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.
Racing in bib 4 for the U.S., Julia Kern keeps pace in the women’s team sprint during the Dresden, Germany World Cup on Sunday. (Photo: Garrott Kuzzy).
FIS World Cup Dresden, Germany 6 x 1.6 k Freestyle Team Sprint
The first World Cup team sprint of the season was run amidst drizzle and the Dresden, Germany city-scape as the women raced a total of six 1.6-kilometer laps.
Round and round on the looping course, the pace was a mix of tactically subdued speeds with sustained bursts of energy to break the pack.
After all the speed changes and exchanges with one athlete tagging off to the next, it came down to a 1.11 second difference between first place Sweden I and the three closet teams chasing from behind that ended in a photo finish.
Sweden I’s Stina Nilsson and Maja Dahlqvist won in a time of 24:02.5 minutes. Sweden II’s Ida Ingemarsdotter and Jonna Sundling placed second (+1.11), and Norway I, with Eide Mari and Maiken Caspersen Falla in third (+1.11).
U.S. I, featuring Julia Kern and Sophie Caldwell placed fourth (+1.11) after the photo finish was reviewed.
The U.S. entered a second team, consisting of Ida Sargent and Hannah Halvorsen. That duo contested the first semi-final, the same semi as U.S. I, but did not advance after placing fourth (+5.44). The top-three teams from each semi advance to the final, along with the next four fastest teams which are the combined “lucky losers”. Today, the second semi was the faster of the two. The four lucky loser team advancing to the final all originated from the second semi.
In the men’s 6 x 1.6 k skate team sprint race, Norway I and Norway II took the top two podium spots.
In a lunge at the line, Norway I’s Erik Valnes and Sindre Bjørnestad Skar won the final in 22:38.72 minutes. Pål Golberg and Eirik Brandsdal of Norway II placed second (+0.75) and Russia I’s Artem Maltsev and Gleb Retivykh third (+0.80).
Canada’s Bob Thompson and Len Valjas placed seventh (+2.46) in the first semi-final and did not advance to the final. It was the same fate for the only U.S. team entered in the men’s team sprint. Andy Newell and Erik Bjornsen placed 10th (+3.66) in the second semi, and failed to make the finals.
Canada placed 15th in the final standings, the U.S. 19th.
IBU World Cup Oberhof, Germany 4 x 6 k / 4 x 7.5 k Relay
In the women’s 4 x 6 k relay, Russia placed first in a time of 1:18:46.4 hours. Evgeniya Pavlova, Margarita Vasileva, Larisa Kuklina, and Ekaterina Yurlova-Percht made up the team that used eight spares on their way to the win.
Germany placed second (+33.5) with two penalty loops and 10 spare rounds. Karolin Horchler, Franziska Hildebrand, Franziska Preuss, and Denise Hermann comprised Germany’s second place team that had two penalties while using 10 spares. The Czech Republic’s Lucie Charvatova, Veronika Vitkova, Marketa Davidova, and Eva Puskarcikova placed third (+36.7) with 1 penalty loop and six spares.
The top spot for the podium came down to the final leg, when Yurlova-Percht pulled out the win when Hermann skied two penalty loops. The Russian used three spares but escaped with no penalties to take the lead out of the shooting range on the final ski loop.
Susan Dunklee, Clare Egan, Joanne Reid, and Emily Dreissigacker all represented the U.S. and placed 12th (+5:35.8) while skiing five penalty loops and using 16 spares.
Canada’s Sarah Beaudry, Emma Lunder, Megan Bankes, and Rosanna Crawford finished in 13th (+5:58.8) with four penalty loops and 15 spares.
Russian also claimed the men’s relay, winning in a time of 1:20:54.3 hours. The winning team of Maxim Tsvetkov, Evgeniy Garanichev, Dmitry Malyshko, and Alexander Loginov skied no penalty laps and used six spares on their way to victory.
Antonin Guigonnat, Simon Desthieux, Quentin Fillon Maillet, and Martin Fourcade raced for France. The French team placed second (+1:01.1) while skiing a single penalty lap and using eight spares.
Austria’s Tobias Eberhard, Simon Eder, Dominik Landertinger and Julian Eberhard placed third (+2:18.6) with one penalty lap and using seven spares.
Canada’s Scott Gow, Christian Gow, Jules Burnotte, and Brendan Green and the U.S. team of Leif Nordgren, Sean Doherty, Travis Cooper, and Max Durtschi were eventually lapped. Neither team was given an official finishing time.
Canada was ranked 18th in the final standings, the U.S. 19th.
For both relays today, the snowy weather and tough course conditions made for a strenuous day of shooting and skiing.
Norway’s Marit Bjørgen celebrates her overall win in the last race of 2018 World Cup Finals, the 10 k freestyle pursuit, on Sunday in Falun, Sweden. (Photo: Svenska Skidspelen/Instagram)
FIS Cross Country World Cup Finals (Falun, Sweden): 10/15 k freestyle pursuits
In the last women’s race of the World Cup season, U.S. Ski Team members Jessie Diggins and Sadie Bjornsen made it one they’ll remember for a long, long time as Diggins raced to second in the 10-kilometer freestyle pursuit and Bjornsen outlasted two Norwegians for third. The two finished the World Cup Finals mini tour in second and third, respectively, behind Norway’s Marit Bjørgen who won it in 24:18.9 minutes.
Bjørgen started with a 36-second cushion to her Norwegian teammate Ingvild Flugstad Østberg in second. Diggins started third, 41 seconds back, just ahead of Finland’s Krista Pärmäkoski in fourth (+43.0), based on their cumulative performances over the last two days of the mini tour (skate sprint and 10 k classic mass start).
While Østberg, Diggins and Pärmäkoski formed a chase pack, Diggins dropped them in pursuit of Bjørgen on the first lap. The American continued to push the pace throughout the three-lap race, coming within 16.7 seconds of Bjørgen at the finish.
Meanwhile, during the pursuit, a chase group of five, which included Bjornsen, caught Østberg and Pärmäkoski. The group of seven dwindled to three on the last two climbs, where Bjornsen and Norway’s Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen and Ragnhild Haga broke away in a race for third.
The three were even entering the finishing stretch, where Bjornsen then beat them in a final 100-meter push to the line. Bjornsen claimed third (+1:11.5) for her fourth podium of the season and first in a distance skate race. Haga followed in fourth (+1:12.0) and Jacobsen fifth (+1:12.8), while Pärmäkoski placed sixth (+1:16.2), Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla seventh (+1:17.9), Østberg eighth (+1:19.0), Sweden’s Jonna Sundling ninth (+1:30.5) and Ebba Andersson 10th (+1:44.7).
Bjornsen now has five-career individual World Cup podiums to her name, and this is the first in a skate race longer than 5 k.
Diggins clocked the fastest time of day in 23:54.4, while Haga was second-fastest (+10.7) after starting the race in 17th. Bjørgen’s time ranked third, Jacobsen was fourth-fastest and Bjornsen fifth-fastest.
Diggins’s performance elevated her to second in the Overall World Cup standings, just 40 points behind Norway’s Heidi Weng (who placed 18th in the pursuit) in first for the second-straight year. Østberg slipped to third overall, 22 points behind Diggins. In the Distance World Cup, Weng took the title by 63 points over Østberg in second, while Diggins was another 32 points back in third.
Bjornsen ended up sixth in the Overall World Cup and 10th in the distance standings.
Also for the U.S., Caitlin Patterson raced from 46th at the start to 35th (+3:58.4) with the 22nd-fastest time of day, Sophie Caldwell placed 36th (+4:00.7), Kikkan Randall finished her last World Cup race in 43rd (+4:33.3) with the 29th-fastest time, Rosie Frankowski placed 46th (+4:41.3), Liz Stephen 50th (+4:57.2) in her final World Cup race, Kaitlynn Miller 56th (+6:13.8), and Ida Sargent 57th (+7:06.4).
For Canada, Cendrine Browne picked off 10 places to finish 39th (+4:14.4) with 27th-fastest time of day, Emily Nishikawa finished 48th (+4:43.7), Dahria Beatty 54th (+6:04.3), and Zina Kocher 60th (+9:28.4).
The men’s 15 k freestyle and 2018 World Cup Finals podium, with Russia’s Alexander Bolshunov (c) in first, Canada’s Alex Harvey (l) in second and Switzerland’s Dario Cologna (r) in third. (Photo: Svenska Skidspelen/Instagram)
In the men’s 15 k freestyle pursuit that followed, Russia’s Alexander Bolshunov started 38 seconds clear of Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo in second, and Sweden’s Calle Halfvarsson and Italy’s Federico Pellegrino headed out together another second later in third and fourth, respectively.
Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby started the race in seventh (+53.0), and Switzerland’s Dario Cologna followed in ninth (+56.0), while Canada’s Alex Harvey started 1:16 back in 18th.
While Bolshunov skied the entire race on his own and won the weekend mini tour in 35:03.3, a number of racers battled for second, with Sundby moving into second in the chase pack, ahead of seven others, less than 2 k in. Several skiers found themselves at the front of that group, including Cologna, Halfvarsson, and even Harvey (with Harvey leading the chase at 9.3 k), while the time gap to Bolshunov grew.
With about 2 k to go, the group was down to six. Harvey attempted an attack, but Cologna matched him. Then, on one of the course’s final climbs, Cologna made his move to get a slight gap, but lost his balance slightly on the downhill, allowing Harvey to catch back up.
With one last uphill to go, Harvey was in the driver’s seat in second, Cologna in third and Sundby in fourth. That order held to the finish, with Harvey claiming second, 47.1 seconds behind Bolshunov, Cologna placing third (+47.5) and Sundby fourth (+48.7). Just behind them, Russia’s Maxim Vylegzhanin crossed in fifth (+50.3), ahead of Norway’s Hans Christer Holund in sixth (+51.7), Halfvarsson in seventh (+54.1), and Norway’s Sjur Røthe in eighth (+54.9). Nearly 10 seconds later, Norway’s Niklas Dyrhaug outlunged two Russians for ninth (+1:04.1): Denis Spitsov in 10th (+1:04.2) and Andrey Larkov in 11th (+1:04.3).
Harvey, who finished the season in fourth in both the Overall and Distance World Cup standings, won the time of day in 34:34.3. Holund had the second-fastest course time, 1 second off Harvey’s time, after starting the race in 22nd.
Harvey’s Canadian teammate Devon Kershaw tallied his fifth-straight distance top 30 in 28th (+2:21.9), after starting 27th, and Graeme Killick finished 56th (+4:33). Julien Locke did not start.
For the U.S., Erik Bjornsen clocked the 22nd-fastest time en route to 38th (+3:10.4), after he started 51st. Simi Hamilton improved 10 places to finish 49th (+4:07.8), Scott Patterson and Paddy Caldwell worked together to move up from 72nd and 73rd, respectively, to 58th (+4:41.5) and 59th (+4:41.6), respectively, at the finish. Kevin Bolger placed 60th (+4:43.5) and David Norris 64th (+5:09.8).
While Klæbo slipped from second to 25th in the pursuit (+1:45.8), the Norwegian still won his first Overall World Cup by 119 points over Cologna in second. Sundby placed third, 29 points out of second and 82 points ahead of Harvey.
Cologna claimed the Distance World Cup Crystal Globe by 41 points over Sundby, and Holund reached the Distance World Cup podium in third, 58 points out of second and just 5 points ahead of Harvey in third. France’s Maurice Manificat had been third heading into the final day of racing, but finished the pursuit in 26th (+2:11.9) and dropped to fifth in the final distance rankings.
In her last race of the season, Susan Dunklee returned to the podium. The American started fourth in Sunday’s 10-kilometer pursuit at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Oslo, then made her way into third by the final shooting stage. Dunklee shot 18-for-20 (1+0+1+0) and finished 29.5 seconds behind the winner, Darya Domracheva of Belarus, who missed two targets as well (1+0+1+0) and finished first in 30:37.4. Slovakia’s Anastasiya Kuzmina started the race in first (ahead of Domracheva in second) and ended up second (+9.2) with four penalties (0+2+2+0).
Canada’s Julia Ransom and Rosanna Crawford finished together in 51st and 52nd, respectively, both 4:52.4 out of first. Ransom had four penalties (0+1+1+2) while Crawford missed five (1+3+1+0). Emma Lunder did not finish.
In the men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay on Sunday, Norway’s team of Lars Helge Birkeland, Henrik L’Abee-Lund, Tarjei Bø, and Johannes Thingnes Bø used just three spare rounds to clean eight shooting stages and took the win in 1:13:13.7 hours. Austria finished 50.3 seconds back in second place, with Dominik Landertinger, Felix Leitner, Simon Eder, and Julian Eberhard, with a total of five spares. Russia’s Maxim Tsvetkov, Anton Babikov, DmitryMalyshko, and Anton Shipulin raced to third (+56.9) with just four total spares.
The U.S. men placed seventh (+2:01.5) with eighth spares, after Lowell Bailey put the team in seventh on the first leg. Sean Doherty skied them up to sixth on the second leg, Tim Burke slipped to 10th on the third leg, and Leif Nordgren posted the seventh-fastest anchor leg to put them in seventh at the finish.
Canada placed 16th (+5:42.4) with Christian Gow, Scott Gow, Brendan Green, and Macx Davies. The team had been in 19th at the final exchange, but Davies skied them up to 16th with the 14th-fastest anchor leg. In all, they used 10 spares.
Fredrik Lindström crosses the line first to secure a gold medal for his Swedish teammates in the men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay on Friday to close out biathlon competitions at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
Remember when it was a big deal when Sweden won a Biathlon World Cup? The team in bright yellow has made it a habit at the 2018 Winter Olympics, winning their first Olympic relay gold and fourth medal over the last two weeks on Friday — the last biathlon race of the PyeongChang Games.
“It’s dreams coming true at that moment,” Fredrick Lindström, the Swedish men’s 4 x 7.5-kilometer relay anchor said in a post-race press conference on Friday. “It’s my third Olympics and to be on top with these guys feels great. I don’t know what to say.”
Lindström had taken gold in perhaps the most ideal way for an athlete in his position, by heading out on the last 2.5 k loop in first place, almost 41 seconds ahead of anyone else. While he had missed his first shot in the final standing stage of the race, Lindström cleared it with the use of one spare bullet. Meanwhile, his closest challenger for the win — Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen, who had followed him into the range and lined up alongside him to shoot — missed his first two targets and went on to miss more, ending up with a penalty lap after using all three spares.
That was the end of gold for Norway and for Svendsen, who was all too familiar with the penalty lane in the closing moments of an Olympic relay. Four years ago in the men’s relay in Sochi, Russia, Svendsen as Norway’s anchor had been in the medal hunt until the final shooting. There, he used all of his spares and still left a target standing, which sent him to the penalty lap. After leading by as much as 20 seconds in the middle of that race, Norway finished fourth.
But as they say, that’s biathlon. And on Friday, it was Sweden’s day and Lindström skiing on his own for a 2.5 k victory loop around the course. But he didn’t slow down. As the 28 year old skated up the final climb, he was greeted by several members of his team bowing up and down in a unison to celebrate the history that was about to be made. Lindström descended down into the stadium, not looking back and still pushing toward the line, before skiing to the sidelines a few meters before the finish to grab a small Swedish flag.
Fredrik Lindström crosses the line first to secure a gold medal for his Swedish teammates in the men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay on Friday to close out biathlon competitions at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
It wasn’t like the oversized French flag Martin Fourcade had been seen waving earlier in the Games, in the pursuit and again in the mixed relay. It was understated, like Sweden’s biathlon team before these Olympics, but he waved it proudly as he crossed the line to a sea of swarming teammates.
Sweden (with Peppe Femling, Jesper Nelin, Sebastian Samuelsson, and Lindström) finished first with a cumulative time of 1:15.16.5 hours and a total of seven spares and zero penalties. Skiing alone and finishing 55.5 seconds behind them, Svendsen crossed the line in second for Norway (with teammates Lars Helge Birkeland, Tarjei Bø, and Johannes Thingnes Bø), after tallying 12 spares and one penalty.
In stark contrast to Lindström’s wide-eyed smile as he finished, Svendsen, 32, who had previously earned bronze in the mass start and silver with Norway’s mixed relay in PyeongChang, hung his head. His teammates met him at the finish and tried to improve his mood, but he was down.
“It was a good battle. We wished each other luck before the start and it was a good fight,” Lindström said of contending with Svendsen for two out of three loops.
Norway’s third-leg skier Johannes Thingnes Bø (1) racing his team into fourth to first in the men’s 4 x 10 k relay at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
Johannes Bø had tagged Svendsen in first at the last exchange, 0.4 seconds ahead of Sweden, with Samuelsson handing off to Lindström. In the prone stage that followed, both Lindström and Svendsen cleaned without a miss. They left the range together, more than a minute clear of Germany’s Simon Schempp in third (who had missed three but avoided a penalty three spares). Germany had been 13.7 seconds back at the last exchange.
“Emil had to go first the first loop, I went first the second loop, and on the shooting we were equal until that standing,” Lindström reflected. “I don’t know, I was the lucky man today. I feel proud that I managed that situation and to bring the gold to Sweden.”
Even without gold, Svendsen is the third-most medaled biathlete in Olympic history, according to the International Biathlon Union (IBU). A four-time Olympian, he has eight medals, four of which are gold.
“I think that’s awesome,” Svendsen said when asked about his medal tally at the press conference. “It feels very good and yeah, what can I say? Thank you.”
Finishing more than a minute after Norway and exactly 2:07.1 minutes behind Sweden, Germany (with Erik Lesser, Benedikt Doll, Arnd Peiffer, and Schempp) placed third after Schempp incurred a penalty in the final standing stage. While he was still far enough ahead of Austria’s Dominik Landertinger to hang onto bronze, that penalty put Schempp nearly a minute behind Svendsen at the start of his last loop.
While he waved to the crowd as he finished, Schempp later said he wasn’t happy with his performance. The German team accrued 10 spares and three penalties (two of which came in Doll’s second leg).
“I just was disappointed in my race,” Schempp told German broadcaster ARD of his finish-line body language, according to a translation. “But at the end of the day we won the medal. That is the most important thing, that’s what matters, but of course, I can’t be satisfied with my shooting bouts. It was so incredibly gusty … I waited crazily long with my spare shots today because I thought the gusts would be over soon and then I could shoot. But unfortunately that was not the case, so I was on the range forever, losing a lot of time and then still didn’t hit every target. It was like a vicious cycle.”
Lesser and Canada’s Christian Gow Up Front
Sweden had positioned itself for a medal from the gun, with first-leg skier Femling tagging Nelin in fifth, 27.3 seconds back, at the first exchange. Germany’s Lesser had put his team in first on that leg with near-perfect shooting — cleaning prone and using one spare in standing (0+0, 0+1). Lesser tagged Doll 18 seconds ahead of Slovakia in second, which had put itself in contention with a flawless first leg from Matej Kazár. (Slovakia dropped to 15th on the second leg and was lapped on the third leg.)
Canada’s first-leg skier Christian Gow (12) leading the field, including France’s Simon Desthieux and Germany’s Erik Lesser (far l), to the top of a climb in the men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
Canada attracted some serious TV time when Christian Gow took the lead on the first climb out of the stadium. He went on to hit five targets in a row in prone and left the range in second, 1.2 seconds behind Lesser in first. One loop later, Gow had slipped to eighth and about 20 seconds back when he needed three spares to clean. He ended up tagging his brother and teammate Scott Gow in ninth, about 48 seconds out of first.
“It wasn’t planned, for sure,” Gow, 24, told FasterSkier after about his decision to lead on the first loop. “Right at the top of the first climb, everyone was kind of moving over to the right, staying in kind of two lines, and there’s quite a bit of space there, so I took the opportunity to move up just because I’ve done so many relays where you’re stuck in the middle of the pack. … I saw an opportunity to get to the front — I didn’t think it would be the front — but that’s what ended up happening, and I just did my pace and no one wanted to pass me.
“I’m really happy to have cleaned the prone for sure because it’s great if you can lead it, but if you can’t knock down the targets it doesn’t mean too much,” he continued. “In the standing I’m trying to be a bit easier on myself, just because it’s a new situation to be way up in the front like that and having a great day. I wish I would have held it together a bit better than I did. I think I let the nerves get to me a little bit more than I should of, but a lesson learned and I’m happy with the first two-thirds [of my race].”
Sweden’s Steady Rise
Nelin raced Sweden into second place, 16 seconds behind the Czech Republic in first by the second exchange. He cleaned prone with one spare and avoided a penalty with three spares in standing while Germany’s Doll, who had been skiing alone in first before the standing shooting, dropped to fifth and almost 38 seconds back with two costly penalties.
The Czech Republic’s Michal Šlesingr cleaned standing without a miss to take the lead with one loop to go in the second leg, 6.8 seconds ahead of Austria’s Simon Eder in second. Nelin followed another 8 seconds back in third, and tagged just 0.2 seconds ahead of Austria in the exchange.
The third leg saw Johannes Bø, who had been tagged 31 seconds back in fourth, put Norway in first with a clean prone and a single spare in standing. Samuelsson, who had previously taken silver in the 12.5 k pursuit and placed fourth in the 20 k individual race at these Olympics, put Sweden in a position to win gold, using just one spare to clean prone and shooting without a miss in standing. He latched onto Bø, leading the Norwegian on their final loop and handing off to Lindström just 0.4 seconds behind Norway.
The Swedish men’s gold-medal relay team, with Peppe Femling, Jesper Nelin, Sebastian Samuelsson, and Fredrik Lindström, after winning the last biathlon race of the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
Earlier this season, Sweden won the men’s relay at the IBU World Cup in Oberhof, Germany. The order was the same, except Martin Ponsiluoma skied the first leg, rather than Femling. While the win was a big deal for Sweden, it was against a slightly watered-down field, with some of the top biathletes opting to skip the Oberhof World Cup at the start of the new year.
Friday’s victory marked Sweden’s first Olympic relay gold in biathlon after it earned bronze in 1976 in Innsbruck, Austria, and again in 1992 in Albertville, France.
“It means a lot. It’s the first medal for men’s relay team in biathlon for Swede,” Samuelsson said. “Of course we are really satisfied. We did four good races everyone today and we’re super happy.”
U.S. Ties Olympic-Best 6th
While Austria finished Friday’s relay in fourth (+2:52.5), and France placed fifth (+3:26.6), the U.S. men tied its country’s best Olympic relay result in sixth (+3:50.2) with Lowell Bailey, Sean Doherty, Tim Burke, and Leif Nordgren. They had been 10th after Bailey’s first leg, in which he used two spares in each stage, and improved to sixth, then fifth on Doherty’s and Burke’s legs.
Doherty used just one spare in prone and cleaned standing without a miss, leaving the range in sixth and 42 seconds back with one loop to go. He then tagged Burke in sixth, about 54 seconds out of first, and Burke held that position with a flawless prone stage followed by three spares in standing. He picked off one place on his last loop to tag Nordgren in fifth, 1:38.8 minutes back.
The second-leg skier in the U.S. men’s relay, Sean Doherty racing his team into sixth on Friday at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. They went on to finish sixth to tie the best U.S. Olympic relay result. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
“I’m real happy about that,” Doherty, 22 and in his second Olympics, said of his shooting. “I feel like I struggled with the prone earlier on [at these Olympics] and I got that kind of dialed in today, which was nice. Standing was good. I had a little break in the wind and I took full advantage. I shot pretty fast, pretty aggressive, but I hit all five from the clip and that’s what really moved things up.
“We had a few days after the individual [race] to go back to the drawing board, come back to some of the fundamentals of shooting,” Doherty explained. “It’s nice to kind of reinforce that I’m capable of hitting targets and fixing things. When you’re not shooting well, you don’t have to keep not shooting well, if that makes sense.”
Nordgren incurred the team’s only two penalties on his prone stage, but because of the strung-out field, he hung onto sixth, losing time to those ahead of him. He used three more spares in standing but stayed out of the penalty lap, finishing about about 24 seconds behind France in fifth.
“Honestly it is a little disappointing,” Nordgren said after. “I know we were gunning a lot more as a team. I had some mistakes there in prone, too. That hurt a lot since we were right there in contention with some top teams in the world…
“I will say we had amazing skis today so I pushed really hard on the first loop and I think I got a couple seconds on [Austria’s] Landertinger,” Nordgren added. “And then just in prone … I was just getting thrown around by the wind. It is has given me trouble the whole couple weeks here I obviously never quite figured it out.”
In addition to tying the best U.S. relay result at an Olympics (of sixth place in the men’s relay at the 1972 Olympics in Sapporo, Japan), sixth was a big improvement for this team, which placed 16th at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. It was also the best Olympic relay result for Bailey and Burke, after they placed eighth in the 2014 mixed relay and ninth in the 2006 Olympic men’s relay.
Tim Burke (l) on the range during a difficult standing shooting with France’s Martin Fourcade. While Burke cleaned with three spares, Fourcade had to ski a penalty lap in the men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
Asked whether this was his last Olympic race, Burke said it was.
“Today was a good for me so yeah, I would say yes,” the 36-year-old four-time Olympian said. “Biathlon is a crazy sport; it is so up and down from one race to the next. The emotional rollercoaster is amazing. I am done though.
“It has been my life for so long. It is what I know. It is what I love,” he added. “But it is time for the young guns to step up and take my place.”
Bailey told reporters while the race was still going on that he was glad to finish his Olympic career with a race that didn’t include any penalty laps.
“On a day like today, you saw that France was in the loop, now Germany, so the top nations are in there,” he said. “I cannot tell you how challenging this range is. It is so much different than most of the other ranges we shoot on.
“Every Olympics has been different,” Bailey, also 36 and a four-time Olympian as well as 2017 world champion, reflected of his career. “In Sochi I had my career best with eighth place in the individual, and I will always have that. I will always know what I am capable of. That said, I know what I am capable of and I didn’t reach the bar that I set for myself. But all four Olympics have been honestly an incredible honor to put on Team USA uniform and go out there and compete for my country.
“I know that it’s time to make the next step, to make the next transition,” he continued. “I’m really excited for our future, my family’s future. And I’m really excited for the future of US Biathlon.”
Canada 11th
Canada’s Scott Gow leading American Sean Doherty on the second leg of the men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
Canada finished the race in 11th (+5:40.3). Scott Gow had brought them up to seventh with perfect shooting on both his stages (0+0, 0+0) and tagged Macx Davies about a minute out of first.
“My race pan today was to really emphasize the wind flags, and if it changes direction don’t be afraid to correct for it,” Scott Gow said. “In standing when I came in, it was quite windy, so I just waited a extra couple of seconds and then started to shoot when I felt like it was calm. It is hard to remember that sometimes because you are in the race mode and you just want to get it over with so you can try and just get back on course, so I was happy with that execution.”
Davies, in his first Olympic race, needed three spares to clean prone and slipped to 10th, then had a penalty in standing to leave the range in 12th with one loop to go. He tagged Canada’s anchor Brendan Green in 13th, 4:29 behind. Green went on to use one spare in each of his shooting stages (0+1, 0+1) to bring the team up to 11th at the finish.
Macx Davies skiing the third leg for Canada’s 4 x 7.5 k men’s relay at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
“It wasn’t a great race for me, but I fought through it and pushed myself so that’s all I can ever really do,” the 25-year-old Davies said. “Coming into this race I was kind of just excited to get an Olympic start. We didn’t know if I was in or not until yesterday morning. Then kind of sitting around today, slowing realizing that it was happening tonight and getting a little bit more nervous and a little bit more excited as it went on. That was exciting.
“Being part of the team, being part of Team Canada, it’s such a great feeling, great atmosphere,” Davies added. “Everyday you see someone do something amazing and that just inspires you to keep pushing yourself and do everything in your power to succeed.”
As for Green, he said it’s safe to say these were his last Olympics.
“I’ve been to three Games now and they’ve all been very unique and special in their own way,” the 31-year-old Green said. “I think Korea did a great job hosting. Volunteers are spectacular and so friendly. It’s too bad the weather didn’t cooperate a little bit more, but we did our best We all fought hard and I think we’ll be going away motivated and looking forward to more.”
What’s Next?
While the IBU World Cup season resumes March 8-11 in Kontiolahti, Finland, then makes its next stop in Oslo, Norway, March 15-18, both the Canadian and U.S. teams have stated they will boycott the season-ending World Cup in Tyumen, Russia, March 22-25.
“The latest decision by the IBU was to send the World Cup tour to Tyumen, Russia for our World Cup final,” Bailey said on Friday. “Team USA is boycotting. The Czech team is boycotting. Canada is boycotting. We are trying to rally more support. I know that as an [IBU] athletes’ rep, we had almost every country had athletes that wrote letters to the IBU saying that we do not want to go to Tyumen. We don’t think it’s the right thing for clean sport, and still, the executive board with Anders Besseberg at the helm decided that it was in their best interest to go to Tyumen. So it’s time for a change. IBU leadership needs to change. Besseberg needs to step down. He’s lost the trust of the athletes.”
“We won’t go to Russia,” Green said. “Instead we’ll go back to Canada for nationals. … I think until Russia is compliant we’ll probably continue to take a hard stance until things change.”
Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø celebrates his first Olympic medal — gold — in the men’s 20 k individual on Thursday at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
Johannes Thingnes Bø came into these Olympics as a definite favorite, right up there with Martin Fourcade. But PyeongChang quickly humbled the 24-year-old Norwegian, just as it did Fourcade, in the first race of the 2018 Winter Games. There, in the men’s 10-kilometer sprint, Fourcade finished eighth, missing three out of five in his first shooting stage, and Bø had the same problem with prone — missing three then shooting another penalty in standing — to end up 31st. It was the kind of result no one saw coming after those two had taken first or second in every non-relay World Cup race this season (except for one, the sprint that Bø’s older brother Tarjei Bø won on Dec. 2 in Östersund, Sweden).
The men’s second biathlon race of the Games, the 15 k pursuit, saw Fourcade back to his winning ways while Johannes Bø finished 21st.
“We both [knew] before the Olympics that it will not be only a fight between us, because we know the shooting range [here] is challenging,” Fourcade said when asked about Bø in a press conference after the pursuit. “I thought that at our best level, we could be difficult to beat but the wind and the Olympic situation will bring many opportunities for outsiders to take competition… It’s not a competition about Johannes today. It’s biathlon.”
Three days later in the men’s 20 k individual race on Thursday, Bø overcame any doubts and won his first Olympic medal in his second Games. It was gold, and he had achieved it with a time that stood up against 85 others in the men’s field. Even with two penalties that added two minutes to his final time (there are no penalty laps in the individual-format race), Bø finished the 20 k in 48:03.8 minutes and he posted the fastest overall course time of 43:11.4 in the process.
Despite his two previous races in PyeongChang, Bø — the overall World Cup leader in the 20 k individual — explained in a post-race press conference on Thursday that he never got down on himself.
Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø racing to first in the men’s 20 k individual on Thursday at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. The gold was his first Olympic medal in his second Winter Games. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
“After the two done races, I just let my shoulders down, and I knew there were still two great opportunities for me, individual and mass start,” he said. “Two races I have won before this season, so I knew that there still was a chance even if the sprint and pursuit was my favorite before the Olympics. So I always had the belief that I could do it. And you only need one chance, so if I missed out today there would still be a chance on the mass start, and I always believed that I could make it.”
He started Thursday’s individual race in bib 9 and was one of several of the top contenders who chose an early start because of more favorable conditions earlier in the day. It was the warmest race day yet at the Alpensia biathlon venue, and perhaps most importantly, less windy than it had been. At least that was the case early in the 20 k; the wind picked up as the race wore on.
Bø took the attention away from himself early in the race after missing one in the first prone stage — his third shot. That put him in seventh at the time and ultimately 52nd overall. From that point on, Bø quietly worked his way back into contention, cleaning the next two stages, then missing shot in the last standing stage. But because of his speediness out on the course, he still left the range in first.
In the finishing stretch, Bø nearly took himself out as his pole tip nicked his left ski. But he stayed upright, recollected himself and continued charging to the line. There, he finished 1:22.1 minutes clear of the previous race leader, Sweden’s Fredrik Lindström.
“I put my pole right down on my ski,” Bø told NRK after, according to a translation. “Two to three [centimeters] to the left and I would’ve put the pole on the inside of the ski, but it would’ve went well anyway, but you never know.”
As the rest of the starters embarked on the five-loop course and navigated the four shooting stages, it became evident that no one was going to touch Bø. He sat inside the leader’s cubicle at the venue, which had a small couch and TV to watch the rest of the race, along with a race-leader camera documenting his every move. He wasn’t glued to the screen by any means. It was probably hard for him to watch.
France’s Martin Fourcade (23) follows Sweden’s Fredrik Lindström (1) during the men’s 20 k individual at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. Fourcade went on to place fifth while Lindström placed eighth. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
Initially, Fourcade came closest to him, finishing 42.4 seconds off his time in second place. The Frenchman had been on track for his second-straight gold after cleaning the first three stages of Thursday’s race, but he missed his last two shots to slip to second behind Bø. And he couldn’t beat the Norwegian on the last loop; despite skiing the second-fastest final loop and second-fastest overall course time, Fourcade was still second to Bø, who was the fastest on both.
“That was like a gift,” Bø said at the press conference of Fourcade’s uncharacteristic late misses. “Even if he only had missed one of the two last [shots] he would have been the winner. But, you know, someone will miss one in the first shooting and one in the last, and others make two mistakes on the last shooting, so you just have to see for the total. And we both had two mistakes today and I was a little bit faster than him and that saved my result.”
Austria’s Dominik Landertinger racing to bronze in the men’s 20 k individual at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
Fourcade as the 23rd starter was later bumped off the podium by Austria’s Dominik Landertinger (bib 38) and Sweden’s Sebastien Samuelsson (bib 51), respectively. While Landertinger hung on for the medals, Samuelsson missed his second-consecutive Olympic medal in fourth place (+29.1), 14.9 seconds behind Landertinger.
While Landertinger had shot a perfect 20-for-20 and Samuelsson was one off that mark with a single penalty (0+0+1+0), the 57th starter, Slovenia’s Jakov Fak finished ahead of them both and just 5.5 seconds behind Bø for the silver medal. Like Landertinger, who earned bronze (+14.2), Fak was one of just three men who cleaned all four stages on Thursday. (Ukraine’s Artem Tyshchenko, who finished 29th, was the other.)
Once Fak finished, Bø could finally exhale and celebrate. He had done it.
“After the first shooting, I still believed that a medal could be won, could be possible, but after the last standing I thought I missed out on the podium,” Bø reflected at the press conference.
“I’m glad I fought through the final lap even with two misses,” he told NRK. “Because I thought the medals wouldn’t be possible, but I felt good, and I had no problems with changing gears out in the course. And thank God I did, because I ended up with the gold in the end.”
Bø’s previous Olympic best was fourth in the men’s relay at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia. He is a three-time world champion and won three golds at biathlon Junior World Championships, two of which came in relays in 2012 and 2013. Between that time of transitioning from the junior ranks to the World Cup in 2013, Bø became best known as the young and hard-charging biathlete with the gold-painted rifle. He later painted it pink, before going back to gold in the leadup to PyeongChang.
“I had a pink rifle for two years and I wanted to change it before the Olympics,” Bø said at the press conference. “The first season I came into the World Cup I had a golden rifle.”
The men’s 20 k individual podium at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, with Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø (c) in first, Slovenia’s Jakov Fak (l) in second, and Austria’s Dominik Landertinger (r) in third. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
After stepping back outside and into the stadium, Bø began to tear up. He finally connected with his brother Tarjei, who had finished 13th with two penalties, and they embraced in a special moment.
“It’s a great feeling,” Bø said of what it’s like to be an Olympic champion. “To describe with one word is just ‘amazing’. It’s every nice words you can find.”
For Fak, 30, who missed all but two World Cup races last season because of health issues, he said the silver medal was a “dream come true.” Earlier this season, he placed second in two World Cup pursuits.
“At the last Olympics in Sochi, I was sick before the Olympic Games,” Fak said at the press conference. “I fought until the last race to get some medals and my best result was fourth place in the mass start, so I missed it and it was a big struggle for me, the last two seasons were very hard. I was sick all the time. Last season I had only two starts on the World Cup and it would be better if I didn’t even have them. I had really a lot of problems and to come back into the whole season was a very big victory for me.”
Slovenia’s Jakov Fak pushing for silver in the men’s 20 k individual at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
After different illnesses plagued him last year — “I would train for two weeks and another sickness would come,” he recalled — Fak considered hanging up his rifle and quitting the sport. But his coach encouraged him to stick with it.
“We made a good plan. It was not to be on the highest level on the World Cup, but just to come back,” Fak explained. “And everything that I’ve done this season, the podiums, are just a big bonus for me.”
Landertinger, 29, earned his second Olympic bronze after helping Austria to third in the men’s relay in Sochi. He also has a relay silver from 2010 in Vancouver, British Columbia, but Thursday marked his first individual Olympic medal.
In September, he had back surgery to repair a herniated disc, and he didn’t start his World Cup season until early last month.
“I am really overwhelmed,” Landertinger told Austrian broadcaster ORF, according to a translation. “The last year was extremely tough. During the last races I already was a little bit despaired, and now the bronze medal, that is crazy. On the course I again did not feel good today, but I fought and put out everything I could. There were a lot of beautiful moments in my career, this medal was the most difficult one. Today I had to do it with the shooting, and that worked out.”
Fourcade ended up fifth on the day (+42.4), Switzerland’s Benjamin Weger placed sixth (+48.6) with one penalty, the Czech Republic’s Michal Krčmář finished seventh (+1:15.5) with one miss, and Lindström was eighth (+1:22.1) with one penalty as well.
Scott Gow’s Career-Best 14th
In his first Olympics, Canada’s Scott Gow raced to 14th (+2:02.5) for his best Olympic result by nearly 50 places after finishing 61st in the PyeongChang sprint. Gow cleaned three-consecutive stages then missed his first shot on the final standing (0+0+0+1) to slip out of the top 10. Regardless, 14th was still better than his career-best World Cup result after he had finished 16th in two races this season.
Canada’s Scott Gow racing to 14th in the men’s 20 k individual on Thursday at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. It was his career best at the World Cup and world-championships level. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
“I was very happy with it,” Gow said of his result in a post-race interview with FasterSkier. “A little disappointed to miss that one standing shot, especially when everything was going quite well in the range. Skiing was pretty good, and so overall I am very happy.”
Without having spoken with his coach yet, Gow wasn’t exactly sure where his lone miss went wrong, but he guessed it was a close one.
“I have a feeling that I missed it just high,” the 27 year old said. “That’s usually where I miss in standing, especially when it feels good. If it feels like it was good, if it feels like it was hit, I probably missed it just high.”
With weaker and less variable wind than in previous biathlon races this week, Gow said that presented a new challenge.
“When it’s this calm, relatively as calm, everyone can shoot well,” he observed. “So that puts a little extra pressure and emphasis on myself to shoot well. So going into today I knew that would be have to the focus, to hit targets, because even if my skiing is a little off I can make up for it with a really good shooting. And that was what was going through my head the last few days preparing for this.”
Looking ahead to the remaining races in PyeongChang, Gow said the hardest ones were over.
“Now it’s the relays,” he said. “And my body feels like it’s in fairly good shape. I was happy with my skiing today, and again, my shooting was much better today and it has been good all week. So as long as I can maintain a good training mode and a good training rhythm, I think it will be good, and I am optimistic.”
Canada’s Brendan Green racing to 22nd in the men’s 20 k individual at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
Canada had three in the top 30 with Brendan Green in 22nd (+2:26.6), with a single miss in the last stage (0+0+0+1), and Christian Gow in 26th (+2:57.2), with two penalties (1+0+0+1). For 24-year-old Christian Gow in his first Olympics, it was a big improvement from 62nd in the sprint.
“I think I kind of reset after the sprint. It was not even close to what I wanted,” Christian, Scott’s younger brother, told FasterSkier after. “But I guess what I realized kind of internalizing that race is that I am not defined by one race that I had. Of course of all the times that you want to perform is the Olympic Games. It was a bit of a bummer, and I looked at it as a chance to refocus for the races to come, obviously including this one.
“I was very happy with my effort,” Christian said before he knew his final result. “I felt like I had good energy on skis and was able to push the whole time, and more than anything I am just happy with what I did out there today.”
Canada’s Christian Gow racing to 26th in the men’s 20 k individual on Thursday for his best result at his first Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
Green, 31, was also pleased with his performance after placing 82nd in the sprint four days ago.
“I was a little worried going into today after the sprint. I mean, the sprint you had the wind, but I also had a pretty rough day on the skis as well,” he told FasterSkier. “So I was a little bit worried as to how today would play out, but I did a good race prep yesterday. I didn’t have a ton of guys to ski with today, but there were always people kind of within sight … I just tried to keep a pace that I could maintain and really focus on the shooting range.
“I think I was really able to capitalize on these less-windy conditions that we finally had today,” Green said. “And to get away with one miss, that’s a good day for sure.”
American Tim Burke en route to 41st in the men’s 20 k individual at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
In his fourth Olympics, Tim Burke was the top American in 41st (+4:01.9), a result he wasn’t happy with, after shooting four penalties (1+1+0+2).
“The strategy is always the same: it’s just to execute the game plan, and tonight I struggled with that on the range,” he told FasterSkier after. “I felt like I was decent on the skis, not great but not bad. … I felt like I tried to follow through with my plan, and some days it’s easier than others. And today it didn’t work out.”
Sean Doherty followed in 44th (+4:21.8) with three penalties (2+0+1+0).
“Prone has continued to have a few gremlins in it for me,” the 22-year-old two-time Olympian said. “I worked on it the last couple days in training, but I mean, today was less wind and I was looking forward to that, so I still have just a couple things to work out with it. Standing was great, felt super solid, skied well. You know, those two out of three categories went well, so prone is just continuing to plague me. It’s unfortunate.”
Lowell Bailey, the defending world champion in the 20 k individual, finished 51st (+4:53.0) after missing his first two shots of the day in the first prone then incurring two additional penalties (2+1+0+1). The four penalties added four minutes to his time.
Afterwards, Bailey was beside himself.
“I think shock is really the only way to describe it, completely shocked to miss those two,” he told FasterSkier. “I’ve never started an individual [race] like that. I felt really good about the shooting going into this, I had a game plan, I really felt like I had everything — I had a good plan, it just didn’t work out.
American Lowell Bailey gets up off the mat and ready to head back onto the course after a shooting stage in the men’s 20 k individual at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, where he finished 51st. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
“I knew the shooting conditions were more to my liking today and I felt really good about my training leading into it, especially on the shooting range, I felt like this was the race I had a good chance to do well in,” he continued. “The wind got me. It was just enough to push me out on the right side. The wind’s tricky here, sometimes it doesn’t register as strong as it actually is, so missing two shots right off the bat, that’s just a really tough way to start the race.”
At that point, he said he had two options.
“You can decide to give it your best because you’re representing your country or you can throw in the towel,” Bailey said. “And I think if there’s one thing I can take away from this race it’s that I never gave up.”
The fourth American finisher, Leif Nordgren placed 64th (+6:27.3) with five penalties (1+1+3+0). Canada’s Nathan Smith ended the race in 81st (+8:11.9) with five misses as well (0+1+4+0).
“I think it was a shooting race today,” Smith noted. “That was my focus. I felt comfortable taking it a little bit easier on the tracks. Unfortunately my third shooting, my second prone, was a disaster. I don’t know what happened. Other than that, my shooting was excellent. I’ll have to ask [coach Matthias Ahrens]. I was adjusting and I don’t know, [the targets] wouldn’t go down that time.”
Moving forward, Smith said he would take it easy in the days leading up to the relay next week. The mixed relay (2 women, 2 men per team) is scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 20 and the men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay — the last biathlon race of the Games — is next Friday, Feb. 23.
No North Americans qualified for the 30-athlete mass start, with the men’s 15 k mass start taking place on Sunday.
It was a disappointing opening to the Olympics for Johannes Thingnes Bø of Norway, who despite winning eight World Cup races this season started the Games with finishes of 31st and 21st in the sprint and pursuit. But on Thursday he showed why he was a medal favorite and won the 20 k individual race – only by 5.5 seconds, but that margin becomes impressive when you consider that he had two penalties, and thus two minutes of penalty time, while silver and bronze medalists Jakov Fak of Slovenia and Dominik Landertinger of Austria (+14.2) shot clean.
Johannes Thinges Bø celebrates with Norwegian team staff after winning Olympic gold in the 20 k individual despite two missed shots. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld.com)
Sweden’s Sebastian Samuelsson followed up a silver medal in the pursuit with fourth place in the individual, missing one shot and notching a time 29.1 seconds behind Bø. France’s Martin Fourcade, gold medalist in the pursuit, missed two shots like Bø but finished in fifth (+42.4). Switzerland’s Benjamin Weger placed sixth (+48.6) with one penalty.
It was a good day for Canada on the back of strong shooting: Scott Gow placed 14th (+2:02.5) with one penalty for a career-best result result; he had previously had two 16th-place finishes on the World Cup this season. With the same shooting, Brendan Green placed 22nd (+2:26.6). Christian Gow had two penalties to finish 26th (+2:57.2). Canada’s fourth man, Nathan Smith, missed five shots and placed 81st (+8:11.9).
For the United States, shooting was not as successful and Tim Burke led the way in 41st (+4:01.9) with four penalties. With one less penalty Sean Doherty was close behind in 44th (+4:21.8). Lowell Bailey placed 51st with four penalties (+4:53.0) and Leif Nordgren missed five shots to finish 66th (+6:27.3).
Sweden’s Hanna Oeberg (center) won gold in the biathlon women’s 15 k pursuit, followed by Slovakia’s Anastasiya Kuzmina (left) in silver and Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier in bronze. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld.com)
A few days after teammate Samuelson scored a career-best result to earn silver in the pursuit, Hanna Öberg of Sweden used perfect 20-for-20 shooting to capture gold in the women’s 15 k individual. The 22-year-old’s previous best results were fifth place in both Monday’s pursuit, and in a World Cup race last season.
She bested the two pre-race favorites: Anastasiya Kuzmina of Slovakia had two penalties but still managed a silver medal, her second of the games, finishing +24.7. And double gold medalist Laura Dahlmeier of Germany had one penalty and earned bronze (+41.2).
It was a good day for both of those teams as Franziska Preuss of Germany finished fourth, +59.0 with clean shooting, and Paulina Fialkova of Slovakia placed sixth (+1:02.3) with one missed shot. Poland’s Monika Hojnicz finished sixth (+1:54.8) with one missed shot as well.
The United States was led by Susan Dunklee in 19th, with two penalties (+3:26.3). Her teammate Joanne Reid finished 22nd (+3:34.1), her best-ever result in top-level international competition, with just one missed shot. Clare Egan finished 62nd (+6:53.6) and Emily Dreissigacker 67th (+7:09.2) with four penalties apiece.
For Canada, Rosanna Crawford led the way in 26th (+3:48.7) with two penalties and Sarah Beaudry was close behind in 29th (+3:58.4) with one missed shot. Emma Lunder finished 54th (+5:49.4) with three penalties and Julia Ransom was 74th (+8:31.4) with five missed shots.
Montana State University student Johanna Talihärm of Estonia finished 50th (+5:36.8) with three penalties.
Thursday afternoon saw more of the same for the women’s cross-country ski events at this year’s Winter Olympics: Scandinavia filling up the podium, with American Jessie Diggins tantalizingly close to that breakthrough American podium in fifth. This time it was Norwegian Ragnhild Haga in first in the 10 kilometer freestyle individual start, Charlotte Kalla of Sweden in second (+20.3), and Finland’s Krista Pärmäkoski and Norway’s Marit Bjørgen tied for third (+31.9).
The bronze is Bjørgen’s 12th lifetime Olympic medal, moving her into a tie with fellow Norwegian Bjørn Dæhlie for the most Olympic medals won by a cross-country skier. Countryman Ole Einar Bjørndalen, a biathlete, holds the overall Winter Olympics record with 13.
Diggins was 35.2 seconds back of Haga in fifth. She was in seventh place through 1.6 k, up to fifth at 5 k, up to third at 6.2 k, and still in third at the 8.4-k time checkpoint, 1.9 seconds up on Bjørgen and five seconds up on Pärmäkoski. But her form seemed to break down over the final uphill, and Diggins lost just enough time on Bjørgen and Pärmäkoski over the final 1.6 k to slip off the podium.
Between a 4.6-second deficit to third in Saturday’s skiathlon and a 3.3-second gap here, Diggins has now missed two bronze medals by a combined 7.9 seconds over 25 kilometers of racing.
Jessie Diggins pushing to the finish in the Olympic 10 k skate. The American finished fifth. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
Sixth place went to Swiss skier Nathalie von Siebenthal (+49.8), who slowed slightly after a fast start that saw her with the second-ranked time through 1.6 k. Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (+1:05.5), in seventh, was the third Norwegian in the top seven.
Olympic Athlete from Russia Anastasia Sedova (+1:07.3), Austrian Teresa Stadlober (+1:15.6), and Olympic Athlete from Russia Anna Nechaevskaya (+1:24.3) rounded out the top ten.
Sadie Bjornsen (+1:42.1) in 15th and Kikkan Randall (+1:49.9) in 16th were the next two Americans. Randall started relatively early with bib number 23, and was the leader in the clubhouse when she crossed the finish line. Liz Stephen (+2:35.4) was 30th.
For the Canadians, Emily Nishikawa (+2:41.) led the way in 32nd. Dahria Beatty (+2:48.4) was 37th, Cendrine Brown (+3:11.9) 43rd, and Anne-Marie Comeau (+4:10.8) 62nd.
Also of note, Australia’s Jessica Yeaton, who lives and trains in Anchorage with Alaska Pacific University, recorded an Olympics personal best finish of 41st (+3:09.1). University of Alaska Anchorage student Casey Wright, also competing for Australia, finished 81st (+6:55.8).
University of Colorado skier and NCAA champion Petra Hyncicova of the Czech Republic finished 60th (+4:09.4). University of New Hampshire alum Annika Taylor of Great Britain finished 75th (+5:52.4).
And Jaqueline Mourau of Brazil, who lives and trains in Quebec, was 74th (+5:49.8).
The Norwegian men’s relay after winning the 4 x 7.5 k on Friday at the IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany, with Lars Helge Birkeland (l), Tarjei Bø (far r), Emil Hegle Svendsen (second from r), and Johannes Thingnes Bø (second from l). It was their second win of the season (after winning with Ole Einar Bjørndalen, Henrik L’Abée-Lund, and Erlend Bjøntegaard, and Birkeland in the first men’s relay of the 2017/2018 season in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
IBU World Cup (Ruhpolding, Germany): Men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay
Less than a week after Sweden won the men’s 4 x 7.5-kilometer relay in Oberhof, Germany, with an up-and-coming group, Norway posted its second win (in three relays) this season, with an all-star lineup on Friday in Ruhpolding, Germany.
Lars Helge Birkeland, Tarjei Bø, Emil Hegle Svendsen, and Johannes Thingnes Bø took the lead during Johannes Bø’s anchor leg and ultimately the win in 1:13:11.1 hours, 24.9 seconds ahead of France in second and 53.4 seconds ahead of Russia in third.
On a bluebird day with no wind in the range, according to an International Biathlon Union (IBU) press release, the Norwegians avoided the penalty lap and used seven spares to clean. First-leg skier Birkeland put them in second with near-perfect shooting (0+0, 0+1), just 0.4 seconds behind Germany’s Erik Lesser, who cleaned without any spares, in first. (Birkeland was also on the Norwegian team that won the first relay of the season in Hochfilzen, Austria.)
Norway remained in second during Tarjei Bø’s second leg, in which he had to use three spares to clean prone (0+3, 0+0). He tagged Svendsen in second, 0.6 seconds behind Italy, which had risen to first thanks to Lukas Hofer’s fast skiing and solid shooting (0+0, 0+2).
Svendsen slipped slightly to third place by the final exchange despite only needing one spare to clean (0+0, 0+1), but was still just a second out of first at the tag. France had moved into first place with a predictably strong third leg from Martin Fourcade (0+0, 0+0), in which he brought the team from seventh to first place, just ahead of Italy’s Dominik Windisch and Norway’s Svendsen.
Johannes Bø skied the third-fastest anchor leg and cleaned prone and used two spares in standing (0+0, 0+2) to overtake France’s Antonin Guigonnat and Italy’s Thierry Chenal, who slipped to second and seventh, respectively, by the finish.
Guigonnat shot well, requiring just one spare (0+1, 0+0), but finished nearly 25 seconds after Bø for second place. Russia reached the podium with Anton Shipulin picking off two places, after being tagged in fifth.
In all, France had zero penalties and six spares, with Simon Desthieux, Quentin Fillon Maillet, Fourcade, and Guigonnat, and Russia used a total of just four spares and had no penalties with Alexey Volkov, Maxim Tsvetkov, Anton Babikov, and Shipulin.
Germany finished fourth (+1:26.5) with zero penalties and 10 spares, with Lesser, Benedikt Doll, Arnd Peiffer and Simon Schempp. After Doll dropped to fifth on the second leg, they skied in fourth on the last two legs.
Austria took fifth (+1:39.8) with zero penalties and six spares, with David Komatz, Simon Eder, Daniel Mesotitsch, and Dominik Landertinger. Sweden followed in sixth (+1:50.6) with zero penalties, six spares and three of the same men who won last Sunday’s relay (Sebastian Samuelsson, Martin Ponsiluoma and Fredrik Lindström) with new member Torstein Stenersen. Italy finished seventh (+1:58.5) with one penalty and 11 spares.
Of 26 teams in the relay, Canada placed 14th (+3:22.3) with one penalty and 10 spares, and the U.S. finished 24th (+16:21.6) with eight penalties (four of which stemmed from cross-firing) and 13 spares.
Notably, the U.S. had been fourth and just 3 seconds out of first after Lowell Bailey’s first leg, which he cleaned without any spares (0+0, 0+0). Leif Nordgren then dropped to 22nd with a penalty in each of his shooting stages (1+3, 1+3) and the 25th-ranked second-leg time. Tim Burke as the team’s third leg had to ski two penalty laps as well (0+2, 2+3), and anchor Sean Doherty was penalized for cross-firing in his last standing stage (0+1, 4+1), according to a US Biathlon press release, and the team was hit with four additional penalties.
“We have a solid team and I know we didn’t show our true potential today,” Bailey said, according to the release. “But the most important relay is still to come. We’ll just have to wait until then.”
“I was happy to put together a good race on the track and in the range,” he said. “The first lap was a bit of a roller derby with no easy way to get to the front. I was fortunate to clean without extra rounds because this allowed me to leapfrog up to the lead pack exiting the range. I tried to keep an even pace for loop two and I thought I would be able to hang in second or third, but no one wanted to pass so I had to lead for most of the loop.
“I had struggled in standing in the previous race so I wanted to get back to taking good shots in standing,” he added. “Although I didn’t shoot as quickly as some of the other guys, I felt good about the stage and the fact that I didn’t have to use extras. It was a fight to catch the lead group on the last loop, but fortunately I had some help from [Italy’s Thomas] Bormolini (of Italy) and we worked together to get back in contact with the lead group.”
Canada finished 14th with Christian Gow, Scott Gow, Macx Davies, and Brendan Green. On the opening leg, Christian Gow put them in 11th with clean prone shooting and just one spare needed to clean standing (0+0, 0+1), but they slipped one spot to 12th with a penalty on Scott Gow’s second leg (0+0, 1+3). Davies then dropped two more places to 14th despite avoiding the penalty lap (0+3, 0+1), and Green held that position to the finish (0+1, 0+1).
The women’s 4 x 6 k relay will be held Saturday in Ruhpolding, with Canada starting Emma Lunder, Julia Ransom, Sarah Beaudry, and Rosanna Crawford. For the U.S., it will be Susan Dunklee, Clare Egan, Emily Dreissigacker, and Joanne Reid. Watch it live on the Olympic Channel at 8:30 a.m. EST.
Finland’s Mari Laukkanen celebrates her first IBU World Cup victory on Friday in the last women’s 7.5 k sprint of the season at Holmenkollen in Oslo, Norway. (Photo: IBU)
For races and ski jumpings at the famous Holmenkollen arena on a hillside above Oslo, a frequent visitor in the audience is the King Harald V of Norway, a passionate and knowledgeable fan of all nordic sports. And usually the winners of the competition get the honor of being invited up to the royal suite overlooking the arena.
On Friday in the women’s 7.5-kilometer sprint at the Interntional Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup final in Oslo, American Susan Dunklee was on pace to maybe get that much-vaunted meeting with the king and his family, setting the best time after the prone shooting that no other athlete starting behind her could get close to anymore, with the next-best competitor more than 20 seconds behind at this point.
But perhaps she started out a little too fast, and high winds posed an additional challenge on the shooting range for all the athletes.
“Normally I am good at executing a smart controlled pacing plan but today I hammered straight out of the start and tried to hold on,” Dunklee wrote in an email to FasterSkier. “It made for a very painful second half of the race.”
“I felt like I had rammed into a wall during the final two loops,” she added, according to a US Biathlon press release.
In the end, a victory was no longer in the cards for Dunklee after she shot two misses in her standing stage, and the king instead got to meet Finland’s Mari Laukkanen after her first World Cup win in a time of 20:33.5 minutes, and later in the day with Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø, who won the men’s race and was one of his subjects he was already familiar with.
US Biathlon’s Susan Dunklee racing to seventh place in the women’s 7.5-kilometer sprint at the 2017 IBU World Cup in Oslo, Norway. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
Dunklee initially finished sixth, before later being pushed down one more position to seventh place (+56.7). It was her sixth top-10 finish in her last seven individual races at the end of a remarkably consistent season.
“On a windy day, half the battle is deciding the best correction to take; the other half is feeling confident in whatever decision you make,” Dunklee said of shooting. “Today I felt confident in prone. During my standing stage the wind wasn’t that bad, I just made a couple bad shots … I love racing in Holmenkollen. The crowd has a positive energy and the stadium is steeped in so much tradition.”
Despite a tough end to her own race day, Dunklee was also happy about the first World Cup victory of Laukkanen.
“Mari has always been nice and easy to talk to,” she added. “During my first year on the World Cup she invited our team to her family’s cabin near Kontiolahti for sauna-ing. I am happy to see her win.”
On Friday, all three women on the podium shot clean in both stages despite the difficult conditions.
Laukkanen started early in the field with bib 7, and combined with the third-best course time of the day set a time in the finish that would not be matched by anyone in the field of 103 starters.
Starting just three bibs behind her, France’s Justine Braisaz came closest, leaving the range after the standing shooting just 14.4 seconds behind and continuously closing the gap on the final loop by skiing the fastest course time of the day, but it was not enough to catch up to Laukkanen anymore finishing 7.9 seconds behind.
Braisaz’s teammate Anais Bescond started in the second group with bib 41, and her clean shooting and solid performance on the course with the 15th-ranked course time were enough to grab the third position on the podium (+23.1).
“It feels good to shoot 0-0, the last time I shot that I was also on the podium, I should do it more often it seems,” a smiling Laukkenen said during the press conference. “I had a full crisis with myself yesterday, I was looking at my statistics and I could see that I am running stable and strong to make higher results, but I am constantly missing one or two too much. So it feels good today to make it.”
Asked about the conditions in her shooting stages, she added, “It was not an easy day for sure, and I didn’t expect it to happen. I was a little bit lucky on the standing stage. It hasn’t been easy (for me) to clean it even without wind. So I am just happy to do it, and that it was enough to win today.”
The 29-year-old Finn said she had to take a longer break after a disappointing last season, before she decided to continue with her athletic career. Earlier in the 2016/2017 season, Laukkanen had also taken time away from biathlon in order to qualify for and compete in the cross-country World Championships at home in Lahti, Finland, where she reached the semifinal in the women’s sprint. At the IBU World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria, she narrowly missed a medal in the 15 k individual finishing fourth.
“I was a little bit nervous,” Laukkanen said about meeting the king on Friday. “For a Finn, it’s always special to win here in Holmenkollen. It’s a legendary place, mostly because of the cross-country history. It feels good.”
For Braisaz, it was the second podium of the season, and with the second place she tied her career-best.
“I really enjoy Oslo and Holmenkollen,” Braisaz said in the press conference. “I hoped to stay concentrated and to stay focused until the end of the season. But I was not very confident about my shooting. Especially in January and February, I was not very successful on the shooting range. So I decided to work for the future, for the next years, and to just enjoy it even though it was very windy today… I don’t think the conditions changed too much today (throughout the field), but some athletes probably were not fortunate and had no chance to clean.”
For her teammate Bescond, it was her third podium of the season. Despite her good form, she had only received one start in the individual race at the World Championships in Hochfilzen, and also was not nominated for France’s relay teams.
“I feel full of energy because I didn’t compete much in February,” Bescond stated in the press conference. “Now I feel good while a lot of girls here are probably tired now… It was my goal after Hochfilzen to be good in March. I am really happy with my result… My three medals from the (2016) World Championships in Oslo were a really good memory, and when I come back here I always have a lot of good things in my mind.”
Koukalová Takes Sprint Title
Gabriela Koukalova of the Czech Republic with her “crystal globe” after winning of the 2016/2017 sprint discipline award following the IBU World Cup women’s 7.5 k sprint on Friday in Oslo, Norway. (Photo: IBU)
Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier had gone into the last sprint race of the season with a 28-point lead over Gabriela Koukalová of the Czech Republic — a lead that looked fairly secure for the recently very consistent winner of the overall World Cup.
But in Friday’s race, Dahlmeier struggled with the tricky wind conditions, incurring three penalties in the prone shooting which set her back all the way to a 93rd place, before she could move up again with a clean standing shooting, but in the end her time in the finish was only sufficient for the 31st place this time.
That was not enough to match Koukalová, who only shot one penalty (0+1) and initially finished third, before Bescond bumped her to fourth (+37.4). Dahlmeier would have needed at least one more athlete to finish ahead of the Czech, who made up 33 points to finish ahead still claiming the “small globe” in that discipline.
“Today’s race somehow was jinxed,” a disappointed Dahlmeier later told German broadcaster ARD. “That started last night with the bib draw when I got unlucky with the last position in the first group, and I think I picked the wrong skis today, in terms of waxing we were not competitive with the very best, I didn’t feel so fit anymore, and then in prone a giant screw-up happened to me. There was quite some wind, I have to analyze it again but if I remember correctly I clicked in the wrong direction [adjusting the sights]. That moved the shots left, and then the race was all but over.“
“Of course life goes on, it was still a crazy season,” she added. “I only would have liked to show another good race in the fight for the sprint globe … Today I wouldn’t even have needed a perfect race, just a good one, that would have been sufficient.”
After the race, Dahlmeier still received her “crystal globe” for the season’s winner of the 15 k individual discipline as a consolation. Two days of racing remain on the schedule: Saturday’s pursuit and Sunday’s mass start.
Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen placed third in the overall sprint ranking, after finishing 27th on Friday with four penalties (+1:44.6).
Three North Americans in Pursuit
Dunklee will be joined in Saturday’s 10 k pursuit by teammate Clare Egan, who finished 34th with one penalty (+2:03.7). The third American, Joanne Reid placed 80th with five penalties (4+1), 3:32.2 out of first.
One Canadian qualified as well, with Julia Ransom fininishing 52nd with two penalties in her standing stage (0+2), 2:28.9 back, after having been ranked as high as ninth after prone.
In her second World Cup weekend, Canada’s 19-year-old Megan Bankes finished 64th (+2:53.0) with two penalties (1+1), missing the qualification for the pursuit by 12 seconds.
Sarah Beaudry was 75th (+3:20.5) with three penalties (2+1), while the fourth Canadian Emma Lunder in 84th with the same shooting result (+3:46.7).
“We have an incredible team of ski service technicians and coaching staff who plan to give 110 percent until the last race is done,” Dunklee said, according to the press release. “I have two tremendous opportunities still in front of me with these last races and I don’t plan on wasting them.”
Dunklee will be in a very good position for the pursuit, starting 33 seconds behind the podium and less than a minute behind Laukkanen. Only reportedly the schedule of the King of Norway won’t permit him to attend the biathlon races on Saturday and Sunday, so there likely will be no meeting should she be successful there.
In the Women’s Nation Cup Score, which is its own World Cup award category but also determines the starter quota spots for the following season, Germany’s women’s team secured the victory and the crystal globe with 7951 points, ahead of France (7646) and Ukraine (6605).
The U.S. finished 14th with 4743 points (despite not starting a relay in Pokljuka, Slovenia, earlier this season), while Canada tied Finland for 15th with 4619 points. Both North American teams will retain the four guaranteed World Cup starter spots for sprints and individual races they already had this season, which enables them to travel the World Cup circuit with a full team.
***
Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø (c) after winning in the men’s 10-kilometer sprint at the 2017 IBU World Cup in Oslo, Norway, ahead of France’s Martin Fourcade in second (l) and Russia’s Anton Shipulin in third place. (Photo: IBU)
Bø Wins Men’s Sprint; U.S. Men 10th in Nation Cup
Later on Friday, Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø got to meet King Harald V after winning the men’s 10 k sprint, shooting clean in much calmer wind conditions than during the women’s race to finish in a time of 24:53.3.
“That’s always nice,” Bø said in the press conference when asked about meeting the king. “It’s my second time, and that’s the most memorable thing for this season I think.”
It was the second win of the season for the Norwegian and the 13th of his career. After starting early in bib 15, Bø had to wait a long time to see if anyone could still beat his time.
“Of course I was happy about my race, but since I lost some seconds on the last lap I was not sure if it would hold for the win,” Bø commented in the press conference. “It was a long wait, but in the end it was worth it and I am very happy to get a win here.”
“It’s quite nice to be back at Holmenkollen,” Bø added. “Today was quite hard conditions … I think a lot of athletes started hard but got really tired. We had very good skis today, that helped me a lot… In shooting when the people cheer for you between the shots, I feel that helps and makes it more easy to hit the next target. That is the biggest advantage, but of course there is also the pressure.”
France’s Martin Fourcade, the dominant male biathlete of the season who reached the podium in all but three individual races, finished second (+13.6) after missing a shot in his standing shooting and having to ski a penalty lap, and only being able to make up 10 seconds on the final loop.
“I am angry about my miss for sure,” Fourcade said at the press conference. “I think I had the power to clean it, but I am not angry about my competition. Johannes was really good today, he was at 100 percent and I can just congratulate him to his victory. I am really satisfied with my second place.”
Fourcade had already secured himself the “small crystal globe” title in the sprint discipline, and is anxiously awaiting the birth of his second child any day now.
“I think my biggest challenge was to be ready for this race in spite of the challenging preparation,” he explained. “I went back to France on Sunday, and then I had a long travel to Oslo again on Wednesday missing my connection. I had only one little training yesterday to be ready for this competition. So I am really satisfied about the job I did today, and my team helped me a lot to be ready.”
Starting very late in bib 106 out of 108 starters, Russia’s Anton Shipulin (+21.3) shot clean and bested Austria’s Dominik Landertinger, who had a penalty in standing, off the podium by just 0.2 seconds (+21.5).
“Of course I am satisfied to be on the podium, because the guys were very strong today and I fought until the end,” Shipulin said via a translator in the press conference. “I was very well informed (about my position) during the race. I am thankful to all the staff and the fans who kept me informed and motivated.”
“I think it was an advantage to start early today because the tracks were not that firm anymore in the end,” he added. “I had to move from left to right all the time especially in the downhills and it was quite challenging.”
“In principle I had a perfect race today,” Landertinger told Austrian broadcaster ORF after narrowly missing out on the podium. “If you want to be in the mix in front, you have to take some risk on the shooting range. Usually one miss is too much for a podium position in sprint, although of course it was damn close today.”
For the U.S, Sean Doherty was the top finisher in 35th with two penalties (0+2). He had been in 18th after the prone shooting stage, and after skiing 300 extra meters due to his penalties in standing he was still able to make up a few positions on the final loop with the 24th-ranked course time (29th-fastest overall). A week ago in the pursuit in Kontiolahti, Finland, Doherty achieved his best individual result of the season in 18th place after shooting clean in the four-stage race.
Lowell Bailey, who had a recent series of strong shooting performances on his road to a gold medal in the individual race at World Championships and two second-place finishes in the sprint in PyeongChang, South Korea, and the single mixed relay (with teammate Dunklee) in Kontiolahti, initially shot clean in prone on Friday and left the range in 11th position. In standing, he had three penalties, which set him back to 50th position and Bailey ultimately finished 44th (+1:51.6).
The three starters for Biathlon Canada missed qualifying in the top 60 for the pursuit.
Christian Gow shot clean, but skied the 91st-ranked course time to finish 61st (+2:25.8), just one position and less than two seconds behind Bulgaria’s Dimitar Gerdzhikov in 60th (+2:24.5). Brendan Green had a penalty in each stage (1+1) to finish 85th (+2:58.6), while Scott Gow was 95th (+3:25.1) with one penalty (0+1).
Also missing the pursuit were the final two American starters Paul Schommer in 98th (+3:41.9) and Leif Nordgren in 100th (+4:07.9), each with three penalties (2+1).
Despite not making many points in the final race of the season counting to the Nation Cup Score, the U.S. men finished in 10th place in those standings with 5290 points, thereby also securing an additional fifth quota spot for next season’s regular-season World Cups (the top five teams get six, sixth to 10th get five, 11th to 17th get four, and so on). Canada finished 13th with 4625 points, and will keep the four spots they had this season. Just like the women, Germany secured the World Cup win in this category with 7448 points, narrowly ahead of France with 7416 points, and Russia in third (7192) just ahead of Norway (7181).
“Germany has a great team, and they deserve this victory in the Nations Score,” Fourcade said during the press conference. “France never won it, so of course it was a really big goal and we are disappointed about not winning it. But that’s the game of sport, and we will try to win it next season.”
Canada’s Alex Harvey (3) celebrates his win in the men’s 50 k freestyle mass start, his first individual gold medal at a World Championships, on Sunday at 2017 Nordic World Championships in Lahti, Finland. He beat Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov (l) by 0.6 seconds while Norway’s Sjur Røthe (9) can be seen coming in for sixth place, behind (not pictured) Finland’s Matti Heikkinen, Great Britain’s Andrew Musgrave and Norway’s Martin Johnsurd Sundby, respectively. (Photo: NBC Sports screenshot)
FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Men’s 50 k freestyle mass start
After a week of missing out on the medals at 2017 Nordic World Championships, Canada’s Alex Harvey, a four-time World Championships medalist from 2011, 2013 and 2015, achieved his first individual gold medal in the final race of this year’s World Championships in Lahti, Finland.
Harvey, 28, won the men’s 50-kilometer freestyle mass start in a drag race to the finish. Entering the final descent into the stadium with Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby and Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov, Harvey rode his fast skis past both of them then had the most finishing kick in the final straightaway for a 0.6-second victory. He finished in 1:46.28.9 hours, while Ustiugov followed him across the line in second and Finland’s Matti Heikkinen from behind for third (+1.4), after passing Sundby around the outside of the last corner.
Canada’s Alex Harvey (c) celebrates gold in the men’s 50 k freestyle mass start on Sunday at 2017 Nordic World Championships in Lahti, Finland, with Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov (l) and Finland’ Matti Heikkinen (r) joining him on the podium in second and third, respectively. (Photo: Cross Country Canada/Twitter)
Sundby appeared to miss a pole plant soon after Heikkinen passed him and let off the pace a few meters before the finish. That’s where Great Britain’s Andrew Musgrave continued to accelerate and took fourth place, 2.9 seconds behind Harvey and 0.1 seconds ahead of Sundby in fifth. Norway’s Sjur Røthe followed another 0.4 seconds back in sixth, Switzerland’s Dario Cologna was seventh (+8.9), Norway’s Petter Northug eighth (+12.3), France’s Maurice Manificat ninth (+13.4), and Norway’s Hans Christer Holund 10th (+14.3).
“I had really good skis,” Harvey said in a post-race interview with FIS. “I knew if I came into the corner in second place, that was the optimal position. So I was able to fight hard and hit that last corner in second and slingshot by Martin along the flat and then that was good after that.”
“This is the best race of my life, for sure,” he added. “So I’m really happy.”
Tad Elliott (Ski Club Vail) led the Americans in 27th (+3:16.8). Noah Hoffman (U.S. Ski Team) finished 50th (+8:53.1) and Kyle Bratrud (CXC Team) did not finish.
Canada started four men, with Devon Kershaw finishing 38th (+5:45.5), Graeme Killick 43rd (+7:04), and Knute Johnsgaard in 55th (+12:03.3).
For Harvey, the medal is his fifth at three World Championships and his first individual gold after winning the classic team sprint with Kershaw in 2011.
IBU World Cup (PyeongChang, South Korea): Men’s and women’s relays
Between the men’s and women’s relays on Sunday at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea, Canada had two teams in the top eighth, with its men’s team finishing seventh in the 4 x 7.5 k and women’s team eighth in the 4 x 6 k. Behind them, the U.S. men finished 10th and U.S. women 14th.
France won the men’s relay by 33.8 seconds over Austria, using a total of 10 spare rounds but avoiding the penalty lap. Martin Fourcade anchored France to the win in 1:12:09.5 hours, after Jean-Guillaume Béatrix initially tagged them in first, his older brother Simon Fourcade raced them into second with near-perfect shooting (using just one spare to clean), and Simon Desthieux picked off one more place to give Fourcade a 16-second lead for the final leg.
Austria achieved second place with Lorenz Wäger, Simon Eder, Julian Eberhard, and Dominik Landertinger combining for zero penalties and nine spares.
Norway finished third (+45.4) with Vetle Sjåstad Christiansen, Ole Einar Bjørndalen, Vegard Gjermundshaug, and Henrik L’Abée-Lund. They had one penalty on Gjermundshaug’s third leg, and used a total of eight spares.
Canada’s Christian Gow, Scott Gow, Nathan Smith, and Brendan Green finished seventh (+3:03.1) with zero penalties and nine spares. After Christian tagged his older brother Scott in ninth, Scott raced them into sixth place before Smith slipped four places to 10th at the final exchange. On the final leg, Green raced them into seventh, requiring two spares to clean.
The Americans finished about nine seconds later in 10th (+3:12.8) with Lowell Bailey, Leif Nordgren, Paul Schommer, and Sean Doherty combining for zero penalties and nine spares, just like Canada. Bailey had originally put them in second at the first exchange, Nordgren dropped to seventh, then Schommer to 13th, before Doherty finally brought them back to 10th out of 24 teams.
In the women’s relay, Germany pulled off a 22.8-second win over Norway, with one penalty and eight spares. Nadine Horchler put Germany in third at the first exchange, then Maren Hammerschmidt raced them into first by the race’s halfway point. From there, Denise Herrmann, a former cross-country World Cup regular, had to ski a penalty lap and tagged off in second, 13.5 seconds out of first. With teammate Laura Dahlmeier sitting out the relay, Franziska Hildebrand anchored Germany to the win in 1:07:35.6 after she used just one spare to clean.
Norway placed second with Kaia Wøien Nicolaisen, Hilde Fenne, Tiril Eckhoff, and Marte Olsbu accumulating one penalty and 11 spares. Olsbu beat out the Czech Republic’s Gabriela Koukalová by one-tenth of a second at the finish, as the Czechs placed for third (+22.9), with Jessica Jislová, Eva Puskarčíková, Lucie Charvátová, and Koukalová (with a total of one penalty and nine spares).
Canada took eighth (+1:34) with Rosanna Crawford, Julia Ransom, Megan Tandy, and Emma Lunder. Crawford tagged in second at the first exchange, Ransom slipped one place to third, Tandy lost another place to tag in fourth, and Lunder ultimately anchored them to eighth.
The U.S., with Clare Egan, Susan Dunklee, Joanne Reid, and Maddie Phaneuf, finished 14th (+3:08.3) with one penalty and 10 spares. After Egan had a penalty on the first leg, Dunklee skied the fastest second leg to move the team from 19th to 14th, then Reid put them in 11th by the final exchange. Twenty-one teams competed in the women’s race.
Ski Classics 90 k Vasaloppet (Sälen to Mora, Sweden)
John Kristian Dahl (r) of Team United Bakeries outlunges Ski Classics sprint leader Andreas Nygaard (r) of Team Santander for the win in Sunday’s 90 k Vasaloppet in Mora, Sweden. (Photo: Visma Ski Classics)
[UPDATED] In Sunday’s 93rd annual 90-kilometer Vasaloppet from Sälen to Mora, Sweden, the ninth event of the Ski Classics series, John Kristian Dahl (Team United Bakeries) outlasted Andreas Nygaard (Team Santander) by one-tenth of a second for the win in 3:57:18.1 hours. The race came down to a five-way fight for first, with Stian Hoelgaard (Team Leaseplan) finishing 0.6 seconds back in third. The top 15 men were all within 21.7 seconds of the podium, and Brian McKeever, a member of Canada’s Para Nordic Ski Team, placed 20th (+2:31.1).
“It has been a fight all day,” Dahl said, according to a Ski Classics press release. Three days ago, he had been unsure about starting the Vasaloppet following a back injury. “I was tired already after 30 k and had to let go of the lead group, but I fought my way back taking it step by step and hill by hill.”
In the women’s race, Britta Johansson Norgren (Lager 157 Ski Team) broke away from the field to win by 1:37.9 minutes in 4:19.43.4.
Astrid Øyre Slind (Team United Bakeries) finished second, and Sara Lindborg (Team Serneke) placed third, 9 minutes and 4.2 seconds behind Norgren. Kateřina Smutná (Team Santander) dropped out of the race about halfway through.
“I am very tired but also so happy to win today,” Norgren said, according to the press release. “It felt pretty easy until Oxberg [Sweden] with 30 k to go, but then it got really tough and I had to fight all the way to the finish.”
It was Norgren’s first Vasaloppet win after placing second the last three years. She increased her lead in the overall Ski Classics to 215 points over Smutná, while Tord Asle Gjerdalen continues to lead the men’s overall standings ahead of his Santander teammate Nygaard, who is 349 points behind in second place. Gjerdalen did not race Sunday’s Vasaloppet.
Lowell Bailey (US Biathlon) racing to ninth in the men’s 12.5 k pursuit at the IBU World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
For a few kilometers, it looked like Julian Eberhard – the winner of Friday’s sprint – had things in hand in the 12.5 k World Cup pursuit in PyeongChang, South Korea.
The Austrian cleaned his first prone stage and didn’t bleed too much time on the trails to Martin Fourcade, the French superstar who was chasing him down.
But then he missed two shots in the second stage – and Fourcade sailed past him, off into the history books.
Fourcade went 20-for-20 on the shooting range and racked up a 34.5-second win, his 12th for the season, matching a record set by Norway’s Ole Einar Bjørndalen in 2005. And there are still two more weekends of World Cup racing after PyeongChang.
“I am part of this generation who grew up watching Bjørndalen on television,” Fourcade said to the IBU after the race. “He is just so inspiring. I came to the stadium very tired, I want to thank him for being as inspiring as he was as I was growing up.”
Eberhard wasn’t totally out of it though; he cleaned both of his standing stages, climbing back up into podium position. With one stage to go, he was skiing comfortably with Austrian teammates Simon Eder and Dominik Landertinger, in second, third, and fourth place.
Eder and Landertinger missed twice on the final stage; Eberhard only missed once. Again, he had to watch someone else pass him while he was stuck skiing his penalty.
The men’s 12.5 k pursuit podium on Saturday at the IBU World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea, with France’s Martin Fourcade (c) in first, Russia’s Anton Shipulin (l) in second and Austria’s Julian Eberhard (r) in third. (Photo: IBU)
This time it was Russia’s Anton Shipulin, who had started the day 23rd, shot perfectly, and improbably made his way all the way up to second place. It was an impressive demonstration that nobody can be counted out in a biathlon race, even when handicapped by a disappointing result the day before.
“Today, the shooting did the trick,” Shipulin said through a translator at the press conference. “I cannot remember last time I shot clean in a competition with four shooting stages. I think our service men did a great job: the skis were going very fast, and I felt like I was in a good shape. I just wish I had the same mood yesterday.”
And reinforcing the possibility of a comeback was Eberhard. He had never before had a podium in a head-to-head race, only in individual-start sprints, and the two misses in prone easily could have started a collapse.
But he had kept himself to 85% shooting, and nobody could catch the Austrian on the last loop. He held onto third place (+36.7) and for the first time in his career, Eberhard took two podiums in one weekend.
“This was a really wicked race,” Eberhard told Austria’s ORF broadcaster. “One of the coolest I have ever raced. I gave everything in the end, but I wasn’t really hopeful to catch Anton again, he is just too strong on the final loop for that.”
Another Top 10 for Bailey
Lowell Bailey (US Biathlon) leading France’s Martin Fourcade in the men’s 12.5 k pursuit on Saturday at the IBU World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea. Fourcade went on to win after starting third, and Bailey placed ninth after starting second. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
After finishing second in the sprint, Lowell Bailey of the United States had a top start position in the pursuit. He was quickly caught by Fourcade – who started third – on his first loop.
“I had a feeling that Fourcade would catch me right off the bat, so I was happy to stay with him, and ski with him the first lap,” Bailey said in a phone interview from PyeongChang.
The sprint had been Bailey’s fourth individual race in a row with perfect shooting, but he couldn’t keep it going. Already in the first prone stage he split a bullet, and then had two misses later in the race.
“I was a little bit shaky, I think, in shooting today,” he said. “It’s been a long season, and some days you wake up without the mental focus you have some other days. Today it was a lot of effort to get my zero dialed in and get ready for the race. Knowing that, I’m actually pretty happy with how the shooting went.”
Despite the misses, he left the final stage in seventh place. The American was caught by Germany’s Benedikt Doll – the World Champion in the sprint – and Landertinger, who had rocketed out of the penalty loop.
“I was happy with the way I skied the last loop,” Bailey said. “I knew that [Doll] was in the big group behind me, and he and [Landertinger] were coming. They are two of the fastest skiers in the world. So I was happy to be able to hang on to them until the finish.”
Bailey tried to position himself to come off the final corner and lead to the finish line, but it was challenging given the course setup.
“It’s whoever gets to the top of the hill first,” Bailey said. “Because I was in a group, I was just trying to catch Landertinger and Doll, so that last 200 meter stretch before the uphill I went as hard as I could. I did catch them and I tried to go around them on the outside on the big sweeping penultimate curve. It narrows down to about 2 meters after that… there’s a bottleneck. I about came even with Landertinger but we both were kind of stepping on each others skis. He got out in front, and I had to get in the draft, and wait for the sprint.”
By that point, Italy’s Lukas Hofer and France’s Jean Guillaume Beatrix had also caught onto the group. Moving at a high speed, they all shot into the finishing lanes together. Landertinger made it to the finish first, with Bailey taking second place in the group and ninth overall (+1:20.6).
“That was one of the craziest group sprints you could be in,” Bailey marveled. “You were going so fast you didn’t know whether you should stay in your skate tuck, or start V2ing. It was kind of just ride it out to the finish. Definitely, that last climb is where the race is won or lost for many races at the Olympics.”
Bailey’s teammate Leif Nordgren finished 28th, +2:28.9 with a single missed shot – the last one.
“Of course I’m a little ticked at missing the last shot, I’ve been doing that a lot lately, so that needs to change,” Nordgren wrote in an email. “[But] it was a good race for me today, finally I put everything together for a pursuit race. It’s a lot of fun to be in the mix like that, and to take advantage of the opportunity to move ahead in places is good. I had a big group of guys right ahead of me today which leaves kind of a bitter feeling to the finish.”
For Canada, Christian Gow led the way in 32nd (+3:17.4) after starting almost last – 56th – but cleaning all 20 of his shots.
“I am super happy with the race and pumped to have, finally, achieved the elusive 20/20,” Gow wrote in an email. “The conditions on the range tonight were perfect, completely calm in the whole range. I wouldn’t say that I necessarily put any extra focus on shooting today. I had a good feeling in zero before the race and I hoped that I could make a clean shooting happen. I tried to do things normally and not get worried about the possibility of hitting them all.”
He was followed by his brother Scott Gow in 43rd (+4:05.9) with five penalties, and Brendan Green in 44th (+4:09.8) with three missed shots.
The all-Norwegian women’s 30 k freestyle mass start podium at 2017 Nordic World Championships in Lahti, Finland, with Marit Bjørgen (c) in first, Heidi Weng (l) in second, and Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross-Country/Twitter)
FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Women’s 30 k freestyle mass start
Marit Bjørgen made it a four-peat on Saturday with her fourth gold and third individual win over the last week at 2017 Nordic World Championships in Lahti, Finland. (She previously won the 15-kilometer skiathlon, 10 k classic, and 4 x 5 k relay.)
The 36-year-old Norwegian closed out the championships with a 1.9-second victory in the women’s 30-kilometer freestyle mass start, finishing in 1:08:36.8 hours after setting the pace and leading a large group for much of the race. The group began to separate around 15 k, where it was down to 13 women with five seconds of first. At that point, Americans Jessie Diggins and Chelsea Holmes were within that lead pack.
While Holmes started to fall off the pace around 16 k, Diggins stuck with the leaders to the very end, only until four Norwegians broke away to race for the medals over the final kilometer.
With Bjørgen still charging hard up front, her teammates Heidi Weng, Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen, and Ragnhild Haga followed, while Finland’s Krista Pärmäkoski trailed another second back in fifth and Diggins was one more second behind in sixth.
Bjørgen led the downhill into the stadium and skied away from her teammates before the finishing stretch, leaving Weng and Jacobsen to duke it out for second place. Weng got it by less than one-hundredth of a second, Jacobsen took bronze (+1.9), and Haga completed the Norwegian top-four sweep in fourth (+7.4).
Diggins passed Pärmäkoski and notched fifth (+10.4) for her career-best 30 k result. Pärmäkoski placed sixth (+11.3), Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla finished seventh (+13.9), Austria’s Teresa Stadlober was eighth (+15.5), Sweden’s Anna Haag ninth (+20.3), and Russia’s Yulia Tchekaleva 10th (+1:20.9) after edging Switzerland’s Nathalie von Siebenthal in a photo finish. Germany’s Stefanie Böhler placed 12th (+1:23.5) and Holmes finished 13th (+1:28.1) for her career best.
U.S. Ski Team member Liz Stephen placed 25th (+3:09.4), 6.6 seconds ahead of Canada’s national U25 Team skier Cendrine Browne, who notched a career best 26th (+3:16) in her first World Championships.
Holmes’s Alaska Pacific University (APU) teammate Jessica Yeaton, who races for Australia, finished 33rd (+4:32), Canada’s Dahria Beatty was 34th (+4:45.2), and American Caitlin Gregg 36th (+5:03.7).
Great Britain’s Annika Taylor, a California native, placed 38th (+6:19.4). Canada’s Emily Nishikawa was 40th (+6:41.5) and Katherine Stewart-Jones 41st (+7:18.6), and Brazil’s Jaqueline Mourão, who trains in Quebec, was 46th (+13:44.6) out of 47 finishers.
IBU World Cup (PyeongChang, South Korea): Women’s and men’s pursuits
The women’s 10 k pursuit podium at the IBU World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea, with Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier (c) in first, Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen (l) in second, and France’s Anais Bescond (r) in third. (Photo: IBU)
Coming off a fifth place in Thursday’s 7.5-kilometer sprint, Susan Dunklee held her position despite three penalties in the women’s 10 k pursuit on Saturday to finish fifth again at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea.
Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier racked up her second-straight win in as many races in PyeongChang (and sixth-straight, counting World Championships), finishing in 27:58.0 minutes with clean shooting. She was just one of four women out of 58 finishers that hit all 20 targets in Saturday’s four-stage race.
Finishing more than a minute later, Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen placed second (+1:12.6) after starting fourth based on her sprint result. Mäkäräinen had two penalties, both in the first standing, but cleaned the other three stages (0+0+2+0). France’s Anais Bescond raced up from eighth at the start to third place (+1:18.9) at the finish, with a single penalty (0+0+1+0), while Norway’s Tiril Eckhoff missed her second-straight podium in fourth place (+1:32.0) after starting second but accumulating five penalties (1+2+1+1).
Eckhoff edged Dunklee, of the U.S., by half a second as Dunklee placed fifth (+1:32.5) with three misses (1+1+0+1).
Canada’s Rosanna Crawford rose from 30th to 19th (+2:49.1) for her best non-relay result of the season, with two penalties (1+1+0+0). Her teammate Megan Tandy also landed her first top 30 of 2016/2017 in 30th (+3:26.2) with two misses (1+0+1+0) after starting 39th. Also for Canada, Julia Ransom finished 44th (+4:18.4) after starting 41st and skiing four penalty loops (1+0+1+2).
Also for the U.S., Clare Egan finished 36th (+3:41.9) with three clean stages but three misses in her first standing (0+0+3+0), after starting 33rd. Joanne Reid slipped from 35th at the start to 52nd (+4:53.4), with five penalties (1+1+0+3).
The men’s 12.5 k pursuit podium on Saturday at the IBU World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea, with France’s Martin Fourcade (c) in first, Russia’s Anton Shipulin (l) in second and Austria’s Julian Eberhard (r) in third. (Photo: IBU)
[UPDATED] One day after locking up the overall World Cup title, Martin Fourcade was back at the top of the podium in the men’s 12.5 k pursuit in PyeongChang.
Fourcade started third, after finishing third in Friday’s sprint, then shot clean to win in 31:24.2. Russia’s Anton Shipulin, who started 23rd, also shot 20-for-20 to race up to second place, 34.5 seconds behind Fourcade, with the fifth-fastest course time. In comparison, Fourcade’s course time was third fastest.
Friday’s sprint winner, Julian Eberhard of Austria finished third (+36.7) after skiing three penalty loops (0+2+0+1). His teammate Simon Eder placed fourth (+1:03.2) after starting eighth and cleaning three stages before missing two on the last standing (0+0+0+2).
Russia’s Evgeniy Garanichev improved from ninth at the start to fifth (+1:09.5) with two penalties as well (0+1+1+0). France’s Simon Desthieux was sixth (+1:13.5), Austria’s Dominik Landertinger seventh (+1:20.3), Germany’s Benedikt Doll eighth (+1:20.4) with the fastest course time after starting 20th.
American Lowell Bailey was another 0.2 seconds back in ninth (+1:20.6), just ahead of Italy’s Lukas Hofer in 10th, who finished with the same time. Bailey previously tallied the third podium of his career on Friday, placing second in the sprint, but had two penalties on Saturday (1+0+1+0) to slip to ninth.
Also for the U.S., Leif Nordgren improved to 28th (+2:28.9) after starting 37th and shooting 19-for-20 (0+0+0+1).
Christian Gow shot clean to lead Canada in 32nd (+3:17.4), up from 56th at the start. His older brother Scott Gow slipped from 27th at the start to 43rd (+4:05.9) with five penalties (0+1+1+3), and Brendan Green followed in 44th (+4:09.8) with three penalties (2+1+0+0) after starting 28th.
US Biathlon’s Lowell Bailey (l) is congratulated by France’s World Cup Total Score winner Martin Fourcade during the medal ceremony of the men’s 10-kilometer sprint at the 2017 IBU World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea. Bailey finished second and Fourcade third behind Austria’s Julian Eberhard (r). (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
A screenwriter for a Hollywood thriller hardly could have written a more suspenseful albeit a little convoluted race dramaturgy: Whenever you thought, ‘All right, this has to be it,’ and ‘It’s over now,’ another corkscrew plot twist happened and a new hero emerged.
And one of those heroes was US Biathlon’s Lowell Bailey. But at the end of the day he wasn’t the last man standing at the top.
A year ahead of the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea, the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup is testing the redesigned venue, and on Friday the men’s 10-kilometer sprint was on the schedule.
With most of the favorites opting for late start groups, the athletes in contention after the two shooting stages and intermittently taking the lead in the finish kept on changing. First there was Italy’s Dominik Windisch. Then, starting only two positions later, Austria’s Dominik Landertinger immediately replaced the Italian. After a while Landertinger’s teammate Simon Eder became a challenger until he missed two shots in standing, and Ukraine’s Artem Pryma shot clean but skied slower. Then Germany’s Erik Lesser looked like a potential winner before missing his final shot, and came within seconds of Landertinger’s time with a fast last loop. Finally, France’s Martin Fourcade bested Landertinger’s time despite two penalties by skiing the fastest course time of the day overall and on the final loop.
Lowell Bailey (US Biathlon) racing to second place in the men’s 10 k sprint at the IBU World Cup on Friday in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
And then along came Bailey, starting five positions behind Fourcade in bib 81. Bailey kept his recent clean shooting streak alive and managed to take the lead, leaving the range for the last time with a 15-second lead, and 33 seconds to Fourcade who had come back on the course even farther behind.
On the last loop, Bailey’s lead began to shrink precariously but he preserved a few seconds, even increasing it again on the last few hundred meters to finish 4.7 seconds faster than Fourcade.
‘Ding-Dong! The witch is dead!’ viewers partial to Bailey and remembering the classic movie ‘The Wizard of Oz’ might have thought at this point. But was it undeniably and reliably dead? For a few minutes it seemed like another perfect, happy movie ending awaited Bailey. But this time maybe it rather was a slasher movie with a villain who just doesn’t seem to die.
If this race had been the movie ‘The Shining’, Bailey was coming to save the day like Scatman Crothers’s supernaturally-gifted character Hallorann driving through a snowstorm to save the little boy Danny, and only minutes after he arrives back in the ominous Overlook Hotel suddenly WHACK! Jack Nicholson’s character kills him with an axe.
Lowell Bailey (US Biathlon) celebrating his third-career podium in the men’s 10 k sprint on Friday at the IBU World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
That must be a little bit how Bailey felt when he had managed to stay ahead of the usually dominant Fourcade, mobilizing his last energy reserves, but then had to look on as Austria’s Julian Eberhard emerged as the next athlete to shoot clean and skied even faster. A lot faster. After the final standing shooting he had a 20.6-second lead, and on the last loop he increased that to 40.7 seconds when he crossed the line with a winning time of 23:11.1 minutes.
Bailey could be seen on the TV broadcast mouthing what looked like, “Wow,” when he saw the time difference.
“I’m happy with the way things went,” Bailey later told FasterSkier on the phone. “Eberhard had an incredible race and he’s just such an amazing skier that he’s pretty darn hard to beat when he shoots clean.”
With the second place, Bailey tied the best World Cup sprint result of his career, after also finishing on that position in Kontiolahti, Finland, during the 2013/2014 season. For Eberhard, it was the third World Cup victory of his career and his second one of the season, all in sprints.
“Conditions were very difficult today, and I already feared I had made a mistake with my start group pick,“ Eberhard said in an interview with Austrian TV broadcaster ORF. “But I just said to myself, ‘So what? Just go full throttle and make a good race.’ From the first meter to the finish, everything just worked out perfectly. … Of course I am very happy and overjoyed.”
Eberhard added at the post-race press conference that winning a medal in the men’s relay at the IBU World Championships at home in Hochfilzen, Austria, made things easier for him and his teammates.
Austria’s Julian Eberhard racing to a 40-second victory in the men’s 10 k sprint on Friday at the IBU World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: IBU)
“The World Championships were much pressure for us, so when I came here I just thought, ‘I feel much more free than the last weeks,’… I am really satisfied with this competition today. I love these tracks, and even the shooting range.”
“Sometimes you have these waves as an athlete, sometimes you can have also the opposite,” Bailey said at the press conference. “I have been on this path since World Championships. I feel good physically and mentally, and confident on the shooting range and on the tracks. I am really happy with this race. I didn’t really know what to expect, and just told myself to go out and do the best that I can.”
Fourcade in third place, 45.4 seconds behind Eberhard, was the only athlete who managed to reach the podium despite a penalty, after incurring one in each shooting stage (1+1). He was also the only athlete in the top seven with two misses.
“My prone was quite good. But my standing is so disappointing,” Fourcade said at the press conference. “I did 99 percent of the job, and forgot to do the 1 percent left. It’s only my fault if I miss it, and I can only blame myself. But it will not change the result today. Julian was so fast and shot clean. When he has that kind of day, when you want to have a chance, you also have to shoot clean.”
Lord of the Globes
Yet third place was still good news for Fourcade. With that result, the French biathlon star secured his sixth-straight overall title for the World Cup Total Score. Russia’s Anton Shipulin as the closest contender is now 360 points behind after finishing 23rd on Friday (+1:30.3 with 3 penalties), as well as Germany’s Simon Schempp, currently in third who did not make the trip to South Korea following an illness, are both mathematically unable to catch up to Fourcade in the remaining races of the season. Bailey currently sits in ninth place in the Total Score ranking.
“That’s amazing. I even didn’t realize it at the finish, I was focused on what I can do better at next year’s Olympics, but then the [French] TV team told me that I won the globe [trophy],“ Fourcade said at the press conference. “I will always remember the first time in Khanty-Mansiysk when I won my first overall total globe. I said it was too difficult, I will never fight for that again. It’s like ‘Lord of the Rings’, it’s something you have to do. It’s why I love my sport, this big crystal globe. It’s what I fight for. It means so much for me to join [Norway’s] Ole Einar Bjørndalen in this ranking. He was a [role] model when I was young, and he still is. So I am proud to be on his level winning six globes.”
Bailey’s Race Day
After spending a quiet training block in Ruhpolding, Germany, Bailey said after Friday’s race that he and his U.S. team had come to South Korea with a good feeling.
Lowell Bailey (US Biathlon) celebrates his second place in the men’s 10 k sprint at the IBU World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
“I think we just have a really positive energy within the whole staff right now. Everyone is feeling good coming out of world champs and I think motivated to continue onto these next three weeks,” he said.
Bailey explained he had been confident after staying healthy through World Championships, and “I have been able to rely on my shooting more consistently and I’ve had good ski speed throughout the year.”
But the conditions in PyeongChang were still difficult for the experienced biathlete for the sprint, with very different wind during the ‘zeroing’ target practice than during the race.
“Prone was really challenging today,” Bailey said of his shooting experience. “The wind progressively just got stronger and stronger, so it was challenging because I had to shade different and aim differently for every shot. So I’m really happy with the way the prone went. And then I think sometimes you have a little bit of luck, so when I came into standing the wind had died down quite a bit.”
When he left the range, Bailey was about 16 seconds ahead of Ukraine’s Pryma, who had shot clean but with a slower last loop would end the day only in 10th position (+1:07.7). Fourcade starting five bibs ahead of Bailey had left the range behind his split time, but with a furious last loop would soon set the time to beat in the finish.
“As I was leaving the stadium, the jumbotron monitor showed my split so I could see that I was in first…,” Bailey recalled of the start of his final loop. “On the first hill they [my team’s staff] told me that I had 13 seconds, I think, so I just did the best I could, and if I look at my race, my best lap was probably my first lap and then I was fighting for every meter. Thankfully we had good material today, good skis. I lost some seconds at the beginning of the course but then I was able to stay even toward the back end of the course.”
Bailey said in the press conference that he had no information from his coaching staff on Eberhard while he was on the final loop.
The men’s 10 k sprint podium at Friday’s IBU World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea, with Austria’s Julian Eberhard (c) in first, American Lowell Bailey (l) in second, and France’s Martin Fourcade (r) in third. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
“It’s probably a good thing they didn’t tell me about Julian. All information I got was that I was in first place [over Fourcade] and that was what I was fighting for,” he said. “I am pretty sure I didn’t have 40 seconds in me. So I didn’t know about Julian. He skied an incredible race today and he has a good lead tomorrow [for the pursuit].”
On a course with bumpy tracks that looked slightly improved from the women’s sprint a day before and with only a few hundred fans in attendance, mostly making a permanent background noise with drums and other instruments instead of the excited ‘Yay!’ or disappointed ‘Owww’ comments often heard from the stands during shooting stages at European World Cups, the venue in PyeongChang still leaves some room for improvement, or at least is a little unusual race experience.
However, Bailey was satisfied with how things look one year out from the Olympics, after a redesign of the courses since the last time PyeongChang hosted an international biathlon championship eight years ago.
“They made some significant changes since 2009 World Champs,” Bailey told FasterSkier. “They’re changes that I think play to my strengths, so I’m happy with the course and this is a really challenging range, so I was ecstatic to be able to shoot clean today.
“Biathlon it’s a tough sport because there’s so many factors that go into a successful result and I just feel very fortunate that I have not only one of the best support teams in the world but also the support of my family,” Bailey continued. “They’re behind me 100 percent. I know that I can go out there and be first or last, and they still support me through all of this so that’s a big calming presence.”
In the last five non-relay races, including four at World Championships, Bailey has not placed outside the top six. And in all of those races, he has only incurred one miss.
Behind Bailey, Austria nearly had a second athlete on the podium with Landertinger finishing fourth (+48.1) after shooting clean, just 2.7 seconds behind Fourcade in third.
“The shooting was super, I really pulled through twice,” Landertinger, who was just one place short of his first individual podium finish of the season, told ORF. “But on the course it didn’t work well for me. The first loops were extremely flaccid, maybe I still felt the time difference. The final loop was better, unfortunately it just wasn’t enough for the podium. That is really sad. Maybe it will work out tomorrow.“
Germany’s Lesser finished fifth (+50.3) after missing the last shot of his competition (0+1) and having to ski through the penalty lap.
“Missing the last shot is always annoying, but I can be happy about a fifth place with one penalty,” Lesser told German broadcaster ARD. “I’d have wished for that at world champs… I’m still struggling with the travel here. On the first day I woke up at 2:30 p.m. local time and ate rice and curry for breakfast, then I tried to adapt but fell asleep only at 4 or 5 a.m. when you’d want to make breakfast. So I screwed up that adaptation.”
Also within one minute back, Italy’s Windisch placed sixth (+54.1) with one penalty in prone (1+0).
“I am really happy, the perfect start for this stage,” Windisch told the IBU in an interview. “Also for the Olympics, I feel good for next year. It was not easy, because of the wind I had tears in my eyes so I had to shoot very slow, but I am happy that I hit them.”
Three Canadians, Two Americans Qualify for Pursuit
Three Canadians finished in the top 60 to qualify for Saturday’s pursuit, with Scott Gow leading them in 27th place (+1:40.3).
Scott Gow (Biathlon Canada) racing in the men’s 12.5 k pursuit at 2017 IBU World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria. In Friday’s 10 k sprint at the IBU World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea, he finished 27th. (Photo: Glen Crawford)
“I like PyeongChang,” Gow wrote in an email. “It’s very different being in Asia, but our accommodation is very nice and the food has been pretty good. The venue is also very good. There is a great variety of ski trails in the cross country area, but biathlon is limited to only the race trails. The race courses are very hilly and the downhills are somewhat technical, especially when it’s icy, but they are fun to race on and it’s a good challenge.”
“The shooting conditions were moderately tricky,” he reflected on his shooting stages after incurring one penalty in each (1+1). “The wind was quite high during zero and became more variable during the race. I had to correct my sights when I came into prone, and it’s hard to say if I missed because of wind or if it was because I pulled the shot. In standing I started thinking about wanting to clean and as soon as I did I threw myself off my rhythm. Frustrating mistake there, but otherwise I was pleased with how my shooting felt.”
“I really wish I had hit all my targets today, because my skiing was quite strong,” he concluded. “I was surprised to end up in the top 30, but I think a lot of poor shooting by a lot of athletes helped me.”
One position behind Gow, his teammate Brendan Green finished 28th (+1:42.1) with one miss (0+1) for his best result this season.
“My feeling so far here In Korea has been really up and down,” Green wrote in an email. “I came down with a cold just before we traveled to Korea and I think recovering from that combined with jet lag has been a bit tough on my body.
“Overall I am very happy with today’s result given how my season has been going,” he wrote of his first individual top 30 of the season. “I think what made the difference for me today was being able to execute solid shooting in what were challenging conditions. The snow conditions were also quite difficult to race in tonight but I did my best and gave it my all.”
Similar to Bailey, Green was happy to see some changes made to the course since he last raced in PyeongChang at the 2009 World Championships.
“It was my first season on the World Cup and I remember feeling really overwhelmed with the course and conditions back then,” Green wrote. “The track was terrifying and I remember a lot of wind. So far the weather and ski conditions have been similar to 2009, but they’ve made some really good changes to the tracks since then in making the course overall less aggressive and safer.
“It has been a very challenging year for me,” Green reflected on his season so far. “I am not exactly sure what went wrong, but it’s been a tough struggle since the first World Cup. It’s obvious my body did not respond well to one or more elements in my training this past year. At this point I am taking it race by race. I’ve had to stop thinking about where I typically should be performing … to only focusing on executing the best race I can on each given day, and then assessing that.”
Scott Gow’s brother Christian Gow also qualified for the pursuit in 56th (+2.33.6) with two prone penalties (2+0). Nathan Smith finished 88th (+3:32.5) with two standing misses (0+2) in his first World Cup race since early December following an illness that also kept him out of World Championships, and Macx Davies finished 98th (+4:20.2) with four penalties (3+1).
Leif Nordgren (US Biathlon) racing to 37th in the men’s 10 k sprint at the IBU World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
For the U.S., Leif Nordgren placed 37th (+2:03.7) with two misses (1+1) to qualify for the pursuit, along with Bailey.
“For me, the race had some ups and some downs,” Nordgren said according to a US Biathlon press release. “I was pretty happy with the way I skied and I like the tracks here so far. The conditions tonight had a little bit of everything… some very dry windblown snow, some parts of very wet, slushy snow, and some hard-packed glaze. I’m disappointed in my shooting. I missed the last shot on both prone and standing, which is by far the most annoying one to miss. I’ll have to make some adjustments to make sure that doesn’t happen in tomorrow’s pursuit.”
“It’s really nice to have him performing well,“ Nordgren said of Bailey’s successes. “It’s a great inspiration and I hope we can both capitalize tomorrow in the pursuit.“
Their teammate Sean Doherty finished 80th (+3:13.3) with two penalties (1+1), and could be seen on the broadcast almost taking a wrong track on the course at one point, having to ski back a few meters.
The fourth U.S. starter Paul Schommer, in the second World Cup race of his career, finished 101st (+4:38.1) with five misses (3+2). Mostly racing the IBU Cup and Open European Championships this season, Schommer previously achieved 33rd place in the 20 k individual at the World Cup in Antholz, Italy, in January.
The men’s 10 k sprint podium at Friday’s IBU World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea, with Austria’s Julian Eberhard (c) in first, American Lowell Bailey (l) in second, and France’s Martin Fourcade (r) in third. (Photo: IBU)
IBU World Cup (PyeongChang, South Korea): Men’s 10 k sprint
US Biathlon’s Lowell Bailey kept his clean-shooting streak alive with another one of his personal best results on Friday, racing to second in the men’s 10-kilometer sprint at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea.
Bailey started 81st and hit all 10 targets in the two-stage race to cross the finish line in first, 4.7 seconds ahead of France’s Martin Fourcade, who locked up the 2016/2017 overall World Cup title with an eventual third-place finish on Friday.
An even later starter in bib 90, Austria’s Julian Eberhard rocketed to his third-career World Cup victory (and second win this season), cleaning both stages and topping Bailey’s time by 40.7 seconds. That bumped Bailey to second place and Fourcade to third, for Bailey’s second World Cup podium this season (including his win in the 20 k individual at IBU World Championships).
In the last five non-relay races, including four at World Championships, Bailey has not placed outside the top six. And in all of those races, he’s only had one miss.
Bailey is up to ninth in the World Cup Total Score standings. Fourcade ran away with the season-long title in first, now that he’s 360 points ahead of Russia’s Anton Shipulin in second.
While Eberhard and Bailey shot clean on Friday, Fourcade missed two — one on each stage (1+1) — but made up for it with the fastest course time. Eberhard had the second-fastest course time and fastest shooting time of the 102-man field.
Austria nearly had two on the podium with Dominik Landertinger finishing fourth (+48.1), 2.7 seconds out of third, with clean shooting.
Three Canadians finished in the top 60 to qualify for Saturday’s pursuit, with Scott Gow in 27th (+1:40.3) with two penalties (1+1), Brendan Green following in 28th (+1:42.1) with one miss (0+1) for his first individual top 30 of the season, and Christian Gow in 56th (+2.33.6) with two prone penalties (2+0). Nathan Smith finished 88th (+3:32.5) with two standing misses (0+2) in his first World Cup race since early December, and Macx Davies finished 98th (+4:20.2) with four penalties (3+1).
For the U.S., Leif Nordgren placed 37th (+2:03.7) with two misses (1+1) to qualify for the pursuit, along with Bailey. Sean Doherty was 80th (+3:13.3) with two penalties (1+1) and Paul Schommer 101st (+4:38.1) with five misses (3+2).
FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Nordic Combined 2 x 7.5 k team sprint
The nordic combined 2 x 7.5 k team sprint podium on Friday at 2017 Nordic World Championships in Lahti, Finland, with Germany’s Johannes Rydzek and Eric Frenzel in first (c), Norway’s Magnus Moan and Magnus Krog in second (l) and Japan’s Yoshito and Akito Watabe in third (r). (Photo: FIS Nordic Combined/Twitter)
[UPDATED] Johannes Rydzek and Team Germany completed the World Championships sweep on Friday, with Rydzek teaming up with Eric Frenzel to win the final nordic-combined competition of 2017 Nordic World Championships in Lahti, Finland: the 2 x 7.5-kilometer team sprint.
Rydzek won all four NoCo competitions over the past week, including two individual events and two team events.
On Friday, he and Frenzel, the defending World Cup champion, jumped to second and started the 2 x 7.5 k cross-country race 16 seconds behind France’s Maxime Laheurte and François Braud, who jumped to first. The Frenchmen both posted jumps of 125 meters for a total of 264.2 points. Frenzel and Rydzek, meanwhile, scored 256.1 points after jumps of 125.5 and 122 meters.
The Germans pulled off a 1-second win over Norway, finishing in 28:45.8 minutes, while Norway’s Magnus Moan and Magnus Krog claimed silver after starting the ski race in fourth, 24 seconds behind France. Together, the Norwegians posted the fastest course time, and Moan skied the fastest 7.5 k (13:53).
“It’s still unbelievable,” Rydzek told German broadcaster ARD. “The race today was so suspenseful again, down to the last curve with the lapped athlete [Russia]. I knew that I am very fast on the homestretch, and had explicitly looked at that section before the race. Eric did a great job today, and despite all circumstances pointing against us we managed to do it again today. Just cool to be back on the top of the podium with Eric.”
Just a couple hundred meters before the finish, Rydzek used the moment when they approached the lapped Russian athlete to slingshot between him and Krog and gained a decisive edge.
“I was scared of that situation with the lapped athlete, because that was really close,” Frenzel told ARD. “I thought, ‘What is he doing out there?’ But in the end you can rely on Johannes to solve that like a world champion, that was top.
“We knew ahead of time that Lahti suits us well, that we can be good here if the conditions work out,” he added. “So we are very happy to be able to go home with so many medals.”
Japan took the final spot on the podium after brothers Yoshito and Akito Watabe jumped to third, started 18 seconds after France, and held their position to finish for third place, 10.2 seconds after Germany.
Austria’s Wilhelm Denifl and Bernhard Gruber missed bronze by half a second in fourth (+10.7) after starting in fifth, and France ended up fifth (+11.5).
Nearly a minute later, Italy placed sixth (+1:10.6) and Finland seventh (+1:10.7). The Czech Republic followed in eighth (+1:26.4), and the U.S. was ninth (+1:48.1) with Bryan and Taylor Fletcher after starting 12th and 2:08 out of first. The Fletcher brothers recorded the second-fastest course time out of 14 teams.
“Taylor did a good job stepping up in competition and it gave me motivation to step up as well,” Bryan said, according to a U.S. Ski Team press release. “Unfortunately I wanted it a little too much and didn’t have the jump I am capable of.
“The races went well but we were just too far back,” he continued. “We had the second fastest time as a team overall, which is solid and continually shows our strength on that side of the sport.”
FIS Nordic World Championships (Lahti, Finland): Men’s 4 x 10 k relay
The men’s 4 x 10 k relay podium at 2017 Nordic World Championships, with Norway (c) in first, Russia (l) in second, and Sweden (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross-Country/Twitter)
The men’s 4 x 10-kilometer relay as the last team event of 2017 Nordic World Championships came down to a two-way battle for gold between none other than Norway and Russia on Friday in Lahti, Finland,
The two teams skied in either first or second throughout the four-leg race, with Russia’s Andrey Larkov tagging Alexander Bessmertnykh 2.9 seconds ahead of Norway’s first leg Didrik Tønseth, then Bessmertnykh coming through the second exchange just half a second ahead of Norway’s Niklas Dyrhaug.
Behind them, Finland skied alone in third place at the race’s halfway point, but was ultimately swallowed by the chase pack on the third leg.
On that third leg, Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby worked hard to drop Russia’s Alexey Chervotkin, and eventually did so, coming through the final exchange 17.7 seconds ahead. That gave Norway’s anchor Finn Hågen Krogh just enough of a gap on Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov, and he was able to hold off Ustiugov by 4.6 seconds at the finish to give Norway the gold in 1:37:20.1 hours.
Russia claimed silver and Sweden outlasted Switzerland for bronze after Calle Halfvarsson attacked in the final kilometer to drop Finland’s Matti Heikkinen and Germany’s Lucas Bögl. Halfvarsson finished 2:31.8 minutes out of first, and just 0.2 seconds ahead of Switzerland’s Curdin Perl for third place for Sweden (which included teammates Daniel Rickardsson, Johan Olsson and Marcus Hellner).
Switzerland was fourth (+2:32) with Jason Rueesch, Jonas Baumann, Dario Cologna and Perl, Finland fifth (+2:42.4) with Sami Jauhojärvi, Niskanen, Lari Lehtonen, and Heikkinen, and Germany sixth (+2:42.8) with Thomas Bing, Jonas Dobler, Florian Notz, and Bögl.
France finished seventh (+3:52), Italy eighth (+5:29.8), Kazakhstan ninth (+5:30.6), and the U.S. 10th (+5:31.3). The U.S. team (Kyle Bratrud, Erik Bjornsen, Tad Elliott, Simi Hamilton) skied in 11th for most of the race before Hamilton moved them up to 10th with the sixth-fastest anchor leg.
Canada (Graeme Killick, Devon Kershaw, Alex Harvey, Len Valjas) ended up 12th after being lapped on the last leg. In 14th at the first exchange, Kershaw moved them up to 13th, then Harvey put them in 12th with one leg to go.
Lowell Bailey (US Biathlon) racing to gold in the men’s 20 k individual at 2017 IBU World Championships on Feb. 16 in Hochfilzen, Germany. He finished the championships with his fourth individual top six on Sunday in the men’s 15 k mass start. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
Before this year’s International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Championships, American Lowell Bailey had never cleaned a 20-kilometer individual or 15-kilometer mass start race. In layman’s terms, he had never hit all 20 targets in those types of races — the longest formats on the circuit. Not in a World Championships, not in a World Cup. That’s not to say shooting isn’t his strength; that’s just extremely difficult to do.
Fast forward to Sunday, the last day of 2017 Biathlon World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria, Bailey finished his third individual race of the championships with perfect shooting, shooting clean in the 15 k mass start for sixth place. In four individual races over the last week, he hit 69 out of 70 targets.
“It’s, no words, it’s unbelievable,” Bailey said after Sunday’s mass start, where he finished with what would have been a career best (sixth) in any other of his previous World Championships appearances.
In his eighth World Championships, this year was different. Bailey started the week off by racing to fourth in the sprint, the second-best result of a U.S. biathlete at World Championships. He cleaned that race. Then he finished sixth in the pursuit for his second-best result at World Championships. That’s the race he missed one.
Not counting Olympics (Bailey finished eighth in the 20 k at the 2014 Sochi Games), he had cracked the top 10 of an individual race at World Championships once before (in last year’s mass start in Oslo, Norway, where he placed 10th). Bailey carried his momentum this year all the way to the Hochfilzen 20 k, which he won to become the first American gold medalist at Biathlon World Championships. That happened Thursday. Three days later, he ended the championships with his fourth top-six result in as many individual races.
“I’m so happy for the team, for Susan,” Bailey said. “Our whole team deserves this world champs. We haven’t shown what we’re capable of, there’s always been one setback or another … and the stars aligned for this one. We were waiting for this moment and everything clicked for the team and it’s so great to see, and god, am I glad I stuck around to be here.”
Lowell Bailey sharing his moment on the top step of the World Championships podium with his wife Erika (r) and daughter Ophelia on Feb. 16 in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
Bailey, 35, is a new dad. Some people refer to him as a buffalo farmer. He got married nearly two years ago and he and his wife Erika welcomed a baby girl into their lives last June. You could say Bailey has a lot going on, and he considered retiring at the end of last season, yet he came into this season with a very specific focus.
“I told my staff, I said, ‘Hey, I just want to be on the podium again. It really doesn’t matter to me where that is because I know every race is just as competitive, so if it’s at world champs, great, if it’s at the first World Cup, if it’s at the last World Cup…,” Bailey explained.
With “25-some-odd” races in a season, he liked his odds. And considering the momentum he has coming out of world champs, Bailey is feeling good about the last nine races of the season.
“It’s just a matter of believing,” he said. “I’ve got the confidence now, I know I can go head to head with the best in the world … I’m just gonna enjoy the rest of the season and every race is a new day and a new chance.”
Podium Contention
While sixth sounds pretty good, Sunday’s mass start was even more exciting for fans of Bailey and US Biathlon as he skied in first, second or third for much of the race.
Bailey put himself near the front of the 30-man field early in the mass start, entering the range in fifth for the first time. One of 18 skiers to shoot clean on that first prone stage, he headed out on his second loop in second place, just 1.1 seconds behind Russia’s Anton Shipulin in first.
On that second loop, Austria’s Simon Eder took the lead then traded off with his teammate Dominik Landertinger before Germany’s Benedikt Doll led the pack into the range for the second time, followed closely by Shipulin and Bailey, respectively.
There, Bailey shot clean and posted the fastest range time to leave the range in first, 0.9 seconds ahead of Landertinger. Overall on the day, Bailey’s range and shooting times ranked third fastest.
On the third loop, Doll, Eder and Landertinger passed Bailey early, and he ultimately entered the range for the first standing stage in eighth, just 2.5 seconds behind Doll in first. Despite tired legs, Bailey shot clean again and left the range in second.
“I just kept to what’s been working for me all week,” he recalled. “I kept to the simple fundamentals of shooting. Today I was really feeling it, I didn’t have it in the legs and sometimes that can be a distraction, but I just said, you know, just do what you can do. You know how to shoot and you know how to ski, so just go and do the best you can.”
Austria’s Simon Eder (17) leads France’s Martin Fourcade (2) and Austrian teammate Dominik Landertinger (22) in the men’s 15 k mass start, the last race of IBU World Championships in Hochfilzen, Italy. Eder went on to place third for his first World Championships podium, Fourcade placed fifth and Landertinger seventh. (Photo: IBU)
He followed Eder, also clean through three stages, out of the range with about 3 seconds between the two. France’s Martin Fourcade had worked his way up to third after a penalty in the first stage and trailed Bailey by 0.6 seconds. Aside from Fourcade, seven of the top eight were still without a miss heading into the last shooting.
There, Bailey entered the range in eighth again, 12.1 seconds behind Fourcade, who had worked his way up to first on that fourth loop. Landertinger remained in second, just 0.5 seconds behind Fourcade, Germany’s Simon Schempp third (+0.7), Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø fourth (+1.3), and Eder fifth (+1.8).
Eder, Schempp and Bailey all cleaned — the only three men to do so and finish the day with 20-for-20 shooting — to embark on that last loop in that order. Eder led Schempp by just 2.3 seconds while Bailey trailed in third, 16.8 seconds out of first. Another 8.4 seconds behind Bailey, Bø flew out of the penalty loop (after his first miss of the day) in fourth.
And while third place was undoubtedly on Bø’s mind, he didn’t stop there when he passed Bailey early on the final 3 k loop. Up front, Schempp had caught and passed Eder within the first kilometer. Eder appeared to give up the chase for gold half a kilometer later, and at 13.6 k, he was 7.5 seconds ahead of Bø in third.
Germany’s Simon Schempp celebrating his first individual World Championships gold on Sunday in the men’s 15 k mass start in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: IBU)
Bø caught him and with less than a kilometer remaining, he passed Eder to lead on a downhill into the finishing straight. Schempp skied away, uncontested, for first place in 35:38.3 minutes, while Bø finished 9 seconds later for silver. Just 1.1 seconds behind Bø, Eder notched his first World Championships podium in third (+10.1).
Meanwhile, Bailey’s gap to Bø on the last lap grew to 18 seconds by 13.6 k. Shipulin passed Bailey shortly after, and Fourcade passed him as well to put Bailey in sixth at the finish (+33.5), behind Shipulin in fourth (+25.3) and Fourcade in fifth (+31.3).
“I was able to hang for four laps and I just told myself to hang as long as I could,” Bailey recalled. “Unfortunately I only had four laps and the fifth was bru-tal as they say in Germany. But I’m so psyched with this whole world champs…
“It’s surreal to be sixth,” he continued. “I mean, a fourth, a sixth, a first, and a sixth… I’ve popped good results here and there, but to be consistent for the whole two weeks, I’m so satisfied with how the training’s gone and the preparation. I had great skis today, maybe the best skis I’ve had actually, thank god because I didn’t feel so good. I was pretty tired. It’s amazing, it’s really just amazing. It’s hard putting it into words.”
For the 28-year-old Schempp, who wore the red bib of the World Cup mass-start discipline leader, it was his first individual world title in his sixth World Championships.
“He is wearing the red bib, and you could see he deserves that,” Germany’s head coach Mark Kirchner told German broadcaster ARD. “He has waited a long time for his individual medal, and now he also [silenced] the last critics who talked all week about how he hasn’t won one yet, and even with gold. Sensational.”
“I am just happy that it was finally sufficient,” Schempp told ARD. “Incredible, an amazing race. I am just happy that it finally was enough for the top. Thanks to everyone, I can’t really say anything right now.”
He explained that he made a point to save some energy for the last climb, because he was “determined to attack there,” Schempp said. “And that was enough. A great day.”
“Of course it’s a big relief,” he added. “After all the races here I had to walk through the mixed zone and justify myself, that was not a nice feeling. And everyone asked me about the medal. It’s not easy, but today I finally was able to put it all together for a season highlight, and that’s why I am also enormously proud of myself.”
The men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay podium at 2017 IBU World Championships on Saturday in Hochfilzen, Austria, with Russia (c) in first, France (l) in second, and Austria (r) in third. (Photo: IBU World Champs/Twitter)
HOCHFILZEN, Austria—Redemption, validation, national pride: just a few of the things that were on the line in today’s 4 x 7.5 k relay at IBU World Championships.
For Austria, it was clear: a good performance on home soil was critical. The team hadn’t won a medal yet despite eight chances to do so.
For Germany, the question was whether their accomplished men’s team could live up to the expectations set by its younger women’s team, which has won every relay this year, including at World Championships.
For Norway, there had been no gold so far, but the men wanted to defend their title from last year’s Championships in Oslo.
Russia? Relays were seeming like the best way to take medals. They had earned bronze in the mixed relay, but been locked out ever since. Plus, the team has been embroiled in politics. Things were getting complicated.
France’s Martin Fourcade has dominated the whole season, but only won one gold at World Championships. Would the relay be the place he could finally get a second?
Plus, Canada won bronze in the team event last year, and the U.S. men’s team, often a top-six threat, was looking to capitalize on the energy from Lowell Bailey’s gold in the 20 k individual.
Any number of teams wanted a slice of the podium. But there were only three steps, and only one set of gold medals.
Out of the start, a team that nobody had expected shot to the front: Latvia. Andrejs Rastorgujevs, always one of the fastest skiers in the field, decided to make a breakaway already on the first loop. He then quickly cleaned prone and continued to lead on his own through the second loop.
Using spares in standing, though, the strategy didn’t seem to pay off. Germany staked a claim as soon as he faltered, with veteran Erik Lesser cleaning both shooting stages with no spare rounds and then attacking the final loop. He tagged off to Benedikt Doll with 5.8 seconds on the competition.
“Erik is such a great finisher,” U.S. lead skier Lowell Bailey – who tagged off 12.4 seconds back in fourth place, after using one spare round – said of Lesser. “In that situation he is nearly unstoppable. Hats off to him. He knows how to ski relays.”
While Lesser had thrown down, many teams weren’t so far behind him. By the end of the third leg, Benedikt Doll had thrown away Germany’s lead with poor shooting and six teams were still within 32 seconds of first place. Gone were the U.S., Canada, and Norway. Anton Babikov had turned in a hero’s performance to take Russia to the front, and his team was now chased by Austria, France, Germany, Ukraine, and Italy.
Anton Shipulin had taken over for Russia with a slight lead over Austria and France. Martin Fourcade, the French anchor, chased hard, and passed Austria’s Dominik Landertinger. With a clean prone from both Fourcade and Shipulin, the race narrowed. But Shipulin still had some seconds of cushion when he came in for standing.
He needed them: Shipulin used one spare. Fourcade shot quickly, cleaned, and tried to catch the Russian. He left the range 4.2 seconds back, setting up a battle between two of the top men on the World Cup.
“Today the last round for me was the most difficult, because I knew that Martin Fourcade is a very strong athlete,” Shipulin said through a translator at the press conference. “I was just trying to run faster than him.”
It turned into the battle that wasn’t, however, with Shipulin pulling away and coasting to a 5.8-second win for Russia.
“I think it was too complicated for me today,” Fourcade said. “I am not in my best shape. Anton was really strong on the track. I tried in the beginning of the race to catch him, and I almost did it. But then he had a bit more power than I had.”
While the Russian fans weren’t the most numerous in the stands, they were among the most passionate. And the team had delivered for them.
“I feel relieved for our team and our country,” Shipulin said. “I think it has been almost ten years we have not won any [World Championships] in the relay. So we are just really lucky and really happy, and we are going to celebrate.”
(Russia did win gold at the 2014 Olympics.)
Behind Fourcade and Shipulin, Landertinger of Austria and Simon Schempp of Germany were both trying desperately to secure a podium spot, but there was only room for one.
Schempp initially appeared to have better skis on the downhills on the front end of the loop. But on the major climb on the back end, Landertinger accelerated and Schempp was utterly unable to follow. To the monstrous roar of the crowd, Landertinger skied into the stadium to take bronze with his three teammates.
“It was very, very hard,” Landertinger told Austrian broadcaster ORF. “Simon is one of the best anchor skiers I know. When I skied out of the range after the shooting and saw him just four or five meters behind me, I knew it would be very difficult. I probably looked at that climb a hundred times in training, and it was pretty clear I would do my attack there. And thank God that worked out great.”
Schempp was deflated, but said that Germany needed to have an overall better team performance to secure a podium. Eight spares wouldn’t to it.
“It wasn’t enough for the podium today,” he told German broadcaster ARD. “I gave everything I had, everything that was left. Unfortunately we were not convincing on the shooting range today.”
Doll apologized too: four of the eight spare rounds came from him, including three in the standing stage, which had dropped the team to seventh at the time.
“Everyone did their best, I also tried to do my best,” he said. “But I just didn’t have it in my head today. I am really sorry about that, it really hurts because half the used spares were on me. I might have to give out a bar round tonight. I have to take a large part of the blame on me.”
For the Austrian team, the medal was long-awaited and cause for celebration.
Leadoff skier Daniel Mesotitsch was also the leadoff guy when Austria took bronze on this same course back at 2005 World Championships.
“It feels just as great as back then,” the 40-year-old told ORF. “There is no better feeling than winning a medal at home with the team. We are all overwhelmed by our emotions. I was briefly feeling sick to my stomach even watching [the last loop]. I was a lot more nervous than during my own loop.”
But now, a medal is theirs.
“It’s beautiful,” Landertinger said. “Really, really beautiful. And I have to say, what I experienced today with those fans, I already got goosebumps coming into the arena today. And I am proud that I can race here. And now with this medal I achieved the goal I had, and I am brutally happy now.”
U.S. Team Seventh, Just Out of Top-Six Goal
Bailey delivered as the U.S. team’s leadoff racer, using just one spare round and staying near the front for the whole race. After the team could not contest the first few relays of the season, they lost valuable Nations Cup and relay points and started with a high bib number. Bailey had to make up the time on the range, rather than the trails.
“There was no where to go –it’s actually fairly narrow for a World Championships Course,” Bailey said. “There wasn’t a lot of room to work. With the high bib number you actually hit the [shooting] point [on the range] before a lot of other people, so I really was just focusing on getting my first shot off quick. I did, but I missed it unfortunately. The key is just in that first prone is keeping enough contact, so I really pushed the pace in shooting and pushed that extra round so I could maintain contact.”
While he was confident coming off his gold medal on Thursday, Bailey was also tired. He wasn’t sure how he was going to feel, or if he would be able to make up time on the trails once the pack thinned out enough for him to move.
“I was a little nervous about today, because the last 48 hours have been a little bit wild and I slept two hours the night after the individual,” he admitted. “I didn’t go to bed late. I just lay there and Erika and I were both wide awake, occasionally like, ‘Are you sleep?’ ‘No, are you sleep?’ ‘No, shit.’ You have to put your feet back on the ground, back in the ski boots.”
By the time he tagged off to Leif Nordgren, the U.S. was in fourth place, more or less where they wanted to be.
Then, Nordgren cleaned prone and moved into second place, 0.4 seconds behind Germany’s Doll. Really right where they wanted to be.
“I kind of took my time a little bit in prone,” Nordgren said. “I wanted to make sure I hit all five targets not using any extras, so that went really well.”
The pair were soon consumed by a chase back, but that didn’t bother Nordgren.
“I left the range right with Doll there for the lead, and then he didn’t push super hard the second loop so it was no problem staying with him. But of course it allowed some guys from behind to catch up, which, no big deal.”
In standing, Nordgren used one spare, dropping to fifth, and then stayed in sixth place on the trails. Despite losing places, he was still just 17.7 seconds out of the lead.
“I think I paced the race really well,” said Nordgren. “I was right there. I couldn’t quite close the gap, but you know, I think I kept us right in there, so yeah, I am happy.”
Tim Burke used one spare in prone and three in standing, and blamed his spare rounds partly on exhaustion.
“I feel so bad on the skis, it’s such a fight from the first kilometer,” he said. “By the time I got to standing my legs were cramping, and I — yeah. It’s so much easier when you’re feeling good, you can push and recover and get in the flow. When you’re just fighting the whole loop to try keep your head above water, and then you hit the mat to shoot, it’s just brutally hard.”
Despite a performance that left him frustrated, the U.S. was still in seventh place when Sean Doherty took over to race the anchor leg. He used two spares in prone and then cleaned standing, heading out on course in seventh place and on the hunt: Ukraine was just 3.2 seconds ahead.
The top six was not meant to be, though.
“I just didn’t have it in the legs today and that’s pretty frustrating,” Doherty said after crossing the line seventh, +1:50.5. “You know, to be so close to sixth there and not have the gear on the last lap to push it through. I gave it all I had and just didn’t have enough.”
With a total to eight spare rounds – not bad, but more than Russia’s three or France’s four – the team was missing the last little bit that would have gotten them to where they wanted to be.
“I would say we were hunting for the top six, and you know, Leif and Lowell got us off to such a great start,” Doherty said. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to really follow up on that. I think we all had it in us, just couldn’t quite get that critical mass.”
Canada 13th in Hunt for Medal Defense
Last year, the men’s relay was the best moment in several Canadian team members’ sporting careers. They won an unexpected bronze medal and were the sensation of World Championships.
This season, Nathan Smith has been out with a virus. That gave Macx Davies a chance to start. But overall, the team couldn’t match their form from the year before. With ten spares overall, they crossed the line 13th, +3:35.5.
“I was just hoping to have a good race for myself,” said Davies, for whom it was the first World Championships relay start. “It is hard to put any [results goals] on relays because it is a team event, and I am not the other three guys… It hasn’t been bad, it just has been a little too slow, especially a few too many spares for us. We need to miss less than the other nations if we ski, or if I ski, like I did today.”
“I could have definitely done better than I did today,” said leadoff racer Christian Gow, who had three spares. “Too many mistakes on the range, but I am at least happy with my skiing… I think it was a pretty good ski day. I think it is the closest I have been with that many spares. The skiing was pretty decent, but I dropped the ball in the range.”
-Gerry Furseth, Harald Zimmer, and Ian Tovell contributed
The men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay podium at 2017 IBU World Championships on Saturday in Hochfilzen, Austria, with Russia (c) in first, France (l) in second, and Austria (r) in third. (Photo: IBU World Champs/Twitter)
IBU World Championships (Hochfilzen, Austria): Men’s relay
[UPDATED] Russia’s four-man relay team hit nearly every target on Saturday, using a total of just three spares to clean 40 targets, and stayed out of the penalty loop to capture gold in the men’s 4 x 7.5-kilometer relay at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria.
It was the last team event and the second-to-last day of the championships, with the men’s and women’s elite mass starts remaining on Sunday. Anton Shipulin anchored the Russians to first, 5.8 seconds ahead of France’s Martin Fourcade, after Shipulin cleaned his prone stage and used one spare in standing to hold onto the lead his team built. Fourcade cleaned both stages to secure silver for his team, and Austria took bronze (+20.1) with anchor Dominik Landertinger.
After Russia’s Alexey Volkov used one spare in each of his shooting stages and came through the exchange in seventh, Maxim Tsvetkov and Anton Babikov both cleaned without any spares to bring the team into fourth, then first, respectively.
France’s first leg Jean-Guillaume Béatrix shot clean as well and tagged Quentin Fillon Maillet in second. Fillon Maillet then needed one spare in prone, but cleaned standing to take the lead, tagging Simon Desthieux in first. Desthieux used three spares in prone, but avoided the penalty lap before tagging Fourcade in third, 12 seconds behind Austria in second. Fourcade closed the gap and clinched second, and France combined for a total of just four spare rounds.
Austria achieved bronze in front of a home crowd with Daniel Mesotitsch, Julian Eberhard, Simon Eder, and Landertinger combining for 10 spares and no penalties.
Finishing 8.5 seconds after Austria, Germany placed fourth. Italy was a minute and a half out of first in fifth, Ukraine took sixth (+1:41.3), and the U.S. placed seventh (+1:50.5) with Lowell Bailey, Leif Nordgren, Tim Burke, and Sean Doherty. Bailey initially put the team in fourth at the first exchange, 12.4 seconds out of first, then Nordgren tagged Burke in sixth, 17 seconds behind. Burke used four spares to clean and tagged Doherty in seventh, about a minute back. The Americans used a total of eight spares but had no penalties.
Canada finished 13th (+3:35.5) with Christian Gow, Scott Gow, Macx Davies, and Brendan Green. They were 39 seconds out of first and in 12th place after Christian Gow’s first leg, then slipped to 14th before Davies moved them back into 12th by the last exchange. Canada had a total of 10 spares and zero penalties.
FIS Cross-Country World Cup (Otepää, Estonia): Freestyle sprint
In the last World Cup before the upcoming 2017 International Ski Federation (FIS) Nordic Ski World Championships next week in Lahti, Finland, five U.S. women qualified in the top 12 of the women’s 1.3-kilometer freestyle sprint, and Jessie Diggins reached the final on Saturday in Otepää, Estonia.
Diggins started the day by placing 12th in the qualifier, 3.93 seconds behind Sweden’s Stina Nilsson in first (and her U.S. teammates Kikkan Randall in third, Sophie Caldwell in fourth, and Ida Sargent in 10th) before winning her quarterfinal and semifinal. In the final, Diggins wad gapped by the leaders on the final climb and finished fifth (+6.82).
The women’s freestyle sprint podium at the Otepaa World Cup on Saturday in Estonia, with Swedish winner Stina Nilsson (c), Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla (l) in second and Heidi Weng (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
Nilsson won the final in a time of 2:49.96 minutes, just ahead of Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla (+0.27) who lost her balance and her speed with it on the last corner. The two had broken away from third place and Nilsson led into the final straightaway and held Falla off for the win. Norway took second through fourth with Heidi Weng in third place (+3.75) and Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen in fourth (+4.91).
Randall initially finished her quarterfinal in third position and would have been out, but advanced when Russia’s Natalia Matveeva was relegated to last for obstruction. In the same semifinal as Diggins, Randall fell cresting a small hill over a tunnel and finished fifth (+13.30) for ninth overall on the day.
Caldwellplaced second in her quarterfinal heat behind the day’s winner Nilsson, then stumbled halfway up a climb early in her semifinal, but stuck with the pack to finish fifth (+1.83) for 10th overall.
Sargent raced in the same quarterfinal as Falla and narrowly missed advancing to the semifinal in third place, fewer than 0.2 seconds behind Switzerland’s Laurien van der Graaff in second and 0.35 seconds behind Falla, who won that heat. Sargent placed 13th on the day.
Sadie Bjornsen qualified 25th and finished fourth (+2.82) in the same quarterfinal as Randall for the 25th overall.
Canada’s Dahria Beatty also qualified for the sprint heats in 30th place, and finished sixth in her quarterfinal for 29th overall.
Also for Canada, Cendrine Browne finished the qualification in 48th place and Katherine Stewart-Jones was one position behind in 49th.
Also for the U.S., distance specialists Chelsea Holmes and Rosie Brennan placed 58th and 60th, respectively.
The men’s freestyle sprint podium on Saturday at the World Cup in Otepaa, Estonia, with Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (c) taking his first World Cup win, Norway’s Finn Hågen Krogh (l) in second, and Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
In the men’s 1.6-kilometer sprint, Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo achieved the first World Cup victory of his career in a time of 3:06.53 minutes, holding onto a lead he had created with an attack right out of the start gate in the final. His teammate Finn Hågen Krogh placed second (+0.60), taking the inside lane in the last turn to push reigning Tour de Ski winner Sergey Ustiugov of Russia to third (+1.0).
For the North Americans, it was a day of narrow misses.
For the U.S., Simi Hamilton started his race day by qualifying in seventh position, and placed second in his quarterfinal. He then closely missed out on the final after placing fourth in his semifinal in a four-way sprint photo finish (+0.33), just 0.04 seconds behind the third place and lucky loser time of Norway’s Håvard Solås Taugbøl, who advanced. Hamilton ended the day in eighth overall.
Canadian World Cup Team member Alex Harvey snuck into the sprint heats in 29th place in the qualifier, then just missed out on advancing from his quarterfinal in a photo finish for second with Great Britain’s Andrew Young, who took it by 0.04 seconds. Harvey finished third in that heat, 0.6 behind Italy’s Federico Pellegrino, for 15th for the day. Young went on to finish sixth in his semifinal for 12th overall, and Pellegrino advanced as a lucky loser from the same semifinal and was fourth in the final (+4.77).
American Andy Newell qualified 16th and finished sixth (+1.89) in his quarterfinal for 27th overall.
Canada’s Len Valjas missed qualifying for the heats in 40th place, as did his teammate Devon Kershaw in 50th.
American Erik Bjornsen was 53rd, and for Canada, Jesse Cockney 54th and Knute Johnsgaard 56th. In his World Cup debut, Benjamin Lustgarten placed 64th in the qualifier.
The photo finish for first in the IBU World Cup men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay on Saturday in Antholz, Italy, with Germany’s Simon Schempp (r) edging Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen (l) by 0.1 seconds. (Photo: IBU/Christian Manzoni)
For Germany and Norway, it was a two-way battle for first following the final exchange of the men’s 4 x 7.5-kilometer relay on Saturday at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Antholz, Italy.
There, thanks to third-leg Johannes Thingnes Bø, Norway had taken the lead by 17.7 seconds over Germany and built a 38-second gap to Russia in third. Ukraine was another nine seconds back in fourth, skiing just ahead of France and the U.S. in fifth and sixth through the exchange, respectively.
So for the U.S. in Saturday’s relay, the last one before 2017 IBU World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria, next month, it was a fight for a team-best result — which would have been fourth.
Before we get to where they finished, let’s remember where the U.S. men’s relay started: in bib 24 of 25, at the back of the pack.
Lowell Bailey raced them into sixth at the first exchange and 8.6 seconds out of the lead, with Russia’s Maxim Tsvetkov reaching the exchange first. Bailey had skied the fifth-fastest course time on that leg and shot quickly to clean with one spare in each of his two shooting stages.
Eighth after the first prone stage, he moved into sixth after his standing shooting. One loop later, he tagged his teammate Leif Nordgren in sixth.
Leif Nordgren (US Biathlon) skiing the second leg of the men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay on Saturday at the IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
Nordgren proceeded to jet into third after his prone stage, despite using two spares to clean.
“It was a big bummer to miss two in prone, but the rest of the group also missed so I was able to leave towards the front,” Nordgren explained in a US Biathlon press release.
He used one more spare to clean his standing stage and remained in third heading into his final loop. There, Nordgren’s lack of racing this season caught up to him (this was his fifth World Cup race of the season), and he tagged off in ninth, 27.6 seconds behind Russia’s Evgeniy Garanichev in fifth.
“In the last loop I was holding on for dear life,” Nordgren told US Biathlon. “Those other guys have a lot more racing under their belts this year. I have four [races], so that made for a hard loop.”
While Nordgren and teammate Tim Burke had a shaky tag, which Burke described as a “bit of a collision,” Burke was able to emerge from it unscathed. He went on to ski the fourth-fastest third leg to bring the U.S. to sixth.
“I felt solid on course today,” Burke wrote in an email, after posting the third-fastest course time for that leg.
He used three spares to clean prone — any more misses and he would’ve had to ski a penalty loop — and started his second loop in ninth. The next time in the range, Burke cleaned standing without any spares and set out on his last loop in seventh.
“I pushed hard all the way to the shooting point before prone, which, in hindsight, was probably a bit too aggressive,” he reflected. “For standing my goal today was stay aggressive and I was happy with how that worked out.”
Burke started his last loop with France’s Simon Desthieux. “We were able to really push on the last loop and pull the others back,” Burke explained. “I wanted to hand off to Sean with the group that would fight for third place.”
Burke tagged his teammate Sean Doherty in sixth, 11.6 seconds out of third and just 4.3 seconds behind fourth. Meanwhile, Norway had taken the lead after Bø’s standing stage with clean shooting (and after using just one spare to clean prone) while Russia dropped to third with a total of four spares from Dmitry Malyshko.
Germany’s third-leg skier Arnd Peiffer took the lead after a miss-free prone stage, and using one spare in standing, left the range just 6 seconds after Bø to bring Germany into second at the final tag, 17.7 seconds from first.
Over the last three loops and two shooting stages, Norway’s anchor Emil Hegle Svendsen and Germany’s final skier Simon Schempp drew closer, with both cleaning prone without a miss. At the start of the second loop, Schempp was within 12.7 seconds of Svendsen. Back in the range for the last time, Svendsen missed his second and fifth shots, requiring two spares, and Schempp needed one spare to clean, and the two set out on the final loop together, with Svendsen leading by 0.3 seconds.
The two went head to head all the way to the finish, where Schempp ultimately outlunged Svendsen in a photo finish by one-tenth of a second. He secured the win for Germany in 1:13:57.2 hours, and the team — with Erik Lesser, Benedikt Doll, Peiffer and Schemmp — used a total of seven spares to avoid the penalty loop.
“I gave it everything I had in the end, and wanted to attack a little earlier but [Svendsen] attacked incredibly up the bridge,” Schempp recalled in a post-race interview with ZDF. “I had a feeling that we crossed the line pretty much together. Then I had to wait what the computer would show as a result.”
“He was a little stronger,” Svendsen told NRK after. “I have no other explanation than that. I had to make sure I did not ski into him … so I lost a little momentum there.”
At the last World Cup relay in Ruhpolding, Germany, Norway won with Ole Einar Bjørndalen, Vetle Sjåstad Christiansen, Henrik L’Abee-Lund, and Svendsen. Russia finished second, Germany was third, and the U.S. was 12th.
“I think we presented ourselves with top ski speed today, and on the shooting range it clearly went better than in Ruhpolding, especially for me,” Lesser said, referring to his penalty and the team’s total of nine spares in the Ruhpolding relay (compared to Russia, which had two, and Norway with five spares in Ruhpolding).
“We still have those seven spares, I can remember the last time we became World Champions we only had two spares, so we definitely can get down there, but it was a cool final rehearsal,” Lesser said.
Norway took second with Lars Helge Birkeland, L’Abée-Lund (who brought the team from fourth to second at the second exchange), Bø, and Svendsen, after using nine spares.
Russia ended up third (+33.6), with Tsvetkov, Garanichev, Malyshko, and Babikov, with a team total of nine spares as well, and Ukraine pulled off fourth (+46.7) with just five total spares, with Artem Pryma, Sergey Semenov, Vladimir Semakov, and Dmytro Pidruchnyi.
Ukraine embarked on the last leg in fourth, 1:04 minutes out of first and just ahead of France in fifth and the U.S. in sixth.
On their first loop together, Doherty moved into fourth, trailing Russia’s Babikov in third by about eight seconds. With France’s Quentin Fillon Maillet, Doherty bridged the gap to Babikov, passing the Russian but remaining in fourth as the Frenchman skied into third.
In their prone stage, Doherty used one spare and Fillon Maillet cleaned to leave the range just ahead of him in fifth, while Doherty followed in sixth. Five teams continued to fight for the podium, with Ukraine’s Pidruchnyi leading them in third.
Pidruchnyi didn’t miss a shot in either stage to hold that position until his final loop, where Babikov passed him to claim the third spot on the podium, 12.9 seconds ahead of him.
Sean Doherty (US Biathlon) crossing the finish line in sixth for the U.S. men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay on Saturday at the IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
In the final standing stage, Doherty and Austria’s Dominik Landertinger both used one spare and left the range in fifth and sixth, respectively. France dropped out of contention when Fillon Maillet had to ski a penalty lap.
“It was really exciting,” Doherty said of the last shooting in an interview with IBU TV. “The pace was really high. Came in and just tried really hard to focus on my own work, knowing there were some guys close in front and behind me. Luckily only one spare, and I was able to get out of there with staying out of the [penalty] loop.”
While Doherty left the range about three seconds ahead of Landertinger, the Austrian passed him during the first kilometer of their final loop. Landertinger extended his gap to Doherty to 12 seconds with less than half a kilometer remaining and anchored Austria to fifth (+49.2), 2.5 seconds out of fourth. Doherty finished sixth for the U.S. (+1:04.9), 15.7 seconds out of fifth.
Behind him, France’s Fillon Maillet finished seventh (+1:34.7). In all, Austria used eight spares and the U.S. had 10, but both avoided the penalty lap. France accumulated 14 spares and one penalty.
“Today’s sixth place was a very strong effort for the team,” Doherty told US Biathlon. “I am very happy to be skiing up in the mix and looking at the podium. There is still room to improve for World Championships, but it seems we are headed in the right direction.”
“Today we showed that we are competitive with the best in the world,” Bailey said in the same press release. “With 10 extra rounds, this is far from our best, but it is a big step in the right direction and exactly where we want to be heading into world champs.”
For the U.S., sixth was one place back from its team-best fifth, which it achieved with the same four men last year at the World Cup in Presque Isle, Maine.
“We are very satisfied with the result today,” Burke said. “With the exception of Lowell, it has been a bit of slow start for the rest of us with a mix of injuries and illnesses. This was definitely important for our confidence heading into World Champs.”
For every man on the team except Bailey, Saturday marked the last World Cup race before World Championships, which start Feb. 9.
Burke planned to stay in Antholz for the next two weeks to prepare.
“I feel like I am still not near my best, but at least I have been consistently in the mix the past two weeks,” Burke wrote. “Hopefully with a good training block over the next two weeks, I can still come to a higher level for World Championships.”
Bailey competed in Sunday’s 15 k mass start and finished 16th, 1:33.4 behind Norway’s Bø, who cleaned the four-stage race to win in 37:04.3. Bailey had two penalties in his last two stages (0+0+1+1), and in his first World Cup mass start, Canada’s Scott Gow finished 30th (+4:09.9) with four penalties (1+0+2+1).
The Canadian men’s relay finished 16th on Saturday (+4:13.8), with Christian Gow, Scott Gow, Macx Davies, and Brendan Green combining for two penalties and 11 spares. Both penalties came on Davies’s third leg. While the team was in 15th after Scott Gow’s second leg, they dropped to 18th on the third leg, but Green recovered two places to finish 16th.
Ben Lustgarten (Craftsbury Green Racing Project) with his $750-dollar check for winning the men’s SuperTour classic sprint on Saturday near Truckee, Calif. Stratton’s Ben Saxton (l) placed second and APU’s Reese Hanneman (r) was third.
Lustgarten, of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project, raced to a 1.58-second victory in the men’s A-final at the Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif., finishing in 3:03.4. Ben Saxton, of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) Elite Team, placed second, and Reese Hanneman, of Alaska Pacific University (APU), was third (+2.77).
Hannenman’s younger brother Logan also reached the final and placed fourth (+4.5), Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess (Bend Endurance Academy) was fifth (+5.86), and the third APU skier in the final, Tyler Kornfield sixth (+18.69).
Blackhorse-von Jess started the day off as the fastest qualifier in 2:58.8. Saxton qualified second, 4.1 seconds back, Logan Hanneman qualified third (+4.2), and Lustgarten fourth (+6.5). Blackhorse-von Jess went on to win his quarterfinal and place second in his semifinal, while Lustgarten and Saxton both won their quarterfinals and semifinals.
Jennie Bender (3) of the Bridger Ski Foundation leading Stratton’s Julia Kern (2) and Sun Valley’s Deedra Irwin (5) during the second women’s classic sprint semifinal at Saturday’s SuperTour near Truckee, Calif. Bender went on to win the semifinal, as well as the final.
In the women’s A-final, Jennie Bender of the Bridger Ski Foundation, coming off a classic sprint win at nationals, scored another victory in 3:29.07. She edged Craftsbury’s Kaitlynn Miller by just seven-hundredths of a second, and Stratton’s Julia Kern placed third (+3.42). Racing at home, Hannah Halvorsen (Sugar Bowl Academy) finished fourth (+3.88). Craftsbury had three in the women’s final with Caitlin Patterson in fifth (+3.93) and Heather Mooney in sixth (+27.35).
Miller proved to be the woman to beat throughout the day, winning the qualifier in 3:30.9, along with her quarterfinal and semifinal. Kern qualified second (+3.2) and Bender third (+4.6). Bender went on to win her quarterfinal and semifinal as well before facing off with Miller in the final.
NorAm Western Canadian Championships (Whistler, B.C.): 10/15 k classic
It was interval-starts day at Western Canadian Championships at Whistler Olympic Park and national-team veteran Emily Nishikawa completed the four laps of the women’s 10 k classic in 30:35.5 to win ahead of teammate Dahria Beatty, 16.5 seconds behind. Maya MacIsaac-Jones completed the national team and Alberta World Cup Academy (AWCA) sweep in third (+1:36.5).
Sovereign Lake’s Hannah Mehain, of the national junior team, was the top junior for the second-straight day in eighth overall (+3:22.1).
In the men’s 15 k, Lappe Nordic’s Andy Shields won the six-lap race in 40:34.2, showing some of the form that won him the NorAm overall last season. National-team member Jess Cockney collected his second-straight podium, finishing second, 4.3 seconds behind Shields. Evan Palmer-Charrette (NTDC Thunder Bay) completed the podium in third (+55.1).
FIS Cross-Country World Cup (Ulricehamn, Sweden): 10/15 k freestyle
The men’s 15 k freestyle podium at Saturday’s World Cup in Ulricehamn, Sweden, with Canadian winner Alex Harvey (c), Norwegian runner-up Martin Johnsrud Sundby (l), and Sweden’s Marcus Hellner (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
First individual win of the season (second straight, after winning last weekend’s team sprint), fifth individual victory of his career. That’s the latest news on Canada’s Alex Harvey, who won the World Cup men’s 15-kilometer freestyle individual start on Sunday in Ulricehamn, Sweden, for his first victory in a 15 k skate race and fourth individual podium of 2016/2017.
To say Harvey is on a roll is an understatement. On Saturday, he beat Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby by 6 seconds after starting a minute behind the Norwegian defending World Cup champion. Harvey’s fastest time across the line in 32:46.2 held up through 76 finishers, with Sweden’s Marcus Hellner coming somewhat within range after starting a minute behind him. Hellner ended up 14.3 seconds back from Harvey at the finish for third place, behind Sundby.
Switzerland’s Dario Cologna missed the podium by 0.5 seconds in fourth (+14.7), and Norway’s 24-year-old Daniel Stock broke through in fifth (+16.2) for his first World Cup top 20.
Great Britain’s Andrew Musgrave placed sixth (+18.7), Sweden’s Daniel Rickardsson was seventh (+25.0), Norway’s Finn Hågen Krogh eighth (+32.2), Russia’s Petr Sedov ninth (+33.9), and Japan’s Keishin Yoshida 10th (+34.2).
American Erik Bjornsen landed in the points as he tied Norway’s Simen Andreas Sveen for 28th (+1:09.2), leading fellow U.S. Ski Team members Noah Hoffman, who placed 41st (+1:28.8), and Simi Hamilton in 53rd (+1:56.2). Also for the U.S., Matt Gelso, the Period 1 SuperTour leader from the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF) Gold Team, finished 68th (+3:00.3).
Harvey’s Canadian World Cup teammates Len Valjas finished 35th (+1:17.7) and Devon Kershaw 38th (+1:22.2). Knute Johnsgaard (Canadian U25 Team) did not start.
The women’s 10 k freestyle podium on Saturday in Ulricehamn, Sweden, with Norwegian winner Marit Bjørgen (c), Finland’s Krista Parmakoski (l) in second and Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
In her first World Cup race in over a month and at a brand-new World Cup venue, Norway’s 36-year-old Marit Bjørgen returned to her winning ways, topping the women’s 10 k freestyle on Saturday in Ulricehamn.
Bjørgen started 40th out of 61 finishers and took the lead from Finland’s Krista Parmakoski at the finish with a time of 23:46.3 minutes. Parmakoski, who started a minute ahead of her in bib 38, ended up second, 10.7 seconds back. Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla reached the podium for the second time this season in third (+24.9).
“It is always great to win,” Bjørgen said, according to an International Ski Federation (FIS) press release. “I stayed at home for five weeks and was training. It is great to come back with a victory. I know that the training I had done was good. It was an amazing atmosphere today by the course. There were people cheering everywhere.”
Norway swept fourth through sixth with Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen in fourth (+25.7), Ragnhild Haga in fifth (+32.3) and Heidi Weng in sixth (+34.0).
American Jessie Diggins raced to seventh (+34.9), ahead of Sweden’s Hanna Falk, who recorded her best distance result in eighth (+36.4). Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg finished ninth (+44.8), and Germany’s Sandra Ringwald was 10th (+56.6).
“I didn’t have the snappy good feelings I was hoping to have in my body today, but it was a solid race,” Diggins wrote in a post-race email to FasterSkier. “It’s always hard when you know that on your best days you are capable of more, but at the same time we had great skis, and it was really fun for me to be able to ski with my teammates today!”
The U.S. had three in the top 20 and four in the top 30 with Sadie Bjornsen in 12th (+1:00.5), Liz Stephen in 16th (+1:07.3) and Rosie Brennan in 24th (+1:30.7).
Cendrine Browne as Canada’s lone woman in the race achieved 35th (+1:52.0) for her career best in an individual race. Also for the U.S., Kikkan Randall placed 40th (+1:59.6) and Liz Guiney of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project 52nd (+2:33.2).
The photo finish of the men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay on Saturday at the IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy, with Germany’s Simon Schempp outlunging Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen. (Photo: ZDF broadcast screenshot)
For the U.S. men, top six was a target for the 4 x 7.5 k relay on Sunday in Antholz, Italy, according to US Biathlon Men’s Coach Jonas Johansson.
Mission accomplished. In the final team event before 2017 World Championships, Lowell Bailey, Leif Nordgren, Tim Burke, and Sean Doherty combined for sixth, finishing 1:04.9 minutes behind the German winners. The Americans used a total of 10 spares but avoided the penalty loop, as did the Germans who used seven spares to clean the eight-stage race and won it in 1:13.57.2.
Germany’s Simon Schempp narrowly outlasted Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen in the finishing stretch to secure the victory for Germany (with teammates Erik Lesser, Benedikt Doll and Arnd Peiffer) by one-tenth of a second. Norway finished second with nine spares and no penalties (with Lars Helge Birkeland, Henrik L’Abee-Lund, Johannes Thingnes Bø, and Svendsen), and Russia secured third (+33.6) with nine spares and zero penalties as well (with Maxim Tsvetkov, Evgeniy Garanichev, Dmitry Malyshko, and Anton Babikov).
Ukraine used a total of just five spares and had zero penalties for fourth (+46.7), and Austria took fifth (+49.2) with eight spares and no penalties, after Austria’s Dominik Landertinger skied away from Doherty on the final loop and finished 6.9 seconds ahead of him for fifth place.
For the U.S. men, sixth was close to their team-best fifth with the same lineup in last year’s World Cup relay in Presque Isle, Maine. The same group also took sixth in Ruhpolding, Germany, last year as well.
With all four making US Biathlon’s World Championships team, announced Saturday, they will likely be aiming for a best championships result early next month in Hochfilzen, Austria.
Canada (Christian Gow, Scott Gow, Macx Davies, and Brendan Green) finished 16th (+4:13.8) on Saturday with two penalties and 11 spares. Scott Gow skied them up to 15th by the second exchange but they dropped to 18th after Davies had two penalties on the third leg. With Green anchoring and using just one spare, they recouped two places before the finish.
In the women’s race, Germany’s Nadine Horchler achieved a lifetime dream with her first World Cup win, after starting in bib 30 and earning her start as a reserve athlete. Germany took first and second with Laura Dahlmeier in second, and the Czech Republic’s Gabriela Koukalova placed third. Susan Dunklee of the U.S. was the lone North American starter and finished 24th after leading at the start of the second loop.
FIS Nordic Combined World Cup (Chaux-Neuve, France): Individual large hill/10 k
Saturday’s Nordic Combined World Cup podium in Chaux-Neuve, France, with German winner Johannes Rydzek (c), German runner-up Fabian Rießle (l) and Japan’s Akito Watabe (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Nordic Combined/Twitter)
The first part of Saturday’s Nordic Combined World Cup individual large hill/10 k competition was a shining moment for U.S. Nordic Combined skier Ben Berend, who jumped to second for a total of 127.5 points, trailing only Norway’s Jarl Magnus Riiber with 139 points in Chaux-Neuve, France.
Berend flew farther than Germany’s Eric Frenzel, who jumped to third on the Chaux-Neuve large hill.
Later in the day, they started the 10 k Gundersen in that order, with Riiber heading out first, followed by Berend 46 seconds later, then Frenzel 53 seconds back in third.
Germany’s Johannes Rydzek started 1:15 minutes back in 12th and skied the fastest 10 k to take the victory at the finish (in 23:01.7). He held off his German teammate Fabian Rießle by 2.8 seconds for the win, after Rießle started sixth and 1:01 back. Japan’s Akito Watabe reached the podium in third (+5.7) after jumping to seventh and starting the race 1 second behind Rießle.
Frenzel ended up fourth (+8.3), and the fourth German in the top five, Björn Kircheisen improved to fifth (+22.6) after starting 11th.
Riiber dropped to 15th (+54.0), and Berend fell outside the top 30 to end up 32nd (+2:26.0) with the 39th-ranked course time.
Berend finished 12.2 seconds ahead of his U.S. teammate Taylor Fletcher, who placed 34th (+2:38.2) after the jump put him in 48th.
Bryan Fletcher was 49th after the jump but did not start the 10 k.
The Nordic Combined World Cup continues Sunday in Chaux-Neuve with another large hill/10 k.
Ski Classics #5: La Diagonela (Zuoz, Switzerland): 50 k classic
[UPDATED] Under “blue skies, no wind and perfect track conditions” in the Swiss Engadin Valley on Saturday, according to a Ski Classics press release, Russia’s Ilya Chernousov and the Czech Republic’s Kateřina Smutná won the men’s and women’s La Diagonela, respectively, in Zuoz, Switzerland.
Chernousov, of Team Pioneer Investments, and Tord Asle Gjerdalen (Team Santander) led a large pack of men into the final major climb on the 50 k course. There, Gjerdalen attacked and Chernousov matched him, accelerating away from his competitors up the last steep pitch to the finish, according to the press release. He finished in 2:03:39.6 hours, holding off Gjerdalen by 1.5 seconds, while Øystein Pettersen (Team BN Bank) finished third (+3.0).
In the women’s race, Smutná (Team Santander) pushed to break up the field around the halfway point, where the men caught the women. Britta Johansson Norgren (Lager 157 Ski Team) hung with Smutná, but lost contact over the last 5 k. After finishing second in the last two Ski Classics races, Smutná took the win by 1:03.2 minutes in 2:20:49.2. Nordgren finished second, ahead of Sara Lindborg (Team Serneke) in third, who finished more than three minutes later (+4:17.4).
The men’s pursuit flower ceremony on Saturday in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, with winner Simon Schempp (second from l) of Germany, Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø (l) in second, Germany’s Erik Lesser (third from left) in third, and (from left to right) Switzerland’s Benjamin Weger in fourth, Germany’s Benedikt Doll in fifth, and American Tim Burke in sixth. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
End of the season? One week after World Championships? No problem for guys like Simon Schempp. The 27-year-old German came out on all cylinders on Saturday after starting second in the men’s 12.5-kilometer pursuit in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, 1 second behind Austria’s Julian Eberhard in first.
The first loop and prone shooting didn’t hurt Schempp, but it didn’t necessarily help him, either. After entering the range in second, right behind Eberhard, Schempp proceeded to miss one and emerged from the penalty loop in third, nearly 10 seconds behind another Austrian Dominik Landertinger in first. Schempp’s teammate Erik Lesser had moved into second place with clean shooting, like Landertinger, and left the range 8.5 seconds behind the Austrian and about a second ahead of Schempp.
Meanwhile, Eberhard missed two and dropped to fourth, 22.7 seconds back.
Lesser caught Landertinger quickly on the next loop, and Schempp remained glued to Lesser’s tails in second as they entered the range together for the second time. There, Lesser cleaned prone once again, Eberhard cleaned to move into second, 17.6 seconds back. American Tim Burke cleaned his second-straight stage to leave the range in third, 21 seconds after Lesser.
Where was Schempp? Despite another miss, he was still in contention in fourth, 1.4 seconds behind Burke. Following Schempp, Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø cleaned his second stage in a row to improve to fifth after starting seventh (behind Burke in sixth).
What was shaping up proved to be a showdown between Schempp and Bø, which would play out on the final loop.
Schempp cleaned his first standing stage while Bø continued on the path of perfect shooting, putting them in second and first, respectively. Bø led Schempp by 0.3 seconds into the fourth of five laps, and the two skied together before the going head to head in the final shooting.
There, both missed one, but Bø did so faster, leaving the range first. Schempp followed 3.4 seconds later and prepared for the one last push to the finish.
“I know that he can shoot incredibly fast,” Schempp said of Bø in a post-race interview with Germany’s ZDF. “But I can also risk it at the end and push the tempo if necessary. We both were pretty exhausted, especially for the last shooting. So we both did it the same way [missed one], and went out together on the final loop, with the better outcome for me.”
Germany’s Simon Schempp (2) after winning the men’s pursuit on Saturday by 8.5 seconds over Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø (l) Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. (Photo: IBU/Evgeniy Tumashov)
Bø continued to lead the duo for the bulk of the last loop, before Schempp attacked with about half a kilometer to go. Bø initially chased, then realized the gap was too much to overcome and backed off before the finish. Schempp won the final pursuit of the season in 33:27.8 while Bø claimed second, 8.5 seconds later.
“I came out of the shooting range in the first place. I knew there would be a fight with Schempp,” Bø recalled in a post-race press conference. “On the final downhill Simon had more power.”
“After the World Championships my shape is getting better and better,” Schempp said at the press conference. “I feel a lot of power in my legs. Nevertheless, I thought the win was possible only 200 meters before the finish.”
Lesser locked up third, 15.7 seconds back, after one miss on each of his standing stages. He held off Switzerland’s Benjamin Weger, who shot 20-for-20 to improve from 11th at the start to fourth at the finish (+18.7).
“I think this is the last time the World Cup will be in Khanty-Mansiysk, so I can put in some effort one last time,” Lesser told ZDF, after previously saying he lacked motivation in the Khanty sprint because he had not been successful there in the past. Lesser started the race in fifth, 38 seconds back, while Weger overcame a 1:15 starting deficit.
“In the beginning of the lap I wanted to get ahead of Weger to secure a gap,” Lesser said in the press conference. “Last year we had a similar fight in the mass start, and he beat me. Now it was reverse, and I am satisfied about it.”
A third German in the top five, Benedikt Doll placed fifth (+27.3) with two penalties (1+0+1+0), and Burke tied his season best from Friday’s sprint in sixth (+31.3) with two misses as well (0+0+1+1).
Tim Burke (US Biathlon) racing to sixth, which tied his season best, in Saturday’s pursuit in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
“I’m very happy with my races so far here in Khanty,” Burke wrote in a post-race email. “I mean, these are my two best results of the season so I can’t be too disappointed. But I am also like most athletes in that I always want more!”
After starting 53 seconds back in sixth, 15 seconds behind Lesser and 9 seconds ahead of Bø, Burke skied alone during the first 2.5 k loop.
“This is very unusual in a pursuit, especially for the first lap,” he explained. “I just tried to stay focused on setting a good pace that I could maintain for the entire race. I feel like many athletes tend to go out way too fast in the pursuit, so it was nice to settle into my own pace.”
By the time he made his way into third at the race’s halfway point, Burke reflected that he continued to focus on his normal routine.
“Of course this is easier said than done but I try to keep my focus the same if I’m fighting for a podium or if I’m in the back of the pack,” he wrote. “Even with a penalty in each standing stage, I was within striking distance of the podium so it was no problem to keep fighting all the way to the finish.”
After a miss in the third stage, Burke left the range in fifth, 22 seconds out of first. One lap later and with another miss in the final bout, he was 27 seconds back in sixth.
“Tomorrow should be another good opportunity for me,” he said of the 15 k mass start. “I am definitely still in good shape and our technicians have put us on great skis here. Tomorrow I just want to execute my game plan. If I can do that, I know I will be happy with the result.”
For Schempp, the goal is to continue to improve in the World Cup standings, as he currently sits in fourth — 37 points behind Russia’s Anton Shipulin in third. Bø swapped places with Shipulin in the standings on Saturday, moving into second, 14 points ahead of the Russian. Shipulin started the pursuit 45th and improved to 20th with three penalties (0+1+1+1). France’s Martin Fourcade has unofficially won the World Cup crown, giving him the luxury to sit out the pursuit after placing 40th in the sprint.
“My season has been very good so far,” Bø said at the press conference. “I managed to attain a goal of being in the top 10 in the World Cup Total Score. I see now that I am in second, so I would like to preserve this.”
Lowell Bailey (US Biathlon) after placing 22nd in the men’s pursuit on Saturday in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
After notching sixth in the Nation Cup to secure a fifth men’s quota spot for next season, three U.S. men raced the pursuit on Saturday, with Lowell Bailey improving from 31st to 22nd (+2:06) with one penalty (0+0+1+0) and Sean Doherty finishing 32nd (+2:47.7) with five misses (2+1+1+1). Doherty started 21st.
“I really wanted to put together a solid shooting performance today,” Bailey wrote in an email. “I wasn’t really that happy with yesterday’s Sprint, especially in the range.”
In Friday’s sprint, he missed two prone targets. He cleaned both prone stages on Saturday, with his only miss coming in the first standing stage. After the second prone, Bailey rose as high as 19th and held that position even after a miss on the next stage.
“I was happy to have moved up by that point, but I also know that a lot can happen after the midpoint of a pursuit,” he wrote. “Typically, most misses happen in the last two stages so I just tried to maintain my focus through the end of the race. … It was definitely a battle out on the course today. I’m pretty tired coming off of World Champs so I really just tried to give what I had left.”
Overall in the World Cup, Burke ranks 15th and Bailey is 17th, earning them both a spot in Sunday’s mass start.
“I’d like to finish with a quality performance; good shooting and solid skiing,” Bailey wrote of the season-ending World Cup race. “If I can do that, the result will follow!”
Canada’s lone starter, Brendan Green improved from 42nd to 36th (+3:05.2) with three penalties (0+0+2+1). His teammate Nathan Smith, who is 28th in the World Cup standings, is listed as a reserve on the mass start’s provisional start list, but has not raced yet this weekend.
Tim Burke racing to a season-best sixth in the men’s 10 k sprint on Friday at the IBU World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. (Photo: US Biathlon/Twitter)
Ask any athlete competing in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, and they’ll likely tell you it’s hard to focus. Sure, there’s the Siberian sunset — a breathtaking backdrop to the final IBU World Cup races of the season. But then there’s the fact that these are the last races of the season, and they come at the end of a long haul of nine World Cups and a World Championships.
“I have been fighting really hard to stay focused,” American Tim Burke wrote in an email after Friday’s 10-kilometer sprint. “Because I have to admit, it is easy to start focusing more on returning home then racing at this time of year.”
He wasn’t alone.
“I am noticing that the tension [focus] is a bit gone after the World Championships,” Austria’s Dominik Landertinger told Austria’s ORF. “But I managed to completely focus on the competition today.”
Austria’s Julian Eberhard celebrating his first IBU World Cup win (and podium) on Friday in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. (Photo: IBU/Evgeniy Tumashov)
While Landertinger ultimately finished fourth with clean shooting, and Burke placed sixth for a season best with a single standing penalty, Friday’s victory went to Julian Eberhard — the first Austrian to win a sprint in 15 years.
“After the World Championships that were disappointing for me, I didn’t have anything to lose today and just put all my eggs in one basket,” Eberhard, 29, told ORF. “I knew the shooting works, and just pulled through. I didn’t do anything differently on the shooting range than usual, I just worked off what I can do. On the course it then was hard work. But there I could rely on my qualities [abilities]. Also the equipment was great.”
Like the rest of the top-five finishers, Eberhard cleaned the two-stage race. He also skied the second-fastest course time to clinch the win. After starting 40th, Eberhard edged Germany’s Simon Schempp (in bib 21) by 1.1 seconds. On his 29th birthday, Germany’s Arnd Peiffer placed third, 23 seconds back.
“I felt pretty good today, and here in Khanty I usually do,” Peiffer told Germany’s ZDF. “When I got through with zero-zero [clean shooting] I knew this could be a good result today. … At the end of the day, the procedure is the same. On a birthday, you have a few more phone calls than usual, with relatives and a few others. Of course it’s nice if everything works out on a day like this.”
Schempp skied the fastest course time and topped his teammate Peiffer’s time by nearly 22 seconds at the finish. While it looked like a German 1-2 sweep, Eberhard came through and knocked them both down one step on the podium. With clean shooting, he led after both his first and second stages, leaving the range 1.9 seconds up on Schempp’s time with one loop to go.
While Eberhard told reporters afterward that he was confident in his ability to reach the podium, Friday’s win was his first-career podium after placing fourth in the Canmore sprint earlier this season.
“This year I had a very difficult season on the shooting range,” Eberhard told ZDF. “I knew that I was able to be in the mix on the course in every race, and today it worked out. So I am all the more elated.”
For Schempp, who ranks fourth in the overall World Cup standings with two more individual races to go (Saturday’s pursuit and Sunday’s mass start), the goal for the overall podium remains.
“… When you put on a race bib, I always want to be as far ahead as possible, no matter if it is a World Championship, a World Cup, or some other race,” he told ZDF. “Today I just wanted to achieve my optimum again, and I think that worked out very well, and I can live very well with that. I hope the next two days will be just like this one.”
France’s Martin Fourcade has a lock on the World Cup overall by an insurmountable 367 points, while Russia’s Anton Shipulin is currently second, just 19 points ahead of Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø in third, and Schempp is another 57 points behind Bø in fourth.
On Friday, Fourcade placed 40th with an uncharacteristic four penalties — three prone and one standing — on an essentially wind-free evening with steady snowfall.
“Today was not my day. I don’t know, I felt good on the skis and I felt motivated, in spite of the [overall World Cup] Globe already done,” Fourcade told ZDF. “I need to analyze my prone shooting, it’s where I did bad today, but honestly I was really focused on my competition, and it was not because of a lack of motivation. I can’t say why I was bad today, but yeah, I’ll try to do better in the mass start. I think I will not compete in the pursuit.”
Shipulin placed even farther back in 45th with just one standing miss but the 60th-ranked course time of 84 finishers. No Russians placed in the top 20 at their home World Cup.
Then there was Burke — the best finisher with a miss in sixth. He finished 52.6 seconds out of first with the fifth-fastest course time. Ahead of him, Landertinger placed fourth (+28.2) and Germany’s Erik Lesser was fifth (+38.1). Bø finished about 10 seconds behind Burke in seventh.
“I knew there would be a lot of physically and mentally tired athletes here, so I looked at this world cup as a great opportunity,” Burke explained.
“This World Cup definitely has a more relaxed feel coming after World Champs,” he wrote. “I knew that I was still in good shape after World Champs and I really wanted to perform here in Russia.”
Earlier this month at World Championships in Olso, Norway, Burke placed 14th in the sprint and 12th in the mass start for his two best individual results at the championships.
“I went out hard from the start today and just tried to hold on,” he wrote on Friday. “I was a little nervous at about 5k that I had started too aggressive but it worked out in the end.”
The fourth starter, Burke initially finished second to Landertinger in bib 3. After a clean prone, his time leaving the range for the second loop held up as fifth fastest overall. And after his standing penalty, his time ranked ninth overall leaving the range for the last time.
“Of course I am happy with my 6th place but I always want more!” Burke added.
The US Biathlon coaching staff, including development coach Jean Paquet (l), poses for a photo following the men’s sprint in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
All three Americans qualified for the pursuit, with Sean Doherty finishing 21st (+1:38.3) with two prone misses and Lowell Bailey in 31st (+1:55.4) with one penalty in each stage.
“I was a bit disappointed with the prone misses but I felt great on the skis and I kept the focus up,” Doherty told US Biathlon. “It was a good overall race and I am excited for the pursuit.”
Above all, the U.S. men’s team clinched a best-ever sixth in the Nation Cup.
“Today was also a great day for the team, as we secured 6th place in the men’s Nation Cup score,” Burke wrote. “This is a best ever for this team and we are all very excited about that. We have come a long way since my start on the World Cup!
“Our ski technicians also did an amazing job today,” the 34-year-old New York native added. “The conditions are really tricky here with slow, dirty snow and some of the big teams struggled. We only have three technicians here but the nailed it today and I am confident that we were on the best skis.”
“Congrats to my teammates, coaches, and staff,” Bailey said in the press release. “It takes a lot of support just to get to the start line at a World Cup, let alone compete with some of the best teams in the world.”
Brendan Green was the top Canadian in 42nd (+2:08.1) with two standing penalties. Macx Davies placed 73rd with three misses (1+2), Scott Gow was 76th with five penalties (2+3) and Nathan Smith did not start. Last Saturday, Green, Smith, Gow and Gow’s younger brother Christian teamed up for bronze in the men’s relay at World Championships.
The women’s and men’s pursuits take place Saturday at 7:50 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. Eastern time, respectively, and can be watched live online at Eurovision.
An exhausted Martin Fourcade finishes the 20 k individual to earn his fourth gold medal of World Championships. (Photo: IBU/Christian Manzoni)
“I love Norway so much, and Norway gives it back to me.”
That’s how French biathlete Martin Fourcade described his week of competitions, and the support he received from fans at the 2016 IWorld Championships in Oslo’s famous Holmenkollen ski stadium, in an interview with German television network ZDF.
During Thursday evening’s ceremony on the medal plaza in Oslo, Fourcade was awarded with his fourth gold medal of the week, adding the victory in the men’s 20-kilometer individual race in a time of 49:13.9 to his long list of achievements, despite a one-minute penalty in his first standing stage shooting.
Previously at these World Championships, Fourcade already won the mixed relay with his French teammates, as well as the men’s sprint and pursuit. And with two more races for the men on the schedule, this might not be the end yet, potentially setting a new historical record.
Silver and bronze went to two Austrian biathletes, with Dominik Landertinger placing second 5.1 seconds back and Simon Eder third 14.4 seconds behind Fourcade. Both Austrians shot clean with no penalties.
Dominik Landertinger in the 20 k individual in Oslo. (Photo: IBU/Evgeny Tumashov)
Landertinger started early with bib 10, and was the first athlete to shoot clean through all four shooting stages, taking a commanding lead in the finish.
But while he immediately knew he had achieved a very good result, he still had to wait a long time to see if his time would be enough for the podium in a large field with 99 athletes. In the end, only one man would still be faster.
“Incredible,” Landertinger told Austrian broadcaster ORF. “I can only do one thing: I dedicate this medal to my mom, who unfortunately passed away last November. I couldn’t even have dreamed about this. Shooting ‘zero’ four times is very, very hard. When you manage to do it on a day like this, of course that’s perfect.”
Asked about the last loop and the narrow gap to Fourcade, Landertinger added, “I almost wouldn’t have made it into the finish, that’s how much I pushed the tempo. I got dizzy. I was completely at my limit. I wouldn’t know where I could have even saved another half a second.“
Despite leaving the range still 6.4 seconds ahead of Landertinger and getting split times from coaches, Eder could not quite keep up with the pace of his teammate on the final loop falling back from first to third place. Still, he was highly satisfied with his result.
“It probably doesn’t get any better than this,” Eder told ORF. “For the first standing shooting it was a bit shaky. I was happy that those five [shots] went in.”
Eder only recorded the 16th-best overall course time, though largely due to two slower first loops. As he often does, the left-handed quick-trigger shooter achieved one of the best range times.
Simon Eder celebrates a long-awaited individual medal at World Championships. (Photo: IBU/Evgeny Tumashov)
“You can think a lot during a race like this,” he told ORF when asked what he thought when he saw on the video wall that (at that time) two Austrians were leading the race after the final shooting. “You think through every scenario imaginable. You have to be highly focused for the 20 to 30 seconds on the shooting mat, but the rest of the time you can do with your mind whatever you want. That might have been the key to shooting clean.”
Fourcade incurred a miss in the second shooting stage, setting him back to eighth place at that time, then reduced the gap again on the next loops with the fastest skiing times on the course and clean shootings.
“I knew that I was [still] in position to fight with them in spite of one mistake,” Fourcade said during the IBU press conference.
After the last shooting he left the range only 0.3 seconds behind Eder’s time and 6.1 seconds ahead of Landertinger, with his coaches frantically running next to him on the side of the track yelling split times to the Austrians.
“On the top one of my coaches told me ‘only three seconds to Landertinger’,” Fourcade described the last loop in an interview with the IBU. “I know Dominik since more than ten years. I know how fast he is on the last loop. Wow, what a fight now. And I gave all I had. Probably more than what I had. I did one last uphill with my eyes closed because I had no energy to open my eyes.”
He comfortably beat Eder’s time and still lost a bit to Landertinger on the final loop, but was able to preserve a 5.1 second lead into the finish.
Martin Fourcade celebrates with his team after his fourth gold medal. (Photo: IBU/Evgeny Tumashov)
“My wax man told me ‘only two seconds to Landertinger’,” he recalled the final section through the arena, pushing hard until the finish line. “He lied, I know that now.”
Starting four positions behind Fourcade, Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø could have still displaced the athletes on the podium, but after a narrow miss in his last standing shooting the 22-year-old biathlete only finished fourth, 57.2 seconds back.
This gap seems relatively far away, yet in the individual discipline each miss results in an automatic full minute added to the race time as a penalty, with athletes not allowed to use spare rounds or ski a penalty lap.
“Are you kidding? I was this close to being World Champion at home?” Bø told Norwegian TV broadcaster NRK shaking his head in disbelief, when he was shown a close-up replay of his missed shot that hit the edge of the target, with the metal disc visibly shaking but not flipping over.
“I’d somewhat put this on the organizers, they should have oiled the targets better- it hung up on some rust,” his older brother Tarjei Bø, who finished 22nd, joked in an interview with NRK, according to a translation.
Eder in the pain cave. (Photo: JoJo Baldus)
Fifth place went to Czech Republic’s Michal Krcmar (+1:16.4) with no penalties, tying his best World Cup career result from a mass start in Ruhpolding, Germany, earlier this season.
Fourcade, who lives and trains in Norway for part of the offseason, lauded the support he received from the fair audience at the Holmenkollen arena and around the course, despite repeatedly having prevented even better results for the local athletes.
“I really have the feeling that the audience is cheering for me,” he told ZDF. “So I am happy about not being the public enemy number one. I am not being cheered as the Norwegians, but probably the most like one of them.”
With his victory, Fourcade also secured the ‘small crystal globe’ awarded for the individual-race discipline title in the World Cup ahead of Eder, who would have needed to win or place second to keep a narrow lead. Fourcade will also win the overall World Cup.
“That’s good,” Fourcade told reporters during the press conference. “I read in the French press this morning that in the last 11 individuals I won 9. I knew individual is a competition I love so much. It’s probably the competition I’m the strongest in.”
“I didn’t know what Martin would do today,” Eder told ORF in his interview. “I was hoping to keep the globe, but that is gone now.”
At least Eder now has the bronze medal as a great consolation prize, his first in an individual-start race, and his second after a silver medal with Austria’s men’s relay at the 2009 World Championships in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
“It’s really special,” Eder said in the press conference. “It was a big goal for me in the last years. Sometimes I was very close to it. Today was the day. I can just believe the moment maybe in the evening.”
For Landertinger, it was his third medal at World Championships, after a silver medal in that same relay, and gold in the mass start also in 2009.
Fourcade has won 19 medals at World Championships now, including 10 gold ones.
Races in Oslo continue on Friday with the women’s relay, followed by the men’s relay on Saturday, and wrapping up with mass starts on Sunday.
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/03/Screen-Shot-2018-03-18-at-8.03.21-AM.png")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/03/Screen-Shot-2018-03-18-at-11.51.54-AM-1.png")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/02/Olympic_20180223_BiathlonRelay_73135.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/02/Olympic_20180223_BiathlonRelay_73462.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/02/Olympic_20180223_BiathlonRelay_71733.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/02/Olympic_20180223_BiathlonRelay_72094.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/02/Olympic_20180223_BiathlonRelay_73676.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/02/Olympic_20180223_BiathlonRelay_72464.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/02/Olympic_20180223_BiathlonRelay_72883-1.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/02/Olympic_20180223_BiathlonRelay_71798.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/02/Olympic_20180223_BiathlonRelay_72611.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/02/Olympic_20180215_W10kFree_44007.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/02/jpg-2.jpeg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/02/Olympic_20180215_W10kFree_41665.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/02/Olympic_20180215_W10kFree_40969.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/02/Olympic_20180215_W10kFree_44044.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/02/Olympic_20180215_W10kFree_43432.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/02/Olympic_20180215_W10kFree_40886.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/02/Olympic_20180215_W10kFree_43407.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/02/Olympic_20180215_W10kFree_42859.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/02/Olympic_20180215_W10kFree_42851.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/02/Olympic_20180215_W10kFree_40671.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2018/01/jpg-5.jpeg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/03/jpg-6.jpeg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/03/Dunklee17032017cm119_600x380.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/03/image-1.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/03/jpg-1-3.jpeg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/03/Screen-Shot-2017-03-05-at-9.25.13-AM.png")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/03/C6KZ9AYWYAAW2nw.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/03/173fff9b-5bbb-4d2c-8561-032b0c7cb650.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/03/Bailey03032017cm207.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/03/Bailey04032017cm70.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/03/C6FCMHyWQAAoyI1.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/03/jpg-3.jpeg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/03/jpg-4.jpeg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/03/Group03032017cm97.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/03/Bailey03032017cm127.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/03/Bailey03032017cm94.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/03/jpg-2.jpeg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/03/Bailey03032017cm95.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/03/Group03032017cm88.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/DSC_0326-Large.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/03/Nordgren03032017cm199.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/03/jpg-1-1.jpeg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/03/C6AmusaWUAAJ2BC.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/03/C5_4x7eWgAA75vD.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/Bailey160217et5933.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/Bailey160217et5949.jpg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/jpg-1-1.jpeg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/jpg-4.jpeg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/C49TewgW8AQE4MM.jpg-large.jpeg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/C48eyfBW8AA5_Cd.jpg-large.jpeg")
![](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/02/C48ftlrXUAAVqdJ.jpg")
![The photo finish for first in the IBU World Cup men's 4 x 7.5 k relay on Saturday in Antholz, Italy, with Germany's Simon Schempp (r) edging Norway's Emil Hegle Svendsen (l) by 0.1 seconds. (Photo: IBU/Christian Manzoni)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Group21012017cm47.jpg")
![Leif Nordgren (US Biathlon) skiing the second leg of the men's 4 x 7.5 k relay on Saturday at the IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Nordgren21012017cm75.jpg")
![Sean Doherty (US Biathlon) crossing the finish line in sixth for the U.S. men's 4 x 7.5 k relay on Saturday at the IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Doherty21012017cm102.jpg")
![Ben Lustgarten (Craftsbury Green Racing Project) with his $750-dollar check for winning the men's SuperTour classic sprint on Saturday near Truckee, Calif. Stratton's Ben Saxton (l) placed second and APU's Reese Hanneman (r) was third.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Truckee-Day-1-7.jpg")
![Jennie Bender (3) of the Bridger Ski Foundation leading Stratton's Julia Kern (2) and Sun Valley's Deedra Irwin (5) during the second women's classic sprint semifinal at Saturday's SuperTour near Truckee, Calif. Bender went on to win the semifinal, as well as the final.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Truckee-Day-1-3.jpg")
![The men's 15 k freestyle podium at Saturday's World Cup in Ulricehamn, Sweden, with Canadian winner Alex Harvey (c), Norwegian runner-up Martin Johnsrud Sundby (l), and Sweden's Marcus Hellner (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/C2s0ijyWQAAqLrE.jpg")
![The women's 10 k freestyle podium on Saturday in Ulricehamn, Sweden, with Norwegian winner Marit Bjørgen (c), Finland's Krista Parmakoski (l) in second and Sweden's Charlotte Kalla (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/C2sBtkRWQAAENkO.jpg")
![The photo finish of the men's 4 x 7.5 k relay on Saturday at the IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy, with Germany's Simon Schempp outlunging Norway's Emil Hegle Svendsen. (Photo: IBU screenshot)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/Finish.jpg")
![Saturday's Nordic Combined World Cup podium in Chaux-Neuve, France, with German winner Johannes Rydzek (c), German runner-up Fabian Rießle (l) and Japan’s Akito Watabe (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Nordic Combined/Twitter)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/C2tBRZsXAAAoSka.jpg")
![The men's pursuit flower ceremony on Saturday in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, with winner Simon Schempp (second from l) of Germany, Norway's Johannes Thingnes Bø (l) in second, Germany's Erik Lesser (third from left) in third, and (from left to right) Switzerland's Benjamin Weger in fourth, Germany's Benedikt Doll in fifth, and American Tim Burke in sixth.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/03/Schempp190316TU1037.jpg")
![Germany's Simon Schempp (2) after winning the men's pursuit on Saturday by 8.5 seconds over Norway's Johannes Thingnes Bø (l) Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. (Photo: IBU/Evgeniy Tumashov)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/03/2016-03-19_d26b60bc3f5279d.jpg_image_scaler_800x0.jpg")
![Tim Burke (US Biathlon) racing to sixth, which tied his season best, in Saturday's pursuit in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/03/Burke190316TU1050.jpg")
![Lowell Bailey (US Biathlon) after placing 22nd in the men's pursuit on Saturday in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/03/Bailey190316TU1154.jpg")
![Tim Burke racing to a season-best sixth in the men's 10 k sprint on Friday at the IBU World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. (Photo: US Biathlon/Twitter)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/03/Cd2bKfbXEAEXuLi.jpg-large.jpeg")
![Austria's Julian Eberhard celebrating his first IBU World Cup win (and podium) on Friday in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. (Photo: Evgeniy Tumashov/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/03/2016-03-18_00511a220265193.jpg_image_scaler_800x0.jpg")
![The US Biathlon coaching staff, including development coach Jean Paquet (l), poses for a photo following the men's sprint in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/03/Paquet18032016cm89.jpg")
![An exhausted Martin Fourcade finishes the 20 k individual to earn his fourth gold medal of World Championships. (Photo: IBU/Christian Manzoni)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/03/2016-03-10_f3ccdd27d2000e3.jpg_image_scaler_800x0.jpg")
![Dominik Landertinger in the 20 k individual in Oslo. (Photo: IBU/Evgeny Tumashov)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/03/2016-03-10_032b2cc936860b0.jpg_image_scaler_800x0.jpg")
![Simon Eder celebrates a long-awaited individual medal at World Championships. (Photo: IBU/Evgeny Tumashov)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/03/2016-03-10_d0096ec6c835753.jpg_image_scaler_800x0.jpg")
![Martin Fourcade celebrates with his team after his fourth gold medal. (Photo: IBU/Evgeny Tumashov)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/03/2016-03-10_799bad5a3b514f0.jpg_image_scaler_800x0.jpg")
![Eder in the pain cave. (Photo: JoJo Baldus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/03/4O3A9314.jpeg")
![Martin Fourcade pushing his hardest on the Holmenkollen course. (Photo: JoJo Baldus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/03/4O3A9070.jpeg")