing commentary and insight on the Nordic ski scene since 2008, is accepting nominations for the first annual Johnny5.

Five people who are changing Nordic skiing in the US will be selected from the nominees.

Send your nominations and why to johnnyklister@gmail.com.

View the current list of nominees at www.johnnyklister.com.

According to the ubiquitous Johnny Klister, the award is pride. Lots of pride and mild notoriety on a small hiccup of a ski website. Though sources have reported that Andrew Johnson has offered to donate an Alpina temporary tattoo circa 2005.

There are only three days left to submit nominations.

June 12, 2009
Uhl Named to ESPN The Magazine Men’s Academic All-America Team

BURLINGTON, Vt. – University of Vermont senior Juergen Uhl (Muhlenbach, Germany) of the men’s Nordic ski team has been named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America Men’s At-Large First-Team. The College Sports Information Directors Association (CoSIDA) made the announcement today.

Uhl is just the fourth Catamount in school history to be named to the Academic All-America First-Team. Senior Connor Tobin of the men’s soccer team also achieved the honor this past fall when he was named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America Men’s Soccer First Team.

Uhl was one of the most accomplished Nordic skiers in UVM’s history and also earned ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District I honors for a second straight season in 2009. Uhl was a three-time NCAA All-American and was named to the NCAA All-Academic Team all four years while maintaining a 3.81 grade point average in mechanical engineering.

Uhl capped off a brilliant career by winning the 10k classic at the 2009 NCAA Ski Championships to earn Vermont’s first individual national championship in a Nordic event since 1998. He won the race by more than 10 seconds. The Catamounts finished fifth overall at the NCAA Ski Championships.

Uhl finished his collegiate career with 10 first-place finishes and 22 top-five performances. He won three classic races as a senior and as a junior went a perfect 5-for-5 in classic races on the Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association Circuit. Uhl was also named First-Team All-East in each of his four years and was a team captain in 2009. He was awarded the J. Edward Donnelly Award by the UVM Athletic Department as the top male senior student-athlete at the 2009 Rally Awards.

Juergen Uhl, UVM (Photo: flyingpointroad.com)

Source: UVM Athletics

June 12, 2009