From the FasterSkier archive — posts syndicated from athletes’ and coaches’ own blogs between 2004 and 2012, kept online as published. Current coverage is at fasterskier.com.
Johannes Thingnes Bø of Norway has dominated the win column. Sunday marked his sixth victory of the season as he won the 15-kilometer mass start race in Nové Město, Czech Republic in a time of 37:25.2 minutes. (Photo: biathonworld.com)
IBU World Cup Nové Město, Czech Republic Mass Starts
Sunday’s mass start races wrapped up the first stretch of IBU World Cup race calendar. And with it, on the men’s side, Johannes Thingnes Bø of Norway has dominated the win column. Sunday marked his sixth victory of the season as he won the 15-kilometer mass start race in Nové Město, Czech Republic in a time of 37:25.2 minutes. Bø shot clean on Sunday as he takes the World Cup lead into the holiday break and celebrates his 36th career World Cup win and a clean sweep of races in Nové Město.
In second place was France’s Quentin Maillet Fillon finishing 46.5 seconds back after amassing two penalties. Evgeniy Garanichev from Russia placed third (+54.1) after shooting clean.
Christian Gow of Canada was the only North American to qualify for the mass start. Gow placed 28th (+4:51.8) with three shooting penalties during his race and sits 26th overall on the World Cup.
In the women’s 12.5 k mass start, Slovenia’s Anastasiya Kuzmina took her first won of the season as she crossed the line in 35:34.4 minutes. Kuzmina suffered two penalties during her race. It was Kuzmina’s 11th World Cup win. Teammate Paulina Fialkova placed second (+12.1) with two penalties. Anais Chevalier of France finished in third (+13.3) with three penalties.
Clare Egan for the U.S. was the only North American to qualify for the mass start after Saturday’s pursuit race. Egan placed 14th finishing 1:22.3 minutes back with three penalties. It was Egan’s fourth individual top-20 of the season. Italy’s Dorothea Wierer leads the overall World Cup with 381 points, Egan heads into the holiday break ranked 22nd with 127 points.
Canada’s Ryan Elden racing in the youth men’s 7.5 k sprint at 2018 IBU Youth World Championships in Otepää, Estonia. (Photo: Bryan Dickson)
In an effort to showcase the North Americans competing at this past week’s International Biathlon Union (IBU) 2018 Youth and Junior World Championships in Otepää, Estonia, we asked those qualifying athletes several questions about themselves — actually, we had them fill in the blanks. Here we have 18-year-old Ryan Elden, who represented Canada at his first World Youth Championships.
Over the last week, Elden placed 49th in the youth men’s 10 k pursuit, 59th in the 7.5 k sprint and 81st in the 12.5 k individual.
***
“My full name is Ryan Alexander Elden, but I go by Ryan pretty much all the time.
I was born and raised in Quesnel, British Columbia, and I learned to ski at the age of 2.
Between Trials and Youth Worlds I spent my time competing in Europe on the 2nd international Biathlon tour. I competed in races in Nové Mesto, Czech Republic and Pokljuka, Slovenia. After racing I spent the last 2 weeks in France, at my coach Etienne’s hometown, doing our final bit of training before Worlds.
The hardest/most fun workout we did during the summer in Whistler with the Whistler Nordic Training Centre was pulling tires on our roller skis.
The biggest thing I’ve been working on this season is shooting. I’ve been a little inconsistent in the past so I’ve been doing a bit of extra work to improve in that area.
This is my first time in Estonia and my second time racing internationally. My first time were the races I did in Czech Rebublic and Slovenia three weeks ago. It’s been a huge learning experience and a ton of fun.
One difference I’ve noticed between Canada and Estonia are the older buildings. It has a really cool mix of very modern buildings and very old buildings.
At Worlds, I’m really excited to see how I size up against the other biathletes from all around the world.
One race I’m especially targeting is the pursuit because it is the most fun in my opinion.
Watching the Olympics before racing has been really inspiring. My favourite part of watching the Olympics is hearing the stories of the athletes and what they’ve gone through to get to where they are today. I get so excited every time medalists are tearing up with happiness on the podium after finally achieving their dreams. If I had to choose someone, I would like to be like Johannes Thingnes Bø. A great champion and amazing athlete, but also personable and humble.
Here at Worlds I want to meet as many different as I can and learn about the other countries.
My favourite thing at breakfast (not here specifically but also here) is eggs with cheese.
The first thing I thought of before coming here was cold.
Now that I’m here, I don’t think I will ever forget how flat it is. Our course is anything but flat, surprisingly, but the countryside we drove through was very flat. It has beautiful scenery though.
If I had a ton of spare time here I would spend it exploring the larger towns and checking out cool buildings.
Biathletes Veronika Vítková, Jitka Landová, Gabriela Koukalová, and Eva Puskarčíková after a 2015 relay in Oslo, Norway. The Czech women learned that they would receive an Olympic bronze medal after the Russian team has been disqualified for doping. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
(Editor’s note: This article contains explicit language.)
The U.S. women finished seventh in the Sochi relay, and some athletes spoke out about how much it would have meant to be sixth not three years later, but the day they competed.
“It only took us 4 years, but now our historic 7th place is actually 6th…tying the best ever Olympic relay result for US Biathlon – men or women!” team member Sara Studebaker wrote on Facebook. “It’s unfortunate it took 4 years for this to happen. Because we were 7th instead of 6th, some teammates missed out on being pre-qualified for events and getting monetary support… Doping affects all athletes at some level. There is no excuse.”
“The ripple effect from athletes doping feels even more personal now,” she wrote. “It’s wild to think about what would have been different for us with a 6th place relay at the Olympics instead of 7th. Thanks Russia for the flower ceremony at the Olympics that we didn’t get to have, A-team status and funding for 2015, and pre-qualification for the World Cup.”
Canada finished eighth in the relay and will now move up to seventh.
Vilukhina earned a silver medal in the 7.5-kilometer sprint; that means that Vita Semerenko of Ukraine will be upgraded from bronze to silver, and Karin Oberhofer of Italy will earn bronze, the first individual Olympic medal of her career.
Then there is the relay, where both Vilukhina and Romanova represented Russia. They took silver with teammates Olga Zaitseva and Ekaterina Shumilova. The Norwegian team will now move from bronze to silver, and the Czech team will now earn bronze.
Gabriela Koukalová posted on her Facebook page about how frustrated she was with the scandal. A translated version reads,
“I know that you all know… I mean about our Olympic medal from Sochi for the women’s relay, which we are going to receive with almost four years of delay. On one side it’s great that justice was achieved, but on the other side I am truly sorry for Eva Puskarčíková and mostly for my lifelong friend Jitka Landová, who had to end her biathlon career due to medical reasons. She spent almost her entire career with hard work and without any memories of success. I am not sure about you, but I want to turn doping into a crime and not allow Russian Federation to start at the Winter Olympics, like it already happened at the Summer Games! I also would like to stress one more goal, and that is more important than victories. Their names are HONESTY AND FAIRNESS, not only in sport but overall in the life! Too bad that they [Russians] hadn’t figured that one yet! And now I would like to move on from this topic…”
Meanwhile, Landová isn’t sure that a medal would have changed the trajectory of her career, saying that she doesn’t look back. But she does wish she’d had the medal earlier, she said in a Czech radio interview.
“Last night I received a message from Eva Puskarčíková that we really had the Sochi medal,” Landová said, according to a translation. “I looked at it first with disbelief, because as long as I have no tangible evidence, I just don’t believe it. From the very beginning, we knew the Russians were not clean.”
“I do not know whether to be glad or cry,” Puskarčíková told the same radio broadcaster.
The pushback against the women on social media has been swift and severe.
The number of comments below Koukalová’s Facebook post calling her stupid and a disgrace are too many to count, as are those telling her to stick to sport and “worry about your performance,” a comment that sometimes had a foreboding connotation. Other comments call her a “b*tch” or a “f*cking b*tch.” Still others compare her to Nazis or fascists.
Then there are the threats.
“Russia will be wait you on World Cup in Tyumen 2017… you want to get negative before the Olympic Games? ok, you will get it!,” wrote one poster, following this with an emoji of a punching fist.
“you have found enemies in the face of 300 million people… be careful,” one commenter wrote.
“Can be you sure that your test-tube Ok or someone scratch it and you will be deprived of all medals,” another threatened.
Instagram was, if anything, worse – even though that’s not the platform where the athletes had made any of their comments.
On the account “jitka_official_landova”, which it is not clear is actually maintained by Landová, received hate on nearly all of the posts, even though the last post was only from 2015 and the account has no recent activity. Under a picture of Landová posted in February, 2015, one comment reads, “prostitutky,” which translates from to “prostitutes”.
There are several Instagram pages attributed to Koukalová, some of which are clearly fan pages and two which are verified by Instagram (calling into question the efficacy of the verification system, but that’s another story.) It’s unclear if either of the two verified accounts are operated by Koukalová; there is no link to Instagram from her website.
But regardless of whether comments left there are actually reaching her, a lot are being posted regardless. Many are filled with emojis of livestock like pigs and sheep, and feces. The pigs and excrement were often accompanied by a lipstick emoji; Koukalová has a contract to appear in makeup ads.
On a page seeming to really belong to Koukalová, she was repeatedly called “scum.”
“you’re a lying b*tch!” one commenter wrote in English. “You are fascist,” wrote another. “You are one disgraceful sh*tty slut,” another commenter added.
Then there were those written in Russian, which translated to, if anything, worse comments:
“Go in a hole and don’t come back”
“prostitute”
“burn in hell”
“F*ck you, f*cking b*tch, no one will remember you and the medal”
“You b*tch”
“you don’t take medals, you only take it in the mouth”
“piece of sh*t”
“The end”
After one Russian fan writes a supportive message, another replies, “burn at the stake with her, sheep.”
Comments also riddled posts on an account which appeared to be maintained by fans.
“Such animals must be hung!” one comment translated from Russian read. Some others:
“Better not come to Tyumen!”
“Whore”
“Her brains are only enough to paint her face”
“Wash it, it’s a man”
“Lose weight, you’re so fat”
Many mention the phrase “life is a boomerang”. “Remember everything comes back, it’s the rule of life and your joy for getting not yours medal will turn into tears soon,” one comment written in English says.
Koukalová is not competing in the opening World Cup weekend in Östersund, Sweden, as she is still recovering from a calf injury. Many comments stated that they hoped she would never return to competition, or if she did, that she would lose every race. See this link for a good example. Take a look.
In the 15 k individual today, the first individual race of the World Cup season, Puskarčíková finished seventh with perfect 20-for-20 shooting; Vítková finished 12th with two penalties.
Some things are the same everywhere: a mostly junior training group after a rollerski workout in the Czech Republic. (All photos courtesy of Jan Čech)
For almost as long as Nick Lovett has been skiing at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), he has been thinking about how people train in other parts of the world.
This summer, the Wyoming native went on a trip to find out, visiting teammate Jan Čech at his home in the Czech Republic.
“I have been roommates with Jan for two years, and have been considering training with him in Czech for just as long,” Lovett wrote in an email. “I thought it would be a good experience to go somewhere new and see how training works somewhere else. I would say my decision was half for the training aspect, and half for the travel opportunity. I also traveled to Norway, Germany, and Scotland while away this summer.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BUbn9oIgLcL/
That also included visiting teammate Ann-Cathrin Uhl in Germany, and UAF teammate Seiji Takagi joined part of the trip as well.
So what did he find? Both Lovett and Čech, both 23 and seniors at UAF, answered some questions over email about summer training in the Czech Republic. The interviews have been edited and condensed.
Čech working hard in the Czech Republic. (Courtesy photo)
FasterSkier:Jan, where are you based this summer, what part of the Czech Republic? Is this the same area you grew up in, or is your training base away from your family home?
Jan Čech: My base camp is in Jilemnice, the northeast part of Czech Republic, close to Giant Mountains. I was born here and I went here for sport elementary school, and high school focused on sport education. Now I train with my brother’s group — he is coach at the high school above, as well as a coach of the Czech junior national team for cross country skiing.
FS: What is that part of the Czech Republic like? How is the landscape, what do people do there?
JC: Because are where I live is right under mountains, the landscape is rolling with numerous of tree-covered hills. It’s perfect for running and biking. People here are big fans of any sport and most of them spend weekends in the mountain, hiking, climbing, or biking in the countryside.
FS:Do you have a team that you are training with, or are most of your training sessions alone? How well do you know the other athletes and are they at a similar level to you?
A rainy rollerki in the Czech Republic. (Photo: Jan Čech)
JC: Most of the time I train with my brother’s junior group. The guys are fast — some of them attended World Junior Championships in Soldier Hollow, Utah, last season. So they are good training partners. Also sometimes I drive to the rollerski track an hour away from town, and there I can train with men from the national B-team who are my friends. I competed against them before I came to Fairbanks.
FS: Nick, did you spend some time training with this group, and how easy was it to join them?
Nick Lovett: It was as easy as possible for me to integrate, but there were some challenges. Aside from Jan, there were very few other skiers or coaches who spoke fluent English. This was the most challenging part as we tried to communicate some complex technique ideas with less than ideal words to use. While the language barrier was a challenge, I still feel I was able to learn and accomplish enough to fit in well.
FS:How do you design your training? Is it based on a plan from Nick Crawford at UAF? Are you adapting it at all to be able to match with other people/groups you might have opportunities to join?
JC: I train with the team in my hometown so I can have training partners, especially during interval sessions so I can push myself harder. Then I try match the intensity and volume hours from Nick’s plan. I also keep doing the UAF strength system whole summer as well.
FS: What are some of the differences between Czech training and American training?
NL: I would say there were some differences, but overall it was very similar to what I expected and what I have experienced here. The most notable difference was the emphasis that was put on general athleticism. While in the U.S. most workouts are all ski-oriented, some workouts there incorporated elements of gymnastics and track running.
Čech, seen from the dashboard of a coach’s car, has the road to himself. (Courtesy photo)
FS:What’s the hardest workout you have done so far this summer?
JC: My hardest workout this summer so far was uphill run time trial, which I do every year since I was 13. So that’s the best way how to test my fitness level for me.
FS:Are there any absolute favorite places to run or bike or rollerski?
JC: I believe my area is a great place to train. We have lots of opportunities to go mountain biking or road biking for up to four hours, which are amazing workouts and we bike as a group of 15 people. Also we have many country roads with new asphalt, which connect a hilly rolling loop of about 50 kilometers. That is great for classic OD’s [over-distance].
NL: Jilemince was a beautiful place to train. There were ample trails to run on, and some very quiet roads where one could ski for 2.5+ hours and never repeat the same asphalt. There is also a rollerski track and biathlon stadium currently under construction in Jilemince which will be an incredible addition to the town as a training venue.
FS:What is the best part of Czech summer, aside from training?
JC: The best part of summer in Czech are my evening walks with my sister to the old town square, which has buildings over 700 years old and great chocolate factory near by.
FS: Nick, where was your favorite place you visited?
NL: My favorite place we went was the city of Prague. It is an incredibly beautiful old city, and I just loved being there. Also we did some long runs in the mountains on the Czech-Poland border. I am from Jackson, Wyoming, so I loved being in the mountains and it made me feel closer to home there.
A workout in the mountains on the Polish border. (Photo courtesy of Jan Čech)
American Vasek Cervenka (front right) racing at 2016 Youth Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway. (Courtesy photo)
In another 20-something-question, fill-in-the-blanks series, we checked in with the world-class U.S. and Canadian biathletes that will be competing at 2017 International Biathlon Union (IBU) Youth & Junior World Championships Feb. 22-28 in Osrblie (also known as Brezno-Osrblie), Slovakia.
Here’s 18-year-old Vasek Cervenka, of Grand Rapids, Minn., who will be representing the U.S. at his second Youth Worlds. Last year, Cervenka spent the winter of 2015/2016 training in the Czech Republic, and he’s been there since January of this year (with plans to stay until mid-April).
“My full name is Vaclav Cervenka but you can call me Vasek (VAH-SHEK). I was born in Boulder, Colo., and raised in Grand Rapids, Minn. I started cross-country skiing when I was able to walk, parents say 9 months old, and started biathlon when I was 13, thanks to my parents.
I currently train in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, and Grand Rapids, Minn., with the Nove Mesto biathlon team or with Jakob Ellingson and Vladimir Cervenka.
U.S. teammates Vasek Cervenka (l) and Cam Christiansen at the Junior IBU Cup #3 in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Courtesy photo)
If I’m not skiing, you might find me drinking tea watching ‘Rick and Morty’ or ‘Game of Thrones’.
If I had to pick a favorite book, it would be ‘The Adventures of Captain Underpants’ by Dave Pilkey.
One of the things I’m most excited about for Youth/Junior World Championships in Brezno-Osrblie is meeting pretty foreign girls 🙂 (SC – vashiggy_21)
This will be my second Youth/Junior World Championships, and this year, I’m competing as a youth. One race I’m especially targeting there is the 12.5 k individual.
The best advice anyone ever gave me about skiing or racing was ‘Don’t give a s**t about anyone else racing, focus on yourself.’
One of the best race memories I have is the 2016 Youth Olympic games 10 k pursuit.
If I could meet one World Cup biathlete, it would be Martin Fourcade.
If I don’t end up being a professional skier, I’ll probably be colonizing Mars (sponsor me Elon Musk).
I’m missing zero days of school to be here, and my teachers/professors are probably thinking, ‘Good call doing online school.’
The Czech Republic women’s team, which won the 4 x 6 k relay on Saturday at the IBU World Cup in Presque Isle, Maine, with (from left to right) Eva Puskarcikova, Gabriela Soukalova, Lucie Charvatova, and Veronika Vitkova. (Photo: IBU/NordicFocus)
“It’s good to try a romantic atmosphere,” World Cup leader Gabriela Soukalová of the Czech Republic joked about the dark and cold course conditions at the end of the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup women’s 4 x 6-kilometer relay in Presque Isle late Saturday afternoon, when the sun had long set behind the trees and hills of northern Maine for the final 6 k. “I appreciate it so much. I was thinking about my boyfriend,” she said in an post-race team interview with the IBU.
“Candles…” her teammate Eva Puskarcíková added.
The Czech women had every reason to be in a good mood. In the final race before the upcoming IBU World Championships in Oslo, Norway, their team had asserted its intention to be on the podium there in March, achieving the first relay victory of the season in a time of 1:07:11.0, with one penalty and 14 spare rounds.
After narrowly avoiding a penalty lap in the last shooting, anchor Veronika Vítková had a large enough lead to ski to the side of the track and look for a national flag for the final stretch, but none was immediately available from coaches or fans, so she celebrated across the line just by raising her arms, before her teammates hugged her at the finish.
The women’s relay was moved up from Sunday to Saturday due to extremely cold temperatures in the forecast, with a start time of 4:10 p.m. following the men’s relay, giving the athletes the rare experience of racing in the dark on the final loops, dimly lit by portable lights on a few sections of the course. (Evening Biathlon World Cup races are occasionally on the schedule, for example in Oberhof, Germany, but that course is equipped with large fixed floodlights.)
With the athletes emerging from the darkness into the slightly brighter Nordic Heritage Center stadium, the race for second and third place on the podium was decided in an exciting sprint finish between the relays from Germany, Ukraine, and Poland.
Germany’s exhausted anchor Karolin Horchler tried to rescue her once-comfortable lead after the final shooting that had diminished precariously into the finish, with a double-pole effort on the final meters before she collapsed across the line.
Ukraine’s Olena Pidhrushna passed her with quick skating steps to claim second place, 25.2 seconds behind the winners, with a team total of zero penalties and 12 spares. Pidhrushna edged Horchler by just 0.2 seconds as the Germans took third (+25.4), with one penalty and seven spares, after erasing a 30-second deficit on the final loop. Poland’s Krystyna Guzik came into the finish narrowly off the podium in fourth place (+26.0), with a team total of zero penalties and seven spares.
The U.S. with Susan Dunklee, Hannah Dreissigacker, Clare Egan and Annelies Cook finished the race in 10th (+2:12.4), with one penalty and 12 spare rounds. It was their best result in a women’s relay this season.
Czech Republic joins this season’s other podium finishers — Ukraine, Italy, France, Germany, and Russia — as the favorites for the women’s relay in Olso, with a few more “dark horses” also in the mix.
After the flower ceremony, several women fielded questions at the indoor post-race press conference, still wearing protective tape on their cheeks and noses.
“Today’s race was very hard because of the very big cold,” Czech Republic’s starter Puscarcíková said. “My fingers were frozen. But I am happy we are first again. Last year we won in Oslo this time of the year. It’s very fantastic and unbelievable for me.”
“I had trouble because I shot my third bullet under the target,” Lucie Charvatová explained at the press conference. She had a penalty on her second relay leg and fell back to 11th, before tagging off 47.7 seconds back in ninth place. “After that I was so, so nervous. I ran fast and tried to do the best I could. But I am also happy.”
“I don’t know what I can say,” World Cup leader Soukalová said at the press conference, trying to explain how she had moved her team back into first place on the third leg, following two straight individual wins in Presque Isle. “It was a really fantastic weekend. It’s amazing. I was feeling really good during the race. I don’t remember when I [last] have been in the same shape. It’s a perfect performance before the World Championship.”
“It was very hard because on the track it was dark,” Vítková recalled of the anchor leg and the final shooting. “I have seen nothing. On the shooting range, too. And I was a little bit nervous, because I needed three extra [rounds of] ammunition.”
Ukraine, winner of the relay in Ruhpolding, Germany, earlier this season, was in fourth place with its lineup of Iryna Varvynets, Natalya Burdyga, Juliya Dzhyma and Pidhrushna for most of the race, before Pidhrushna moved her team up with the fastest skiing on the last loop, and beat Germany at the line.
“It’s difficult to recall a relay that was so close and tough,” a smiling Dzhyma said during the press conference, through a translator. “Maybe the one in Hochfilzen [where Ukraine finished third, though with a much larger gap to second and fourth place]. It was really interesting and tough, not just because of the close results, but also because of the frost in this cold weather. In the end we are really happy to be in second, and to be on the podium.”
“At the beginning of my leg, I couldn’t see any uphills, any downhills,” anchor Pidhrushna explained, via a translator. “It was like racing blind. When I came to the shooting range, my only thought was to shoot clean and not go to the penalty loop.”
“It’s already a legend,” a happy Pidhrushna later added in an interview with the IBU when asked about her final loop. “It was again a funny situation after the last shooting. I had no idea which place I was in, going away from the shooting range. One of our staff members shouted so loud, then I realized I was somewhere close, because I couldn’t see the screen, I couldn’t see anything because it was already dark. I just had to think that I was close so I had to fight for it again.”
“Krystyna [Guzik] from Poland was behind me, and we were running so fast to chase the German girl,” she explained. “But I couldn’t even think of doing that, actually.”
“I didn’t know what was happening behind me, I just tried to race,” Germany’s Horchler told ARD, after she had advanced her team from fifth to second, requiring one spare in prone and staying clean in her final shooting. “But I had brutal pain in my shins, and was already pushing into the downhill. I am really annoyed by that two-tenth of a second [at the finish]. But I am just pleased about my 0-5 shooting in standing, because with that I settled a few things in this competition so the relay could still make the podium.”
“Hats off to the organizers,” she added. “They put up makeshift lanterns, and I am happy about my prescription lenses in my glasses, otherwise it would not have been possible for me to see anything.”
“I as very nervous, because it’s been a long time since I took the starting position,” Germany’s Franziska Preuss said at the press conference. “The last time was Sochi [2014 Olympics, where Preuss crashed and got snow into her rifle sights, falling back far, as German failed to medal for the first time in an Olympic women’s relay]. But now I am really happy that it was a good race for me… I think nobody expected Germany on the podium today.”
Germany started a lineup without Franziska Hildebrand and Laura Dahlmeier, their two highest-ranked athletes on the World Cup.
“Temperatures were better today than yesterday,” second leg Luise Kummer told ARD. “We feared it would become really cold by now, but today it was bearable. And the audience is really participating with the action, so it was definitely fun. You actually get warm during the race. One would not believe that, in training we were also worried. But in normal competition it is no problem at all.”
“I just could not handle the standing position on the range here, and unfortunately also not today,” Germany’s third leg Miriam Gössner, who had her team’s penalty, told ARD. “I don’t know why. I really tried to do my best. In the prone shooting and out on the course I felt really, really good. So I think I could compensate for that penalty lap fairly well.”
Poland, with Magdalena Gwizdon, Monika Hojnisz, Weronika Nowakwska, and Guzik (formerly Palka) finished just 0.4 seconds off the podium, after losing the sprint against Ukraine and Germany.
“We had to fight not only with our rivals, but mainly with low temperatures,” Hojnisz later posted on Facebook, according to a translation, after she had avoided a penalty in her first prone shooting but lost about 45 seconds to the top. “I was not the best link in today’s relay, so thank you girls for your faith and fight to the last meter.”
“I held her until the end of the climb and tried to overtake on the flats,” Guzik said of Pidhrushna on the last loop, as told to Polish sports website SportoweFakty, according to a translation. “Unfortunately, none of the three attempts worked. Olena took it well tactically. It is a pity that the course was not a little bit longer, because I could fight to the finish. … I am sad that I could not lead us to a medal. We need this podium in the relay. I still believe that soon we will succeed.”
A number of teams started different lineups than they will likely have at World Championships, including France, which won the previous relay in Antholz, Italy, but on Saturday gave its top athlete, Marie Dorin Habert, a break. France finished sixth (+48.2), with one penalty and 13 spares, after Anaïs Chevalier had tagged her teammate Justine Braisaz in second place at the last exchange.
U.S. Achieves Season-Best 10th
Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) racing the first leg of the women’s 4 x 6 k relay on Saturday at the IBU World Cup in Presque Isle, Maine. Her team went on to place 10th for a season best. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
Coming off a historic week for US Biathlon with Dunklee’s silver medal in the sprint and fifth place in the pursuit, the team’s leading woman was picked to start Sunday’s relay (after racing the second leg in the three prior relays this season), followed by Dreissigacker, Egan and Cook.
“We are still experimenting with the order,” Dunklee wrote in an email. “Last week’s mixed relay went well with myself leading and Han [Dreissigacker] going second so we tried that again.”
As for moving the race up to Saturday, Dunklee wrote, “I think most athletes would agree that moving the race to today was the right call in light of the cold forecast.”
But that made for a pretty hectic race day for the women, as they had very little time to prepare with the men’s relay only wrapping up about an hour before their own.
“Today was a great opportunity for dealing with unusual challenges on race day,” Dunklee explained. “We had some struggles getting to the venue on time, then I had a broken firing pin right before zero [target practice to adjust the rifle sights before the start], which is very tricky to replace, and finally 13 minutes before the start, I heard that the course got changed and didn’t get to preview it.”
“With the short turn around from the guys race, we only had 25 minutes to zero 4 people,” she continued. “I didn’t fit in more than 10-15 minutes of skiing warmup, a new record for me. Dealing with chaos is an extremely important skill for a biathlete to have and we all did well today in spite of the challenges.”
Dunklee’s performance didn’t seem to suffer much despite those unusual circumstances, she she used just one spare to clean the first prone stage, and another two in her standing bout. She also skied the fastest course time of all starters in 13:55.4, and second-best among every woman in the relay, behind France’s anchor, 19-year-old Braisaz.
Hannah Dreissigacker racing the second leg of the U.S. women’s 4 x 6 k relay on Saturday under darkening skies at the IBU World Cup in Presque Isle, Maine. Her team went on to place 10th for a season best. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
Dunklee tagged off to Dreissigacker in fourth, only back 11.1 seconds behind Switzerland’s Selina Gasparin, who was then leading the pack (Switzerland went on to finish 12th).
For Dreissigacker, a regular member of the U.S. relays last year including at 2015 World Championships, it was her second World Cup relay of the season after spending some time on the second-tier IBU Cup, before returning to the World Cup in Canmore, Alberta, and Presque Isle, where she most recently placed 27th in the sprint and 24th in the pursuit.
Like Dunklee, she didn’t let the stressful race preparation get to her.
“It was definitely a little bit rushed today before the race for everyone,” she wrote in an email. “We had to rearrange things and it got a bit hectic. But it was fine for me anyways… a good adrenal warm-up, as I like to call it!”
Dreissigacker needed one spare in prone and two in standing, just like Dunklee, and lost a little more time on the course, handing off in seventh, 43.7 seconds behind the leaders.
“I am a little disappointed that I didn’t hit my last standing shot, and then took two spares to hit it, but it could have been worse!” Dreissigacker wrote. “I had a good battle with Austria [Lisa Theresa Hauser] and France [Anaïs Bescond] at the end of my leg which was fun and made me go hard.”
Egan, who had started the prior relay for the U.S. in Antholz, moved back to the third leg, which she had also raced in Ruhpolding and Hochfilzen earlier this season.
Clare Egan (US Biathlon) during her standing stage of the women’s 4 x 6 k relay at the IBU World Cup in Presque Isle, Maine. Her team went on to place 10th for a season best. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
In Presque Isle, she had finished 32nd in the sprint and 23rd in the pursuit. She continued her solid recent shooting performances in Saturday’s prone stage, cleaning her targets to leave the range in seventh position (+41.4).
After moving up to sixth place on the next loop, Egan came into the standing stage fighting for position with France, Ukraine and Austria. There she was unable to hit her last target with her three spares, having to ski through the 150-meter penalty lap.
“The conditions for my standing shooting were fine, I am just not as solid in standing as I am in prone,” Egan wrote in an email. “I missed two from the clip and then fired the first spare accidentally before I was ready. Then I had two bullets for two targets and unfortunately I only hit the first one. I should have taken more time to make a perfect hit on my last shot.”
She left the range in 12th, and tagged off to Cook in that position, having lost an additional minute to the leaders by the exchange (+1:50.6).
Just like it was for her teammates, Cook’s race leadup was a bit hectic.
“The preparation was actually funny today,” Cook wrote in an email. “I did not get to ski the course before the race started, and the girls actually had to tell me that they took out a sketchy corner, so I had never even done our course before I was on it racing it.”
On the shooting range, she matched the performance of Dunklee and Dreissigacker, requiring one spare in her prone stage and two in standing, but had to overcome an additional challenge: the sun had set when the anchors were on their relay legs, and large sections of the course had fallen into darkness.
“I was glad that nothing crazy happened on the downhills because it was definitely a shadowy course, not like the huge floodlights that we are accustomed to,” Cook explained. “But I didn’t mind. It reminded me of how night races were growing up at my local ski area, with little light bulbs hanging over the course. The range was a bit dark and the big movie screen flashed really brightly while I was shooting prone, so the light changed drastically and suddenly and that was distracting. But it worked out okay.”
She was able to overtake two more relays, moving the U.S. up to 10th in the finish. The U.S. women were satisfied with their result, though believed there was still additional room for improvement.
“As a team, we all had okay shooting performances and it is exciting to see us move up so much already even without a great day,” Dunklee concluded. “Oslo will be exciting.”
“I think we are all happy with 10th since its our best relay of the year, but we also know we can do better and today was a good sign of that!” Dreissigacker wrote.
“Despite my penalty lap this was the best relay result we have had with this group of four athletes,” Egan explained. “Our previous best was 12th which we got twice last year (World Cup 6 Antholz, World Championships). It is also a season best. Of course we can still do better and intend to do so in Oslo.”
“I still know we can do better in the relay, but it is a hard, hard thing for everyone to have stellar races on the same day,” Cook concluded. “And luckily, we know that all we have to do is have a good normal day and we can be right up there.”
With Some New Faces, Canada 17th
Without Rosanna Crawford and Julia Ransom, Canada did not have two women in Presque Isle who will likely be part of the women’s relay at World Championships in Oslo. Crawford and Ransom started in all three other relays this season where the team finished 10th in Hochfilzen, and ninth in both Ruhpolding and Antholz.
Instead, with veteran Zina Kocher (in her third relay this season), Emma Lunder (who had one relay start before in Hochfilzen), Audrey Vaillancourt and Erin Yungblut struggled on Saturday, quickly falling to the back of the field, with Kocher having to ski a penalty loop in her first prone.
After leaving the range in 16th out of 17 teams (with Norway and Slovakia pulling their teams before the start due to illness), Canada was never able to catch back up to the top 10, losing time to the leaders as the race progressed.
Kocher tagged off to Lunder 2:14.3 back, who then incurred another penalty in her prone stage (1+3, 0+1) to exchange 4:28.1 back in 17th place.
Vaillancourt then put in a strong performance on the range with two clean shooting stages, but was slower on the course and passed on the penultimate loop by the leading teams. She handed off to anchor Yungblut 6:38.6 back.
After requiring three spares to hit her targets (0+1, 0+2), Yungblut then was taken out of the race and scored as lapped in 17th position before her final loop.
On to Oslo
The athletes will now have two weeks of additional training and preparation, before traveling to Norway for the World Championships, beginning on Thursday, March 3 with the mixed relay.
Ondrej Moravec celebrates a sizable win for the Czech Republic in Thursday’s mixed relay at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland. (Photo: Kontiolahden Urheilijat/Jarno Artika)
KONTIOLAHTI, Finland — At least one team finished with big smiles at the end of Thursday’s epically slow-and-slushy 2 x 6 + 2 x 7 kilometer mixed relay on the first day of the 2015 International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Championships in eastern Finland.
Ondrej Moravec anchored the Czech Republic to gold, and with plenty of time to play with before doing so, he grabbed his nation’s flag from a stadium spectator to carry across the line.
Ondrej Moravec celebrates at the finish after anchoring the Czech Republic to gold in Thursday’s mixed relay at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland. (Photo: Kontiolahden Urheilijat/Jarno Artika)
Picking up one leg and pumping his free arm in the air, Moravec flashed a huge grin at the 4,500-person crowd and was greeted by three happy teammates in the finishing pen. Like the rest of the 26-team field, they had been through a lot in the last 1:20.27.2 hours, but what counted was that they handled the conditions better than any other team and came out on top.
Veronika Vitkova, Gabriela Soukalova, Michal Slesinger, and Moravec combined for a penalty-free effort, using a total of eight spares en route to the win. They finished 20.2 seconds ahead of France, which used eight spares as well. The defending Olympic mixed-relay champions, Norway finished third, 27.7 seconds back with three spares and a penalty loop.
While the Czech Republic, which notched silver from the mixed relay at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, consistently skied in the top three, its team mostly had the task of chasing down Belarus, which got out to an 20-second lead with second-leg Darya Domracheva.
Domracheva had come back from getting tagged in fifth, 19.4 seconds behind Vitkova as the first-leg leader. After trailing Japan’s Fuyuko Suzuki for most of her three 2 k laps, Vitkova pushed ahead of her before the exchange to give Soukalova a 2.1-second lead.
And while Soukalova was put in a prime position, after Vitkova used two spares on each round but cleaned to keep them at the front of the pack, she was nervous.
“I was afraid of the race before the start because I really don’t like these conditions,” Soukalova said in a post-race press conference about the at-least-ankle-deep snow in above-freezing temperatures. “It was really hard, but I tried to go [in] with a clear mind and just enjoy the race.”
Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen racing from 11th to second as the second leg of the mixed relay at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland. Her team went on to place ninth. (Photo: Kontiolahden Urheilijat/Jarno Artika)
She ended up cleaning both her stages and tagging Slesingr in third, 25.7 seconds after Domracheva and 5.7 seconds behind Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen, who cleaned to bring her team from 11th (after Mari Laukkanen’s first leg) to second.
“You could see in the end of the race, one kilometer before the finish, I was completely exhausted,” Soukalova said. “So I really appreciate the good job of the rest of the team.”
After the second exchange, Slesingr brought the Czechs to second with a clean prone and two standing spares. He followed Vladimir Chepelin of Belarus out of the range for the second time, about 25 seconds back, after Chepelin used three standing spares.
With one 2.5 k lap to go, Slesingr closed the gap to 11.7 seconds and tagged Moravec in second. Norway handed off in third, 45 seconds back, after Johannes Thingnes Bø lifted the team from sixth to third with clean shooting.
From there, Moravec proceeded to stalk Belarusian anchor Yuryi Liadov, who used one spare in prone. On the second lap, Moravec passed Liadov and led him into the range for the last time.
While Liadov missed three more standing to leave the range for the last time in fourth, 25.7 seconds out of first, Moravec (who used one spare in each bout) remained in control heading into the final lap, leading France’s Martin Fourcade in second by 18.2 seconds. Fourcade cleaned both stages to bring France from fourth to second by the last stage, and he ended up skiing the fastest anchor leg to come within 15 seconds of Moravec by 6.1 k.
But with 1.4 k to go, the Czech anchor solidified the victory with the second-fastest course time on the last leg, 7 seconds slower than Fourcade.
“I was so surprised the Belarusian guy was a long time ahead of the race,” Moravec told the IBU media after the race. “I think it was also pretty good result for them, but I believe for myself that I can beat him and I did it and I was so happy.”
Anais Bescond of France (center, in black) leads the first leg out of the start in Thursday’s mixed relay at IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland. (Photo: Biathlon Canada/NordicFocus)
Belarus finished fourth, 31 seconds out of first and 4.3 seconds off the podium.
“I think it was a pretty good race for everybody on the team,” Moravec said in the press conference. “It was perfect.”
After Anais Bescond’s first leg, in which she used four spares (one prone and three standing), France rose from 12th to fourth with Marie Dorin Habert, who cleaned prone and used one standing spare. She also skied the third-fastest second leg after Mäkäräinen and Domracheva, respectively.
“I’m very happy with this medal and I hope next year we could change medals with the Czechs,” Habert said in the conference. “We have to work hard for it, but it’s a very nice day for the French team, too.”
Jean-Guillaume Béatrix kept France in fourth with a clean first stage and used three spares standing, coming into the final exchange 1:10.5 out of the lead and 25.6 seconds after third.
“It’s like running in the sand here,” Beatrix recalled. “I’m happy that in the end we can be on the podium because it was unbelievably hard.”
“It’s like running in the sand here. … It was unbelievably hard.” — Jean-Guillaume Béatrix (France)
Fourcade clawed back more than 15 seconds within his first two kilometers and proceeded to shoot a perfect 10-for-10 to keep his team ahead of Norway for silver.
The 2 x 6 + 2 x 7.5 k mixed relay at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland, with the Czech Republic gold medalists (c), France (l) in second, and Norway (r) in third. (Photo: Kontiolahden Urheilijat/Jarno Artika)
“I have no thoughts about missing the team relay,” Fourcade said when asked whether he considered skipping the coed event to prepare for other races at World Championships. “It was important to me and important to team France so I’m really happy I did [it] and really happy we catch some medals.”
While Norway’s Fanny Well-Strand Horn cleaned both her stages to tag off in sixth, Tiril Eckhoff used all three spares in standing and skied a penalty loop. Yet she still managed to keep Norway in sixth, 1:32.4 out of first.
“It always sucks to get the penalty, but I just have to go and hope for the guys to take medal and they did so that was really good,” Eckhoff said.
The team’s third leg, Johannes Thingnes Bø noted how fast their skis were despite the conditions.
“The most [important] part of my race was the good skis today — they were really fast and also our shooting today was really strong,” the 21-year-old Bø said. “We had just one shooting that was bad. We are happy to get a medal.”
The Norwegian mixed-relay team, (from left to right) with Fanny Well-Strand Horn, Tiril Eckhoff, Tarjei Bø, and Johannes Thingnes Bø, after earning bronze at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland.
His older brother, Tarjei Bø, who anchored the team to third, cleaned as well.
“We are always happy with the medal. Of course, we’re going for the gold medal each relay … but still bronze is good,” Tarjei, 26, said. “It’s a big difference with bronze medal and fourth place. I think as a group, we’re happy.”
And at the end of the day, the Belarus team — at least Domracheva — wasn’t bummed, either.
“This is the best place for a few years for us in mixed relay,” she told the IBU. “From start to start, we have better and better results. Fourth place is really close to the podium, and I’m glad with my own race and it was not easy conditions today. We saw for our guys also some really strong competitors, and it was a good biathlon fight.”
Also in the top 10, Austria placed fifth (+1:00.3) with three total spares, Germany was sixth (+1:22.8) with six spares, Italy finished seventh (+1:24.7) with 10 spares, and the U.S. tied its best World Championships mixed-relay result in eighth (+1:46.6) with one penalty and eight spares. Finland ended up ninth (+1:59.5) with eighth spares and Russia was 10th (+2:00.2) with just two spares.
Ukraine finished 11th (+2:10.3) ahead of Canada in 12th (+2:27.9). The Canadians tied their nation’s mixed-relay best at World Championships in 12th (a year after placing 11th at the Olympics) with a total of four spares. After leading the first two laps of the race, Japan placed 21st out of 26 teams.
The Czech Republic mixed relay team celebrates with anchor Ondrej Moravec (second from l) at the finish after winning Thursday’s race by 20.2 seconds over France at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland.
The Czech Republic women’s 4 x 6 k team celebrates its second-straight relay win on Thursday at the IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: IBU/Ernst Wukits)
All it took the Canadian women to have one of the greatest starts of their relay careers was a pep talk from a two-time Norwegian Olympic gold medalist, Halvard Hanevold, who notched 40 IBU World Cup podiums in his career.
According to Megan Heinicke, the team’s first skier in Wednesday’s 4 x 6-kilometer relay at the IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany, the Canadians had a team meeting with Hanevold on Tuesday night. She said it was “fantastic” and helped them going into the relay with “a really supportive team attitude,” she wrote in an email.
Whatever it was, it worked — and especially well for Heinicke — who shot out of the mass start with the leaders and put herself in fourth heading into the first shooting stage within two seconds of the Czech Republic, Finland and Norway, respectively.
Germany’s Franziska Preuss (r) and Eva Puskarcikova of the Czech Republic (l) lead Canada’s Megan Heinicke (c) and Belarus’s Nadezhda Skardino (behind Preuss and Heincke) during the first leg of the IBU World Cup women’s 4 x 6 k relay on Thursday in Ruhpolding, Germany.
There, Heinicke shot fast and flawlessly to find herself in second coming out of the range, 1.3 seconds behind Eva Puskarcikova of the Czech Republic and just 0.1 seconds ahead of Germany’s Franziska Preuss in third.
“I was thinking ‘holy cow I’m up here again!’ ” Heinicke recalled. “I was excited and motivated. I also tried to think tactically and stay in our little group of 3 and not let myself do too much work.”
The Czech Republic, with Puskarcikova, Gabriela Soukalova, Jitka Landova, and Veronika Vitkova, was coming off a relay victory a week earlier in Oberhof, Germany. The German women had placed 10th in that race, but with a new lineup of Franziska Preuss, Franziska Hildebrand, Vanessa Hinz, and Laura Dahlmeier, respectively, they knew they could be in contention.
“We changed the team [with Hildebrand and Dahlmeier in place of Luise Kummer and Karolin Horchler],” Hildebrand told the IBU after the race. “That is all, but we were confident that we could be on the podium…”
So were the Canadians, but they were among the teams flying lowest on the radar after being lapped in the Oberhof relay.
The Canadian women’s relay team after placing 11th earlier this season in Hochfilzen, Austria. (From left to right) Rosanna Crawford, Audrey Vaillancourt, Sarah Beaudry, and Megan Heinicke. (Photo: Rosanna Crawford)
Yet Heinicke, and the rest of her teammates — Julia Ransom, Audrey Vaillancourt and Zina Kocher — knew they had the potential. Hanevold reminded them of that. With Rosanna Crawford out with a cold, Heinicke explained they tried new relay combination, which was an important step before IBU World Championships in March.
Coming into the second shooting within a second of Preuss and Puskarcikova, Heinicke used one spare to leave the range in second, 17.6 seconds behind Puskarcikova, who cleaned.
“It was hard to shoot clean with the snow falling, but it was easier than in Oberhof,” Puskarcikova told the IBU. “I am not exactly sure how I shot 10 for the second week in a row.”
A rainstorm began before zero, 1 1/2 hours before the race on Thursday, and didn’t let up, coating competitors and spectators in a wet, slushy mixture between rain and snow. That made both skiing and shooting tough, but Heinicke didn’t notice.
“I was so focused on the race in the moment that the conditions didn’t effect me too much,” she wrote. “I think the pressure and excitement of being near the front of the race helps me have a sharper focus in a weird ‘heightened senses’ kind of way.”
Heinicke focused on her technique and held her position through the exchange, tagging Ransom in second, 25.2 seconds behind the Czechs and 2.5 seconds ahead of Poland in third.
“Sprinting is really not my strength and I was really giving my all so I was just mentally coaching myself along!” Heinicke wrote.
Gabriela Soukalova (l) tagging Czech teammate Jitka Landova in first in the women’s 4 x 6 k relay at the Ruhpolding IBU World Cup on Thursday in Germany. (Photo: IBU/Ernst Wukits)
Meanwhile, Ransom, in her first World Cup season at age 21, tried to control her excitement.
“Megan has tagged off to me in excellent positions twice now!” Ransom wrote in an email. “All I could think was that opportunity was there ready to be seized.”
She maintained second through the first shooting, which she cleaned, and up until her standing stage, where she entered the range 59 seconds behind Soukalova in first and 10 seconds behind Hildebrand in second.
“I would be lying if I said the conditions were easy, but I secretly love it when it’s miserable out there,” Ransom wrote. “Canadians are tough! And if you can be tougher than the others, a little bit of rain, sleet, wind, or cold will feel like nothing.”
In that second stage, she missed three but avoided penalty loops with three spares.
“I think my standing shooting was affected by my excitement. I know I can hit targets, but when I am not 100% ‘there’, that’s when things can get squirrelly!” she wrote. “I buckled down for the spares and got out as quick as I could. When there were three spares for three targets, I remember thinking, ‘I’m going to give my parents a heart attack.’ They watch the live stream back in Canada.”
Meanwhile, Soukalova and Hildebrand used two spares, and Belarus’s second leg, Iryna Kryuko, cleaned her second-straight stage to move into third behind the Czech Republic and Germany, respectively.
By now, Soukalova had built up a minute lead over Hildebrand, and Kryuko was 1:13 back, followed by Ukraine’s Natalya Burdyga in fourth (+1:18) and Norway’s Fanny Welle-Strand Horn in fifth (+1:22). Ransom left the range just another second behind in sixth, and tagged Vaillancourt in the same position, 1:53.1 behind the Czechs.
“Being the youngest on the team, I sometimes feel an internal pressure to prove myself and I believe I did today,” Ransom wrote.
Vaillancourt explained in an email that she was excited to start in a pack.
“I thought it was possible for us to finish in the top 6 if Zina and I both had a great race,” Vaillancourt wrote.
With Landova, the Czechs began to extend their lead on Germany. Entering their first prone, Landova was up to 1:15 ahead of Hinz. Ukraine’s Olga Abramova was 1:41 back, just 0.6 seconds ahead of Norway’s Elise Ringen and 2.4 seconds ahead of Nadzeya Pisareva of Belarus. Vaillancourt followed in sixth, 2:13 behind Landova.
In her first stage, Landova missed two shots and had to use a third spare to avoid her team’s first penalty loop of the day. She delivered and left the range still well ahead of Hinz, who cleaned to cut the deficit to 29.7 seconds.
Abramova cleaned as well to hold onto third, 52 seconds behind Landova. Pisareva and Ringen used one spare each and left in fourth and fifth, 1:02 and 1:05 back. Vaillancourt used one spare as well to stay in sixth, another 33 seconds behind.
One the next lap, Poland’s Weronika Nowakowska-Ziemniak passed Vaillancourt early on, and Canada slipped one spot to seventh.
Vaillancourt cleaned her standing stage and left the range still in seventh, but lost one more place by the final exchange.
“I was mostly losing time on the uphills,” she recalled. “I have been very sick in the past two weeks and hardly have been able to train, so I knew this was going to be a tough one on the skis. I am glad the ice is broken though.”
Landova held steady up front, missing her second-standing shot and using a spare, but leaving the range 29 seconds ahead of Hinz, who also used one spare to stay in second. Belarus jumped to third, 1:12 behind, with clean shooting from Pisareva, and Norway was another 6 seconds back in fourth despite Ringen using two more spares.
Abramova used three spares to fall to fifth for Ukraine, and Russia improved to sixth with 10-for-10 shooting from Ekaterina Shumilova.
By the last exchange, the Czech Republic had a 30-second cushion to Germany in second, and was a whopping 1:14 ahead of Belarus in third. Norway and Ukraine skied together in fourth and fifth, more than a minute and a half back, Poland moved into sixth (+2:10), and Russia tagged off in seventh (+2:12.5).
U.S. second-leg skier Hannah Dreissigacker after her prone shooting stage, where she used three spares and went on to keep her team in 10th in the women’s relay in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
Canada was 2:37.1 back in eighth with one 6-kilometer leg to go, and the U.S. women, in their first relay of the season, started the last leg in 16th (+5:28.4).
Ninth heading into prone, Kocher used three spares and had to ski Canada’s first penalty loop to drop to 12th, 4:18 behind Vitkova, who used one spare to keep the Czechs in control.
Germany’s Dalhmeier and Domracheva of Belarus both cleaned after her, but were well out of sight by the time they left the range in second and third, one minute and 1:24 later, respectively.
“Shooting was basically catastrophic considering it wasn’t like last week in Oberhof,” Kocher wrote of Thursday. “Prone, I evaluated the wind flags wrong. Wind really picked up when I got into prone. I made a correction before I started shooting. But it was not enough for the change in direction. I corrected more once I was on spares and hit 3 shots with the 3 spares but then it was too late, I already had 4 misses.”
She skied up to 11th with the fourth-fastest course time on her second lap, but missed four again for another penalty loop, which put Canada 5:36 behind and still in 11th. Kocher posted the second-fastest last loop of the anchor legs to finish 5:33.8 behind the winner — Vitkova of the Czech Republic.
Vitkova had used a single spare on each stage to stay more than a minute ahead in first. Belarus moved to second with Domracheva skiing the fastest anchor leg and using a single spare throughout her two stages.
While Vitkova had enough time to take her poles off and grab a Czech flag from a spectator before casually skiing across the line, Domracheva entered the stadium uncontested as well and looked back before celebrating second, 1:13.3 behind the Czechs, who won in 1:23:57.7.
Veronika Vitkova anchoring the Czech Republic to its second-straight women’s relay win on Thursday the IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: IBU/Ernst Wukits)
“It was easier for me today because the other girls gave me such a big lead,” Vitkova told the IBU.
Germany hung on to the podium in third, 1:39.3 back from the winners, and a minute ahead of Norway (anchored by Tiril Eckhoff, who cleaned her first stage and used three spares on the second) in fourth.
Ukraine placed fifth (+2:49.7) with a clean final stage and one early spare from Valj Semerenko. France was sixth (+3:55.3) with 17 total spares, Poland placed seventh (+4:14.4) with two penalties and 10 spares, Russia was eighth (+4:36.5) with two penalties and 13 spares, Italy ninth (+4:44.6) with two penalties and 13 spares as well, and Austria took 10th (+4:51.2) with two penalties and eight spares.
Canada crossed the line 42.6 seconds later with two penalties and 11 total spares.
“Can’t say I feel great about my performance today. I skied strong but that doesn’t make up for the 2 laps,” Kocher wrote. “It’s great to see that there are younger athletes coming up showing such strong performances. It’s always motivating for the entire team.”
While Heinicke explained the race could have been better, she added that it also could have been worse. “We gave it our all,” she wrote.
“Our relay shows so much potential and I know that our day to shine will come,” Ransom wrote.
“It think we showed that if everyone has a good day, we can definitely be one of the top nations!” Vaillancourt added.
U.S. Women in 16th Before Being Lapped
The Americans stayed in the race until the final leg, when Maddy Phaneuf in her World Cup debut completed two stages and was lapped before coming into the finish. She had one penalty and three spares in prone, and used one spare in standing to bring the team’s grand total to three penalties and 19 spares.
The team’s opening skier, Susan Dunklee used two spares in each of her shooting stages to go from 15th to 12th, and finally up to 10th (+1:03.5) with the fourth-fastest, first-leg course time.
And she started in the back.
“I had the last row of the starting lanes all to myself,” Dunklee explained in an email. “I followed Mari [Laukkanen] from Finland (also seeded near the back) because she is a strong skier who knows how to maneuver in a crowd. That whole first loop was about being patient in the pack, moving when spaces opened up, but not wasting energy. The weather worked to my advantage today because I am a strong V1 skier and the entire course felt like one long uphill because of the resistance.”
Dunklee explained that the heavy rain caught the racers off guard.
“I think everyone assumed the crappy weather was behind us after Oberhof,” she wrote. “The snow behaved like sandpaper and we had to V2 many of the downhills. I used every change of dry clothes that I brought and still struggled to stay warm. It was especially difficult to keep enough feeling in our hands to shoot.”
U.S. third leg Annelies Cook during the women’s relay on Thursday in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
Dunklee came through the exchange in 10th, and Dreissigacker held the position throughout the second leg, despite using three spares in both her prone and standing stages. She tagged Annelies Cook in 10th, 2:31.7 behind the leaders.
Cook dropped to 16th after her first shooting, with two penalties and three spares. She used two spares on the second stage and tagged Phaneuf in 16th (+5:28.4).
According to Dunklee, the team always aims for a top result each time they toe the line, but they were also simply excited to have enough women to field a relay for the first time this year.
“Maddie has never been on the World Cup before, but what an epic way to start!” she wrote. “She got the full experience with thousands of crazy fans and unpredictable weather. She is very young with lots of racing ahead of her, and I think she did a great job today taking it all in and staying level headed.”
American Susan Dunklee racing to 21st place in Friday’s 7.5 k World Cup sprint in Oberhof, Germany. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus.com)
Another windy day in Oberhof, Germany, for Friday’s IBU World Cup 7.5-kilometer women’s sprint race caused some of the big names to make huge errors on the range and created room for new faces on the podium.
Veronika Vitkova of the Czech Republic made it two-for-two for victories in 2015, claiming her first individual World Cup win. Coming off the Czech women’s first relay win in over a decade on Wednesday, Vitkova powered her way victory on Friday with a time of 22:40.0 even after a miss in both the prone and standing shooting. She had the second-fastest ski time of the field.
“I felt very good on the tracks but I didn’t think I would win with two mistakes,” Vitkova explained in a press conference following Friday’s sprint.
She knocked two Italians back when she crossed the finish line: Dorothea Wierer, who ended up in second place 8.8 seconds back, and Nicole Gontier, who was 19.1 seconds back. Wierer, who had the fastest opening leg in Wednesday’s relay, continued to lead the Italian team and with the result moves into second in the women’s world cup standings.
Wierer commented on the tough conditions of Oberhof: “It was really hard conditions with the wind, I was lucky because in the standing I had no wind, and I could shoot really fast and that was my luck.”
Gontier lead early, being the tenth starter of the day and hitting all 10 targets though she would be bested by 19.1 seconds.
American Hannah Dreissigacker finished 37th in the sprint with two penalties. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus.com)
“I’m really surprised because I didn’t expect it [to be on the podium], I shot really well,” Gontier explained during the press conference. “It was the first time I shot clean, and I am really happy to be here with Dorothea for my first podium.”
Her team certainly thrived in the windy conditions, putting three women in the top ten and two on the podium. Karin Oberhofer finished eighth, making them the most successful team on the day.
Overall World Cup leader Kaisa Makarainen had two mistakes in each of her two trips to the shooting range, ending her chances of another sprint victory. Another strong challenger for the overall points lead, Darya Domracheva of Belarus missed three times in the prone and again in her standing, putting her out of contention early. She had the fastest ski time on the day to nevertheless finish 18th.
The German crowds finally had something to celebrate as German native Fransiska Preuss finished fourth, 22.5 seconds back with one miss. Finland’s Mari Laukkanen surpassed her more famous teammate Makarainen to claim fifth, 23.9 seconds off the winning time. Gabriela Soukalova of the Czech Republic, also with two mistakes, rounded out the top six, 24.8 seconds behind her teammate.
Two North American women claimed World Cup points: Americans Susan Dunklee, who finished 21st, 1:22.9 of the pace with three misses, and Hannah Dreissigacker, who placed 37th (+2:05.0) after cleaning her prone shoot and missing two targets in her final trip to the range.
Some athletes were luckier than others in terms of shooting conditions in Oberhof. After facing some difficult gusts in prone shooting, Dunklee explained in an email, “Every athlete had slightly different conditions to deal with. As an athlete, the trick is to not stress out about it because it is not something you can control.”
Dreissigacker was happy to be in the points.
“Scoring points is always good!” Dreissigacker wrote in an email. “I was very happy with my first lap and with shooting clean in prone. In standing I had a little bit of trouble, but it was windy and I was tired and so I was happy to pull myself together after two misses and hit the last two shots.”
Annelies Cook (USA) on course. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus.com)
Annelies Cook, the third American, finished 62nd (+3:24.3). She crashed on the last lap, reportedly damaging her rifle, but still finished the race.
Rosanna Crawford was again the top Canadian, placing 46th after a difficult standing shooting where she took four laps of the 150-meter penalty loop before completing her race.
“I felt decent skiing and our skis were amazing,” Crawford wrote in an email. “I was lucky in prone with consistent wind and then not so lucky in standing where it was gusting pretty hard.”
Crawford explained that after having made all of her mistakes shooting in the second trip to the range, she realized that shooting standing in the end lanes (25-30) potentially would have offered more shelter from the wind.
Fellow Canadian Megan Heinicke claimed 56th (+2:56.6), just ahead of Zina Kocher in 58th (+3:05.1); Emma Lunder finished 92nd (+5:44.4). Their teammate Julia Ransom took a major crash on her final lap having hit nine of the ten targets, breaking her ski and retiring from the race. In just the second weekend of World Cup racing in her career, Ransom was sitting in 25th place after the second shooting.
Dorothea Wierer (ITA), Veronika Vitkova (CZE) and Nicole Gontier (ITA) take the IBU biathlon World Cup podium in Oberhof, Germany. (Fischer/NordicFocus)
The Czech Republic posted the most consistent performances of the day and clinched the women’s relay win with anchor Veronika Vitkova (second from l) at Wednesday’s IBU World Cup in Obehof, Germany. From left to right: Eva Puskarcikova, Vitkova, Jitka Landova, and Gabriela Soukalova. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
The women’s International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup resumed in Oberhof, Germany, on Wednesday with the women’s 4 x 6-kilometer relay. Twenty centimeters of fresh snow made for difficult skiing on a foggy, warmer day than in training on Tuesday, and on top of that, Oberhof is known as a notoriously hard shooting venue. The large-climb profile of Oberhof and a long, flat section leading into the range contrasts that of several other World Cup stops.
The leading positions changed several times throughout the race, with early leaders Russia and Finland falling out of contention with two many penalty loops apiece.
The eventual winners, the Czech Republic, with Eva Puskarcikova, Gabriela Soukalova, Jitka Landova, and Veronika Vitkova, used seven spares to claim the victory, one less than runner-up France (with Marine Bolliet, Marie Dorin Habert, Justine Braisaz, and Anais Bescond), which used eight. The Czech team was consistent throughout the day with none of its athletes skiing significantly quicker or slower than the others, which put them on pace for the win in 1:16:56, 8.6 seconds ahead of France.
Veronika Vitkova clinches the nearly-nine-second win for the Czech Republic on Wednesday in the women’s 4 x 6 k relay at the IBU World Cup in Oberhof, Germany. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Sixth after the first leg with Puskarcikova, who used just one spare, Soukalova skied the team to third with a single spare as well, Landova brought them one step closer in second with two spares, and Vitkova used three spares to seal the win.
“The final shooting was quite hard as I was nervous; but I really wanted to win,” Vitkova told the IBU.
“I was not sure about my shape for the first race after Christmas,” Soukalova said. “Early in the race, I had a lot of energy but on the last loop, I was so tired; I just wanted to see the finish line.”
During the third leg, it seemed Ukraine, the Olympic relay champions, had a strong hold on the first position with Olga Abramova maintaining their lead until the final exchange. The Czech Republic followed came through the exchange in second, 8.3 seconds back, followed by France, 11.9 behind Ukraine.
Vitkova led into the first prone stage and cleaned with six shots, but France’s anchor Anais Bescond cleaned quickly as well to chase her out of the stadium. Ukraine’s Iryna Varvynets used one spare to leave the range in third, followed by Norway’s Tiril Eckhoff, who also used one spare and headed out on her second lap in fourth, 34 seconds after Vitkova.
In the final standing, both Vitkova and Bescond used two spare rounds to leave the range together Eckhoff suffered a penalty lap, while Varvynets missed just one to chase the leaders from 37 seconds behind in third. However, she slowed on her last lap and was overtaken by three women — Darya Domracheva of Belarus, Eckhoff, and Italy’s Karin Oberhofer respectively — to finish sixth for Ukraine.
At the front of the race, Vitkova pulled away from Bescond with about 2 k remaining to the finish, and secured the win by nearly nine seconds. Domracheva brought Belarus from 10th to third, passing Varvynets in the final 500 meters.
The IBU World Cup women’s relay podium on Wednesday in Oberhof, Germany: with France in second (l), the Czech Republic in first (c), and Belarus in third. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
France welcomed back Marie Dorin Habert to her first World Cup race since giving birth to her first child this summer.
“I have only had two national races before this; I did not expect my form to be so good,” she said in a press conference following relay.
France’s second skier, Habert used a single spare to bring her team back within less than a second of the leading Ukrainian team, which had perfect shooting from its first two skiers, Anastasiya Merkushyna and Valj Semerenko.
Darya Domracheva had the biggest individual leg of the day, lifting Belarus to the podium after Nadzeya Pisareva’s penalty on the third leg put the team in 10th. Domracheva used two spares and skied the fastest course time on the last leg to close 38 seconds and place third overall, 1:06.8 behind the winners.
Norway saved their strongest woman for last. With her team in fifth, Eckhoff took over with an aggressive start to her race. Coming into the standing shooting, Eckhoff was within range of the leaders, but fighting the wind, she used her three spares and still incurred a penalty loop. Eckhoff skied a strong final lap, passing Italy and Ukraine, but was unable to hold onto Domracheva. Norway took fourth, 1:12.7 behind the Czech Republic.
Italy led early in the first leg with Dorothea Wierer, who shot clean, but dropped to seventh with second-leg Lisa Vittozzi and remained in seventh, and finally fifth. After catching Varvynets coming into the stadium, Oberhofer could not hold off Eckhoff and dropped to fifth, 1 second behind Norway and 1:13.7 after the winners. Ukraine was another 5.3 seconds back in sixth.
Canada, the lone North American women’s relay, put themselves in the mix in early on with Megan Heinicke, who had perfect shooting and the ninth-fastest course time of the first leg. She tagged teammate Julia Ransom in fifth, 8.8 seconds behind the leaders.
Ransom skied with a quick tempo in the warm-and-slushy conditions, and held onto the leaders for her first lap. Ransom needed just one spare in standing to hit her 10 targets and complete her leg, tagging Emma Lunder in 10th.
“Megan rocked the first lap!” Ransom wrote in an email. “Shooting felt solid out there and the first ski lap was filled with adrenaline and excitement. Flying out [to Oberhof] only a few days ago, I still felt the effects of jet lag and died a little on the other two laps. However I am confident that the body will be back in form for the sprint.”
Nearly 1:50 behind the leaders, Lunder was troubled by a change in wind since her pre-race zero and skied two penalty laps after prone. She used three more spares in standing, for a total of six, and tagged Zina Kocher in 16th, nearly five minutes back.
In an email, Lunder explained these mistakes only motivated her to perform better in Friday’s sprint.
“I like the course, I feel strong, and with a bit of extra focus on the range in training tomorrow, I’m certain I can perform to my potential,” she wrote, adding that the slushy conditions and the difficult climbs suit her strengths.
The team’s veteran, Kocher, used six spares (three in each stage) before being lapped on the final loop and taken out of the race.
“I had to focus on doing my job and make the best of it,” she explained in an email.
Three of the Canadian women flew into Oberhof on Monday night, and Kocher explained that jet lag after the holidays could have been a factor in their performance.
“Today’s relay was just a blip in the scheme of things,” Ransom wrote. “It’s incredibly hard to get four people to be ‘on’ all at the same time and it just didn’t happen for us. But now that the cobwebs are out, I believe that all of us ladies will have some great performances coming up.”
Germany’s anchor, Franziska Preuss celebrates a 21-second victory in the women’s 4 x 6 k relay at the IBU World Cup on Saturday in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: IBU/Ernst Wukits)
For three out of the four legs in the IBU World Cup women’s 4 x 6-kilometer relay on Saturday in Hochfilzen, Austria, it could’ve been anyone’s game, especially Russia’s, Germany’s, Poland’s and the Czech Republic’s.
All four were within 40 seconds of one another behind Russia in first at the final exchange — and while it might have seemed like Russia with a 19-second lead was untouchable — any biathlete will tell you nothing in biathlon is ever a sure-thing.
Ekaterina Shumilova tagged off in first, upholding the position teammate Olga Podchufarova put her in during the second leg. However, by the final prone, Russia’s lead started to unravel. Ekaterina Glazyrina used all three spare rounds, then had to ski the team’s first penalty loop of the day.
She dropped from first to fifth, 44 seconds out of the lead.
Meanwhile, Germany’s anchor Franziska Preuss cleaned her first stage to take control — not knowing what happened to Glazyrina.
“I had no idea that she was on the loop,” Preuss told the IBU after the race. “I did not know it until the finish line.”
Veronika Vitkova of the Czech Republic used one spare to move to second after prone and trailed Preuss by 24.1 seconds leaving the range. Belarus was suddenly back in contention when Darya Domracheva cleaned prone to jump from sixth at the exchange to third, 37 seconds after Preuss.
For the final standing, the pressure was on for Preuss. She had to use one spare, but so did Vitkova and Domracheva in second and third.
The German left the range with a 29-second lead over Vitkova and remained 37.4 seconds ahead of Domracheva in third. With a huge smile, Preuss entered the stadium uncontested and waved to the Austrian crowd as she finished. Domracheva outsprinted Vitkova for second, giving Belarus the silver, 21.1 seconds behind Germany, and the Czech Republic took third another 1.1 seconds back.
The German women’s relay atop the podium on Saturday at the Hochfilzen World Cup: (from left to right) Luise Kummer, Franziska Hildebrand, Vanessa Hinz, and Franziska Preuss. (Photo: IBU/Ernst Wukits)
For Germany, the relay victory marked the first podium for two of its members: first-leg Luise Kummer and third-leg Vanessa Hinz, the latter of which lifted the team from fourth to second with two spares.
“It is very exciting being up there; it is such a great feeling!” Kummer said.
Second-leg Franziska Hildebrand, who brought Germany from 11th to fourth by the second exchange, said the team’s goal was to be on the podium.
“People should be happy, because we are a very young team and this shows how good we can be,” Hildebrand said.
The Czech Republic’s second skier who brought her team to third from seventh, Gabriela Soukalova was also pleased with the top-three finish.
“We realized at the beginning of the season that we can have a strong relay team I think this result will be a great motivation for our whole team,” she said. “For me, I have had some problems and I needed to have a great race.”
Germany finished the day with zero penalties and eight spares, Belarus had 10 spares and the Czech Republic had nine spares.
Italy (1+4) fell from an early lead set by first-leg Dorothea Wierer, to 13th when second-leg Nicole Gontier had a penalty loop on her second stage. Karin Oberhofer lifted the team from 11th at the final exchange to fourth overall (+39.9) with clean shooting.
Norway placed fifth with a penalty and 12 spares, five of which came from second-leg Synnøve Solemdal. Anchor Tiril Eckhoff skied the team up from 14th to fifth (+46.3).
Poland ended up sixth (0+8), Ukraine was seventh (1+11), Russia eighth (1+7), France ninth (1+10), and Slovenia 10th (0+7).
The Canadian women’s relay team after placing 11th on Saturday: (from left to right) Rosanna Crawford, Audrey Vaillancourt, Sarah Beaudry, and Megan Heinicke. (Photo: Rosanna Crawford)
The Canadians finished 11th overall (0+7), 2:11.1 behind Germany. They were 16th at the end of Megan Heinicke’s first leg, after she cleaned prone and missed three standing.
“I wasn’t feeling particularly snappy but I have been recovering from a cold since last Saturday so I am hoping for a bit more explosiveness next week,” Heinicke explained in an email.
While she was “happy and motivated” by her prone stage, which put her in seventh, Heinicke added that she was surprised by her standing.
“I didn’t feel like I had pushed very hard during the 2nd loop so I was pretty surprised when my left leg was shaky during standing,” she explained. “I have often struggled with standing in the last 2 seasons but rarely because of shaky legs! There was definitely that element of slight panic at needing to use all 3 spares and a fierce determination to hit then. I admit, I was relieved to bypass the penalty loop. My goal on the last loop was simply to giver and try to catch 1 or 2 of the girls ahead of me.”
She moved up one spot from 17th to 16th, tagging teammate Rosanna Crawford 52 seconds back from Italy in first.
“I knew that with some good quick shooting on the range that you can move up a lot in a relay,” Crawford explained, adding that she didn’t think about shooting right away. “You don’t want to start thinking about shooting as soon as you start a race or that’ll put too much pressure on yourself. So I focused on my skiing and switched to shooting when I was getting closer to the range. My skis were really good today, which always makes for a fun race, because you just feel like you’re flying!”
With clean shooting on both stages, she left the range in 12th after prone and sixth after standing. She recorded the fastest shooting for her leg.
“I just took it one shot at a time never getting ahead of myself,” Crawford wrote. “Things can go wrong quickly in a biathlon races if you start thinking about the 5th shot when you’re only on the 1st!”
She handed off to 20-year-old Sarah Beaudry, who was in her first World Cup relay and second-ever World Cup race, in sixth. In an email, Beaudry explained that she simply wanted to hit her targets and ski fast.
After cleaning prone, she was up to fourth.
“Moving up to fourth wasn’t really part of any plan, it was more just a result of my good prone shooting,” Beaudry wrote. “For my prone I just came in really relaxed and my focus was to watch wind. Sometimes I am a little forgetful about wind so I think having that focus helped me stay calm.”
Fortunately for the women’s and men’s races on Saturday, there wasn’t much wind to speak of.
Beaudry tried to stay calm as she approached her standing stage, but after hitting her first two targets, she got “a little too excited” and ended up missing the last three, she explained.
“Then I was just trying hard to avoid the penalty loop with my spares,” she added. She avoided it, tagging Audrey Vaillancourt in 12th, 1:09.4 back.
“Today I was going to give everything I had no matter what place I was tagged in, and this is exactly what I did,” Vaillancourt wrote.
With a single prone miss, Vaillancourt maintained her position in 12th. One lap later, she cleaned standing to improve to 11th.
“I kept focused on trying to get closer to the other team, but I also knew there were some very strong women out there in the last leg,” she wrote.
Slovenia’s Urska Poje was 15 seconds ahead of her in 10th heading into the final lap. Vaillancourt ended up finishing 18 seconds behind in 11th.
“Overall I am very happy with my race, both on the skiing and shooting side. I have had a cold all week which affected my training and preparation a lot, but today I felt a lot better so I think I’m back on track,” Vaillancourt wrote.
Crawford referred to her team’s 11th place, with zero penalties and seven spares, as a “decent result.”
“We had two legs with some scary standing, but no penalty loops is great!” she wrote. “A few less spares and we could have been top 10. We were trying a different order today and it seemed like it worked out pretty well. Megan did a great job at the start of the race.”
Later Saturday afternoon, the Canadian men tied a team-best sixth in the 4 x 7.5 k relay.
“So excited for men’s team,” Crawford wrote. “They’ve had a bit of a bumpy start and not performing like they were hoping for. A top 6 is a great way to build some confidence into the rest of the season.”
With three women on the World Cup circuit, the U.S. did not field a women’s relay.
Gabriela Soukalova of the Czech Republic leads Dorothea Wierer of Italy during the 15 k individual today.
RUHPOLDING, Germany – Gabriela Soukalova had a breakout season last year. But even after snatching up four wins, she wasn’t prepared for how much things would change.
Earlier this season, she won the opening 15 k individual in Östersund, Sweden. That announced to the field that the young Czech was back even stronger than she had been before – and it surprised the racer herself.
“After the first race in Ostersund, I thought this would be the one chance of my life to race with the yellow bib,” she said today.
Not exactly: she has held the yellow bib, which signals the overall World Cup points leader, for most of the races since. And with another victory in another 15 k individual today, she solidified her hold on it. She still can’t quite believe how things are going. As Real Biathlon pointed out, this was her sixth win in only 49 starts, giving the 24-year-old the highest winning percentage of any active athlete.
“It’s always a big surprise for me,” she said. “I didn’t think I could race in this color this time again. It’s really nice, but I’m sure that the other girls are very strong, and also that we are going to see so much change in the positions this season.”
Wearing the leader’s bib is only one of the things that has changed for Soukalova this year. After Ondrej Moravec also won his first World Cup last season, and veteran Michal Slesingr hit the podium, Soukalova has had to deal with a lot more attention than she was prepared for – which will only intensity with her recent success.
Soukalova on the move.
“You know what, after the last season, it started to be in the Czech Republic something like biathlon mania,” she said. “Me, Michal Slesingr, we started to be in advertisements on the TV, and in Prague we were on a billboard with pictures of us. I think the big reason was that we had the World Championships in Nove Mesto… This was the reason I was so afraid of this season. We have been anonymous, and from now, it’s another cup of tea.”
The trio has been featured on television ads, and they appear on large billboards in Prague. The media attention has been so much that Soukalova sometimes had a hard time recovering in time for her training sessions.
“Sometimes it was really hard,” she laughed. “I couldn’t wake up from my bed a few times, if we had a training in Pokljuka as well. But I could speak about all the things with Ondrej [Rybar, her coach] and I think that he is absolutely professional and the perfect coach for our team. I believe in him for everything that I have to do.”
And being a little tired when practice time rolled around was even more of a challenge for Soukalova this year: she left the women’s team and began training with Rybar’s men’s team.
“The training was much harder than ever before, but I wanted to do the maximum to get great results,” she explained. “It was really hard for me to change the team, but for my future I am sure it will be better to have done this. [The men] are much faster on the shooting range and on the track. It’s good for you, if you want to be the best.”
Darya Domracheva.
The move seems to be paying off: she had the third-fastest course time over 15 kilometers today, and was thus able to pull off a 34-second win over Darya Domracheva of Belarus, who skied the fastest but had two one-minute penalties for missed shots compared to Soukalova’s one. Domracheva, always one of the fastest skiers, trails Soukalova by just 28 points in the World Cup standings.
But Domracheva was even farther behind until the start of 2014, when she won the first two races in Oberhof and placed third in the last. With a second-place finish again today, she seems to be on track for the rest of the season, and the Olympics.
“For sure, to stay healthy is the most important thing for all the athletes now,” Domracheva said of her plans going into Sochi. “We can do a little bit more speed training, like at the competitions in Antholz, as well.”
Domracheva nearly executed a perfect race, shooting clean until the final round. There, she missed two shots. If she had hit just one more, she would have come away with the win.
“I was just a little oo fast in the last standing,” she said.
Veronika Vitkova.
Third place went to Soukalova’s teammate Veronika Vitkova, who shot clean. She had a 21-second lead on Domracheva after the last shooting, but couldn’t hold onto it.
“Today was a very hard race for me,” she said in the press conference. “Dasha was faster on the track. I was tired on the last loop, but I’m very happy.”
It was Vitkova’s second podium of the season, and she now sits seventh in the World Cup score. Along with Soukalova in the yellow bib, it’s probably the best season the Czech women’s team has ever had.
Vitkova is just 11 months older than Soukalova, and the two women have known each other for a long time in the biathlon community.
“I always thought that she is going to be very successful in the future,” Soukalova said. “She is very talented and absolutely professional.”
It’s perhaps even more impressive that both are having their best seasons ever, since they don’t actually train together. Soukalova’s departure from the women’s training squad left Vitkova the top dog, which Soukalova thought was actually beneficial.
“I think my leaving the girls team was better for her, and for me also, and for the atmosphere of the girls,” Soukalova explained. “And for the atmosphere of the guys team I hope, you’d have to ask our guys!”
The individual race format is only held three times a season, and this year one of them is at the Olympics. Since the Olympic Games do not count as part of the World Cup score, that has given Soukalova the win in the discipline score even though the season is only half over. It’s quite a feat to have a title to fall back on – much less to have swept both competitions – before the Olympics even roll around.
“I didn’t like individual races until now, but from now on it is my favorite race,” Soukalova said.
She faces a difficult road ahead: she said that she thinks it is “impossible” to win both the total score and the Olympics, since the big event requires such perfect peaking. Asked which she would rather end up with, she said, “a medal could be nice.”
Canada’s Megan Heinicke (front) used one spare round on her prone and three on her standing to put her team in 13th at the exchange in Friday’s 4 x 6 relay at IBU World Championships in Nove Mesto. The Canadians ultimately placed 12th.
The eight North American women in Friday night’s 4 x 6-kilometer relay at Biathlon World Championships had a pretty good sense of what they wanted to accomplish.
For the Americans: top six, although they’d welcome any improvement on last year’s 11th place. For the Canadians, team veteran Zina Kocher wrote in an email that they were shooting for top eight in Nové Město na Moravě, Czech Republic.
With 24 teams to contend with, each team set out on its own mission. Canada’s Rosanna Crawford had the better luck of the scramble legs, hanging in the top 20 for the first of three loops then rising to 12th by the exchange after using three spare rounds.
Annelies Cook worked throughout the first leg to get the Americans into the mix, using five spare rounds and tagging off to second-leg skier Sara Studebaker in 20th. Studebaker brought the team to 18th with one spare, and third-leg Susan Dunklee shot clean for her first time in a World Cup race to lift the U.S. to 11th.
From that point on, anything rookie Hannah Dreissigacker could achieve in her first World Championships was essentially bonus. All three of her teammates – Cook, Studebaker and Dunklee – were on last year’s 11th-place squad (with Lanny Barnes instead of Dreissigacker) and many felt they had a better day back then (with no penalties and nine spare rounds).
Dreissigacker, 26, held her own despite a penalty and three spare rounds on her prone and using another spare in the standing. Once again, she anchored the team to 11th, and they finished with one penalty and 10 spares, 3:04.5 minutes behind the Norwegian winners. (Note: The U.S. originally finished 12th, but Romania was disqualified for “deviating from the marked trail, or skiing a wrong trail, or skiing the course loops in a wrong sequence or in the wrong direction,” according to Real Biathlon.)
The Canadians came in 10.7 seconds after the Americans in 12th with 13 spare rounds and one penalty by Kocher on the seventh of eight stages. Kocher used three spare rounds on that prone and later cleaned her standing.
“It’s an ok result, but nothing amazing,” Kocher, 30, wrote in an email. “We have more potential than what we have been showing in the relays this year, but we really need to use less spares as an entire team.”
As for the penalties, they simply can’t happen, she explained. Kocher wrote she has been struggling with shooting in general this season, but was particularly frustrated with her prone. She regrouped by relaxing on the uphill during the next 2-kilometer loop and decided to switch up her typical right-to-left shooting order.
“I told myself each bull that I was aiming on before I shot ,” she recalled. “OK middle, now echo, delta, bravo, alpha.”
Kocher also remembered the nickname her team gave her.
“Today I found out that the staff named me Merida from the [Pixar] movie Brave,” she wrote. “So I also jokingly told myself ok Merida get it together and hit the center!”
Also disappointed with her prone, Dreissigacker focused on the positives.
“I feel like I let the team down a little bit by getting a penalty loop, but I’m pretty happy with standing, and I am thankful for having great teammates who don’t blame me at all!” she wrote. “I think that we were all hoping to do better, and we know that we can do better. … So to be 11th on a not-so-good day is a good. But we definitely all want more.”
After racing the third leg last year, Cook felt the pressure of scrambling. More confident in her prone shooting, she was taken aback with two initial misses and took some time reloading the two extra rounds.
“I have been struggling with standing shooting and so of course you hope that it will turn around and in that heartbreaking biathlon way,” she added. “I missed three, using extra rounds to clean. It’s the most important to clean in the end, but with such a close race, every second you spend on the range counts and that is frustrating.”
After that, Cook simply put her “head down and just suffered as much as I could possibly suffer to make up as much time as I could,” she wrote. “I think it is the hardest for me when I feel like I really want to bring my team into a good position and then responsible when it doesn’t go really well. So, I am bummed with myself but I gave it everything and I am so, so proud of the hard work and awesome races that the rest of the girls did.
“Susan killed it, Sara was super solid and Hannah did great for her first world Championships,” she added. “We are still ahead of where we were last year, it’s just that the potential is so tantalizing!”
Studebaker as the second leg described the difficultly of the 2 k course, one which doesn’t allow much rest. She went out on the first lap alone, which made it even harder, but did her best to focus.
“I came in pretty hard to prone, so had to take an extra second to calm down,” Studebaker wrote. There, she used one spare round and went on to clean the standing.
“Shooting well moved me closer to a big group of people, and when I tagged off to Susan we were in 18th place, but with a group of about five other teams,” she added. “I knew being close to other skiers would help Susan and that, with the way she’s been skiing this week, she would be able to move us up a bunch.”
U.S. biathlete Susan Dunklee holds up her tool of choice to repair her broken stock, a broom, with Anschütz rep Benjamin (l) and coach Armin Auchentaller. (Photo: Armin Auchentaller)
She was right, as Dunklee raced to the second-fastest course time on the third leg after eventual winner Synnøve Solemdal (NOR). Dunklee, who turned 27 on Wednesday, also cleaned and ranked second for range time.
And she did so with a broom end for a rifle stock. After crashing on the last lap of Wednesday’s 15 k individual (where Dunklee still managed to pull off 15th), Dunklee sought a quick repair for her broken stock – the part of the gun that wedges against the shooter’s shoulder. Anschütz, a German firearms company, helped her do so by replacing the end of the butt plate with a new piece of wood: the end of a broom handle.
“Before the race I was joking around that maybe the broom part would help me ‘clean’ more often and it actually did,” Dunklee wrote. “I had my first career clean World Cup race. These championships went very well for me. … 11th ties our result from World Champs last year and is a solid result. The good thing is our expectations are a lot higher now so were and still are hungry to do better.”
The first Canadian out of the start, Crawford wrote that the first lap was relaxed, but she was still pretty overwhelmed to enter the stadium with 20 teams and a crowd of 27,000 watching.
“My second loop was pretty awesome, I left about 15 seconds back from the leaders and was able to catch right back up to the group before standing shooting,” Crawford wrote.
With the third-fastest ski time on her leg, she was happy to see some improvement with her speed. Clean shooting is always the goal in a relay, she explained, adding that she used too many spares (two prone and one standing).
“I really wanted to tag off in the top 10 and no more than 30 seconds from the leader, so I was happy with how my leg of the relay went!” she wrote. “I think we are content with today’s performance, but like we have said after every relay we know we are capable of so much more. Top 10 has been our goal all season. So we have one more relay in Sochi to try and make that come true!”
Megan Heinicke brought the team to 13th after cleaning her prone and using three spares on the standing. The second leg, she was the sixth fastest on her first loop of and ranked fifth in the range for time spent in prone. Heinicke tagged to 21-year-old Audrey Vaillancourt, who used one spare on her prone and three on the standing to put the team in 14th.
“I got a bit nervous on the third spare, but finally did not have to do a penalty loop,” Vaillancourt wrote. “Those were my first World Champs, so it has really been a great experience for me. I learned a lot and was so glad to be a part of such a huge event! We also have a great team that sticks together, which makes it even better.”
While Kocher wasn’t pleased with her personal performance at World Championships so far, she felt Friday was an improvement.
“I finally felt good skiing today however today was my last race,” she wrote. “Plus I just really struggled with my shooting performance on race day. It was definitely not what I was aiming to achieve here. I got a bit sick before [World Championships] and this could have affected my ski speed as well.
“But in reality, although WCHS was the main goal this season, it’s really the Olympic year in the big picture, and this was a tester year,” she added. “At the end of the season we will have a chance to analyze and see what we need to focus on or change for 2014.”
Theresa Stadlober (AUT) on her way to winning the women’s Junior World Championships 10 k skiathlon in Liberec, Czech Republic, on Friday. Photo: Liberec2013.
Teresa Stadlober (AUT) ignored the Russian script to take the junior women’s skiathlon (5 k classic/5 k skate) in a time of 27:13.0 in Liberec, Czech Republic. Stadlober kept a strong challenge by Nadezhda Shuniaeva (RUS) at bay to become Austria’s first junior world champion this week.
Stadlober, 19, began the classic leg strongly by delivering the second fastest split, which she would later leverage to salvage a sluggish ski change and the surging Nadezhda (RUS), whose skate split bettered Stadlober’s by 21.8 seconds.
Nevertheless, she showed her mettle and held on to surpass her silver medal in the 5 k freestyle.
The junior women’s skiathlon gets underway in Liberec. Photo: Liberec2013.
“It is unreal, what has happened today,” Stadlober said. “After the silver medal I hoped to be in the top three. There were many good skiers out there today. I am just happy.”
Success is in her bloodline. Stadlober is the daughter of Alois Stadlober, a relay world champion from Ramsau in 1999.
Stadlober normally considers herself a classic specialist, commenting that “I thought I was better in classic but today I felt very good in the free technique.”
Unsurprisingly, a duo of strong Russian athletes made up the rest of the podium.
The Russian challenge began with the field-best classic split of Alisa Zhambalov (RUS), who narrowly edged out Stadlober’s (AUT) time by 1.2 seconds to take third overall.
After Zhambalov’s strong leg, her teammate Shuniaeva (RUS) took over in spectacular fashion. Trailing Zhambalov by 31 seconds, Shuniaeva unleased a vicious skate leg, beating her teammate by 35.2 seconds but ultimately running out of track to overtake Stadlober.
A bronze-medalist in Ezrum, Turkey last year, Shuniaeva was pleased, saying “Last year in Ezrum I was third in the skiathlon and I am happy I could improve my performance. I like the tracks in Liberec. It was a tough competition. I tried to follow Teresa in the last lap but she was too fast. I am happy for the silver medal.”
In third, Zhambalov (RUS) finished in a time of 27:23.9, and was equally jubilant to be a medal-winner.
“It is the biggest achievement so far in my career, my first individual medal. It feels great to be the third fastest in the world,” she said.
Seventy-one participants started the competition on Friday and four dropped out, the victims of cold conditions and a brutal course.
Slotting into fourth place behind Zhambalov (RUS) was another Russian woman, Anastasia Sedova, who managed the fastest ski exchange.
Linn Eriksen (NOR) recovered from a 31st place in the 5 k freestyle earlier in the week to finish 5th, a remarkable turnaround. Behind Linn was Julia Svan, daughter of Gunde Svan, who began the classic leg in a strong 3rd position before fading in the skate leg.
Julia Belger (GER) was seventh, Stina Nilsson (SWE) 8th, Katharina Hennig (GER) 9th, and Jonna Sundling (SWE) 10th.
Racing concludes Sunday with the relay competition.
Dmitry Rostovtsev (RUS) leading his teammates through the skate portion of the junior mens skiathlon. He led a Russian sweep of the podium on Friday at Junior World Championships. Photo: Liberec2013.
Simen Hegstad Krueger (NOR) was two meters short of breaking the Russian podium hegemony. But try as he might, he couldn’t bridge that gap.
The Russian dominance continued on Friday in the junior men’s skiathlon (10 k classic/10 k skate) in Liberec, Czech Republic. Dmitry Rostovtsev (RUS) took the victory in a time of 47:40.2. It was Rostovtsev’s second gold medal of the championships.
“It is amazing to win another gold medal,” he said. “There were five of us skiing together. It was a tactical race in the free technique part. I tried to save some energy for the last.”
Rostovtsev, victorious. Photo: Liberec2013.
That he did, taking a comfortable margin over his teammate Artem Maltsev (RUS) of 3.9 seconds. Alexey Chervotkin (RUS) claimed the bronze medal in a time of 47:45.4, outkicking the surging Kreuger.
The Russians trio of Rostovtsev, Maltsev, and Chervotkin set a blistering pace from the gun, shredding the field down to a small group of five with Kreuger and Martin Weisheit (GER) hanging on.
“In the classic part I gave a few meters to the leading Russians,” Krueger explain. “But I was quickly up in the lead group for the skating leg.”
Krueger claimed the fastest skate split of the field, but the energy he expended making contact with the Russians after the classic leg left him empty. When the remaining four skiers — three Russians and Krueger — hit the final hill before the finish, he had nothing left.
“In the last long uphill on the last lap the Russian took a few meters out of me,” he said. “They (the Russians) were strong in the uphill. I wanted to close the gap but my body stiffened. In the finish it was all I could do to stay on my feet.”
After Krueger faded, it left the Russians to battle it out themselves. Maltsev, the silver medal winner, did his best to overtake Rostovtsev, saying “I wanted to win today but Dimitry was stronger in the last lap.”
Chervotkin, the bronze medalist, was simply happy with a podium.
“(A) bronze medal at the Junior World Championships is (the) biggest success of my career so far. It feels great. It has given me extra motivation for the next training,” he said.
Despite all the Russian success at these championships, they’re still hungry.
“It is great to have my teammates on the podium,” Rostovtsev said. “It is a great victory for Russia. We are looking forward to the relay and we want to win again.”
Simen Krueger of Norway was fourth, and Martin Weisheit (GER) finished fifth, both losing contact with the blistering pace of the Russians in the final uphill. Magne Haga (NOR), had the fastest equipment change of the field but finished sixth.
Antii Ojansivu (FIN) was seventh, Roman Tarasov (RUS) eighth, Clement Parisse ninth, and Moritz Madlener (GER) was tenth.
Oh Liberec, oh Liberec, before we say so long … here’s what didn’t quite fit into last weekend’s recaps of the World Cup classic sprints and team sprints in the Czech Republic. Disclaimer: It’s Canadian- and female-heavy.
An excited Dasha Gaiazova at the women’s 0.85 k World Cup classic sprint in Liberec, Czech Republic. The Canadian was fourth for a career best and narrowly missed the podium in a photo finish. (Chandra Crawford photo)
On World Cup prep:
“We were in Oberwiesenthal [Germany] last week racing an OPA Cup just to get the cobwebs out and get rid of the jetlag, which I think really helped. We all felt pretty terrible last weekend so it was nice to come here and feel good and, having done the race last weekend, feel like we were ready to go on the World Cup. – Perianne Jones, Canadian National Ski Team (CNST), 9th in classic sprint for World Cup individual best
On tactics:
“[In my quarterfinal] I made sure I was kind of behind everyone on the big downhill and I made sure to get my own track coming up the last hill and was kind of made a bit of a move there to pass most people because it was kind of hairy. With just one lap, there’s a big corner at the bottom of the big hill and everyone would kind of get clumped together then you shoot right up into an uphill. It was interesting.” – Jones
On kicking off the New Year with a personal best:
“I think it’s a good start after Christmas. You’re always a little unsure, when none of us did the Tour, just coming here and racing, we’ve been away from it for a little while, but it’s good to have a good first race back and now we can really look forward to the rest of the season. There’s a bunch more classic sprints, World Championships is a classic sprint so I’m pretty pumped about that.” – Jones
On the big picture:
“The World Cup is so competitive that we have to be excited with improvement and stay focused on making small gains.” – Ida Sargent, U.S. Ski Team (USST), 7th in team sprint with Sadie Bjornsen
“I thought that I raced pretty strong and I was able to catch back every round a few spots and stay closer to the front. Unfortunately we missed advancing to the final by one-hundredth of a second.” – Dasha Gaiazova (CNST),11th in team sprint with Jones
“It was bad luck today, but a very good weekend for the team. We have good bodies and good speed so the girls will build a lot of confidence from the results here.” – CNST Women’s Coach Eric de Nys (as told to Cross Country Canada)
On team-sprint tempo:
“The pace was pushing the entire time. Because it was such a short course, people were going hard the entire way.The final leg was of course the hardest, and teams began to really hit top gear. – Sadie Bjornsen (USST), 7th with Sargent
On team momentum:
Alex Harvey tweeted a photo of the skiing in Praz de Lyz, France, on Saturday. (Twitter.com/alex_harvey)
“In general, we have just such good momentum for the whole team. Everybody’s working so well together, coaches are super invested in all the athletes; it’s just a fun group to be part of and we just are all feeding off each other’s positive energy and elevating each other. It’s always nice to see the boys do so well last week in the Tour de Ski and sort of feed off that success as well.” – Gaiazova (after career-best 4th in Saturday’s classic sprint)
On conditions:
“[Friday during training] it was so crappy and so windy, and the tracks were terrible. [Saturday], even though it maybe didn’t look great on TV, it was a huge step up. It was night and day. The tracks were way better and it wasn’t nearly as windy so we felt pretty lucky when we got out there.” – Jones
On taking a three-day vacation in Hurghada,Egypt:
“I don’t think I’ll ever go back. It was a little bit of a sketchy place but it made for a pretty interesting trip. It was fun.” – Lenny Valjas (CNST), 10th in classic sprint
On where the rest of the Canadians were:
“Alex [Harvey] just got to Praz de Lys [France]. He’s doing some training there and Devon [Kershaw] will be there shortly, too. Everyone’s slowly meeting in Praz de Lys. We’re all gonna be there on Monday; the whole team will be back together. Right now [Harvey, Kershaw and Ivan Babikov] decided to skip this and focus on training.” – Valjas (on Saturday)
An excited Dasha Gaiazova at the women’s 0.85 k World Cup classic sprint in Liberec, Czech Republic. The Canadian was fourth for a career best, narrowly missing the podium in a photo finish. (Chandra Crawford photo)
The Canadian women went to Oberwiesenthal, Germany. Lenny Valjas went to Egypt. Wherever their respective travels took the Canadian World Cup Team, it worked, at least for the sprinters on Saturday.
Perianne Jones led the three-person women’s squad in the qualifier, posting the seventh-fastest time in the World Cup classic sprint in Liberec, Czech Republic. For Jones, it was by far a personal best.
“All my qualifiers before this year have been by the skin of my teeth,” Jones said with a laugh. “So I’m happy to be consistently in there and really in the mix instead of the last one or two.”
But it got better for the Canadians: Dasha Gaiazova qualified in 10th, Valjas advanced in 16th and Crawford made it through in 27th. All four of the Canadians that raced in Liberec – including Valjas, who finished his first Tour de Ski last Sunday – made the heats. Then Jones, Gaiazova and Valjas advanced to the semifinals to secured top-10 results.
From there, Gaiazova carried the most momentum, finishing neck-and-neck in the semifinal with eventual overall winner Mona-Liisa Malvalehto of Finland, who won the semi in a photo finish. Gaiazova joined her in the final, where she latched onto Malvalehto out of the start.
Running in second for the first half of the women’s 850-meter race, Gaiazova attempted to hold off Poland’s charging Justyna Kowalczyk, but lost some speed when Kowalczyk jumped ahead of her in the track before the last hill. With Malvalehto skiing away to the victory, Gaiazova, Kowalczyk and Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla battled for second, where Kowalczyk won the three-way photo finish. All three came in 1.7 seconds behind Malvalehto (who won in 2:03.8), with Falla edging Gaiazova for third.
So close to a podium, Gaiazova said on the phone she was simply glad to be in contention in her signature event.
“It was a short course and you had to go all out from the start,” Gaiazova said of the less-than-one-kilometer course, shortened from 1.7 k after the coaches voted Friday night.
“At the end, it’s just sort of like a drag-race double poling,” she said, adding that she didn’t think in the final moments, she just went for it. “I did the best I could and I’m definitely happy.”
Not far down the results list in ninth, Jones also notched a World Cup individual best. She was second in her quarterfinal to Germany’s Hanna Kolb and fifth in her semifinal – the same one Gaiazova and Malvalehto won.
Jones said she scrambled after bad starts in both the quarterfinal and semifinal. While she made up for it drafting and passing others on the big downhill in the first heat, she failed to pick off as many people in the semi.
“I tried to make my same move coming up the last hill like I did in the quarterfinal, but it wasn’t enough to move on to the final,” Jones said. “I was happy with it, but I know what I need to work on now and that is my starts.”
As for Gaiazova, who’s top-six secured a trip to the 2014 Winter Olympics, Jones said she was fun to watch.
“Dasha skied tactically super well the whole day and she’s in great shape,” Jones said. “It was really exciting to see her be so close to a podium. We were really cheering hard for her.”
Valjas ended up 10th in the men’s 1.6 k sprint after advancing out of his quarterfinal in fourth with one of the fastest times. The lone Canadian man racing, Valjas went on to place fifth in the semifinal.
“I felt the final hill,” he said. “I could feel the legs just didn’t have the same snap or speed … There’s nothing I can change. I can only go as fast as my body would let me. Today I was just out there having fun and seeing how fast I could go.”
Earlier in the week, Valjas took three days off completely at an all-inclusive resort in Hurghada, Egypt, where he traveled solo. There, he met up with the women’s alpine technical team and said he mostly “sat tanning [and] tried to recover” after placing 23rd in the Tour, an overall result he was pleased with.
“I really didn’t know what to expect for this race and I’m happy with making the semi and cracking the top ten just after the Tour,” he said.
In both his heats, Valjas struggled to find an open lane to test his finishing kick. He skied right behind Germany’s Tim Tscharnke into the last stretch of the semifinal, but Tscharnke moved ahead and Valjas dropped to fifth.
“We picked the same lane and I don’t know why, but I kept going to the left lane up the hill, which is the outside when you come into the finish,” Valjas said. “It’s just way further. Maybe I could’ve done something tactically better. … I couldn’t keep up with them on the last uphill anyways so it didn’t change too much.”
In an email, Crawford, who was 29th overall, wrote that she was inspired by her teammates’ performances despite feeling a little off in her first World Cup in nearly a month. She was sixth in her quarterfinal, 7.6 seconds behind Kolb as the heat’s winner.
“I feel sluggish like I usually do coming off a block without racing,” Crawford wrote. “It looks like it will take the usual race into shape plan. … Couldn’t quite dance around and make moves as I pleased – the main move I wanted to make being closing the gap to the group.”
In the scheme of things, this race – with several Tour competitors sitting it out – wasn’t the end-all of the season. Most of the Canadian women, for instance, had their sights on the classic sprint at World Championships Feb. 21 in Val di Fiemme, Italy.
“My teammates Peri and Dasha are classic sprinting like complete bosses so I’m looking forward to our prep together this next month,” Crawford wrote.
The three spent the last few weeks of December training at home in Canmore, Alberta, before flying to Oberwiesenthal in early January for Alpen Cup races (a classic sprint and 5 k freestyle). According to Canadian women’s coach Eric de Nys, the races were tune-ups before resuming the World Cup schedule.
Reacting to the results in their first race back, de Nys wasn’t surprised, but rather somewhat relieved given the nature of sprinting.
“I think sprinting is still so volatile, especially on today’s course,” he said. “We have three high-quality women that can go to the podium any day … all of our cards have to fall the right way.”
One shot around an 850-meter course made it even tighter, but de Nys advocated the shorter sprint. After previewing the 1,700-meter course Friday, he estimated it would take the women between upwards of four minutes to complete. In his opinion, anything over three minutes wasn’t a true sprint.
“If you want to talk about a sprint today, if you’re an 800-meter runner for a woman, it’s about 1:55, I think, and today we were 2:04,” de Nys said. “Now we’re starting to be in the right ballpark of time to really call it a sprint, if you want to call 800-meters a sprint.”
Like most of the Canadians, Jones welcomed the news of a shorter course. The women first skied in Liberec on Friday with a typical pre-race workout at Zone 3.
“It took us six minutes to do two laps,” Jones said with a laugh. “So we’re like, ‘OK this is gonna be a really long sprint.’ At the coaches’ meeting, they decided to shorten it, which was pretty awesome for everyone. Even the men’s race looked a little like a distance race on TV … I think it’s good to keep sprints sprints.”
Valjas felt similarly after the men’s 1.6 k course took about 3 ½ minutes.
“The sprint, I think, should be really a lot shorter,” he said. “The course yesterday that they had for the training was a lot longer so this morning they cut it … it would’ve been four minutes yesterday.”
On Sunday, Gaiazova and Jones will pair up in the team sprint and Valjas will enjoy the day off.
“It will be a really, really exciting race I think,” Jones said. “All the teams here are pretty close and anything can happen. Team sprints are just so crazy that way. … They’re my favorite.”
Mona-Liisa Malvalehto (FIN) makes a call to report the good news after winning Saturday’s classic sprint in Liberec for her first World Cup podium.
Sixty-six World Cup starts, 66, Canadian women’s coach Eric de Nys reiterated. That’s how long Finland’s Mona-Liisa Malvalehto went without a podium since her first World Cup start more than 12 years ago.
On Saturday, the 29-year-old mom achieved her first in the 0.85-kilometer World Cup classic sprint in Liberec, Czech Republic. She won the qualifier, dominated the heats and went on to ski away from her five competitors in the final – one of them being Poland’s Justyna Kowalczyk. By comparison, Kowalczyk has started some 170 individual World Cup races (not including stages), made the podium 54 times and won 24 of them.
But enough about Kowalczyk. Saturday belonged to Malvalehto, a multitalented individual with multiple national accordion titles.
That’s right. Two years ago, Malvalehto, who studied music in college, went on BBC’s Maestro celebrity reality show to test her skills at conducting. She won. “I do not remember when I last experienced such adrenaline,” Malvalehto said after leading an orchestra through Beethoven. “It is the most difficult thing.”
As for Saturday’s race, Malvalehto said it was simply “unbelievable.” Just as she did every time around Liberec’s one-lap sprint course, she started hard and let the others chase. In the final, Gaiazova was quickest to react, tucking behind her in second until losing some momentum before the final hill.
Kowalczyk had moved up and squeezed between them, and three women – Kowalczyk, Gaiazova and Maiken Caspersen Falla – were left fighting for second. Kowalczyk took it in a photo finish, 1.7 seconds behind Malvalehto’s winning time of 2:03.8. Falla was third, just ahead of Gaiazova, who notched a personal best of fourth.
“All I could think about was double poling as hard as I could,” Gaiazova said on the phone. “I thought, ‘I’m somewhere in the front and there’s a chance for the podium,’ but all I could do in that moment was double pole.
“I did the best I could, I’m definitely happy with my PB,” she added. “I think there is more good things to come.”
“[Malvalehto’s] had sixty-six races to get to where she is,” de Nys said on the phone. “That’s proof that you just can’t give up, and you gotta keep going out there day after day and it’s gonna come through.”
Two of his athletes, Gaiazova and Perianne Jones, were on a similar track, he added. Both tallied career highs on Saturday, with Gaiazova in fourth and Jones in ninth. What worked for the Canadians, and for Malvalehto, was that the course was shortened from 1,700 meters to 850 meters the night before.
“It would’ve been a 4:10, 4:20 sprint,” de Nys said of the 1.7 k course, which was changed at the coaches’ meeting on Friday. “FIS made it clear a few years ago that they want sprints to be around three minutes. It’s not a sprint if it’s over three minutes.”
For Malvalehto, the winner of Saturday’s qualifier and every heat thereafter, the speed session was a testament to her fitness.
“I knew that I had a good training period at home,” she told FIS News after the race. “When I heard that it was only one lap, I knew that this was my race. For me, not too long is a little bit better.”
The last time a Finnish woman won a World Cup was 2009 with Aino-Kaisa Saarinen’s 10 k home victory at the Kuusamo Ruka Triple. A month later in December, Matti Heikkinen won the 15 k in Davos, Switzerland.
“It was a very big day for me,” Malvalehto said. “I think I would not be the winner not having my two-year old kid.”
Her teammate, Saarinen qualified in fourth, 4.54 seconds behind Malvalehto’s winning time of 2:04.06, and went on to place 17th after being eliminated in the quarterfinals.
Kowalczyk as the second-fastest qualifier (+3.35) won her quarter and semi despite looking somewhat tense in the latter. She edged Falla by 0.1 seconds in the semi, with Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Oestberg and Celine Brun-Lien finishing less than a second later to advance as lucky losers.
In the final, Oestberg went on to place sixth (+29.7) after breaking a pole and getting a replacement at the bottom of one of the last descents. Brun-Lie placed fifth (+4.5) behind Kowalczyk, Falla and Gaiazova, who all lunged at the finish.
For Kowalczyk, coming off her fourth-straight Tour de Ski title, the Liberec podium was pretty standard: she’s made it in every individual race she’s done in there.
“I was not sure about today, but I have always been on the podium in Liberec,” Kowalczyk said at a press conference. “I did not feel too tired after the Tour. … I am feeling very good but at the World Championships the sprint course will be tougher and longer.”
Falla said she didn’t mind the short distance.
“It was something new,” Falla said. “I am happy for the third place. It is a good sign for me before the World Championships [at the end of February].”
For Gaiazova, it also signaled good things to come.
“I’m happy that results are coming along,” Gaiazova said. “I love classic sprinting. Even though it’s so close to the podium and being third would’ve been sweet, I’m still super happy to be in the final and fight for the finish for the podium.”
Marit Bjorgen celebrates a victory for Norway I after anchoring the team to first in the 4×5 k relay at the World Cup in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, on Sunday. Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus
As the sunlight sliced through rows of majestic trees in Nové Město na Moravě, Czech Republic, Sunday around noon, a few of the Norwegians could have afforded to soak up the scenery in the women’s 4×5 k relay.
They probably didn’t, though.
Marit Bjørgen finally lifted her head to look around as she entered the stadium to seal the Norwegian win. With a nearly 40 second lead, Bjørgen as the Norway I anchor threw up her hands and smiled. For the second time in as many relays this season, Norway had won it.
Therese Johaug builds on the lead for Norway I as the second leg in the 4×5 k relay at Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, on Sunday. Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus
For three of four legs, Norway’s ‘A’ team led comfortably. Vibeke Skofterud started off the relay in a tight battle with her teammate on the national team, Heidi Weng, the first leg on Norway II. Skofterud and Weng tagged off together, with Skofterud giving Norway I the slight edge.
Therese Johaug took that advantage and ran with it. Within a few strides, she dropped Ragnhild Haga of Norway II and went on to give teammate Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen a nearly 30-second lead. Russia was the new contender for second with Finland, and Haga fell back to fourth.
For Norway I, the race was essentially in the bag – especially with Bjørgen heading out 33.7 seconds ahead of anyone else. They refused to let up.
“We never take a relay victory for granted,” Jacobsen told FIS News. “In a relay, [anything] can happen. … It was hard to race alone the whole way in front. You have to push always because you can lose quite quickly a lot of seconds.”
Finland and Norway II, which finished second and third in a photo finish, would have likely preferred to ski alone for the win. The Swedish and American anchors in Charlotte Kalla and Jessie Diggins probably felt the same way.
After Finland and Norway II successfully dropped Russia on the third leg, the two continued to battle for second. More than 30 seconds ahead of Sweden, Germany and the U.S. at the last handoff, they looked liked they had a handle on the podium.
Meanwhile, Kalla tried to close on Finland’s Krista Lahteenmaki and Ingvild Flugstad Oestberg of Norway II. Diggins went with her.
Jessie Diggins chases Charlotte Kalla of Sweden in the anchor leg of the 4×5 k relay in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, on Sunday. Kalla edged Diggins at the line for fourth place. Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus
For all 5 kilometers of their skate leg, Kalla and Diggins skied together, with Diggins looking back to see who was behind them. Russia was closest, some 40 seconds behind them in sixth, and Germany had fallen further back.
Coming into the stadium after their first lap, Diggins moved ahead of Kalla, a two-time Olympic medalist from the 2010 Vancouver Games. Her gold and silver didn’t faze Diggins; it gave her strength.
“I’m sure I was in a lot of pain,” Diggins wrote in an email, “But I was so excited at the chance to race neck-and-neck with and Olympic Gold Medalist that I didn’t feel a thing!”
Kalla regained the lead after 2.5 k and continued to make a run for third. When it became clear that more than 20 seconds was too much to overcome, she and Diggins refused to let up and kept pushing for fourth.
There, Kalla had the edge by 0.1 seconds, and Diggins finished fifth (+54.8) collapsing on the ground while several teammates, including Holly Brooks, Ida Sargent and Liz Stephen, rushed over to congratulate her. It was the Americans’ best relay result of the season.
“I was so incredibly proud of our team today – racers, athletes cheering, coaches, wax techs,” Diggins wrote. “It was so amazing how everyone just shrugged off the disappointment of yesterday and woke up ready to give this race everything they had.”
A Fresh Start
Going into the race, the U.S. women’s coach Matt Whitcomb said in a phone interview that the game plan was to rebound from Saturday, after every American placed outside the top 30 in the classic distance mass starts. Many of the women had been dealing with lingering colds and felt tired after competing in Russia, he said.
“So today was a hugely positive result,” Whitcomb said. “[We were] hoping that they could all tie together four really strong legs, and they did that so we were just ecstatic.”
The U.S. women's relay with Ida Sargent (l), Liz Stephen, Holly Brooks and Jessie Diggins (r) celebrating it's fifth-place finish in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, on Sunday. Photo courtesy of Andy Newell.
Without Kikkan Randall in the lineup because she was recovering from a cold, Brooks rallied to lead the team as the first leg. She did not finish Saturday’s 15 k because of digestive problems, which plagued her since last week’s race in Moscow, but knew she had to be ready for the relay.
“I was worried and anxious about what kind of performance I would be able to deliver,” Brooks wrote in an email. “It’s one thing to let yourself down but it’s a completely different thing to let down the rest of a relay team!”
Fortunately, her body held up for 5 k and she put the team in eighth, 34.6 seconds behind the leaders.
“My goal today was to stay in contact with the other teams and luckily, I was able to do it,” she wrote, noting an aggressive start in which she had to “extend” her elbows.
In her first time skiing the scramble position, Brooks wrote that it suited her strengths and she had a lot of fun. It also gave her a chance to cheer on her team in its best performance in recent memory.
“I’m ecstatic about our team performance, especially given the fact that we didn’t have one of our strongest teammates on board,” she wrote, referring to Randall, who was resting before the last freestyle sprint of the year on Friday in Poland. “I think our 5th place finish today goes to show the depth of our team right now.”
Whitcomb said that Brooks was their wild card, considering she felt the worst going into the relay.
“She laid down an incredible leg and the team just fed off of that,” Whitcomb said.
Usually leading off, Sargent tried out the second leg and brought the U.S. to sixth, passing Kazakhstan and France in the process. Feeling good, Sargent wrote in an email that she skied as hard as she could to pick off as many places as possible on the second lap.
“My goal for today was to ski my own race and go as hard as I could,” she wrote.
Whitcomb said it was Sargent’s best performance in her third World Cup relay. She was 1:06.4 out of first when she tagged Stephen, who kept the team in sixth and passed off to Diggins in a crowded exchange zone with Sweden and Germany.
“As soon as Liz came through the tag zone and I realized I was right behind Kalla, I threw my plans of ‘skiing my own race’ out the window and proceeded to glue myself to Kalla,” Diggins wrote. “It was great to ski with her and though I couldn’t get around her in time to pull a great sprint at the end, I’m psyched out of my mind to have been in a photo finish with Charlotte Kalla!”
Jessie Diggins reacts to her CXC coach Jason Cork after anchoring her team to fifth place in the 4×5 k relay at the World Cup in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, on Sunday. Photo courtesy of Andy Newell.
While Whitcomb was hardly surprised with Diggins’ performance, especially since she was the only woman who was completely healthy, he was impressed with her anchor leg.
“To hear over the radio that, ‘Jessie’s now leading Kalla on the second lap,’ … was an incredible thing to hear,” he said.
She came as close as 18 seconds to third place and skied the fastest fourth leg of the day.
U.S. head coach Chris Grover said the team’s overall performance showed its depth and potential.
“It was really gratifying for us to be able to field such a competitive team with kind of our marquee woman out of the mix,” he said of Randall, who usually starts first or second.
Whitcomb said the made a conservative but good decision to rest Randall, who was aiming to keep her lead in the World Cup sprint standings.
“Without Kikkan, we still had a strong team, we felt, and we fully supported the move to make sure she is 100 percent healthy as we travel to Poland,” Whitcomb said.
“We’ve known for a couple years that when this team starts to really pull together in the direction that it’s pulling, the medals will be getting closer and closer,” he said of the relays. “And you can sure see the possibility now.”
Congratulating one another at the finish, the U.S. women wrapped up the weekend with the feeling they were used to: excitement.
“We definitely had the most fun out there with glitter, face paint, knee high red white and blue striped socks and huge smiles,” Sargent wrote. “We were so pumped in the finish area that Vibeke Skofterud and some of the other Norwegian girls on the winning team started taking pictures of us.”
“We really had fun out there today as a team,” Diggins wrote. “And it definitely showed.”
Jessie Diggins (in black) mixing it up in the semifinals of a World Cup sprint in Milan, Italy, earlier this season. In eight straight World Cup races this year, the 20-year-old Diggins has been outside the top 20 just twice. She was 33rd on Saturday in the 15 k classic mass start in Nové Město na Moravě, Czech Republic.
As the saying goes, you can’t win them all and some races downright hurt. Maybe that’s not the adage, but it’s the truth.
Several Americans felt an unfamiliar burn associated with disappointment on Saturday after finishing outside the top 30 in their respective World Cup mass starts in Nové Město na Moravě, Czech Republic.
U.S. Ski Team rookie Jessie Diggins led the women’s squad, placing 33rd in the 15 k classic race. Kris Freeman was also 33rd on Saturday, the top American in the men’s 30 k. He was coming off some of his best results of the season, placing 30th or better in the last three World Cup races.
For Diggins, it was the second time in eight consecutive World Cup starts this season that she placed outside the top 20. She was 6.5 seconds out of scoring points in 30th on Saturday; a position which Canadian Perianne Jones nabbed.
In an email, Diggins wrote that she had no idea she was gunning for 30th or better, but even if she had, it wouldn’t have mattered. She skied hard regardless, finishing 3:48.9 behind Norway’s Marit Bjørgen, who won in 39:20.3.
With more than 50 women to contend with from the start, Diggins wrote that she tried to stay on her feet and navigate the tricky descents throughout the three laps.
“The start went well for me but I think I’m just a little raced-out at the moment,” Diggins wrote. “I was having some issues kicking my skis later on and my technique started to fall apart as I got tired. It just wasn’t a day for me, but that’s totally ok!”
Starting near Diggins, Liz Stephen stayed close to her teammate for much of the race and finished 42.1 seconds behind her in 42nd (+4:31.0). Ida Sargent followed in 43rd (4:45.4). Holly Brooks did not finish because of a digestive issue, which she has been trying to kick since last weekend.
It was the first time Brooks dropped out of a ski race since 2003, according to the International Ski Federation (FIS) database. Brooks finished the Tour de Ski earlier this year with a broken wrist.
“My body felt like an under-powered Fiat,” Brooks wrote in an email. “And 15k in Nove Mesto is a long way to go if you aren’t feeling good.”
She also had Sunday’s relay in the back of her mind. Knowing before the race that Kikkan Randall planned to sit out the relay to rest for next week’s World Cup in Poland, Brooks didn’t want to jeopardize her spot, and in turn, the team’s prospects in the 4×5 k relay.
“I was certain that finishing the race would dig a huge hole – one that I might not be able to pull out of,” Brooks wrote.
Looking ahead to Sunday, she hoped to put her teammates – Diggins, Stephen and Sargent – “within contact” of their competitors so “they can work their magic,” Brooks wrote.
After what Stephen described as a tough day, she was particularly excited for the relay. On Saturday, she wrote that she felt tired and “super weak” skiing. She took two feeds, which were unplanned but necessary. On a 15 k course, Stephen typically doesn’t take any.
“The real problem was the body today, and then the head followed,” Stephen wrote. “I was charging really hard the whole race, but after the first lap and a half I lost a lot of my confidence out there and went in and out of being discouraged and pulling myself back into the race.”
For her, a race of that length was usually fun. She described Saturday as “really grueling.”
Sargent liked the course and wrote in an email that it was “super fun … with some hard climbs and a lot of fast twisty downhills.”
She said the race felt like an individual start, just a little more crowded, with a fast pace from the start.
“Nove Mesto is an awesome venue and there were a lot of spectators and cheering on the course, which helped especially when I was hurting at the end,” Sargent wrote.
Men’s Race
From the start of the men’s 30 k, Freeman wrote in an email that he skied relaxed and moved up in the field as others petered out. About a third of the way into the race, he found himself hovering outside of 20th and fewer than 20 seconds behind the leaders. At the time, Petter Northug (NOR) was just behind Freeman, 21 seconds out of first.
Northug went on to place 14th, 26.6 seconds after Johan Olsson of Sweden, who won in 1:13.42. Freeman ended up 33rd (+2:28.9).
“I blew up at 18 k and limped in with the chase group,” Freeman wrote. “The whole team was a step off today. Not sure why.”
U.S. head coach Chris Grover wrote in an email that everyone’s skis were OK, but “nobody had the race they wanted.”
“Perhaps [they are] still recovering from the trip to Russia and some illness going around the past 2+ weeks,” Grover wrote.
Hoffman was a victim of the flu last weekend, but reported he was healthy and recovered for Saturday’s 30 k. There, he finished 47th (+4:03.2) after following a fast pace from the start. He hung on for 10 kilometers, but worked hard to do so.
“I struggled for a couple of laps in the middle of the race and lost a lot of time,” Hoffman wrote. “I actually felt OK for the last 5k, but overall it was a disappointing day.”
Simi Hamilton and Sylvan Ellefson finished 55th and 56th, respectively, and while Ellefson wasn’t satisfied with his performance, Hamilton was. In the second 30 k of his career, Hamilton didn’t have many expectations and wanted to learn how to better ski a World Cup distance race.
“I struggled a bit with the cold air today even though temperatures weren’t too extreme, but I think Moscow did a number on my lungs,” he wrote, referring to his history of bronchitis and asthma.
“Hard and fast conditions definitely suit me better than slow and soft, so I was happy that the course held up really well … and it was a beautiful day,” Hamilton wrote.
Ellefson wrote that his body wasn’t feeling 100 percent “and it showed today.” He was looking forward to racing in Poland next Friday and getting some good training in.
Andy Newell did not finish Saturday because of a back injury he has been dealing with since last Friday’s sprints in Moscow.
“Today’s race started fine and I felt OK for the first two laps then the wheels started to come off and the back seized up,” Newell wrote in an email.
He finished four out of six laps and stopped at 20 k.
“I was out of the points and I didn’t really want to push it and do further damage,” Newell wrote.
While his back pain was not as bad as last weekend, Newell opted to sit out Sunday’s relay to prepare for Friday’s sprints. Freeman, Hoffman, Elliott and Hamilton would fill in for the 4×10 k.
Reflecting on an all-around tough day, Diggins acknowledged its importance.
“It’s good to get some ‘mental toughness’ races in there,” she wrote. “I’m proud of our team for battling through it.”
The stadium in Nové Město na Moravě, Czech Republic, on Friday before this weekend's World Cup races, the first there since 2009. Photo courtesy of Andy Newell. "Things are looking good for tomorrow," Newell wrote in an email. "The conditions are cold and hard. Sweet hard wax skiing. The course is tough but not crazy. Lots of stridable skiing!"
Life on the World Cup is one giant judgment call. Each day brings new decisions and, sometimes, unforeseen challenges. With little time, athletes and coaches often make up their minds and go with it. That’s about all they can do.
The spontaneity often leads to uncertainty – as is the case with this weekend’s World Cup in Nové Město na Moravě, Czech Republic. Several teams will probably do as the U.S. Ski Team plans and select its relay teams for Sunday based on Saturday’s races.
U.S. head coach Chris Grover said in a phone interview on Friday that only two of eight relay members between its men’s and women’s teams were final. Kikkan Randall opted to skip Saturday’s 15 k classic mass start to rest up for Sunday, and with an abundance of World Cup podiums and freestyle sprint victories this season, she was a shoe-in for the 4×5 k relay.
Tad Elliott was the only definite for the men’s relay since he isn’t racing Saturday, Grover said. Like Randall, Elliott is a skate specialist, and is sitting out the 30 k classic mass start because the U.S. had filled its allotted number of entrants.
Grover said they would name the men’s and women’s relays pending Saturday’s results, and also consider the state of each athlete and previous 5 k and 10 k performances.
“We’ll see what kind of shape people are in and how they’re feeling,” he said. “We have to weigh people’s strengths. I mean, tomorrow’s a classic race but we still need skaters in the relay, so it’s not necessarily the top three that come in.”
Randall resolved to skip Saturday’s 15 k nearly a week ago, Grover said. Despite feeling healthy, she decided with the help of her Alaska Pacific University coach, Erik Flora, that it would be better to rest before the relay.
“She just knew that she was kind of feeling a little bit tired, and she needed to kind of skip a couple races during this period in order to focus on recovery and skiing fast for the rest of the season,” Grover said.
Given the depth on both American squads, Grover was excited about their prospects in the relays. With Ida Sargent, Liz Stephen, Holly Brooks and Randall in the last relay in Sjusjøen, Norway, the U.S. women were ninth behind four Norwegian teams.
That was in November, before several American women notched career bests and Jessie Diggins joined the team in Europe. They will also have at least two fewer Norwegian teams to contend with on Sunday.
“I think everybody is stronger,” Grover said. “We don’t really know what our limitations are quite yet. We just haven’t had a chance to ski enough relays, but I feel like we can put together, for both men and women, quite strong teams if we can get a great performance out of all four athletes from each team.”
The previous U.S. men’s relay with Andy Newell, Kris Freeman, Simi Hamilton and Elliott was 11th in Sjusjøen. They were 13.3 seconds behind the Russians in 10th and trailed three Norwegian teams.
Earlier this season, Grover said his team set a goal to field relays good enough to compete on the World Cup, World Championship and Olympic levels. He was excited they had enough depth – with at least five men and five women – to see that out.
Canadian Starters
Following the trend they set earlier in the season, the Canadians will not compete in the relays, but not because they can’t.
The Canadian men have enough numbers and have been particularly dominant in recent World Cup races, with Devon Kershaw winning last Saturday’s 15 k freestyle mass start in Rybinsk, Russia. In the last four races, he and Alex Harvey helped Canada land in the top 10.
Ivan Babikov is also back with the team after recovering at home for part of January, and Lenny Valjas opted to race this weekend after originally trying to find a shorter race in Austria, head coach Justin Wadsworth said. Without much luck, Valjas and another Canadian sprinter, Perianne Jones, decided to join their team for the distance mass starts.
Jones will be Canada’s lone female racing on Saturday. Chandra Crawford returned to Europe on Friday after a brief trip home in Canmore, Alberta, and Dasha Gaiazova was in Ramsau, Austria.
Because Wadsworth did not expect Valjas to be available for the relay, he decided not to field a team.
“We made all the travel plans (flights etc.) based on that, so that’s one reason,” Wadsworth wrote in an email. “The other reason is it’s been a huge last 8-10 days for Devon and Alex.”
He noted the wear of traveling between Moscow and Rybinsk, where Kershaw and Harvey endured two hard races in cold weather. Then there was the long trip back to Austria, where the team had been training, the trip to the Czech Republic, and this weekend’s races to consider before heading back to Austria and then Poland next Wednesday.
“All that makes doing the relay after the 30 k WAY too much,” Wadsworth wrote. “Right now I’d be happy to get the guys out of this period without blowing up, and it’ll be close as it is. … All the races lately are great, but we do need a training period to ensure it all keeps on track, both mentally and physically.”
Saturday’s race holds a challenging 5 k course with plenty of long climbs and few double-pole opportunities, according to Grover. He said the hardwax should be straightforward with cold temperatures expected to reach about minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) at race time.
“It will be a hard course, but perfect for our team,” Wadsworth wrote.
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/02/28424540_915251938649428_4601404494192922599_o.jpg")
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![The Czech Republic women's team, which won the 4 x 6 k relay on Saturday at the IBU World Cup in Presque Isle, Maine, with (from left to right) Eva Puskarcikova, Gabriela Soukalova, Lucie Charvatova, and Veronika Vitkova. (Photo: IBU/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/02/2016-02-14_f86a52165751ae9.jpg_image_scaler_800x0.jpg")
![Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) racing the first leg of the women's 4 x 6 k relay on Saturday at the IBU World Cup in Presque Isle, Maine. Her team went on to place 10th for a season best. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/02/Dunklee13022016cm18.jpg")
![Hannah Dreissigacker racing the second leg of the U.S. women's 4 x 6 k relay on Saturday at the IBU World Cup in Presque Isle, Maine. Her team went on to place 10th for a season best. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/02/Dreissigacker13022016cm83.jpg")
![Clare Egan (US Biathlon) during her standing stage of the women's 4 x 6 k relay at the IBU World Cup in Presque Isle, Maine. Her team went on to place 10th for a season best. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/02/Egan13022016cm56.jpg")
![Ondrej Moravec celebrates a sizable win for the Czech Republic in Thursday's mixed relay at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland. (Photo: Kontiolahden Urheilijat/Jarno Artika)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/03/BWCH-5.3.2015-Mixed-Relay-CZE-Ondrej-Moravec-photo-Jarno-Artika-1.jpg")
![Ondrej Moravec celebrates a sizable win for the Czech Republic in Thursday's mixed relay at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland. (Photo: Kontiolahden Urheilijat/Jarno Artika)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/03/BWCH-5.3.2015-Mixed-Relay-CZE-Ondrej-Moravec-photo-Jarno-Artika-1-2.jpg")
![Finland's Kaisa Mäkäräinen racing from 11th to second as the second leg of the mixed relay at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland. Her team went on to place ninth. (Photo: Kontiolahden Urheilijat/Jarno Artika)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/03/BWCH-5.3.2015-Mixed-Relay-FIN-Kaisa-Mäkäräinen-photo-Jarno-Artika-4.jpg")
![Anais Bescond of France (center, in black) leads the first leg out of the start in Thursday's mixed relay at IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland. (Photo: Biathlon Canada/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/03/Group05032015cm10.jpg")
![The 2 x 6 + 2 x 7.5 k mixed relay at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland, with the Czech Republic gold medalists (c), France (l) in second, and Norway (r) in third. (Photo: Kontiolahden Urheilijat/Jarno Artika)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/03/BWCH-5.3.2015-Mixed-Relay-flower-ceremony-photo-Jarno-Artika-1.jpg")
![The Norwegian mixed relay team, with Fanny Well-Strand Horn, Tiril Eckhoff, Tarjei Bø, and Johannes Thingnes Bø after earning bronze at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/03/Norway-bronze.jpg")
![The Czech Republic mixed relay team celebrates with anchor Ondrej Moravec (second from l) at the finish after winning Thursday's race by 20.2 seconds over France at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/03/Czech-Republic-celebrates.jpg")
![The Czech Republic women's 4 x 6 k team celebrates its second-straight relay win on Thursday at the IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: IBU/Ernst Wukits)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/2015-01-14_25b124cda354730.jpg_image_scaler_800x564.jpg")
![Germany's Franziska Preuss (r) and Eva Puskarcikova of the Czech Republic (l) lead Canada's Megan Heinicke (c) and Belarus's Nadezhda Skardino during the first leg of the IBU World Cup women's 4 x 6 k relay on Thursday in Ruhpolding, Germany.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/first-leg.jpg")
![The Canadian women's relay team after placing 11th on Saturday: (from left to right) Rosanna Crawford, Audrey Vaillancourt, Sarah Beaudry, and Megan Heinicke. (Photo: Rosanna Crawford)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/12/image-8.jpeg")
![Gabriela Soukalova (l) tagging Czech teammate Jitka Landova in first in the women's 4 x 6 k relay at the Ruhpolding IBU World Cup on Thursday in Germany. (Photo: IBU/Ernst Wukits)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/2015-01-14_4db98eeb90a7106.jpg_image_scaler_800x533.jpg")
![U.S. second-leg skier Hannah Dreissigacker after her prone shooting stage, where she used three spares and went on to keep her team in 10th in the women's relay in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/Dreissigacker14012015cm32_800x500.jpg")
![Veronika Vitkova anchoring the Czech Republic to its second-straight women's relay win on Thursday the IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: IBU/Ernst Wukits)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/2015-01-14_48b9e201d40e84f.jpg_image_scaler_800x522.jpg")
![U.S. third leg Annelies Cook during the women's relay on Thursday in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/Cook14012015cm41.jpg")
![Susan Dunklee racing to 21st place in Friday's 7.5 k World Cup sprint in Oberhof, Germany. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/Dunklee09012015cm121.jpg")
![Veronika Vitkova (CZE) (photo: Fischer / Nordic Focus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/Vitkova09012015cm23.jpg")
![Hannah Dreissigacker (USA) finished 37th in the sprint with two penalties. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/Dreissigacker09012015cm85.jpg")
![Annelies Cook (USA) on course. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus.com)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/Cook09012015cm75.jpg")
![Dorothea Wierer (ITA), Veronika Vitkova (CZE) and Nicole Gontier (ITA) take the IBU biathlon World Cup podium in Oberhof, Germany. (Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/Group09012015cm5.jpg")
![The Czech Republic posted the most consistent performances of the day and clinched the women's relay win with anchor Veronika Vitkova (second from l) at Wednesday's IBU World Cup in Obehof, Germany. From left to right: Eva Puskarcikova, Vitkova, Jitka Landova, and Gabriela Soukalova. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/unnamed1.jpg")
![Veronika Vitkova clinches the nearly-nine-second win for the Czech Republic on Wednesday in the women's 4 x 6 k relay at the IBU World Cup in Oberhof, Germany. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/unnamed-41.jpg")
![The IBU World Cup women's relay podium on Wednesday in Oberhof, Germany: with France in second (l), the Czech Republic in first (c), and Belarus in third. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/01/unnamed-11.jpg")
![Germany's anchor, Franziska Preuss celebrates a 21-second victory in the women's 4 x 6 k relay at the IBU World Cup on Saturday in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: IBU/Ernst Wukits)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/12/2014-12-13_7d74eadaa2b00d8.jpg_image_scaler_534x800.jpg")
![The German women's relay atop the podium on Saturday at the Hochfilzen World Cup: (from left to right) Luise Kummer, Franziska Hildebrand, Vanessa Hinz, and Franziska Preuss. (Photo: IBU/Ernst Wukits)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/12/2014-12-13_c204bf555f95d54.jpg_image_scaler_800x592.jpg")
![Gabriela Soukalova of the Czech Republic leads Dorothea Wierer of Italy during the 15 k individual today.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/01/Soukalova-leads.jpg")
![Soukalova on the move.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/01/soukalova-side.jpg")
![Darya Domracheva.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/01/Domracheva.jpg")
![Veronika Vitkova.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/01/Vitkova.jpg")
![Soukalova leads a train over the crest of a hill.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/01/Soukalova-back.jpg")
![Theresa Stadlober (AUT) on her way to winning the women's 10 k skiathlon in Liberec, Czech Republic, on Friday. Photo: Liberec2013.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/01/Theresa-Stadlober.jpg")
![The junior women's skiathlon gets underway in Liberec. Photo: Liberec2013.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/01/Women-skiathlon-start.jpg")
![Dmitry Rostovtsev (RUS) leading his teammates through the skate portion of the junior mens skiathlon. He led a Russian sweep of the podium on Friday at Junior World Championships. Photo: Liberec2013.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/01/Russian-podium-skiathlon.jpg")
![Rostovtsev, victorious. Photo: Liberec2013.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/01/Dmitry-Rostovtsev.jpg")
![Nove Mesto](http://images.fasterskier.com/2012/02/Bjoergen120212ah006.jpeg" "Marit Bjorgen")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2012/02/Johaug120212ah033.jpeg" "Therese Johaug")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2012/02/Group120212ah045.jpeg" "Jessie Diggins, Charlotte Kalla")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2012/02/x2_ae93342.jpeg" "U.S. women's relay, Nove Mesto")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2012/02/IMG01141-20120212-1216.jpg" "Jessie Diggins")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2012/01/kr-jd-digg-semis-1-web.jpg" "Diggins mixing it up in the semifinals.")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2012/02/x2_adf430c.jpeg" "Nove Mesto stadium")