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.

Tag: Jackie Garso

Historic 1-4 Sweep for France in Women’s Biathlon Sprint

FasterSkier’s Coverage of the Biathlon World Championships is made possible through the generous support of the Craftsbury Outdoor Center: New England’s finest snowmaking, world class race venues and touring trails, healthy food in abundance, comfortable accommodations at Craftsbury: Sports, Sustainability, Stewardship.

France swept places 1-4 in the Sprint at the 2024 Biathlon World Championships. (Photo: NordicFocus)

Ever since France upset Norway to win the opening Mixed Relay of the 2024 Biathlon World Championships, their magnificent esprit de corps has been on display. After that race, the entire team gathered around the podium and belted “La Marseillaise” in the rain as the French flag was raised in the Vysocina Arena in Nove Mesto na Morave, Czech Republic. That same winning energy pulsed through the French women’s team Friday as they delivered an historic sweep of the first four places—a feat not seen since the inaugural Women’s Biathlon World Championships in 1984 when the Soviet Union swept the 10 k Individual. (American Kari Swenson was fifth.) There were 35 finishers in that race. In Friday’s 7.5 k Sprint, The French quartet of Julia Simon, Justine Braisaz-Bouchet, Lou Jeanmonnot, and Sophie Chauveau bested a field of nearly 100.

Early starter Julia Simon (FRA) crosses the finish line, setting the time to beat in the Women’s Sprint. (Photo: NordicFocus)

All eyes were on Simon, wearing bib 2, to set the time to beat for the day. After laying down a perfect anchor leg in Wednesday’s Mixed Relay, she picked up where she left off with another 10/10 performance, leaving little room for any challengers. Simon’s ski time ranked fourth and her total shooting time of 42 seconds for prone and standing was the fastest of the day. It was a dominant Sprint performance from the 2023 World Cup Overall champion, who is better known for her head-to-head racing.

Lou Jeanmonnot (FRA) shot 9/10 to land on her first World Championships podium, taking home the bronze for France. (Photo: NordicFocus)

Another early starter, Jeanmonnot in bib 5 matched Simon’s speed on the course but lost some time to her on the range (like everyone else) and missed one target in standing, eventually finishing 40 seconds back. It seemed inevitable that other competitors would fill that gap, but as the race went on it became clear that the only athletes skiing fast enough to challenge the French women were their own teammates.

Justin Braisaz-Bouchet (FRA) outskied the field by nearly 30 seconds to take silver despite one miss. (Photo: NordicFocus)

Out-skiing the field by over 30 seconds in Wednesday’s Mixed Relay, Braisaz-Bouchet demonstrated that she is one of very few athletes who can ski a penalty loop and still fight for gold. That scenario nearly played out in Friday’s Sprint, as Braisaz-Bouchet gapped the field by 28 seconds, missed one in prone but then hit all of her standing targets, leaving the range with just a 13-second deficit to clean-shooting Simon. She closed the gap in the final kilometers but couldn’t quite catch Simon, crossing the line just 4.9 seconds behind.

World Cup Overall leader Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold (NOR) led the race after the first shooting but then fell to 25th after a disastrous three misses in standing. (Photo: NordicFocus)

The two Italian stars, Lisa Vittozzi and Dorothea Wierer, were early challengers for the podium, both showing their trademark poise on the range with 10/10 hits, but they didn’t have the ski speed to keep up with the French women and ended up seventh and tenth. Swedish sisters Hanna and Elvira Oeberg did the reverse; they skied well but both missed in standing and dropped to eighth and ninth.

The only other athlete who could challenge Simon for the gold was World Cup Overall leader Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold (NOR) in bib 26. She came through the prone shooting in the lead, 1.5 seconds ahead of Simon, but then suffered a disastrous standing bout, missing three targets and falling to 25th place—her worst result of the season.

Sophie Chauveau (FRA) reacts to her team’s one-through-four sweep. (Photo: NordicFocus)

The podium positions seemed secure until Chauveau, wearing bib 40, nearly overtook Jeanmonnot. Chauveau found herself down in 30th after a miss in prone but then launched into podium contention with her clean standing shooting and third-ranked course time. In the finish she was a mere four seconds off the podium.

Simon’s gold is her first Sprint podium of the season and only her second-ever Sprint victory. Braisaz-Bouchet, who skipped last season to have her first child, had never finished better than 25th in a World Championships Sprint, despite taking part in every edition since 2015 and winning a list of World Cup races and an Olympic gold medal in Beijing along the way. Jeanmonnot’s bronze is her first World Championship medal, and Chauveau’s fourth place ties her second-best career finish. She earned her first World Cup medal, a bronze, in January of this year.

While the French women shot exceptionally well, they owe their sweep to their ski speed. Four of the top-five fastest skiers in the Sprint were French. The other was 2021 cross-country World Cup Overall Sprint champion, Anamarija Lampic of Slovenia, who missed five and finished 36th. Reflecting on the role that ski preparation played today, US Biathlon ski technician Federico Fontana said, “The dirt and the wet in Nove Mesto is always challenging. The French had incredible skis.”

Baiba Bendika (LAT) skied the seventh-fastest course time and hit 9/10 to tie her career-best finish of fifth. (NordicFocus).

The surprise of the day was Latvia’s Baiba Bendika, who finished fifth to match her career-best result, having given birth to her first child in October—just four months ago. She had a chance to break up the French sweep but missed her last shot. Franziska Preuss of Germany completed the Flower Ceremony, also with one standing miss.

Irwin and Geraghty-Moats Qualify for Pursuit

Deedra Irwin was the top American in the Sprint, finishing 39th with one miss each in prone and standing. She wrote on her Instagram account, “It isn’t what I wanted but then I realized that it is my personal best World Champs Sprint finish!” Irwin has consistently been scoring World Cup points in the top 40 this season and has the potential to move up significantly in Sunday’s Pursuit. She’ll be joined in the Pursuit for the first time by teammate Tara Geraghty-Moats, who sneaked into the top-60 qualifiers with a new personal-best of 58th.

Tara Geraghty-Moats (USA) smiling in the finish line after setting a new personal-best of 58th to qualify for her first Pursuit. (Photo: NordicFocus)

Geraghty-Moats cited her start position as playing a role in her qualification. “I had good course conditions with the second-to-last starting bib. With the warm temperatures, I thought the course would degrade a lot by the time I raced but it didn’t.” She had the advantage of watching earlier athletes go through, and drawing on their energy. “It looked so epic. It made me super excited to go out there. With the results I’ve had this winter I didn’t think I would make the Pursuit so I just wanted to have a race where I executed my plan well.”

Jackie Garso (USA) racing in her first World Championships. (Photo: NordicFocus)

Chloe Levins and Jackie Garso completed the US roster in Friday’s race. Levins echoed Geraghty-Moats’ comments about the atmosphere in the stadium: “The energy under the lights in Nove Mesto was electrifying tonight.” Levins, who finished 80th with two misses, is coming off a training season that was interrupted by a number of health issues. “I’m nowhere near satisfied with my result, but continue to gain great experience and feel myself racing back into shape.” Garso, competing in her first World Championships, finished 87th with three misses. She, too, was shocked by the crowds: “It’s unbelievably loud! You can’t even hear yourself breathe.”

Full Results

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Saturday 10 Feb Men’s Sprint 11:05 (Eastern Time)

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Julia Simon (FRA) took home her second gold of the 2024 Biathlon World Championships. (Photo: NordicFocus)

February 10, 2024
Win #3 for Duncan Douglas, Hannah Rieders Top Woman at Wide-Open Climb to the Castle

Duncan Douglas (74) leads biathletes Russell Currier (in red) and Paul Schommer (back right) in Sunday’s Climb to the Castle rollerski race up Whiteface Mountain, while Clarkson’s Jenevieve Broadwell (22) looks on. Douglas held off Currier by eight seconds for his third victory in four times racing the Climb and Schommer finished third. (Photo: NYSEF/Flickr)

(Note: This article has been updated to include comments from third-place finisher Paul Schommer and NYSEF’s cross-country head coach Margaret Maher.)

WILMINGTON, N.Y. — Four appearances and three wins is an enviable record. On Sunday, 50-year-old Robert Duncan Douglas, the “Jacked Up Old Man” from Honeoye Falls, N.Y., won his third Climb to the Castle (C2C) rollerski race, a five-mile freestyle hill climb up the Whiteface Memorial Highway.

Douglas previously won the race in 2007 and 2008, with a personal-best time of 34 minutes, 56.6 seconds in 2007 (he was 2 1/2 minutes faster on a shortened course in 2008, when racers were unable to reach the summit because of snow).

St. Lawrence’s Jackie Garso (5) leads Stratton’s Anna Lehmann (3), and CSU’s Hannah Rieders (7), Gabby Vandendries (4) and Madeline Rieders (in back) during the women’s Climb to the Castle rollerski race up Whiteface Mountain on Sunday in Wilmington, N.Y. (Photo: NYSEF/Flickr)

Hannah Rieders, a 17-year-old Cambridge Sports Union (CSU) skier whose initial goal was an age-group podium, won her first C2C, on the race’s 10th anniversary.

Finishing in 37:15.6 this year, Douglas was 8.3 seconds ahead of runner-up Russell Currier, a biathlete who trains with the Outdoor Sports Institute in Maine. Paul Schommer, a senior member of US Biathlon’s National Development Group, placed third overall, 3:02.6 minutes behind Douglas.

Rieders, a high-school senior from Wellesley, Mass., was the first woman across the line in 55:03.1. She beat Anna Lehmann, a ninth grader representing the Stratton Mountain School (SMS), by 15.7 seconds, and Rieders’s twin, Madeline (also of CSU), finished 1:23.3 minutes back in third.

“I kind of thought maybe Anna would beat me,” Hannah Rieders said in a post-race interview. “At the start, I just wanted to pace it well. I stayed behind other people for the first three miles.”

Overnight rain left the road damp. At the toll-booth start in Wilmington, temperatures hovered around 65 degrees under cloudy skies, with sultry humidity. Low clouds at the start turned dense up high near the summit. Unless you were really close to skiers in front of you, it was hard to gauge how far up the road they were, and how much energy one should expend to attack.

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With the U.S. Ski Team wrapping up its New Zealand training camp in New Zealand, and thin representation from elite biathletes, the race was wide open.

Margaret Maher, head coach of the New York Ski Educational Foundation (NYSEF) cross-country program, explained in an email that she learned in April that the U.S. Ski Team would not be comping to Lake Placid for its usual dryland camp this year. To accommodate the US Biathlon team, she originally scheduled this year’s Climb for next weekend, Sept. 25, but that date conflicted with other races NYSEF’s skiers planned on competing in.

Maher had to move the race up one week in order for her athletes to attend. Regardless, 85 athletes registered this year, which was on par with the “73-108 athletes” that the race has previously attracted.

Of the top-five female finishers on Sunday, four were under the age of 18, and Lehmann is a U16. With Jackie Garso (St. Lawrence University) placing fourth and Gabby Vandendries (CSU) finishing fifth, CSU had three in the top five.

“First time [at C2C] for all three girls,” CSU coach Rob Bradlee wrote in an email. “All three also ran Mt. Washington for the first time in June. Tough kids! I don’t have them do any special prep for this race. Their regular six-days-per-week training clearly is enough to get them ready. All three are very hard workers and have been training hard all summer. I think their results show that.”

Hannah Rieders explained that five women formed the lead pack. Around mile three, the eventual top three broke away. They skied together until mile four, “then I went ahead,” Rieders said.

The women’s podium at the 10th Climb to the Castle rollerski race up Whiteface Mountain’s Memorial Highway on Sunday in Wilmington, N.Y. With all of the top five under 18, Hannah Rieders (CSU) placed first, Anna Lehmann (SMS) was second, and Madeleine Rieders (CSU) was third. (Photo: NYSEF/Flickr)

Madeline Rieders said she skied in the pack until mile three, then pulled away with Hannah and Lehmann. While she lost contact with them on the road, which has an average grade of 8 percent, she maintained a steady gap to the finish and held off fourth place by 50 seconds.

For the men, it was down to three from the start, according to Currier.

“Paul, Duncan and I all took turns leading,” he wrote in an email.

“I’m in better shape this year, but not rollerski shape,” Douglas said.

For most of the summer, Douglas focused on bike racing, winning his 50-59 age group and placing 25th overall at the Leadville Trail 100 mountain-bike race. He said he just started rollerskiing two weeks before the Climb.

Douglas, a two-time Olympian who will be 51 in November, had a simple race plan. “Go out, ski hard, have fun,” he reflected.

For most of the race, Douglas skied with Currier. He dropped Currier once, but the 29-year-old former national-team biathlete regained contact. Douglas said that at the Lake Placid corner – a hard left where the grade eases and one can transition to V2 strides – he broke away to the finish.

“Once the flat section towards the end started, I wasn’t able to match Duncan’s speed,” Currier wrote. “He was never very far out but enough to make a difference at that point in the race.”

Of his race, Currier described it as “a solid effort. I really tried to use good technique. For a race that’s nothing but uphill, there’s not much else you can do.”

In an email, Schommer explained this was his first Climb to the Castle.

“I went into it with an open mind, knowing that if I killed myself in the first half the second half would be a death march,” the 24-year-old Wisconsin native wrote. “I would say it went decent for me as I was able to stay pretty strong most of the way, despite losing Russell and Duncan about 1.5 miles into the race.”

The men’s podium at the 10th Climb to the Castle rollerski race up Whiteface Mountain’s Memorial Highway on Sunday in Wilmington, N.Y. Duncan Douglas (c) won, Russell Currier of the Outdoor Sports Institute (r) placed second and US Biathlon development skier Paul Schommer (l) was third. (Photo: Peter Minde)

Is the Climb to the Castle a data point for winter fitness?

“It’s a good, effective workout, really good training,” Currier explained, adding that he didn’t think it was a good indicator of fitness in December or February.

“I was really happy with how it turned out,” said Adam Glueck, a Ford Sayre U18 skier who finished seventh (+7:52.4) in his first C2C. “I didn’t want to go too hard out of the start. I followed some friends and threw in some double pole to rest my legs.”

Glueck skied in a small group he eventually lost contact with about halfway through.

“I managed to catch them on the V2 straight [the Lake Placid corner]. After that, my friend Henry McGrew [eighth overall] was right behind me,” he said. “I had to push hard through the headwind [the last 500 meters] to beat him. I was basically in agony for the last three or four minutes.”

Agony and clouds: good metaphors for the Climb to the Castle. When athletes returned to the base, the sun was breaking out.

Results: Men | Women

Photo gallery

September 19, 2016