Tag: crashes

Eckhoff Becomes the Second Sibling to Win an Östersund Sprint, Quells the Critics in Norway

Tiril Eckhoff (NOR) gutting it out on the last loop en route to a victory in the World Cup sprint. Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus.com.

After Martin Fourcade of France opened the day of competition in Östersund, Sweden, by winning the men’s sprint, it looked like the biathlon World Cup was going to pick up right where it left off.

The most successful woman of the 2014 Olympics, Darya Domracheva, was a very early starter in the 7.5 k sprint, but despite a penalty she moved into first place by over a minute when she crossed the finish line – leaving fans guessing as to whether she skied so fast she’d end up on the podium regardless.

But the rest of the women’s field wasn’t going to just let her have it. 12 bibs later, Tiril Eckhoff of Norway showed that there was a new boss in town. She also had one penalty, but skied even faster than Domracheva, and charged into first place by 9.5 seconds.

“I never thought that I would do it,” the 24-year-old told Norwegian broadcaster NRK. “I thought maybe I’d be in the top ten.”

Eckhoff is, improbably, coached by her brother Stian. More than ten years her senior, Stian Eckhoff won the World Cup sprint in Östersund in both 2004 and 2005. He is now coaching the Norwegian women’s team.

“I’m a little surprised she’s already matching Domracheva,” he told NRK.

Veronika Vitkova (CZE). Fischer/NordicFocus.com.

The youngest Eckhoff was helped by Gabriela Soukalova, another star from last season. The Czech has been off to a rocky start, and suggested before the World Cup season began that she has been focusing on other aspects of her life (she recently starred in a nude photo campaign to raise awareness of cancer) and will get faster as the season goes on.

So, despite being passed by Eckhoff from two minutes back, Soukalova held on and seemed to have every inch of the old fight left in her. The two battled back and forth over the final kilometer and it’s safe to say that Soukalova’s presence and speed helped propel Eckhoff to the top of the podium.

“It hurt like shit at the end,” Eckhoff admitted to NRK.

It turned out to be close: Veronika Vitkova of the Czech Republic cleaned all ten targets, and left the shooting range with the lead. She lost seconds on the last lap, however, and ended up 4.6 seconds behind Eckhoff.

“Today was very hard on the trails,” Vitkova said in the post-race press conference. “The 15 k was better for me. Tiril was very fast today.”

Then came Kaisa Makarainen. The Finn had missed two targets, but also had the fastest ski time of the day by a whopping 30 seconds. A two-time World Cup overall champion, Makarainen pushed hard for the win. In the end she landed third as she crossed the finish line, exactly three seconds behind Vitkova.

Finally, the last threat came from Dorothea Wierer, a sharshooting Italian. Wierer, like Vitkova, had hit all her targets. She left the range in first place – but despite much-improved skiing this season, it wasn’t quite enough and she slipped off the podium by the finish, ending up in fourth place just one tenth of a second ahead of Domracheva.

Eckhoff could rest, assured of her victory – the very first in her career, although she earned bronze in the mass start at the 2014 Olympics.

“It feels amazing and indescribable,” she told NRK. “It’s absolutely magical to see yourself as number one.”

She also had some words for media outlets like NRK, who criticized her after she finished seventh in the individual race on Thursday and also questioned whether the Norwegian women’s team would be any good this season.

“It’s nice to come back to the Norwegian journalists,” she said in a press conference after the race. “They have been really tough, so it’s nice to show that I belong in the top…. it’s boring to get so much shit.”

Vitkova was also pleased.

“I’m very happy because it’s my second second-place finish on the World Cup,” she said in the press conference.

With the victory, Makarainen took the yellow overall leader’s bib from Domracheva. It’s still early in the season, but this is a familiar battle for fans of biathlon.

“With two penalties, it’s very nice to be on the podium,” she said. “With the prone penalty I was a little bit sad because my finger was just a little bit too fast. It wasn’t meant to go so fast.”

All three are looking forward to tomorrow’s pursuit, where the top five women will all start within ten seconds of one another. Eckhoff said that her strategy would be to wait for Makarainen to, inevitably, pass her, then tuck in and draft; Makarainen suggested that the race would be decided on the shooting range, “woman to woman.”

She also offered a plea to race organizers, after describing how difficult the skiing was over the unevenly-salted, icy, slushy, and choppy course which claimed more than a few skiers in crashes and broke the rifle stock of Baiba Bendika of Latvia.

“I hope they will prepare the course a little bit better tomorrow, so that we don’t have too many crashes,” Makarainen said. “It’s a very big danger now to get a lot of crashes. We saw them already today. It’s very soft and it’s also icy on the downhills… you just have to hope that you will not fall down.

Full results

Women’s sprint podium in Ostersund (l-r): Veronika Vitkova (CZE), Tiril Eckhoff (NOR), Kaisa Makarainen (FIN). Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus.com,

December 6, 2014
Australian Olympian Callum Watson Recovering after Ski Punctures Lung in Sprint Crash

Callum Watson (left) racing in New Zealand in 2012. After a crash which resulted in a punctured lung, Watson has been forced to try to raise funds to pay for his medical expenses. You can donate at www.gofundme.com/djob50. (Photo: Ausxc.com)

Australian cross country skier Callum Watson was looking towards a bright future: after competing in his first Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, this winter, he and teammate Phil Bellingham decided to take the plunge and join a team in Falun, Sweden, to try to take their skiing to the next level.

“We accepted the offer to join Dala Sports Academy where we began working with our new Coach Mattias Nilsson,” Watson wrote in an email to FasterSkier. “During the European Spring I made some amazingly rewarding progress in many areas resulting in some results that showed a lot of promise. Finally I had the confidence that I was on the path to achieving my goal of a top 30 on World Cup which I am regularly told I have the potential to reach.”

He returned to Australia to compete in his country’s national championships, as well as make some money teaching skiing to fund his own career. But there, disaster struck: in the semifinals of the championship sprint, Watson collided with Swiss racer Simon Hammer and what happened next is practically unheard of in the cross country world. Hammer’s ski slipped in between Watson’s ribs and punctured his lung, which immediately collapsed.

“It was almost like slow-motion as I saw the ski go straight into the top of my chest,” Watson wrote. “I knew that I had been hit hard, however as I tried to get up, I felt burst of air gurgling from where the ski had hit. I immediately knew what that meant but couldn’t quite believe it. As I began to cough, more air could be heard passing through my chest and suddenly I went into panic with an overwhelming inability to breathe.”

Watson explained that he had clipped skis with another competitor and fell in front of Hammer, who had no choice but to ski into him. Still, the outcome was pretty shocking: as skiers we take it for granted that while we might get cut or bruised, cross country skis — lighter and duller than their alpine counterparts – don’t have the capacity to cause major internal damage.

“Snow conditions were good and no-one was at fault, it was just a race incident that resulted a collision and freak accident,” Australian national team coach Finn Marsland said.

While Watson said that at the time it felt like the ski patrol took an “agonizingly long time” to arrive, they actually responded very quickly considering his location. There also happened to be a trauma doctor among the spectators, and Watson’s brother Ewan and another helper tried to keep him calm, which he said probably “prevented me from passing out.” But Watson was still in critical condition. He was sledded down to Falls Creek Medical Center before being stabilized and sent on a helicopter to Melbourne, where trauma specialists could get to work.

“I’m not sure what the chances are, but unluckily the ski had managed to penetrate between my ribs, punctured through the chest cavity and into my right lung causing it to quickly collapse,” Watson wrote. “With a strong dose of various drugs an emergency chest tube was put in place to stabilise me. The drugs put me in a different world but I was still conscious for the whole procedure and was one of the toughest things I have ever been through.”

Unfortunately, that was nothing compared to what still lay ahead.

The original chest tube worked by using suction to create negative pressure in the lung and hold it in place during healing. But after four days, the seal began to leak. As the lung collapsed again, Watson was in excruciating pain. He described the prep work for replacing the tube as the most excruciating thing he had ever experienced: “by far the most traumatic experience of my life and was far worse than the original accident.”

After several days, it became clear that despite the second tube being bigger, it also had not allowed the lung to seal and begin to heal itself. So Watson headed in for surgery. He now feels like he’s back on track.

“I didn’t know how much pain I would be dealing with when I woke up, however I was very happy to find it was minimal compared with the previous ordeal!” he wrote. “The ski created a hole which was around 1cm long and 2cm deep into the lung. I sit here now in the same hospital bed 12 days after the accident and now I am waiting for the 3^rd chest tube to complete its work by draining the remaining fluid and air from my chest. The prediction is that I will have the tube out either on Thursday afternoon or Friday and should be out of the hospital by Saturday or Sunday if all goes well.”

While Watson was reportedly in low spirits in the week following the crash, he’s feeling better now. A well-liked World Cup athlete, his sunny approach to life was apparent in his explanations of how he’s dealing with his situation.

“The small length of this suction tube [confines] me to the inside of this small area in my ward,” he wrote. “I have a tube stuck in my chest, it hurts to breath whilst moving and standing up is a painful challenge. I can feel myself wasting away and therefore should feeling like the most depressed and lost soul around, but somehow I find myself always smiling thinking positively about the future and even laughing! …There I have to say that my family, [girlfriend] Teresa and coach Mattias have been amazing through this period and that along with so many visits and kind messages from fellow athletes and friends have been what has gotten me through this horrible experience.”

Encouragement from his coach has played a big role, too.

“My coach believes even with the recovery time required from such an injury, I will be able to ski much faster than I ever have and should keep my eyes positively focused towards my original goals set for this World Cup Season and World Championships in Falun,” Watson wrote. “I have the determination to get myself back to racing at the level I was before the accident and am confident in my coach’s positive approach in what I am capable of.”

But besides the months of recovery time he’ll be forced to take, Watson faces an additional huge challenge: money. He has to pay for the helicopter flight, which he says puts himself in an “impossible financial situation.” In addition, his income was coming from coaching, which he won’t be able to do while he’s in recovery. That cuts off any incoming funds he might have generated.

Watson, his family, and Marsland have worked to set up a fundraising page to help pay the costs of the medical rescue and allow the racer to get back to his career: racing. The goal is to raise $20,000. The GoFundMe page, called “Help Rebuild Callum Watson”, can be found here.

August 28, 2014
Sochi Course is Built For Fourcade as Frenchman Takes Second Win

Martin Fourcade at World Championships in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, last month.

In the early going of Saturday’s 10 k World Cup sprint in Sochi, Russia, it looked like it might be a close race.

After the first shooting, four of the sport’s big names were all ranked within four seconds of each other. Martin Fourcade of France had the fastest time. But also shooting clean, Evgeniy Ustyugov of Russia was just 1.8 seconds back, followed by Erik Lesser and Arnd Peiffer of Germany. Behind them, Norwegians Henrik L’Abee-Lund and Tarjei Bø hovered within ten seconds of the lead.

On Thursday, Fourcade had put on a dominating show of ski prowess en route to winning the 20 k individual, besting Germany’s Andi Birnbacher despite having an extra minute of penalty time.

And so it was perhaps not surprising that by the time Fourcade, who in bib 50 was the latest starter of the group of six, cleaned his standing stage, it wasn’t a close race at all. He had put 30 seconds into Lesser in the intervening 3.3 kilometers. Ustyugov, meanwhile, had missed a shot, and sat in third just ahead of L’Abee-Lund.

The real question was how much more time Fourcade could pick up by the finish. He turned that lead into a 42.3-second win, solidifying his place as the man to beat when the Olympics hit these trails next year. In good news for the home country, it was Ustyugov who made it into second, as Lesser faded and lost 20 seconds in the last lap of skiing.

L’Abee-Lund took third place for the first podium of his career.

It was Fourcade’s 16^th podium of the season, a new record for a male biathlete.

“This is a warning shot to competitors,” NRK commentator and 1998 Olympic gold medalist Halvard Hanevold said of these two days of competitions.

Maybe next time don’t ask him about Svendsen…

Fourcade certainly feels the same way. It’s true that his biggest rival, Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen, is sitting these races out. But Fourcade insisted in Thursday’s press conference that Svendsen’s presence wouldn’t have made a difference in his results.

“What I think about Svendsen?” Fourcade asked in response to a question from IBU Communication Director Peer Lang. “He’s a great champion and he had wonderful results at World Championships, but I was better this year. I don’t care if he’s there or not.”

After Thursday’s hard-packed and fast trails, Saturday brought some fresh snow and much softer conditions, taking if anything an extra toll on racers’ legs even though Thursday had already been universally described as brutal.

“It was even harder today, with the soft snow,” L’Abee-Lund said in a press conference. “The uphills were harder and the downhills were slow and hard.”

It took some other tolls, too – Maxim Tsvetkov of Russia went flying off the course, over the snowbank and into the trees on a downhill corner (video here), and had to pull out of the race.

All this is a preview for the Olympics, and Fourcade likes it. In fact, he said that he didn’t feel like these races were anything special; instead, he achieved the wins by just being himself.

“I am just a man with two arms and two legs,” he said in Saturday’s press conference. “I am in really good shape now. This week, my goal was to get a good feeling for the Sochi tracks.”

Mission accomplished: he has picked up good information.

“I don’t care if the track is flat or soft or hard, I want to do everything to win gold next year,” Fourcade told German broadcaster ZDF.

If he skis anything like he has this year, it seems inevitable. Having already locked up the World Cup Total Score, Fourcade is set to take a lot of hardware back to France with him. These two wins gave him both the Sprint and Individual trophies as well, and he had already clinched the Pursuit title.

In the last discipline, the mass start, Fourcade holds a lead going into the final competition in Khanty-Mansiysk, and seems likely to take the title as well.

While Ustyugov was the only Russian to make the podium, the team had plenty to celebrate as his third-best ski time was also bested by Alexey Slepov, who skied the second-fastest time. Dmitry Malyshko had the fifth-best time and junior Alexandr Loginov the ninth-fastest. If the team can get their shooting together, the possibilities in Sochi seem good.

But of all the podium finishers, L’Abee-Lund was perhaps the happiest.

“It has been almost within reach so many times,” the 26-year-old told NRK. “Today it worked out completely, and it feels great. I’m very happy with the race and it was incredibly fun.”

Tim Burke and Lowell Bailey finished 28^th and 30^th with two and one penalties, respectively, to lead the U.S.; Leif Nordgren finished 40^th with one missed shot and Russell Currier 91^st with five penalties.

For Canada, both Scott Gow and Jean Philippe Le Guellec shot clean to place 49^th and 52^nd. Scott Perras had five penalties and just edged Currier in 90^th.

Results

March 9, 2013