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.
Russell Currier, Tim Burke, Lowell Bailey, and Leif Nordgren after a fifth-place relay finish in the IBU World Cup relay in Oberhof, Germany, in 2013. Currier, Burke, and Bailey are all retiring. (Photo: USBA.)
With the 2018 Olympics come and gone, many of biathlon’s athletes are calling it quits. Here’s a roundup of who you won’t see on the World Cup next season – and who’s still on the fence about their future.
USA
2017 Word Champion Lowell Bailey has long planned to retire after the 2018 season, and now that time has come. His first World Junior Championships was in 1999 and he got his first World Cup start in 2002. He raced 2003 World Championships before taking a break to go to the University of Vermont, before returning and competing in the 2006, 2010, 2014, and 2018 Olympics. His eighth-place finish in the 20 k individual at the 2014 Games are the best ever by an American biathlete. Bailey is the Executive Director of the Crosscut Mountain Sports Center in Bozeman.
Susan Dunklee and Lowell Bailey celebrate after finishing second in the World Cup single mixed relay in Kontiolahti, Finland, in 2017. Austria won the competition. Bailey is retiring and Dunklee is undecided as to whether she will continue racing. (Photo: IBU/Twitter)
“I told myself this morning that I just wanted to go out on a high note,” he told FasterSkier in Oslo after leading off a U.S. relay team that finished seventh, in his last World Cup race. “I wanted to go out with a good result. And, I’m really happy to have shot clean in standing, clean from the clip in my last stage as a World Cup biathlete. That feels good. I’ll always remember that — that I went out with a clean stage.”
Longtime teammate and 2013 World Championships silver medalist Tim Burke will also retire. Burke has six World Cup podiums to his name including that silver medal, and led the World Cup partway through the 2009-2010 season. Burke started racing internationally at 2000 Junior World Championships, and made his first senior World Championships in 2004. Like Bailey, he is a four-time Olympian.
“It’s weird, I don’t honestly I don’t know if it’s truly hit me,” he said after the Oslo relay. “It might take weeks… I think it’s going to take a long time for all to settle in and for me to really reflect back on my career. Yeah, it’s a lot of emotion.” Burke says that his post-biathlon plans are not yet certain.
Tim Burke after placing sixth in a World Cup pursuit in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, in 2016. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
Also retiring is Russell Currier, an off-and-on member of the national team and the Maine Winter Sports Center (now the Outdoor Sports Institute). Currier had two sixth-place World Cup results in 2012, and is a four-time World Championships team member. Since his World Cup debut in 2009, he has contributed to many U.S. relay efforts. He also competed at the 2014 Olympics, with a top finish of 49th, and was a member of the 2018 Olympic team though he did get any starts in PyeongChang.
“USBA nationals will be officially be the last race of my biathlon career,” Currier wrote in an email to FasterSkier this week.
The women’s team likely won’t see three retirements, and will thus have some more stability than the men’s crew, but there is more uncertainty regarding the women’s roster. Clare Egan wrote in an email this week that she was “Undecided!” about whether to continue racing. And in Oslo, after finishing third in the pursuit which was her last World Cup of the season, Susan Dunklee said the wasn’t sure if she would keep competing. “Ask me again in a month,” she said.
Canada
Julia Ransom retired in Oslo, as the 25-year-old is planning a career in dentistry and has many years of school ahead of her. “It’s just a good time for my partner and I to kind of move on,” she said after crossing the line in her final World Cup, the pursuit, hand in hand with teammate Rosanna Crawford.. “And it does feel right. It feels right.”
The Canadian men’s team (l-r) Christian Gow, Nathan Smith, Scott Gow, and Brendan Green celebrate bronze in the men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay at 2016 World Championships in Oslo, Norway. Both Green and Smith are undecided on their future plans. (Photo: JoJo Baldus)
Ransom scored two top-ten finishes at 2014 World Juniors, and made her first senior World Championships team in 2015. This season she had two top-ten World Cup finishes, and went to the Olympics in PyeongChang, where she finished 28th in the pursuit.
She is the only one from the Canadian team who is definitely retiring, but quite a few of her teammates are on the fence and there could be huge turnover on the team depending on what they decide. That includes Rosanna Crawford and Brendan Green, even though Crawford finally bagged her first World Cup podium this season.
“We’re not 100% sure yet,” Green said after the relay in Oslo. “Both Rosanna and I will sit on it a little bit over the spring. We will reevaluate a little bit and see what other opportunities arise. I think we both still love to race and train, and if we continue down that path I know we will still be motivated. But as of right now I’m not sure.”
2015 World Championships silver medalist Nathan Smith – who was also, along with Green, Christian Gow, and Scott Gow, part of a bronze-medal relay at 2016 World Championships – is also unsure. He missed most of the 2016-2017 season with health issues and though he returned to the World Cup and the Olympics this year, did not perform up to his own expectations.
Rosanna Crawford, Megan Imrie, Megan Tandy, and Zina Kocher celebrate a fourth-place World Cup relay finish in Annecy, France, in 2014. Crawford and Tandy may not keep racing after this season; Imrie retired in 2014 and Kocher in 2016. (Photo: Matthias Ahrens)
“I’m kind of waiting to see what happens with Biathlon Canada,” Smith wrote in an email this week. “I think some very difficult years are coming for the organization, unfortunately. That will play a big part in my, and I’m sure many other athletes’, decisions. Of course, I’m also not looking to have a continuation of the health problems over the last two seasons, which made competing at the highest level really difficult. So I will be keeping a close eye on how my body is reacting to training. If it’s still not coming around that would certainly not encourage me to continue either.”
2010, 2014, and 2018 Olympian Megan Tandy also struggled with health issues this winter, and is likewise not sure what her future holds.
“Originally it was my intention to retire after this season, however it was literally my worst season ever!” she wrote in an email. “I was sick more in the past 6 months than in the past two years. Anyways, I have taken some time since the Olympics to followup about my health and to consider options for next season. I want to race a final season – one where I feel good and can put up a good fight (not necessarily results dependant, I just want to leave this sector of my life feeling like I gave it all I got), but a lot of things will need to fall into place for that to be realistic: sponsor support, coaching opportunities during the training season, and my health of course.”
Poland
Weronika Nowakowska is calling it a career. The 31-year-old picked up two World Cup podiums in the 2015 season before taking a break from competition to give birth to twins. She made a successful return this season and represented Poland in PyeongChang, with a top finish of 21st in the individual. She also had sixth- and fourth-place finishes on the World Cup this year and contributed to four different top-eight relay efforts, including one at the Olympics.
“I leave happy, fulfilled and cheerful,” she wrote on her Facebook page, according to a translation. “I was not outstanding, but so far no Polish biathlete has done better”
France
Back in Oslo, French star Marie Dorin Habert ended her career. Dorin Habert – then simply Marie Dorin – competed in her first senior World Championships in PyeongChang in 2009, where she had a top individual finish of 18th and was part of the bronze-medal relay team. Fast forward and she had racked up a sprint bronze at the 2010 Olympics, seven World Cup wins, ten more World Championships relay medals, and four individual gold, one silver, and one bronze medal at World Championships, four of which were from the 2016 edition where she did not finish a single race without a medal.
France’s Marie Dorin Habert celebrates her second win in as many races at 2015 IBU World Championships, after taking gold in the 10 k pursuit in Kontiolahti, Finland. (Photo: Kontiolahden Urheilijat/Jarno Artika)
She found herself back in PyeongChang for the 2018 Olympics, where, despite a frustrating season until then, she was fourth in the sprint, bronze in the women’s relay, and gold in the mixed relay.
“It’s so nice to end this way, to share it with all of the team, and the beautiful sun, and all the French people,” Dorin Habert said after winning the women’s relay in Oslo along with her teammates. “It’s a wonderful day for me. I would like to thank a lot, well, everyone, for being there in the biathlon family. I’m really happy to have this career, and I’m really happy for everything.”
Jean Guillaume Beatrix he told is also retiring. Beatrix was a World Junior Champion in 2009, before going on to be a five-time World Championships team member and a 2014 Olympic bronze medalist in the pursuit. He was part of three silver- and one bronze-medal winning men’s relay teams at World Championships. But this season, he did not perform well enough to make a very competitive French team for the 2018 Olympics. His retirement was “a decision precipitated by my results”, L’Equipe, according to a translation.
Czech
France’s Martin Fourcade leading Jaroslav Soukup of the Czech Republic during the men’s Olympic 12.5 k pursuit at the 2014 Olympics.
Jaroslav Soukup, the bronze medalist in the sprint at 2012 World Championships, where he was also part of the silver-medal mixed relay team, is retiring. Later in 2012, he suffered a horrendous accident while biking, including open fractures in his arm and neck and back injuries. By 2014, he made it back and won the same medals at the Olympics that he had at World Championships two years before: bronze in the sprint and silver in the mixed relay. Soukup qualified for the 2018 Olympics but only competed in the relay, which finished seventh. He had one World Cup top-30 this season.
Norway
Hilde Fenne, a staple of the Norwegian women’s team, retired after the last race of the season in Tyumen, Russia. Fenne never found breakout success as an individual; she had three top-15 finishes in her career. But she was an integral part of the women’s team and contributed to numerous World Cup relay podiums, as well as the gold-medal winning women’s relay at 2013 World Championships in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic.
The Norwegian women’s relay celebrates its second-ever World Championships title after winning the 4 x 6 k event in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. From left to right: Synnøve Solemdal, Tora Berger, Ann Kristin Flatland and Hilde Fenne.
In that final race, her teammates wrote her name on their cheeks. “She has been a very important piece for me,” teammate Synnøve Solemdal told NRK, almost in tears. “We have stayed in a lot of hotel rooms together. I’m going to miss her very much.”
On the men’s side, there is uncertainty as to whether some veterans will stick with racing or not. One is Ole Einar Bjørndalen, whowas left off Norway’s Olympic team, who for the first time since 1992 this season. And yet, the 44-year-old has not stated that he will retire, and some who know him are speculating that he may try to stick it out one more year and go out with better results than he saw this season.
Also with no stated plans is Emil Hegle Svendsen. Bjørndalen is the winningest athlete in World Cup history; Svendsen is number four. He won the World Cup overall title in 2010, and is a four-time Olympian. He won gold in the individual in 2010 and in the mass start in 2014, after which he suffered a total collapse anchoring the Norwegian men’s relay. In the past seasons he has been off and on, and he has only won two races since then. But this season he showed flashes of brilliance, and he was third in the mass start at the 2018 Olympics as well as anchoring the silver medal men’s relay and mixed relays.
Emil Hegle Svendsen of Norway leaves the stadium in the 2016 Holmenkollen World Cup as thousands of his countrymen cheer him on. Svendsen has not officially announced his plans for next season. (Photo: JoJo Baldus)
“What Emil has done is absolutely fantastic,” teammate Tarjei Bø – who won the overall World Cup the year after Svendsen – told NRK two weeks ago. “He has won everything, and in addition done it several times, and he has come back again and again after being down. He has had a fantastic career and I hope he continues.”
Finland
She just won the overall World Cup crystal globe, but Kaisa Makarainen is not sure whether she will continue racing. In several previous years she had already discussed potentially retiring, but now she is reportedly waiting to think it over more as well as to discuss with the new team staff. U.S. Biathlon Women’s Coach Jonne Kahkonen, himself a Finn, was just announced as the new Head Coach for Finland.
Germany
Florian Graf, an athlete who finished as high as fourth on the World Cup in 2013 but has more recently been racing on the IBU Cup, is calling it quits at age 29.
Several other top athletes are suspected to be considering retiring, but there hasn’t been much on the record discussion by them. Stay tuned.
Leif Nordgren (US Biathlon) skiing the second leg of the IBU World Cup men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay on Sunday in Hochfilzen, Austria. The U.S. men ended up ninth overall out of 26 teams. (Photo: IBU/NordicFocus)
Strong gusts of wind on the range required strong nerves and a lot of luck in the women’s and men’s relay races that concluded the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Hochfilzen, Austria, on Sunday afternoon.
While the relays concluded with teams on the podium one might expect there, tempestuous weather conditions that at times made it almost impossible to hit the targets also gave outsiders a good chance, and both the U.S. men and Canadian women remained in contention for a long time. The men’s 4 x 7-5-kilometer relay was particularly wild with more than 100 penalty laps, and it began with a big surprise.
Belgium’s starter Michael Rösch tagged off in first place for the first time in the history of that team, representing a country that until now, rarely had enough athletes for a relay and had thus far had a 24th place at the 2016 World Championships to its credit. And on his tails was Norway’s Ole Einar Bjørndalen, and shortly behind them US Biathlon’s Lowell Bailey in third.
The three aforementioned athletes all raced in the Olympic relay more than a decade ago at the 2006 Winter Games in Torino, Italy, but back then Rösch raced for Germany and won gold with his team.
“I wanted to tag off in first at all costs, to see the Belgian flag at the top,” Rösch told TV broadcaster ARD on Sunday while the race was still going on. “But Ole made it really hard for me. … I was on my last fumes, I tumbled into the finish, I was just seeing black, but it definitely was worth it.”
Just a turn behind, Bailey had gotten off to a strong start for the U.S. team, temporarily taking the lead out of the arena on the first lap before shooting clean in his prone stage to put himself in the lead group of seven. Facing strong wind in his standing stage, Bailey missed two targets but avoided the penalty lap with his last spare in that stage (0+0, 0+3), and tagged off to teammate Leif Nordgren in third position, 23.8 seconds out of first.
Nordgren ended up with a penalty in his first prone after missing two targets, and returned to the course in fifth. While his penalty had increased the gap to first by 50 seconds, Nordgren made up a few seconds with a clean standing bout, hitting all targets without requiring a spare (1+3, 0+0).
Italy and France passed him on the final loop, and Nordgren handed off in seventh, 1:34.2 minutes behind Norway setting the pace up front.
“The team came pretty close to a good result today in a relay with nasty weather,” Nordgren wrote on his Instagram account. “Personally I’m quite disappointed with my skiing, it’s been a struggle to find the top gears so far this season and I’m far from where I know I should be. It’s a long season though and there is still plenty of time to turn it around.”
US Biathlon’s Tim Burke loading a spare in his prone stage of the men’s relay at the 2017/2018 IBU World Cup in Hochfilzen, Austria. The team went on to finish 9th. (Screenshot: ARD broadcast)
Taking over next for the U.S. was Tim Burke, who pointed out this was one of the most challenging races in terms of wind that he’d experienced.
“This was definitely one [of the] windiest races that I have taken part in,” Burke wrote in an email to FasterSkier. “We knew it would be very challenging right from the start but our team tried to look at it as an opportunity for a top result. I feel like our team did a great job at avoiding any big disasters on the range and this allowed us to stay near the front for most of the race.”
After only needing one spare in his prone shooting to hit his last target, Burke incurred a penalty in his standing stage (0+1, 1+3), but kept his position on the final loop in a hard race against Switzerland’s Jeremy Finello to exchange still in seventh, now another minute back (+2:49.4).
“I was not surprised to see a mix of different teams near the front today,” Burke wrote. “It was one of those days that any team could find themselves with multiple penalty loops after a windy shooting stage.“
Taking over from Burke as the U.S. anchor leg was Sean Doherty, coming off two strong shooting performances in the sprint and pursuit earlier this week.
U.S. relay anchor Sean Doherty taking aim in difficult wind conditions during his standing stage of the men’s relay at the 2017/2018 IBU World Cup in Hochfilzen, Austria. His team finished ninth. (Screenshot: ARD broadcast)
In his prone stage, Doherty again shot clean and fast (with the second-fastest prone shooting time on his leg) and overtook Switzerland to move into sixth. He kept that position on the course, vying for a position in the top five with the teams from France, Italy, Ukraine, and Russia also in his vicinity.
“Today was a crazy one for sure,” Doherty wrote in an email. “The conditions on the course were decent, firm tracks and we had good skis. The wind was whipping, so that really just made some sections a lot harder than normal when you added in the head wind. I have done races in bad weather before but today was amongst the most windy.
In the standing stage, Doherty hit his first four shots in another fast sequence before missing the last one. It looked as if he had thought that final shot was also a hit as he dropped his rifle slightly, but then realized he had to load spares. Unable to clear the last target, Doherty ended up with the team’s third penalty.
“With the shooting you try to get a general idea of how far the wind is pushing the shots and do the best you can,” Doherty explained. “It’s a total toss up and the finish order is just a ranking of who battled the wind the best and had most to least luck along the way.”
He set out on his last loop in eighth place with Ukraine’s Dmytro Pidruchnyi and Switzerland’s Mario Dolder right ahead of him, and Russia’s Anton Shipulin ten seconds behind.
“The fight on the last lap is always tough,” Doherty wrote. “Although I felt better today I was not able to hang with the two guys I left the range with. I was able to ski a good lap but not enough to hold off Anton.”
After Shipulin passed him up the big last climb, Doherty came to the finish in ninth position, 3:38.3 minutes behind the winners with a team total of three penalties and 13 spares.
“We were not too excited with the end result because we saw the potential was there for a top 5,” Burke concluded for the team. “We are also all far from our best on the tracks right now, but are hopeful that will come with more racing.”
Norway Successful with Its ‘Second Unit’
Norway’s Lars Helge Birkeland, Erlend Bjøntegaard, Henrik L’Abée-Lund and Ole Einar Bjørndalen (left to right) following their victory in the men’s relay at the 2017/2018 IBU World Cup in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
Norway started the men’s relay race without Emil Hegle Svendsen, who was sidelined with a cold, and also rested brothers Johannes Thingnes Bø and Tarjei Bø, both of whom had already won races this season.
But shooting was more important than skiing in a relay decided by strong crosswinds on the range, and that’s where the Norwegians coped by far the best. While Norway also required nine spares, which usually is a rather average performance in a relay, on Sunday this was the top shooting performance of the men’s relay.
After veteran Bjørndalen, Henrik L’Abée-Lund and Erlend Bjøntegaard had created a fairly comfortable lead of almost a minute on the first three legs, Lars Helge Birkeland anchored them to the victory by shooting clean in prone and only needing one spare to hit every target in his final stage despite some widely spread shots.
“It is really nice; a good start for Norway and good self confidence for the the rest of the season,” L’Abée-Lund said at the post-race press conference.
“It’s always fun to compete on the highest level with the best guys,” Bjøntegaard said. “I think I did pretty good on my leg today. It was tough conditions as it was for everyone else. I am just happy to show what I am capable of.”
“It feels great, it was an amazing feeling on the last loop, and really satisfied with my own leg,” Birkeland said. “I just decided to be offensive and attack and don’t think about the others and just do my own race. … We have a really strong team with a lot of good guys, so we don’t need to have all the best at the start to have a chance to win.”
All hopes for Germany’s Simon Schempp to contend with Birkeland for first were dashed when Schempp required three spares to clear both his prone and standing stages, narrowly avoiding the penalty lap twice.
Due to the huge distances between the top-three teams, the final loop was more of a cool down for their anchors, with Norway taking the win in 1:21:21.8 hours, just under two minutes ahead of Germany, with Erik Lesser, Benedikt Doll, Arnd Peiffer and Schempp, in second (+1:54.9, with zero penalties and 17 spares).
“At least we avoided the penalty loop, for me it was definitely close in standing,” Peiffer told German broadcaster ARD. “There was so much wind that it was impossible to shoot calmly and controlled. … It was clear that today there would be some upsets, like Belgium being in the mix in front. You just had to somehow avoid the penalty lap.”
“The last years in Hochfilzen we have never been on the podium, so it’s the first time in like six years we are back again,” Peiffer said at the press conference. “So that’s a good start for us because normally we are struggling here and we don’t know why.”
France, which had rested its star Martin Fourcade and started Jean-Guillaume Beatrix, Simon Desthieux, Emilien Jacquelin, and anchor Quentin Fillon Maillet, finished another 40 seconds later in third (+2:34.0, with three penalties and 13 spares).
Another 20 seconds back, Sweden with Peppe Femling, Jesper Nelin, Sebastian Samuelsson, and Fredrik Lindström crossed the line in fourth (+2:54.8, with three penalties and 12 spares).
“Today was very hard, very strange result, because when we look at all the penalties on the result list it was just crazy,” Beatrix said at the press conference. “I am satisfied for the team, and I am also really satisfied for the newcomer Emilien because it’s his first two weeks on the World Cup and first relay, and he did a every good job and brought us to the podium.”
“Today I was a little bit stressed, because the French guys are so strong and I had to be at their level, so I am happy to do a good relay today,” the 22-year-old Jacquelin said.
And what happened to the brave team from Belgium? With three athletes who had just made an overnight trip from an IBU Cup race in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, they came through the second exchange in second place after Florent Claude only needed one spare in standing. On the last two legs, however, three penalties for both Tom Lahaye-Goffart and Thierry Langer put them in 16th at the finish (+6:24.9) , which was still a team-best relay result for Belgium.
Just ahead of them in a finishing sprint anchored by Brendan Green was Biathlon Canada, with a lineup that earned bronze at the 2016 World Championships in Oslo, Norway. On Sunday, however, the Canadians’ race began with difficulties for brothers Christian Gow (1+3, 2+3) and Scott Gow (1+3, 2+ 3), each having to ski three penalty laps and exchanging in 21st position already 4:45.7 minutes back. Then Nathan Smith (0+0, 0+2) and Green (0+3, 0+3) were able to move them up a bit again, with Smith putting them as high as 13th by the final exchange and Green anchoring them to 15th (+6:22.5, with six penalties and 20 spares).
Of 26 teams in the men’s relay, Norway and Germany were the only ones that succesfully avoided the penalty lap.
Hochfilzen World Champs Women’s Podium Repeats
Later on Sunday afternoon in the women’s 4 x 6 k relay in slightly better conditions than the men’s race, last season’s reoccurring winner Germany struck gold again.
Germany with (left to right) Vanessa Hinz, Franziska Hildebrand, Maren Hammerschmidt and anchor Laura Dahlmeier shows off their medals following their victory in the women’s relay at the 2017/2018 IBU World Cup in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
The victorious world-champion quartet of Vanessa Hinz, Franziska Hildebrand, Maren Hammerschmidt,and Laura Dahlmeier won with a large lead ahead of Ukraine (+44.9) and France (+1:04.5). The first-, second- and third-place teams were a repeat of last season’s World Championships relay in Hochfilzen this past February.
Fighting for position with Ukraine and Switzerland on the third leg, Hammerschmidt got her team on the road to victory when she cleaned every target within 24 seconds despite difficult conditions to reclaim the lead, erasing the gap she had been handed of almost 30 seconds to first.
“For me it was very important to have a good standing shooting today, because the last two days were not so good,” Hammerschmidt said at the press conference. “I thought it was one of my best standing shootings, and I was so happy to go on the last loop and fight for every second to give to Laura.”
Dahlmeier returned to the World Cup after missing last week’s opening races with a cold, then had no major problems defending the lead. Dahlmeier used just one spare in each of her shooting stages, while Switzerland’s Irene Cadurisch as the closest pursuer had to ski a penalty lap. Germany finished in a time of 1:14:36.4, with zero penalties and nine spares.
“It’s a really cool feeling to be here again,” Dahlmeier said at the press conference. “Especially with the team. We know we can make a good race, but it’s important for every person to be good on the range and on the tracks. Relays are special races.”
“From the last year we have good memories about Hochfilzen … and today it was a good place, too,” Hildebrand said “I was really impressed with [Ukraine’s] Yulia Dzhima’s standing shooting, because she took all targets out while I used two extra bullets and was happy I could go out on the track again.”
Ukraine’s Olena Pidhrushna anchored her team, with Vita Semerenko, Yulia Dzhima and Valj Semerenko, to second (+44.9), thanks to the best team shooting performance of zero penalties and five spares, and despite a fall on the first leg by Vita Semerenko.
“I think our team spirit is very strong, without that we wouldn’t be on the podium, so I am very thankful to all the girls and our staff for making this happen,” Valj Semerenko said at the press conference, via a translator.
“My start this season was not so good … Actually today I was so nervous ahead of the relay,” Pidrushna explained. “But I saw that we had a little bit of extra time at the last exchange, and I calmed down a little bit and it worked well in the end. … And I think my team believes in me [to anchor it successfully].”
Twenty seconds behind her, France with Marie Dorin Habert, Celia Aymonier, Justine Braisaz and the current women’s World Cup leader Anaïs Bescond, passed Russia’s Ekaterina Yurlova-Percht on the final loop to claim third place (+1:04.5, with two penalties and 13 spares).
“Honestly at the beginning when I started I didn’t think a podium was still possible, but loop after loop I thought maybe I can still catch a podium [position],“ said Bescond, who skied the fastest course time on the final leg amidst strong competition.
A few seconds behind, Russia with Victoria Slivko, Tatiana Akimova, Irina Starykh, and Ekaterina Yurlova-Percht finished fourth (+1:09.0, with no penalty and nine spares).
Another 16 seconds back, Switzerland, with Elisa Gasparin, her older sister Selina Gasparin, Lena Häcki and Cadurisch finished fifth (+1:25.7, with two penalties and 12 spares) for Switzerland’s best women’s relay result, which fulfilled its national qualification criteria for the Olympics.
Canada in Contention
For Biathlon Canada, Emma Lunder started off the race in the middle of the field, and managed hit all her targets with one spare in her prone stage to leave the range in 16th position.
Biathlon Canada’s starter Emma Lunder (r) exchanging to Rosanna Crawford in the women’s relay at the 2017/2018 IBU World Cup in Hochfilzen, Austria. Crawford temporarily moved up to fifth before the team finished in ninth position. (Screenshot: ARD broadcast)
While a number of competitors, including France’s Dorin Habert, incurred penalties, Lunder again needed just one spare to clean (0+1, 0+1) and moved Canada up to 1oth. After losing a few more seconds on her last loop to the leaders, with Germany’s Hinz up front, she tagged Rosanna Crawford in 12th position, 51.7 seconds back.
Crawford started out fast and also needed just one spare to hit all five prone targets, improving by three places to ninth.
“It was a tricky shooting day today, you really had to be aware of the wind, and be prepared to do a correction even part way through a bout of shooting,” Crawford wrote in an email. “In prone I made a correction of 5 left and 2 up and it was enough to keep me pretty centred.”
Then in her standing stage, she picked off four more positions with clean shooting and no spares to leave the range in fifth place, while most teams around her needed spares or even incurred a penalty in seemingly difficult wind conditions.
“I was really happy with my standing today,” Crawford explained. “I saw Brendan [Green] right before zero and he said that it’s worthwhile to take your time and make each shot a good one. So I really thought about that as I came into the shooting, there was a big gust right off the start, so I waited and could hear the women around me missing. Each shot was really precise. My shooting time was 33 seconds which is really slow for standing but still the 2nd fastest of my leg, which says a lot about the wind today!”
Biathlon Canada’s Megan Bankes shooting in her standing stage in the women’s relay at the 2017/2018 IBU World Cup in Hochfilzen, Austria. The team finished ninth overall. (Screenshot: ARD broadcast)
Crawford tagged Megan Bankes in fifth (+36.3), after having regained 15 seconds on the leaders and skiing the second-fastest course time on the final loop.
“It’s always fun to tag off in a high position but today was a bit of a lucky draw for what you got in the range,” Crawford concluded.
The 20-year-old Bankes as Biathlon Canada’s youngest team member started out just as fast, nearly maintaining that time gap on the first loop.
“I was super stoked to be tagged in such a good place, but I definitely still felt that I was able to ski my own race,” Bankes wrote in an email. “I wanted to ski my best, and not lose to much time on the tracks, but also be controlled on the range, because I knew it was going to be a tricky shooting day.”
She was able to get through the prone stage with two spares in a stage when all leading teams needed them, keeping her in fifth. Bankes followed that up with just one spare in her standing shooting, temporarily moving up to fourth after overtaking Sweden’s Mona Brorsson.
“Coming into the range I was focussed on my own shooting more than anything else,” Bankes wrote. “I knew that the wind was pretty variable, and that I needed to make sure I took good, smart shots, and correct appropriately for the wind. I was super happy with how I ended up doing on the range, and also with my speed on my first couple of laps.”
On the last loop, Brorsson and Russia’s Starykh passed her, and Bankes came through the final exchange in sixth place (+1:28.8).
“I died a bit at the end, but I still managed to tag Julia in a good position, so for me it was a pretty great race!” Bankes concluded.
Shown on television in the exchange zone, looking back at the final curve to see when Bankes would arrive, Ransom took over as the anchor and skied a very fast first loop, just 1 second off the fastest pace on that loop.
She then managed to still clean all five targets in a controlled fashion, leaving the range again in fifth position, with Switzerland in sight and Russia nearby as well.
After a slower second loop, Ransom struggled to clean all her targets in the final stage, but avoided the penalty lap with her last shot and left the range in ninth position. Sweden’s anchor Anna Magnusson was still in sight, 10 seconds ahead, but extended her lead on the final loop, while Japan’s anchor Rina Mitsuhashi was already more than a minute behind Ransom in 10th.
Ransom crossed the line in ninth place (+2:31.6) with zero penalties and nine spares for the team.
“A top 10 is a decent result for our team, it’s nice that we were fighting for a top 6 for most of the race,” Crawford wrote. “Our team has come a long way and I’m really proud to be a part of this team! Emma and Megan had a great leg and Julia an awesome prone and then it was quite windy for her standing, but most teams have their strongest women on the last leg, so it’s always a hard fight!”
In other good news for Biathlon Canada this weekend, the team finished eighth in an IBU Cup mixed relay and national team member Megan Tandy raced to 11th place in the sprint followed by ninth place in the pursuit this weekend in Lenzerheide, Switzerland.
“Another #perfect#shooting day! I was hoping for more, but you gotta work with what you got – in my case very heavy legs skiing. Nonetheless, a solid race,” Tandy wrote on Instagram after shooting clean in both the sprint and mixed relay.
The U.S. Women and Nation Cup Standings
US Biathlon could not start a women’s relay on Sunday because it only has three women currently on the World Cup circuit: Susan Dunklee, Clare Egan and Emily Dreissigacker. US Biathlon had hoped that its fourth woman Kelsey Dickinson, would qualify for the first trimester of World Cup racing by scoring necessary points at the IBU Cup opener in Sjusjøen, Norway. But unfortunately that did not work out.
In addition to Dickinson missing out on the World Cup starts because of that technicality, and her teammates now missing out on one of only three opportunities on the World Cup competition calendar to prepare for the relay in the upcoming Olympics, this also means they lost out on valuable points for the Nation Cup Score. That ranking is its own award category in the World Cup season (last year Germany won it for both the women and men), but more importantly for the North American teams, also determines the starting quota for the following season.
With a third of the races counting towards that already completed (unlike at World Championships the races at the Olympics don’t apply, neither do pursuits and mass starts), the U.S. is currently in 21st position for the women with 676 points and in danger of losing its fourth starting position for next year again, which would make team selections and travel planning even harder.
While certainly not impossible — last year the U.S. women also did not start a relay in Pokljuka, Slovenia — it will be a bit of an uphill battle to make that up the rest of the season, requiring a number of strong results. For instance, South Korea is currently 357 points ahead in 17th, the benchmark for a fourth quota spot.
The Canadian women are currently in 14th position with 1220 points. Last season they were 15th and the U.S. 14th. For the men’s teams, Canada is currently in 12th position with 1260 points, the U.S. is 13th with 1198.
The teams will now travel to Annecy-Le Grand Bornand, France, for the next World Cup from Thursday, Dec. 14, to Sunday, Dec. 17.
Caitlin Patterson (Craftsbury Green Racing Project) charging up the wall climb en route to the win in the women’s 10 k freestyle on Sunday at the Sovereign Lake NorAm/SuperTour near Vernon, B.C. (Photo: Peggy Hung)
NorAm/SuperTour (Sovereign Lake near Vernon, British Columbia): 10/15 k freestyle
VERNON, B.C. — The combined NorAm and SuperTour event at the Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre continued with individual-start distance races and continued with the theme of U.S. domination of the leaderboard.
Ian Torchia, of Northern Michigan University (NMU) and the U.S. Ski Team D-team, started the day with a big victory in the men’s 15 k freestyle, finishing in 36:29.7 minutes and on the heels of Canadian Para-Nordic guide Graham Nishikawa, who started 30 seconds ahead of him and ended up sixth. Jack Hegman of the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF) placed second, 19.0 seconds back, to complete his good weekend. Canadian Para-Nordic superstar Brian McKeever rounded out the podium in third, 22.6 seconds back.
Graham Nishikawa (l) and Ian Torchia worked together after Torchia closed the 30-second gap en route to a victory in the men’s 15 k freestyle on Sunday at the Sovereign Lake NorAm near Vernon, B.C. (Photo: Peggy Hung)
The women were next to get some time in the sunshine with two laps for 10 k. Caitlin Patterson of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CRGRP) upgraded from Saturday’s silver to gold on Sunday with winning time of 27:13.0. Rosie Frankowski of Alaska Pacific University (APU) snatched second, 30.7 seconds back. Caitlin Gregg (Team Gregg) raced to third, 1 second behind Frankowski.
Former Canadian national-team biathlete Zina Kocher started her new cross-country career as the top Canadian in seventh (+1:31.2).
The weather was a repeat of Saturday: -2 degrees Celsius, windless and sunny. Smiles were evident everywhere, even for athletes who didn’t quite nail the pacing on an unforgiving course.
France’s Maurice Manificat (c) after winning the men’s 15-kilometer freestyle on Sunday in Davos, Switzerland. He finished ahead of Russians Sergey Ustiugov (l) and Alexander Bolshunov in second and third respectively. (Photo: FIS Cross-Country/Twitter)
FIS Cross Country World Cup (Davos, Switzerland): 10/15 k freestyle
After a day of sprinting, cross-country racers returned to the Davos World Cup venue on Sunday for the women’s 10-kilometer and men’s 15-kilometer freestyle individual start competitions.
For his first World Cup win in almost two years, France’s Maurice Manificat took the men’s 15 k race title in a time of 33:56.2. Exactly 4 seconds flat behind Manificat in second place was Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov. Ustiugov’s teammate Alexander Bolshunov, finished 10 seconds behind Ustiugov and 14.6 seconds behind Manificat for the men’s third and final podium spot.
The remainder of the men’s top ten included Norway’s Simen Hegstad Krüger in fourth (+21.3), Switzerland’s Dario Cologna in fifth (+26.5), Sweden’s Marcus Hellner in sixth (+35.4), Russia’s Denis Spitsov in seventh (+36.1), Hans Christer Holund of Norway in eighth (+36.9), Russian Alexey Chervotkin in ninth (+54.2), and Alex Harvey of Canada in 10th (+1:01.2).
The next best male North American finisher was American Patrick Caldwell in 41st (1:50.2).
Canada’s Devon Kershaw placed 44th (1:59.8), Graeme Killick 59th (+2:27.8), Russell Kennedy 68th (+2:43.4), and Julien Locke in 94th (4:27.5). Knute Johnsgaard did not start.
For the U.S., Noah Hoffman finished 48th (2:05.5) and Scott Patterson 88th (3:46.2). Simi Hamilton did not start and Andy Newell did not finish.
The women’s 10 k freestyle podium on Sunday at the Davos World Cup in Switzerland, with Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (c) in first and Ragnhild Haga (l) in second, and Finland’s Krista Parmakoski (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
In the women’s 10 k, 75 starters finished the 10 k course with Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg claiming first in a time of 25:28.5. Her Norwegian teammate, Ragnhild Haga finished 5.9 seconds behind her for second place. Krista Pärmäkoski of Finland raced to the third and final podium spot, 7.9 seconds back from Østberg’s winning time.
Rounding out the women’s top ten was Heidi Weng in fourth (+14.5), Austria’s Teresa Stadlober in fifth (+16.4), Switzerland’s Nathalie von Siebenthal in sixth (+16.4), Finland’s Kerttu Niskanen in seventh (+24.9), Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla in eighth (+26.8), Norwegian Marit Bjørgen in ninth (+35.9), and Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen in tenth (+37.6).
Leading the U.S. women was Sadie Bjornsen in 12th (+44.6), seven seconds outside the top ten. The next two Americans finishers were within 3.1 seconds of each other, with Kikkan Randall finishing 14th (+56.8) and Jessie Diggins in 15th (+59.9).
Also scoring World Cup points for the Americans, Rosie Brennan finished in 17th (+1:11.2) and Chelsea Holmes in 29th (+1:32.9).
The U.S.’s Liz Stephen and Sophie Caldwell finishedin 40th (+1:58.5) and 52nd (+2:20.1), respectively.
For the Canadians, the team was led by Cendrine Browne in 45th (+2:05.9), followed by Emily Nishikawa in 50th (+2:18.4). Dahria Beatty placed 73rd (+2:53.0) and Katherine Stewart-Jones 79th (+3:44.6).
IBU World Cup (Hochfilzen, Austria): Men’s and women’s relays
Men’s and women’s relays took place on the final day of racing in Hochfilzen, with Norway winning the men’s 4 x 7.5 k and Germany topping the women’s 4 x 6 k by considerable margins.
Norway’s Ole Einar Bjørndalen, Henrik L’Abée-Lund, Erlend Bjøntegaard, and Lars Helge Birkeland raced to first in 1:21.21.8 hours, nearly two minutes clear of Germany in second, after taking the lead on L’Abée-Lund’s second leg. They avoided the penalty loop and used a total of nine spares, and never lost hold of first place for the rest of the race.
Germany raced to second (+1:54.9) with Erik Lesser, Benedikt Doll, Arnd Peiffer, and Simon Schempp, with zero penalties and 17 spares, after Peiffer lifted them from fourth to second on the third leg. Schempp held them there, despite using a maximum of three spares on each of his shooting stages, in the final leg.
France claimed third (+2:34.0) with Jean-Guillaume Béatrix, Simon Desthieux, Emilien Jacquelin, and Quentin Fillon Maillet, despite three penalties and 13 spares. Two of their penalties came on Beatrix’s first leg and another in Fillon Maillet’s final shooting. After being tagged in fifth, Jacquelin raced them up to third on the third leg and Fillon Maillet held onto that position for the last spot on the podium.
The U.S. men finished ninth (+3:38.3) with Lowell Bailey, Leif Nordgren, Tim Burke, and Sean Doherty, after they combined for three penalties and 13 spares. Bailey avoided the penalty lap and put them in third at the first exchange, while Nordgren slipped to seventh after a penalty, Burke remained in seventh with one penalty as well, and Doherty had one more penalty to anchor the team to ninth.
Canada placed 15th (+6:22.5) with six penalties and 20 spare rounds, with Christian Gow, Scott Gow, Nathan Smith, and Brendan Green. After being tagged in 21st, Smith raced them up to 13th, using just two spares to clean. Green anchored them to 15th after using six spares and skiing the 15th-ranked time on that last leg.
In the women’s relay that followed, Germany won by 44.9 seconds over Ukraine, with Vanessa Hinz, Franziska Hildebrand, Maren Hammerschmidt, and Laura Dahlmeier using nine spares while staying out of the penalty lap.
After Hinz raced them into first, Hildebrand slipped to fourth after using four spares on the second leg. Hammerschmidt raced the fastest third leg to put them back in first, and Dahlmeier held them there to the finish, crossing first in 1:14:36.4.
Ukraine (0 penalties, 5 spares) took the lead on the second leg but ultimately settled for second with Vita Semerenko, Yuliia Dzhima, Valj Semerenko, and Olena Pidhrushna. Dzhima put them in second heading into the race’s halfway point, but Valj Semerenko lost two places to tag Pidhrushna in third. Pidhrushna used just two spares on the final leg to bring them to second, about 20 seconds ahead of France in third.
Despite a tough first leg for Marie Dorin Habert, in which she had two penalties and tagged off in 14th, France rose to third place at the finish (+1:04.5) thanks to strong skiing and shooting from anchor Anaïs Bescond.
The team had a total of two penalties and 13 spares. Celia Aymonier used four spares to put them in ninth after the second leg, and third-leg Justine Braisaz lifted them one more place to seventh before Bescond skied the fastest last leg to pick off four more places.
Canada placed ninth (+2:31.6) with Emma Lunder, Rosanna Crawford, Megan Bankes, and Julia Ransom, with no penalties and nine spares. Crawford put them in fifth after the second leg, Bankes lost one place on the third leg, and Ransom slipped three more with three spares on her final shooting to finish ninth.
Susan Dunklee and Lowell Bailey celebrate after finishing second in the World Cup single mixed relay in Kontiolahti, Finland. Austria won the competition. (Photo: IBU/Twitter)
The single mixed relay is a relatively new format, and one that is not yet contested at World Championships or the Olympics.
And so when a single mixed relay (two athletes) and a ‘normal’ mixed relay (four athletes) are held on the same day, the U.S. Biathlon World Cup team’s policy has always been clear: prioritize the mixed relay, and get the World Champs and Olympic team the most practice possible for their big days.
All that changed in Kontiolahti, Finland, today.
The U.S. decided to put Susan Dunklee and Lowell Bailey – both medalists at 2017 World Championships – on the single mixed relay. Even before the race began, expectations were high. The Americans were calling themselves the “dream team”.
After the race? Oh, yeah.
The duo finished second, claiming the first relay podium by an American biathlon team since 1994, when Beth Coats, Joan Smith Miller, Laura Tavares, and Ntala Skinner finished second in the women’s 4 x 6 k in Canmore.
“We have known that if we had our best day on the right day, that it was possible in the mixed relay even a few years ago,” Dunklee said of having a relay podium. “For that mixed relay it just quite hasn’t happened for us. I think maybe we psyched ourselves out a few times… I have dreamed for a long time being able to run into the finishing pen and with a bib on and a rifle, and greet my teammates as they come in. It’s so cool to finally do that. It’s definitely a dream come true.”
But if she pictured running into the finishing pen of a normal biathlon event, the single mixed relay might not have come to mind. The format of the newest World Cup competition is unusual. Loops are 1.5 kilometers, shorter than any other ski loops on the World Cup. The women ski (and shoot) twice, then tag off to the men just after shooting so the men can ski (and shoot) twice, then the women twice again, then the men twice, and finally the men getting to ski one last 1.5 k loop to reach the finish line.
That unfamiliarity came with excitement: the team knew ahead of time that they had a good chance of a top finish. With a flat course, both Americans felt good about their power skiing. The format also has the highest shooting-to-skiing ratio of any biathlon competition, and the pair had been shooting almost unbelievably well in the second half of the season.
“The stuff Susan and I have been working on throughout the training year in shooting, which is namely trying to reduce our shooting times and shoot quicker, lends itself to a race format like the single mixed relay,” Bailey said. “It was my first single mixed relay and Susan’s as well, and we were totally psyched. It’s a great moment to see both programs, both the men’s and the women’s teams, have a joint success like this.”
Despite the new format, Dunklee found herself leading on the second loop, thanks to a fast and clean prone shooting.
Then — she fell on a downhill.
“It just happened so fast and before I knew it I was on the ground, and my rifle fell on the back of my head where I have a nice sore bruise now,” Dunklee said. “After that I just got up. I had a few hundred meters before I need to be ready to shoot, and that’s more important than freaking out and worrying about it too much.”
She blamed “snow snakes,” but Dunklee managed to re-gain some determination. By the time she reached the shooting range she had re-focused. Dunklee hit all five targets in quick succession, claiming the fastest standing shooting time of all the women.
She tagged off to Bailey in third place — just 8.9 seconds behind Kazakhstan and Germany — and the U.S. was back on track.
Bailey, for his part, completed the second leg of the relay with two spare rounds, skiing comfortably near the front of groups and tagging off in fifth, +17.2 seconds.
“What’s interesting about this course is that it’s pretty flat except for one relatively modest uphill,” Bailey said. “Today there was quite a bit of wind on the course so to be leading was a disadvantage in a group. So you saw some tactical play up at the front of the race. I felt like I could’ve gone harder in the initial loops, but I also knew that with such a short, 1.5 k loop, the shooting really is where the race is won or lost. So my strategy was to just stay in contact with the lead group.”
Meanwhile, Simon Eder of Austria had gone to the front and Austria would hang onto the lead for the rest of the race. Lisa Theresa Hauser had used two spare rounds in her first standing, but through both of Eder’s relay legs and Hauser’s second leg the team used only three. That turned out to be untouchable.
“Once Austria got far enough off the chase pack, I felt it was more of a risk to try to go all out in my last leg to try to catch Austria, than try to hit my targets,” Bailey said.
That’s because behind Austria, it was still a fight. After Bailey quickly hit his extra shots, it was Dunklee’s turn. She again cleaned prone before needing two spare rounds in standing. But the wind on the range in Kontiolahti had been tricky all day, and most of the other leaders also used spares. So despite the missed shots, Dunklee still managed to move up to second place.
“I think everyone was struggling, especially standing,” Dunklee said. “I would not normally expect to be even with, or not lose a whole lot of places on, the leaders [with two spares], but since everybody else was struggling too it was okay… I think with this short format, you get a little bit more adrenaline and you are pushed a little bit harder in skiing. You get the shaky legs going when you’re standing.”
With Austria seemingly untouchable, Bailey was left to battle it out with France, Germany, Switzerland, and Kazakhstan.
After one more clean prone, he was fifth, but still with the group.
In standing, Bailey needed a spare round. But again, he loaded them extremely fast – allowing him to leave the range in third place anyway. In his haste to hit the trails, he almost fell on the sharp corner leading out of the range and into the stadium. But he kept his balance, and then hit the gas.
“The tactics at the front of the race in the third and fourth loops for me, the pace was not all that high, so I really felt pretty fresh when I came out of standing for that last 1.5 k loop,” Bailey said. “I knew that it was basically just a really long sprint finish. So I just tried to sprint from the mat essentially and hoped that I didn’t run out of gas by the finish line.”
Ahead of Bailey: Roman Rees of Germany, just four seconds away. Rees is one year out of the junior ranks, and had only ever competed in one other World Cup relay of any kind. Twelve years older, Bailey set out to catch him.
But behind: Jean Guillaume Beatrix of France, another veteran with as many podiums to his name as Bailey had. Leaving the range Beatrix was less than a second behind Bailey, and wanted to get onto the podium.
Between Germany, France, and the United States, there was only room for two on the podium. As the 1.5 k loop wore on, Beatrix faded – only a few seconds, but enough to keep him and his French teammate Anais Chevalier in fourth place.
By the time the race came to the stadium, Bailey had caught Rees. He tried to use all of his power to pass on the inside corner, but Rees held strong. The two ended up dueling down the finishing straight, with Bailey prevailing by just half a second.
“YES!” he screamed as he crossed the finish line, 32.8 seconds behind the Austrian team. Dunklee ran out to meet him.
“That was a first and it’s a great feeling,” Bailey said. “In a lot of ways it’s better than just going out and having a great race on your own, but to have a great team result like that, it’s a new experience. I shouldn’t say that, we’ve had some great team results in both the mixed relay and the men’s relay — we were fourth place last year in the mixed relay [in Canmore], but no one really wants to go out and celebrate in the finish zone with fourth place. This was the first time that you could hug your teammate in the finish zone. I’ve watched that phenomenon throughout my career so it’s nice to experience it.”
The U.S. had matched the Austrians on the range, using just five spares to Germany’s six, but the timing was off: Austria had gone, and so Bailey had concentrated on winning second, not potentially blowing up in chase of first place.
That turned out to be a good strategy, because Eder had knocked down his final five standing targets with scorching speed of 17.9 seconds. By comparison, Dunklee’s best mark among the women was 21.4 seconds.
“I actually talked to Simon Eder after the race because I knew his last shooting was blistering fast, and I said, ‘Hey, what was your strategy there? You didn’t have to shoot that fast’,” Bailey said. “And he said, ‘I came in and the wind died right when I got into position so I knew I had just a few moments there to take advantage of it.’ By the time [our] chase group, which was 30 seconds or less behind him hit the mat, [the wind] was back to being gusty.”
The Canadian team of Julia Ransom and Christian Gow finished 19th, +2:27.0, with eight spare rounds.
In the mixed relay later in the day, the French team of Marie Dorin Habert, Anais Bescond, Simon Desthieux, and Quinton Fillon Maillet took the win, followed by Germany (+11.0 seconds) and Ukraine (+27.1).
The American team of Clare Egan, Joanne Reid, Paul Schommer, and Sean Doherty finished eighth, +1:37.4.
The Canadian team of Emma Lunder, Megan Bankes, Scott Gow, and Brendan Green finished 22nd in the mixed relay, +6:09.5.
“I would just reiterated that I was just psyched to see the whole team do well, both in the single mixed and the mixed relay,” Bailey said. “It’s Nations Cup points, so it counts for our Nation Cup overall total score for the women and the men. It was a pretty important race in that regard. I’m really happy for the team. Everyone deserves it, the techs and everyone, it’s been a really long season and they’re still working as hard as ever so I’m really thankful for that.”
Lowell Bailey and Susan Dunklee celebrate finishing second in the single mixed relay in Kontiolahti, Finland. (Screencap: US Biathlon/Twitter)
IBU Biathlon World Cup (Kontiolahti, Finland): Single Mixed Relay
In the last single mixed relay of the season, Susan Dunklee held the lead after two loops of skiing. She was looking for a top tag-off to American Lowell Bailey, but she crashed on a downhill. Nevertheless, she was able to focus on the shooting range and climb back into podium position.
The leaders were gone, however: Simon Eder and Lisa Therese Hauser of Austria ran away with the competition, using five spare rounds to race to a 32.8-second victory.
Bailey left the last shooting in third position, and caught Germany’s Roman Rees on the trails. The pair also managed to hold off Jean Guillaume Beatrix of France, who left the range just behind them. It came down to a sprint finish, with Bailey besting Rees (and his relay partner, World Cup Total Score winner Laura Dahlmeier). The U.S. had five spare rounds to Germany’s six.
It was the first relay podium of any kind for the United States since 1994, when the women finished second in a relay in Canmore, Alberta.
The Canadian team of Julia Ransom and Christian Gow finished 19th (+2:27.0) with eight spare rounds.
Left to right: Finland’s Krista Pärmäkowski, Norway’s Marit Bjørgen and Finland’s Kertu Niskanenen after the women’s 30kiloimeter World Cup classic mass start on Saturday in Oslo, Norway. (Photo: FIS Cross-Country/Twitter)
FIS Cross-Country World Cup (Oslo, Norway): Holmenkollen 30 k classic mass start:
Norwegian Marit Bjørgen won the women’s 30-kilometer classic mass start at Homenkollen on Sunday, in a time of 1:22:59.2. She bested two Finns, Krista Pärmäkoski and Kerttu Niskanen. Pärmäkoski finished in second (+2:05.8) and Niskanen in third (+2:07.0).
Norway’s Heidi Weng finished fourth (+2:08.6), outlasting Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla (fifth, +2:11.7). Poland’s Justyna Kowalczyk finished sixth (+2:12.9), Finland’s Aino-Kaisa Saarinen seventh (+2:19.6), Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Øtsberg in eighth (+2:31.3), Sweden’s Anna Haag in ninth (+3:27.9) and Finland’s Laura Mononen in tenth (+3:28.7).
The first North American to finish on Sunday was Kikkan Randall, who placed 20th (+6:17.2). The next North American across the line was the U.S. Ski Team’s Sadie Bjornsen in 24th (+6:48.8). Liz Stephen finished in 31st (+8:46.8), and Chelsea Holmes (Alaska Pacific University) in 39th (+11:19.1).
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.
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 men’s classic sprint podium at 2017 U.S. nationals at Soldier Hollow on Sunday: with winner Kevin Bolger (c) of the University of Utah, runner-up Moritz Madlener (l) of the University of Denver, and Jess Cockney (r) of the Canadian World Cup B-team in third.
U.S. Cross Country Championships (Soldier Hollow): Classic sprints
Jennie Bender of Bridger Ski Foundation and Kevin Bolger of the University of Utah won national titles in the classic sprints at 2017 U.S. Cross Country Championships at Soldier Hollow earlier Sunday afternoon. They each took narrow – but, for sprinting, relatively uncontested – victories, as each was in the lead coming into the stadium and led through the final 180-degree turn into the finishing straight.
The women’s classic sprint podium at 2017 U.S. nationals on Sunday at Soldier Hollow: with winner Jennie Bender (c) of the Bridger Ski Foundation, runner-up Becca Rorabaugh (l) of Alaska Pacific University, and Kaitlynn Miller (r) of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project in third.
In the women’s race, Bender took the victory over Becca Rorabaugh of Alaska Pacific University, who just edged out Kaitlynn Miller of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project for second. Miller had won the qualifier earlier in the day.
Dahria Beatty of Canada’s Alberta World Cup Academy in fourth, Anne Hart of Stratton Mountain School Elite Team in fifth, and Krista Niiranen, originally from Finland and now a sophomore at the University of New Mexico, in sixth made up the rest of the A-final. There was no B-final contested for either gender.
In the men’s race, Bolger’s victory marked his best performance in a national championship by a substantial margin: His previous best before today was 23rd, in the 15 k classic at SoHo in 2014. (His 37th in the sprint that same year marked his previous best finish in a national championship sprint.)
Bolger was followed to the line by Moritz Madlener, of the University of Denver, and Jesse Cockney, of the Canadian World Cup B-team. Cockney had qualified fourth that morning.
The rest of the A–Final was Canadian Bob Thompson, of National Team Development Centre (NTDC) Thunder Bay, in fourth, Petter Reistad of the University of Colorado in fifth, and Fredrik Schwencke of Northern Michigan University in sixth.
Madlener is German. Cockney and Thompson are Canadian. Reistad and Schwencke are Norwegian. The USSA selection criteria for World Championships in Lahti provide that, “For the purposes of the 2017 Championship Selection List, athletes that are not US citizens will not be included in the scoring, and US athletes will move up the results/scoring list as foreign athletes are eliminated.” American racers eliminated in the semifinals included, in no particular order, Ben Lustgarten of Craftsbury Green Racing Project, Cully Brown of the University of Vermont, John Hegman and Cole Morgan of Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation (SVSEF) Gold Team, and Ben Saxton of Stratton Mountain School.
Earlier Sunday, Kaitlynn Miller won the women’s classic sprint qualifier. Starting sixth out of the 200+ woman field, Miller laid down an unbeatable time of 3:24.5 in difficult waxing conditions. She is the defending classic sprint champion from last year’s national championships.
Krista Niiranen, originally from Finland and now a sophomore at the University of New Mexico, was next fastest and tallied a time just 0.2 seconds behind Miller’s. Emily Nishikawa of the Canadian National Ski Team was third, Dahria Beatty of Canada’s Alberta World Cup Academy fourth, and Cendrine Browne from the Centre National d’Entrainement Pierre Harvey in Quebec clocked the fifth-fastest time.
The 30th skier making the cut for quarterfinals — Frederique Vezina, also of the Centre National d’Entrainement Pierre Harvey — was 16.53 seconds behind Miller.
Ben Saxton of the Stratton Mountain School Elite Team won the men’s sprint qualifier, notching the fastest time by 1.27 seconds over Etienne Hebert of Monteriski.
Canadians took the three of the top four spots in the qualifier, with Reed Godfrey of Canmore Nordic clocking the third-fastest time and Canada’s Jesse Cockney finishing fourth.
9.17 seconds separated the top 30 men who moved on to the quarterfinals. That included racers from at least six countries: the U.S. and Canada, but also collegiate skiers from Finland, Germany, France, and Norway. It also included one Under-18 competitor: Ben Ogden from the Stratton Mountain School.
It was a World Championships preview weekend on the Nordic Combined World Cup circuit, with two large hill/10 k individual competitions held in Lahti, Finland.
On Saturday, Germany’s Eric Frenzel took the win in 29:13.7, holding off Finland’s Eero Hirvonen by 4.1 seconds across the line. After posting the second-best jump, Frenzel started the 10 k in second, ahead of Hirvonen in third, but still full 1:06-minutes behind Norway’s Jarl Magnus Riiber, who dominated the jump with 135.2 points. Hirvonen started 1:29 back in third.
Riiber went on to place sixth at the finish with the 38th-ranked course time (out of 43 finishers). Germany had two on the podium with Johannes Rydzek in third (+26.4).
American Bryan Fletcher finished 15th (+1:29.8) after jumping to 22nd and starting the ski race 3:06 minutes back. He skied the sixth-fastest 10 k to end up 1:29.8 behind Frenzel at the finish.
Ben Loomis was the second American competing on Saturday. He finished the day in 40th (+5:18.5) after jumping to 35th.
On Sunday, Germany swept the podium with Fabian Rießle leading the charge, Frenzel in second and Rydzek in third. Rießle jumped to fifth and captured the win in 25:44.2, ahead of Frenzel (+4.2) and Rydzek (+11.6). Frenzel led after the jump and started the 10 k just 6 seconds ahead of Italy’s Samuel Costa, who ended up sixth at the finish (+40.6).
Rießle started 16 seconds after Frenzel and posted the third-fastest course time en route to the win.
Bryan Fletcher raced to 16th (+1:30.7) on Sunday, after jumping to 28th. Loomis did not start.
The NoCo World Cup moves to Val di Fiemme, Italy, for competitions next Friday through Sunday. Lahti World Championships will hold nordic-combined competitions Feb. 24-March 3.
Two North Americans started the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup women’s 12.5 k mass start on Sunday, with one of them finding out at the last minute that they were in for the 30-woman race.
American Susan Dunklee knew she had qualified well ahead of time after ranking 17th in the overall World Cup. She raced to ninth on Sunday, finishing 1:43.5 behind from the winner, Gabriela Koukalová of the Czech Republic, who cleaned the four-stage race to finish first in 37:20.5.
Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier made her first appearance of the week in the final race of the World Cup stop in Oberhof, Germany, placing second in the mass start, 31.5 seconds behind Koukalová, with one standing miss (0+0+1+0). The Czech Republic had two on the podium with Eva Puskarčíková in third (+45.4), with clean shooting.
Dunklee was in contention with the leaders until the last two standing stages, where she missed one target then two more (0+0+1+2) for a total of three penalty laps. Ninth place helped elevate Dunklee to 15th in the overall World Cup standings.
Canada’s Rosanna Crawford jumped into the race being listed as a reserve athlete on standby. Wearing bib 30, she finished 25th (+3:08.6) with two clean stages and two penalties (0+1+1+0).
France’s Martin Fourcade (bib 1) and Germany’s Simon Schempp (bib 3) shooting in the third stage of the men’s 15-kilometer mass start at the 2017 IBU World Cup in Oberhof, Germany. (Photo: IBU)
On Sunday in the men’s 15 k mass start, Germany’s Simon Schempp celebrated his first victory of the season, and it was a special one in front of thousands of cheering fans at home in Oberhof. On the final lap, he desperately tried to hang onto the ski tails of France’s biathlon star Martin Fourcade, who pushed hard on the first climb out of the shooting range unsuccessfully trying to create a gap.
“He started attacking immediately up the Birxsteig [climb],” Schempp told German TV broadcaster ZDF. “And I thought either you blow up or you can stick with him, and I could. Because I was in the draft, I saved a few percent, that probably was the decisive point in the end.“
Schempp kept right behind Fourcade, then started an attack on the last climb himself and outsprinted his rival on the finishing stretch, celebrating across the line with a time of 38:30.9 minutes, with just one penalty (0+0+1+0).
To the joy of the German fans, Schempp’s teammate Erik Lesser managed to overtake France’s Jean Guillaume Beatrix on the final loop closing up to the two athletes in front on the last meters, and outlunged Fourcade in a photo finish sprint (both +0.4 seconds).
“They pushed up the Birxsteig so incredibly hard,” Lesser told ZDF. “I thought I could only fight for position five. Then I saw that Beatrix wasn’t skiing very clean anymore either. So I just tried a full attack… I never would have believed that a second place would come out of that.“
“My father-in-law is probably watching the Tour de Ski today and saying, ‘Finally the guy makes a lunge,’ ” Lesser joked about the finish sprint. “I never would have believed that Fourcade still lets himself get beaten by the little Lesser. Finally all the strength training paid off.“
Fourcade had incurred two penalties in the third shooting stage, having to make up a 44 second gap to the top. In the final shooting he stayed clean, but already had to invest a lot of energy on the prior loop so he could not create a significant lead on the last one.
“I skied as fast as I could, but Simon was just faster and Erik as well,” Fourcade said during the press conference. “I tried my best in the beginning of the lap because we were too [many] people… I gave all I had. I must say I didn’t see Erik until he passed me in the sprint… It was a great competition, a great fight.”
Coming into the last shooting stage Lesser had been leading the race with Norway’s Ole Einar Bjørndalen, but both missed a target and had to a penalty lap while Schempp and Fourcade stayed clean.
Fourcade’s teammate Beatrix finished fourth with one penalty (+13.2), Bjørndalen was fifth (+19.5) also with one penalty.
No North American men competed in the mass start, with US Biathlon’s Lowell Bailey ,who would have been qualified via the overall World Cup standings skipping the race week in Oberhof for a training block. Bailey is currently ranked 19th overall.
American Jessie Diggins chasing Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg on the final climb of the 2017 Tour de Ski up the Alpe Cermis in Val di Fiemme, Italy. Østberg finished the Tour in fourth and Diggins fifth, tying a best-ever mark for the U.S., set in 2015 by Liz Stephen. (Photo: ZDF screenshot)
FIS Cross-Country Tour de Ski Stage 7 (Val di Fiemme/Alpe Cermis, Italy): 9 k freestyle
Heidi Weng of Norway proved that she was the threat everyone was fearing – despite a few races in the Tour de Ski with bad skis or low energy, Weng had a dominating performance up the Alpe Cermis and took her first ever Tour de Ski title.
At 6.2 k of the 9 k course, Weng passed Stina Nilsson of Sweden, who had started the day in the leader’s bib with a 19.2-second advantage. Weng just stepped on the gas from there, turning in the fastest climb time of the field and winning by 1:37.0.
Further up the hill, Nilsson was also passed by Krista Parmakoski of Finland, who gapped the Swede and earned second place.
And Nilsson had to hold off one more attack, from Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg near the top of the climb. Østberg had started in fourth place and got close to Nilsson, before the Swede found her second (or third, or fourth) wind and sprinted it in to the finish to secure third place and her first Tour de Ski overall podium.
Weng has three previous Tour de Ski podiums, but never a win. Parmakoski’s previous best overall finish was fourth, in 2014.
Jessie Diggins of the U.S. Ski Team started behind Østberg and almost made contact at one point, before the Norwegian slipped from her grasp. Diggins finished the Tour de Ski fifth (+3:09.0) — where she had started the day — to tie for the best-ever Tour finish with Liz Stephen, who was fifth in 2015.
Today, Stephen clocked the second-fastest time up the climb, behind Weng, and finished 14th (+6:45.6).
Rosie Brennan, the third and final U.S. woman to finish the Tour de Ski this year, landed 28th, +12:59.9. Her time was the 23rd-fastest up the Alpe Cermis.
The overall podium at the end of the 2017 Tour de Ski, with winner Sergey Ustiugov (c) of Russia, Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby (l) in second, and Switzerland’s Dario Cologna (r) in third after finishing in that order in the 9 k freestyle hill-climb pursuit, Stage 7 of the Tour de Ski in Val di Fiemme, Italy. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
In the men’s 9 k freestyle hill climb that followed, 24-year-old Sergey Ustiugov of Russia raced to his first Tour de Ski victory, heading out of the gate with a 1:12-minute head start over Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby and finishing 1:02.9 ahead for the win in 30:27.7.
Sundby put time into Ustiugov over parts of the course, particularly in the first kilometer along a flatter section leading up to the climb and then again between 6 and 8 k on Alpe Cermis itself.
Sundby skied alone throughout the pursuit race, with Switzerland’s Dario Cologna starting 52 seconds behind him. Cologna had a 29-second head start on Finland’s Matti Heikkinen, who entered the race in fourth, and 30 seconds ahead of France’s Maurice Manificat in fifth, but Manificat caught and even passed Cologna with about 0.5 k remaining. Cologna proceeded to pass Manificat back while Heikkinen skied about nine seconds back in fifth.
Canada’s Alex Harvey had started sixth and helped lead Manificat and Heikkinen in chasing down Cologna early in pursuit, but he faded to seventh, behind Sweden’s Marcus Hellner (who started seventh, 12 seconds after Harvey) by 8.5 k. There, Hellner trailed Heikkinen by 14.6 seconds, and Harvey was another 27.9 seconds back in seventh (and nearly a 54 seconds ahead of the man skiing in eighth at the time, Norway’s Simen Hegstad Krüger).
Half a kilometer later, it was all over with Cologna securing third overall in the Tour, 1:19.1 behind Ustiugov and 16.2 seconds behind Sundby.
With the fastest 9 k time of the day, Manificat moved up one place for fourth overall, finishing 1:26.9 after Ustiugov with a time of 29:20 minutes. Heikkinen was the second fastest on course, 6.1 seconds slower than Manificat, for fifth overall in the Tour (+1:31.3). Hellner took sixth at the finish (+2:05.8), ahead of Harvey in seventh (+2:39.7). For Harvey, it was his best overall finish in four competed Tour de Skis (last year, he finished 14th. His best result was 12th in 2012).
Norway swept the next five places with with Krüger in eighth (+3:27.2), Hans Christer Holund in ninth (+3:50.4), Niklas Dyrhaug in 10th (+4:24.9), Sjur Røthe in 11th (+4:56.4), and Didrik Tønseth in 12th (+5:07.7).
Canada had two in the final climb with Devon Kershaw finishing 25th (+9:32.2) after starting 23rd. Graeme Killick did not start after being positioned in 37th overall in the Tour.
Kershaw finished 8.1 seconds ahead of Noah Hoffman, the lone American racing to the top of Alpe Cermis. Hoffman moved up from 30th at the start to finish 26th (+9:40.3) overall, and in doing so, he posted the 15th-fastest time of the day, 1:05.3 back from Manificat.
Harvey’s time ranked 14th (+1:04.9). Norway’s Holund had the third-fastest time after starting 11th and ending up ninth, Hellner was fourth fastest, and Cologna fifth fastest.
Tour de Ski final results (with isolated climb times): Women | Men
The French men’s relay team after their IBU World Cup win on Sunday in Pokljuka, Slovenia, with (from left to right) Martin Fourcade, Quentin Fillon Maillet, Simon Desthieux, and Jean-Guillaume Béatrix. They beat Russia by 15.7 seconds for the win. (Photo: IBU)
Welcome to The Rundown, your quick primer of need-to-know information about the day’s racing. We’ll be updating this digest as the day goes on with additional results, photos and quotes. The Rundown is NOT a race report; stay tuned for complete race reports later today with interviews from the day’s top racers.
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Note: This recap has been updated to reflect the correct positions each of the four Canadian women exchanged in during Sunday’s 4 x 6 k IBU World Cup relay.
IBU World Cup in Pokljuka: Men’s & Women’s Relays
Germany and France reached the podium in both the men’s 4 x 7.5-kilometer and women’s 4 x 6 k sprints on Sunday, the final day of the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia.
France won the men’s race by 15.7 seconds over Russia with a total of seven spare rounds and zero penalties. Jean-Guillaume Béatrix started off by putting the French team in fourth, then Quentin Fillon Maillet elevated them to first, a position both Simon Desthieux and Martin Fourcade held for the victory in 1:11:56.5.
“When we started the relay, we thought that winning was possible,” Béatrix said, according to an IBU press release. “At the same time, the competition was very tough. There were many strong teams today.”
“I was very happy to tag Martin with a 20-second lead,” Desthieux said. “This is good for my confidence.”
Russia placed second with Maxim Tsvetkov, Anton Babikov, Matvey Eliseev, and Anton Shipulin, the four of which combined for one penalty (on Eliseev’s third leg) and six spare rounds.
Germany rounded out the podium in third, 21.5 seconds behind France, with Erik Lesser, Matthias Dorfer, Benedikt Doll, and Simon Schempp. In ninth after Lesser’s first leg, Dorfer brough the team to eighth and Doll raced them into second before Schempp lost one place to end up third. They used a total of 11 spares but avoided the penalty lap.
Canada placed 10th of 22 teams, 1:44.7 out of first with one penalty and seven spares. Christian Gow started the team out with clean shooting and tagged off in sixth at the first exchange, and his older brother Scott Gow also shot clean without any spares to move up to fourth at the second tag. Macx Davies required three spares and had to ski a penalty lap on his prone stage, then used another spare to clean standing and tagged off in 14th place. Brendan Green anchored the Canadians to 10th, using three spares but avoiding a penalty in prone, then cleaning standing without any spares.
“I had a somewhat disappointing pursuit race yesterday, and my goal for today was to refocus on the range and push the ski speed as much as possible,” 28-year-old Scott Gow told Biathlon Canada, according to a press release. “I was happy with the overall performance I was able to put forward for my leg of the relay, and I was especially happy with another clean shooting day.
“Today was an acceptable result for the team,” he added. “Christian and I are very proud of our results so far this season. We worked very hard all year to try and elevate our racing abilities to the next level, and we saw our hard work pay off today with great skiing and perfect shooting for both of us. It’s also a big confidence boost going forward with the season knowing we are capable of competing among the best.”
Germany’s Karen Hammerschmidt (l) tagging her teammate Laura Dahlmeier in second place at the final exchange of the women’s 4 x 6 k relay at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. Dahlmeier anchored the team to the win by 10.1 seconds over France. (Photo: IBU)
In the women’s relay on Sunday, Germany took first by 10.1 seconds over France, using nine spares but no penalties.
Vanessa Hinz started the Germans out and tagged off in fifth, and second-leg Franziska Hildebrand moved them up into second by the halfway point. Karen Hammerschmidt held that position, which was enough for Laura Dahlmeier who anchored them to the win in 1:11:31.1.
“This was a brutally beautiful race today,” Dahlmeier told German broadcaster ZDF after her third win in as many races in Pokljuka. “It was very fun, and I was very relaxed because I knew we were competing as a team. Even if you don’t have as much power left there are still three others. I was on top of my game and just enjoyed it. I really looked forward to the race, although yesterday I was knocked out. But on the course I had a good feeling right from the start.”
France in second and Ukraine in third (+37.7) both required just three spare rounds and no penalties per team. France secured second place with Anais Chevalier (who initially tagged off in 11th), Justine Braisaz (who picked off eight places to move into third), Celia Aymonier (who tagged off in first), and Marie Dorin Habert (who cleaned without any spares but came up 10 seconds short of Dahlmeier at the finish).
Ukraine reached the podium with Iryna Varvynets, Yuliia Dzhima, Olena Pidhrushna, and Anastasiya Merkushyna.
Canada placed 11th (+3:33.1) with a total of just four spares and no penalties. Sarah Beaudry initially tagged off in 23rd, Rosanna Crawford skied them into 18th, Megan Tandy shot clean without any spares and tagged off in 14th, and Julia Ransom anchored them to 11th out of 23 teams.
The U.S. did not field a men’s or women’s relay team, with just three men and three women in Pokljuka.
FIS Cross-Country World Cup in Davos: Freestyle Sprints
In the men’s 1.6-kilometer freestyle sprint on Sunday it was Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov who emerged victorious, besting Finn Hågen Krogh of Norway and his Norwegian teammate Sindre Bjørnestad Skar for first.
After qualifying 29th overall, Ustiugov crossed first in his quarterfinal and held the led through his semifinal and into the final, winning in a time of 2:24.65. Krogh crossed 0.59 tenths of a second behind him for second place and Skar took the final podium spot, crossing 3.29 seconds after Ustiugov.
Also in the sprint final was Russia’s Alexey Petukhov, who finished just off the podium in fourth (+3.47), Norwegian Emil Iversen in fifth (+5.52) and France’s Lucas Chanavat —who won the qualifier — ended the day in sixth (+11.48).
Lucas Chanavat of France had the fastest men’s qualifying time in the Davos World Cup freestyle sprint on Sunday.
Canada’s Lenny Valjas was the top North American finisher for the day, qualifying 12th and advancing to the quarterfinals where he finished in 14th overall. No other Canadians made the sprint heats, with Alex Harvey left just outside advancing in 33rd, Devon Kershaw ending the day in 49th, Knute Johnsgaard 60th, Bob Thompson 67th, and Andy Shields 73rd. Jesse Cockney did not finish the race.
Simi Hamilton led the U.S. in 24th (+3.88). Andy Newellwas just outside the heats in 36th, and Eric Packer placed 95th (+21.62).
In the women’s 1.6 k freestyle sprint, Maiken Caspersen Falla of Norway took the overall win, crossing in a time of 2:44.63. Just 0.53 tenths of a second behind Falla was her Norwegian teammate Ingvild Flugstad Østberg in second place overall. The final women’s podium finisher, Hanna Falk of Sweden was 0.60 tenths of second off Falla in third.
U.S. Ski Team member, Jessie Diggins made the final, racing to a fifth place overall (+5.91), behind Sweden’s Jonna Sundling in fourth (+1.04) and ahead of Russia’s Natlalia Matveeva in sixth (+6.80).
The United States put three other women into the heats, including Sophie Caldwell who finished 11th, Sadie Bjornsen 15th, and Ida Sargent 20th.
American Caitlin Patterson ended the day 47th, Kikkan Randall 58th, and Liz Stephen 61st.
Dahria Beatty was the top Canadian on Sunday, finishing in 25th overall. Cendrine Browne ended the day 53rd and Sophie Carrier-Laforte 59th.
NorAm/SuperTour at Sovereign Lake: 10/15 k Freestyle
[UPDATE] It was Americans owning the podium again Sunday at Sovereign Lake, and a little bit more. It was warmer on Sunday, -7 Celsius, and snowed lightly throughout.
The men’s 15 k freestyle was first on the schedule. APU’s Scott Patterson won in 40:00.2, followed by Saturday’s A-finalist Matt Gelso at 13.2 seconds and Vail’s Tad Elliot at +26.6.
The top Canadian was Team R.A.D.’s Russell Kennedy in ninth, at 1:38.8 behind.
In the women’s 10 k freestyle, the podium was owned by APU’s Chelsea Holmes in 30:42.9. SMS Elite’s Katharine Ogden was second at 13.4 seconds, also winning the junior category. Her teammate Erika Flowers was third, 36.4 behind.
AWCA’s Olivia Bouffard-Nesbitt was the top Canadian for the second day, placing 13th at 1:51.8.
Martin Fourcade of France prepares to take the podium after his win in the 10 k sprint in Sjusjøen, Norway.
SJUSJØEN, Norway — Twenty-year-old Justine Braisaz, of France, won the biathlon season opener on Saturday in Sjusjøen, 23.1 seconds in front of Norwegian Tiril Eckhoff and 36.6 second ahead of Ukrainian Juliya Dzhima. The young French woman shot down 10 out 10 targets and skated equally fast throughout the 7.5-kilometer sprint. Eckhoff missed once during prone and once standing while Dzhima missed her second shot standing.
The fourth place finisher, France’s Celia Aymonier, finished 56.3 seconds off of Braisaz’s winning time, while Norwegian Fanny Horn Birkeland was another 1.5 seconds back in fifth (+57.8).
From the start, the podium appeared to be a competition among Braisaz, Eckhoff and Dzhima.
In her finish-line interview, Braisaz said, “I am happy about the result, and even though I hit every target today, the shooting is something I have to work on because it is not my strong suit. But it was a good day.”
Before the race, Erlend Slokvik, president of the Norwegian Biathlon Association told FasterSkier that he thought Eckhoff was the likeliest candidate for the top of the podium, and throughout the race the crowd seemed to agree with him. The 26-year-old Eckhoff received loud cheers for her 8-of-10 shooting.
After the race, the finish-line interviewer asked Braisaz if she thought she’d be dangerous this season.
Tiril Eckhoff of Norway on her way through the stadium on her way to second place in the 7.5 k sprint in Sjusjøen, Norway.
“Yes I think so, I hope so,” she replied.
When asked by NRK during the post-race press conference what she thought about her victory Braisaz said, “I didn’t expect it, and I really don’t know how it happened.
“I have worked hard over the summer with my technique and shooting and it’s reassuring to be in good shape today.” she continued. “I had to focus on what I could do because Eckhoff and Dzhima were very strong.”
Asked what her goals are for the season, Braisaz said she has no specific goals, but she hopes to be “in shape for the World Championship.”
Also at the press conference, Eckhoff was asked how she felt about her race.
“I’m glad to have started the season, and I feel like I’m in good shape and that I am strong, but I may have started a little too quickly,” she said.
As for her shooting: “I’m happy about thestanding, but I used a little too much time during the prone so the focus from now on will be to systemize the shooting so I can do it faster and better,” she said.
Third-place finisher Dzhima said after the race that she was happy about being in good shape, but she wasn’t happy with 90-percent shooting.
“I’m not happy about missing one target, I wanted to hit all ten, but luckily it’s early in the season,” the 26-year-old told FasterSkier through a translator.
Fourcade Leads Five Frenchman in Top 6
In the men’s 10 k sprint, Martin Fourcade took charge from the start. The five-time World Cup overall champion hit all his targets and skated the track equally well. No other biathlete could match Fourcade’s performance and the closest was Norwegian Johannes Thingnes Bø, who finished 12.9 seconds behind him with perfect shooting.
Norwegians Thomas Fenne (bib 94) and Emil Hegle Svendsen (bib 96) on the shooting range in the 10 k sprint in Sjusjøen.
“I am happy about the result, but I am not in that good shape so today was a very good day,” Fourcade told L’equipe after the race.
And indeed it was for the French team. Five out of the top six men’s finishers were French. Fabien Claude placed third (+31.7), Quentin Fillon Maillet was fourth (+59.3), Jean-Guillaume Béatrix was fifth (+1:05.7) and Simon Desthieux was sixth (+1:07). The only miss among these five came from Desthieux, who missed once in his standing shooting.
Norwegian TV2 called the French team’s performance a “frightening shot for the Norwegian biathletes”.
In the post-race press conference, Fourcade said he was “satisfied with the result. It was not my best performance, but for November this is good.”
Asked about the performance of his team, he said, “It means a lot. It pushes me in training and I have to work really hard to stay ahead of my team, so it’s good.”
Fourcade pointed to World Championships as his goal for the season, but he’s also focused on the World Cup. “I want to be as good as possible all season,” he said.
Up until the second shooting, it looked like Johannes Bø could potentially threaten Fourcade’s place on the podium, but the final lap of skiing became too tough for Bø.
“I’m happy about the race, it was a good performance,” he told FasterSkier. “I skied well, but I feel like I can do better than I did today, but I started feeling it in the second lap and third was painful and I was happy to finish.”
Asked how he felt about his 10-for-10 shooting, he said, “I’m very happy and I feel confident about it. We’ve focused more on shooting in training this season and it seems to have paid off.”
Third-place finisher Claude, who, at 21, has never raced a World Cup but has made it to four Youth/Junior World Championships, said that he was happy about his performance.
“I am really happy and satisfied with my race, my preparations have been great and the conditions today were great so I’m really happy,” he told FasterSkier. “And zero misses is not common for me so that is something I will take with me into the season.”
His main goal for the season? To reach the World Cup, he said.
Eight-time Olympic gold medalist Ole Einar Bjørndalen finished ninth, 1:33.9 minutes behind Fourcade. After the race, the 42-year-old Norwegian told FasterSkier, “This was no super race but I shot well and I skied as fast as I had planned. The fact that I am that far behind Fourcade is not something I worry about this early in the season.”
American Lowell Bailey (l) leads France’s eventual-winner Jean-Guillaume Béatrix (c) and Simon Fourcade during Sunday’s 15 k mass start at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. While Beatrix won by 0.3 seconds over Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen, Bailey placed 23rd behind U.S. teammate Tim Burke in 22nd. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
On Sunday afternoon, French biathlete Jean-Guillaume Béatrix knew he was the luckiest man in Pokljuka, Slovenia, achieving the first International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup victory of his career in a men’s 15-kilometer mass start he hadn’t planned on racing. His place on the start list originally belonged to Austria’s Simon Eder, who qualified for one of 30 spots in the mass start based on his overall World Cup standing. But in the morning Eder did not feel well and had to decline his participation, with that start instead going to Beatrix as the highest-ranked athlete on a “standby reserve” list.
Beatrix made the most out of the opportunity that was handed to him, cleaning all four shooting stages as the only athlete in the field, and beating out Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen by 0.3 seconds in the finishing sprint to win in 35:33.7.
Third place just 2.5 seconds back went to Svendsen’s teammate, 41-year-old veteran Ole Einar Bjørndalen, who in turn beat Germany’s Simon Schempp in a photo finish by mere inches.
In an up-and-down race closely watched by more than 6,000 spectators in the arena, many different athletes remained in contention for the podium for a long time, with the field sticking closely together due to excellent weather conditions that prompted few misses on the shooting range.
“This [race] was a perfect advertisement for our sport once again,” commented Germany’s men’s head coach Mark Kirchner in a post-race interview with TV broadcaster ZDF, himself a three-time Olympic gold medalist in biathlon. “When you consider that on the third loop about twenty athletes were still together within 14 or 15 seconds, you know how hard it is to focus on the shooting range because you know every miss will throw you back behind the top 20.”
At the halfway mark, US Biathlon’s Lowell Bailey was in second place, in part due to two perfect prone shootings. But he could not hold onto that position after he missed two targets in the first standing stage, and then added another miss in the final shooting, ultimately coming in 23rd (+1:29.5), one position and just 0.5 seconds behind his teammate Tim Burke, who had four misses (2+0+1+1) and placed 22nd.
Nathan Smith (Biathlon Canada) racing to 12th in the 15 k mass start at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
“Today was a little bittersweet,” Bailey wrote in an email. “On one hand, I was psyched that my ski speed had improved and I was able to hang with the lead group. On the other hand, I have felt good about my standing shooting all season, so it was frustrating to throw my chances away in that first standing stage.”
Canada’s Nathan Smith, who had placed ninth on the same course last season, also missed three targets (0+1+1+1) and finished 12th overall, 27.1 seconds behind Beatrix and 25 seconds off the podium.
“It’s pretty much a fact in biathlon that in order to medal in a mass start you have to shoot clean in the final standing,” Smith said in a Biathlon Canada press release. “I had one miss, which left me a penalty loop behind at the end.”
On the final loop after the last shooting, six athletes from three countries skied close together in a lead group, all vying for the podium after France’s Simon Desthieux had managed to close a small gap to his teammate Beatrix, Germany’s Andreas Birnbacher and Schempp, and Norway’s Bjørndalen and Svendsen.
About halfway through the loop, Svendsen charged ahead to break up the group, and only Beatrix was able to stay near the tails of his skis. The two came together into the finishing stretch, with Svendsen took the middle lane and Beatrix skied to his left. As Beatrix pushed toward the finish with elongated glides and no poles, he bested Svendsen — an athlete widely respected among his peers for his ski speed and sprinting — by three-tenths of a second.
This was Beatrix’s first World Cup win and fourth-career podium, after placing second in a pursuit in Antholz, Italy, and third in another pursuit in Sochi Russia, two seasons ago, and third in a sprint last season in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic.
Jean-Guillaume Béatrix of France winning Sunday’s mass start for his first IBU World Cup victory in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: IBU/Kvetoslav Frgal)
“I didn’t think I could win as Emil was strong,” Beatrix recounted when asked about the finishing push at a post-race press conference. “He looked a little tired on the last downhill though. Thanks to good skis, I managed to make a nice finish.”
“It is nice to finish a year with a podium. It’s sad to lose on such a margin though,” Svendsen said. “I need some rest to be in my best shape, but mentally I am very motivated.”
Bjørndalen used his extensive experience and skied a controlled race, making all but two of his 20 shots and staying clean in the decisive final shooting (1+0+1+0). At the end of the last round he could not quite keep up with Svendsen and Beatrix, but he still had some reserves.
In a sprint for third place against Schempp, winner of the preceding sprint and pursuit in Poklujka who had also missed two shots in this race (0+1+1+0), Bjørndalen lunged across the line in what almost looked like a dead-even tie. The photo finish ultimately proved Bjørndalen beat Schempp by the tip of his boot for third. Both athletes were recorded as 2.5 seconds behind.
“The last sprint was very hard. I focused on the third place, but Simon was so close to me,” Bjørndalen described at the press conference. “I saw his shadow on the finish line and tried to move out my feet.”
“Right when I put forward my foot I noticed he was probably ahead of me,” Schempp told ZDF. “But still, this race was a nice conclusion [to the weekend], and now I’m looking forward to Christmas.”
Schempp’s teammate Birnbacher placed fifth, 7.2 seconds back. It was his best result of the season. Asked whether team tactics came into play on the last loop, Birnbacher told ZDF with a laugh: “Well, unfortunately I didn’t have any power left on the last climb. Andi [German assistant-coach Andreas Stitzl] yelled to us, ‘Stay in two and three and attack out of the wind shadow,’ but I just wasn’t able to do that anymore”.
France’s pursuit runner-up Martin Fourcade took seventh in the mass start, one behind his teammate Desthieux who was 11.4 seconds back, and also a bit behind his own expectations. Fourcade’s race got derailed early after he missed two targets in the first prone shooting, which set him back far in the field to 27th place. With two more misses later (2+0+2+0), and despite once again skiing the fastest course time of all athletes, he was never quite able to catch up to the leaders again, and finished 17.8 seconds back.
In the overall World Cup standings, Fourcade still remains in the lead after the first trimester of races with 384 points, ahead of Bjørndalen (337) and Schempp (331). Also in the top 30, Smith is currently in 12th with 175 points, Bailey is 21st (128) and Burke is 27th (108).
Misses Stunt North Americans
Similar to Fourcade, Burke missed two shots in the first prone stage, setting him back all the way to the 30th in last position at that time, out of the focus of the TV cameras. He was unable to fully make up that early deficit despite steadily improving on the next loops to reach 24th before the final loop. He skied the 17th-fastest last loop to finish 22nd overall.
Nathan Smith (Biathlon Canada) racing to 12th in the 15 k mass start at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
His teammate Bailey and Canada’s Smith had more visibility on the broadcast, with Bailey moving to the front of the field for a while after he managed to clean the first two stages. On the third loop at 7.6 k he was skiing in second, just 0.5 seconds behind France’s Quentin Fillion Maillet, and entered the range in that position for the first standing. There, Bailey missed two targets and fell way back to 18th place, 49.1 seconds behind the leaders as he set out on his fourth loop.
“The pace was reasonable at the front of the race and at several points. It even slowed as everyone was jockeying for position,” Bailey recalled. “So, I can’t blame the misses on coming in too hard. Sometimes you just miss!”
After another miss on the last shooting stage set further him back, Bailey found himself in 22nd and 1:16.5 back, around where Burke had been skiing with throughout the race. On the final loop Burke caught up to him, then was able to narrowly beat Bailey by half a second to the line.
“I’m satisfied with the first trimester; a few good results, a couple of missed opportunities, but overall, a solid start,” Bailey wrote.
Smith skied fast on Sunday, with the 10th-ranked course time overall, despite one miss on each of the last three stages. After each penalty loop, he made up 10 seconds or more on the leaders to significantly reduce his time back on each loop. After the second shooting, he left the range in 13th place, 17 seconds out of first, then had already reduced that to 7 seconds by the first split time on the next loop and 5 seconds by the second timing point.
“After the sprint and pursuit I was worried about how my ski shape would be today. I had been feeling really lethargic on course,” Smith wrote in an email. “Thankfully today I was able to put out some solid ski speed. I ate an entire Toblerone and a large serving of chips yesterday evening. I’ll give some credit to that.”
But despite his fast skiing, the three penalties prevented Smith from making a push into the top 10.
“I was fine with the couple penalties earlier in the race, but I know that in the final shooting of every mass start 5/5 is a requirement if you want a medal,” he wrote. “I missed one. That’s biathlon.
“I was hoping to grab a top 6 or individual medal before Christmas, but on the other hand, the single mixed relay with Rosanna [Crawford] was a definite highlight,” Smith added. “My world cup overall ranking is also a lot higher than last year at this time. With a couple close opportunities already I think that I’m on track for a very successful next trimester. “
A happy German team celebrates its second win in two days of relays at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland, with the men’s 4 x 7.5 k victory on Saturday. Above, from left to right: Erik Lesser, Daniel Böhm, Arnd Peiffer, and Simon Schempp. (Photo: Kontiolahden Urheilijat/Kari Kuninkaanniemi)
KONTIOLAHTI, Finland — After more than a week of waiting, Simon Schempp could finally enjoy the 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, specifically the last two hundred meters of the men’s 4 x 7.5-kilometer relay and everything that came after that.
Schempp, 27, had been given the task of anchoring the German team on Saturday, and after two races in which he failed to medal (including his 77th place in the sprint), it seemed like a tall order.
But Schempp spent much of this season ranked second overall in the IBU World Cup, so he simply needed to restore his confidence back to its pre-World Championships level. He did so in Thursday’s 20 k individual, placing eighth.
“I caught the self confidence for today and was prepared for this relay,” he explained in press conference after Saturday’s relay.
Germany’s Simon Schempp soaks up his team’s victory after anchoring the men’s relay to gold on Saturday at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland. (Photo: Kontiolahden Urheilijat/Risto Kuittinen)
Things were better then — he had secured a 15.4-second victory for his team, matching the gold the German women won in the 4 x 6 k relay the day before.
His teammate Arnd Pfeiffer shot a perfect 10-for-10 on the third leg to tag him in first at the final exchange, 15.3 seconds ahead of Norway. Schempp proceeded to clean prone without any need for spares then used a single spare in standing to leave the range for the last time 15 seconds ahead of Emil Hegle Svendsen in second.
Svendsen also shot clean on his first stage and used a spare in standing to neither make up nor lose ground to Schempp, which he tried to change on the last lap. Meanwhile, French anchor Martin Fourcade went from fifth (behind the Czech Republic and Slovenia) to fourth on his first lap and used one spare to emerge from prone in third, 41.6 seconds out of first and 28.3 seconds from second.
The next time and final time around, Fourcade rattled off five quick shots to clean standing with the second-fastest range time. He remained in third, but within 25.6 seconds of Schempp and 10.6 of Svendsen.
Considering that, Svendsen had to think about defending silver and pressing for gold simultaneously on his last 2.5 k loop.
“I just tried to ski fast and didn’t look much behind,” Svendsen said in the press conference. “I tried to catch Simon, but had no chance.”
After being cheered on by his teammates while leaving the range, Schempp extended his gap to 19 seconds a kilometer into the final lap, then 20.9 seconds less than a kilometer later.
He finished 15.4 seconds ahead of Svendsen, taking the time to enjoy the finishing stretch while carrying the German flag.
“Only the last two-hundred meters I could enjoy because before, I gave all I have,” Schempp said. “I’m really happy and proud to be a part of this team.”
The Germans achieved gold with first and second skiers, Erik Lesser, who won the pursuit last Sunday, and Daniel Böhm, who opened the championships in sixth with the mixed relay.
Lesser hit all 10 of his targets without any problems to hand off in third, 6.4 seconds behind Norway’s Ole Einar Bjørndalen, who also cleaned to take the lead, and France’s Simon Fourcade, who cleaned as well to trail in second.
“I think all the team was determined to get a medal today,” Simon Fourcade said in the conference. In the last week, he placed fourth in both the sprint and 20 k individual.
“I know the relay is not only about me; I wanted to do my best on the first leg to give the best position to [my teammates],” he added.
During the second leg, Norway dropped to fifth with three standing spares from Tarjei Bø. Jean-Guillaume Béatrix used one spare in each stage to bring France into first by the second exchange, 0.7 seconds ahead of Italy and 3.1 seconds ahead of Böhm — who used two standing spares to keep Germany in third.
“Today, I felt a lot of tension in our team. Everybody wanted to have this victory,” Böhm recalled. “Watching the two others after me was harder than skiing.”
“I felt a lot of tension in our team. Everybody wanted to have this victory. Watching the two others after me was harder than skiing.” — Daniel Böhm, Germany’s second leg on its gold-medal winning relay
Just over a year ago, the German men took silver in the 2014 Olympic relay behind Russia. They had the same team and same order.
“I was very nervous today, even more nervous before the individual races,” Peiffer said.
Johannes Thingnes Bø of Norway leads Germany’s Arnd Peiffer up and over the wall during the third leg of the men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland. Germany went on to win gold and Norway took silver ahead of France. (Photo: Kontiolahden Urheilijat/Janina Joutsen)
He took the lead with a flawless prone, leaving the range 2 seconds ahead of Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø, who also cleaned. Bø passed him early in the lap and the two skied together into the range for standing. There, Peiffer cleaned again and Bø used a spare, which made the difference.
“I knew that I was together with Johannes and it was going to be a hard last lap so I tried to save some energy and tried to [have a] good standing shooting,” Peiffer explained.
He left the range 13.3 seconds ahead of Bø, and the Czech Republic’s Michal Slesinger moved into second during that last lap of the third leg, coming within 14 seconds of Peiffer. Bø passed Slesinger back before the exchange, and the Czech tagged in third — one tenth of a second behind Norway.
With Ondrej Moravec skiing the last leg, the Czech Republic slipped to fourth with his three prone spares. Russia’s Anton Shipulin and Austria’s Dominik Landertinger both hit every standing target without any slipups to overtake Moravec before the final lap. The Czech fell to sixth, where he would end up at the finish, behind Russia in fourth and Austria in fifth.
While Germany won in 1:13.49.5 and Norway was 15.4 seconds back in second, Fourcade pushed hard on the last lap aim for silver, but came up 18.2 seconds short in third.
“I was really happy to conclude what the team did,” Fourcade said in the conference. “Jean-Guillaume and Simon [Fourcade] were perfect on the track and on the shooting range. I think we had a bit more pressure, but we are really satisfied with this third place.”
Bailey Surges for Early Lead
AmericanLowell Bailey thrust himself into the spotlight as the first skier for the U.S., taking the lead 1.8 k in and holding it as he and the 27-team field approached the range for the first time.
Lowell Bailey (US Biathlon) led early as the first leg in the men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay at 2015 IBU World Championships and ultimately handed off in seventh. The U.S. ended up 14th with two penalties and 11 spares in Kontiolahti, Finland. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
Perhaps even more impressive was the fact that Bailey started near the back of the pack in the seventh of nine rows.
While the start was congested from his vantage point, Bailey explained he was able to use his fast skis and an eye for an opening before the first descent to move toward the front. By the first uphill, he found himself around fourth.
“Then I got to the front, and I think [Austria’s Daniel] Mesotitsch was trying to slow things down,” Bailey said. “On the wall, I just figured there’s no real advantage in this range to go in third or fourth. Normally it can be, but in this range, being in first is fine.
“I was just going my own pace and I wasn’t sure where that would end up, but I figured there can’t be any harm in going to the front and staying up there,” he added. “No one wanted to pass and that was fine with me.”
During that prone stage, Bailey cleaned without any spares and left the range in sixth, 3.6 seconds out of first. The following lap, he pushed the pace once again on the “wall,” the course’s biggest climb, to move into second behind Mesotitsch.
American Lowell Bailey (r) enters the range for prone with race leaders Daniel Mesotitsch of Austria (second from r), France’s Simon Fourcade (second from l), and Norway’s Ole Einar Bjørndalen (l) during the men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland.
Bailey entered the standing stage with the leaders, where he used two spares to clean standing and slipped to ninth, nearly 23 seconds out of first. He went on hand off to teammate Leif Nordgren in seventh, 30.3 seconds back.
“I lost contact with that lead group, but all in all, I was pretty happy with it,” Bailey said of his race. “Using two extras, that’s an extra 20 seconds, but what we want to do today is, if we all can perform at our normal capacity, then I think we can have a solid result. It’s not like all four of us have to shoot the moon. We all have to have good, solid days.”
On a good day, the U.S. would finish with less than eight spares, he said. Even better would be if they ended up with six.
“It’s not like all four of us have to shoot the moon. We all have to have good, solid days.” — Lowell Bailey (US Biathlon)
Despite Nordgren keeping the team in contention, using one spare in each round and tagging Tim Burke in eighth at the second exchange, the Americans ended up with more extras and penalties than they’d hoped.
Burke used one spare in prone then all three in standing before skiing two penalty laps. When Nordgren tagged him in eighth, Burke had been 34.7 seconds out of first. By the time he handed off to anchor Sean Doherty, the U.S. was 2:22 back in 15th.
Leif Nordgren (US Biathlon) leads Jaroslav Soukup (Czech Republic) while skiing the second leg for the U.S. men’s relay team at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland. After receiving the tag from Lowell Bailey in seventh, Nordgren handed off to Tim Burke in eighth. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
“Standing, I bobbled the spare a little bit … it was probably an extra second or two,” Nordgren explained of his second leg. “I came back again with one extra and pushed as hard as I could the last loop. In the relay, you just have to do what you can, and hopefully it comes together [for] all four of us.”
Doherty used all three spares during prone, but escaped without a penalty to hold onto 15th. In standing, he hit every target without any extras to move into 14th.
He finished 14th, 3:31.6 behind Germany and 6.5 seconds after Finland in 13th. In all, the Americans had two penalties and 11 spares.
“I stared pretty hard and I paid for it in prone,” Doherty said. “I had a good skiing day today and course is in good shape, so it was fun, but it was tough to be out of the mix a little bit.”
Earlier this season, Doherty, 19, skied the second leg on the U.S. men’s relay, which placed eighth at the World Cup in Antholz, Italy. Before that, he was the third leg on the team that placed 16th at the 2014 Olympics.
In terms of what it felt like to anchor his first World Championships relay, Doherty said he didn’t read too much into the start order.
“It’s a compliment in a way if they think I’m mature enough as an athlete to handle that role well,” he said. “It wasn’t the same pressure as if we were fighting for the medals, but still, I’m not gonna want to miss.”
Christian Gow Gets Up Front, Smith Shoots 10-for-10
Starting Saturday’s race off for Canada, Christian Gow started in the second row in bib 6 and moved into fifth by 1.8 k. Following Bailey, he entered prone in the lead pack, around seventh.
Christian Gow (Biathlon Canada) approaches the range for his standing stage during the men’s 7.5 k relay at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland.
“I thought quite a bit about the start of this race and just the way the course flows,” Gow, 21, explained.
He wanted to avoid the accordion stop-and-go effect of being near the back before short pitches and any crashes on a particularly icy downhill corner.
“I knew I wanted to be right with the top guys,” Gow said. “I knew that was totally possible. I had a blast on that first loop. … It felt so easy to just stay right at the front. That’s an amazing feeling. I know it doesn’t mean much, per say, but to be able to ski with some of my idols and just feel so relaxed, like really feel like I belong in that group, the relays are for sure my favorite for that. It’s such a great experience and so much fun.”
In prone, he used two spares to drop to 24th, 27.5 seconds out of first. He moved back into 23rd heading into the range for standing, before using another extra there and heading into his last lap in 22nd.
“I’m really happy with what I did skiing,” Gow said. “I finally felt strong on skis, but my shooting wasn’t quite there. I think I was pretty nervous coming in just so far up. I don’t think I was quite as settled as I should have been.”
Gow tagged teammate Nathan Smith in 22nd, 1:20 back. Smith proceeded to shoot a perfect 10-for-10 with the fastest shooting and fourth-fastest course times of the second leg to bring the Canadians to 10th.
“It was actually a really good race for me, my second best race here,” said Smith, who earned silver in the sprint last weekend. “I skied pretty relaxed. It was pretty icy, though, so my shins were hurting by the last lap. If I can do a race like today again tomorrow [in the mass start], it will be a really good result.”
In terms of team goals, he said their “middle goal” was a top eight, “really good would have been top six.” At the last World Cup relay in Oslo, Norway, the Canadian men placed fifth with the same lineup. They were seventh at the Olympics with Jean-Phillipe Le Guellec, Scott Perras, Brendan Green, and Smith as the anchor.
“It’s so fast right now that if you have a few spares, it puts you way back, more than normal,” Smith explained of Saturday’s boilerplate conditions.
After he tagged Scott Gow in 10th, 44.8 seconds behind the leaders, Gow used all three spares and had two penalty loops in prone to fall to 19th, 2:11.1 out of first.
“The whole race wasn’t very good,” Scott Gow said. “I felt good going into today, but I was gassed the whole time and then prone was really bad, I have no idea what happened there.”
In standing, he used two more spares but remained in 19th, 3 minutes back, before tagging Green in the same position, 3:48.5 behind.
“[I] was so far back that they only thing I could try to do was to ski hard and try to make up as much time as possible. It couldn’t get any worse so it was worth just going for it,” Scott said.
“We came in fifth in Oslo, we’ve had sixth places, top tens before, so I think the expectation was if everyone pulled their own weight and put in little bit extra in the range, that we could walk away with a top eight and maybe another fifth place would be great,” he added. “It’s a little disappointing to not even be close.”
Receiving the tag 40 seconds behind Sweden, which was 18th, Green said he raced hard for a couple laps to see if he could catch its anchor, Ted Armgren, but he was too far ahead.
Green cleaned prone and used one standing spare to maintain 19th and avoid being lapped, which happened to Poland in 20th as well as seven other teams behind them.
“On the last loop, the techs told me I had a cushion so I was able to relax and kind of coast it home,” Green said after finishing 19th, 5:03.4 behind Germany.
In all, the Canadians had two penalties and nine spares.
“Today definitely didn’t turn out the way were hoping, but the guys tried their best,” Green said. “It happens from time to time. It’s always unfortunate when it’s at World Championships, but you’ve got to roll with the punches, I guess.”
He said his solid-shooting streak was a good indicator for Sunday’s mass start, which he qualified for along with Smith for Canada, and Burke and Bailey for the U.S.
“I’m definitely a little tired. Tomorrow will be the sixth race [here], but I’m definitely excited at the opportunity,” Green said. “Mass starts are always a lot of fun and pretty tense, so looking forward to it.”
Ondrej Moravec celebrates a sizable win for the Czech Republic in Thursday’s mixed relay at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland. (Photo: Kontiolahden Urheilijat/Jarno Artika)
KONTIOLAHTI, Finland — At least one team finished with big smiles at the end of Thursday’s epically slow-and-slushy 2 x 6 + 2 x 7 kilometer mixed relay on the first day of the 2015 International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Championships in eastern Finland.
Ondrej Moravec anchored the Czech Republic to gold, and with plenty of time to play with before doing so, he grabbed his nation’s flag from a stadium spectator to carry across the line.
Ondrej Moravec celebrates at the finish after anchoring the Czech Republic to gold in Thursday’s mixed relay at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland. (Photo: Kontiolahden Urheilijat/Jarno Artika)
Picking up one leg and pumping his free arm in the air, Moravec flashed a huge grin at the 4,500-person crowd and was greeted by three happy teammates in the finishing pen. Like the rest of the 26-team field, they had been through a lot in the last 1:20.27.2 hours, but what counted was that they handled the conditions better than any other team and came out on top.
Veronika Vitkova, Gabriela Soukalova, Michal Slesinger, and Moravec combined for a penalty-free effort, using a total of eight spares en route to the win. They finished 20.2 seconds ahead of France, which used eight spares as well. The defending Olympic mixed-relay champions, Norway finished third, 27.7 seconds back with three spares and a penalty loop.
While the Czech Republic, which notched silver from the mixed relay at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, consistently skied in the top three, its team mostly had the task of chasing down Belarus, which got out to an 20-second lead with second-leg Darya Domracheva.
Domracheva had come back from getting tagged in fifth, 19.4 seconds behind Vitkova as the first-leg leader. After trailing Japan’s Fuyuko Suzuki for most of her three 2 k laps, Vitkova pushed ahead of her before the exchange to give Soukalova a 2.1-second lead.
And while Soukalova was put in a prime position, after Vitkova used two spares on each round but cleaned to keep them at the front of the pack, she was nervous.
“I was afraid of the race before the start because I really don’t like these conditions,” Soukalova said in a post-race press conference about the at-least-ankle-deep snow in above-freezing temperatures. “It was really hard, but I tried to go [in] with a clear mind and just enjoy the race.”
Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen racing from 11th to second as the second leg of the mixed relay at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland. Her team went on to place ninth. (Photo: Kontiolahden Urheilijat/Jarno Artika)
She ended up cleaning both her stages and tagging Slesingr in third, 25.7 seconds after Domracheva and 5.7 seconds behind Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen, who cleaned to bring her team from 11th (after Mari Laukkanen’s first leg) to second.
“You could see in the end of the race, one kilometer before the finish, I was completely exhausted,” Soukalova said. “So I really appreciate the good job of the rest of the team.”
After the second exchange, Slesingr brought the Czechs to second with a clean prone and two standing spares. He followed Vladimir Chepelin of Belarus out of the range for the second time, about 25 seconds back, after Chepelin used three standing spares.
With one 2.5 k lap to go, Slesingr closed the gap to 11.7 seconds and tagged Moravec in second. Norway handed off in third, 45 seconds back, after Johannes Thingnes Bø lifted the team from sixth to third with clean shooting.
From there, Moravec proceeded to stalk Belarusian anchor Yuryi Liadov, who used one spare in prone. On the second lap, Moravec passed Liadov and led him into the range for the last time.
While Liadov missed three more standing to leave the range for the last time in fourth, 25.7 seconds out of first, Moravec (who used one spare in each bout) remained in control heading into the final lap, leading France’s Martin Fourcade in second by 18.2 seconds. Fourcade cleaned both stages to bring France from fourth to second by the last stage, and he ended up skiing the fastest anchor leg to come within 15 seconds of Moravec by 6.1 k.
But with 1.4 k to go, the Czech anchor solidified the victory with the second-fastest course time on the last leg, 7 seconds slower than Fourcade.
“I was so surprised the Belarusian guy was a long time ahead of the race,” Moravec told the IBU media after the race. “I think it was also pretty good result for them, but I believe for myself that I can beat him and I did it and I was so happy.”
Anais Bescond of France (center, in black) leads the first leg out of the start in Thursday’s mixed relay at IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland. (Photo: Biathlon Canada/NordicFocus)
Belarus finished fourth, 31 seconds out of first and 4.3 seconds off the podium.
“I think it was a pretty good race for everybody on the team,” Moravec said in the press conference. “It was perfect.”
After Anais Bescond’s first leg, in which she used four spares (one prone and three standing), France rose from 12th to fourth with Marie Dorin Habert, who cleaned prone and used one standing spare. She also skied the third-fastest second leg after Mäkäräinen and Domracheva, respectively.
“I’m very happy with this medal and I hope next year we could change medals with the Czechs,” Habert said in the conference. “We have to work hard for it, but it’s a very nice day for the French team, too.”
Jean-Guillaume Béatrix kept France in fourth with a clean first stage and used three spares standing, coming into the final exchange 1:10.5 out of the lead and 25.6 seconds after third.
“It’s like running in the sand here,” Beatrix recalled. “I’m happy that in the end we can be on the podium because it was unbelievably hard.”
“It’s like running in the sand here. … It was unbelievably hard.” — Jean-Guillaume Béatrix (France)
Fourcade clawed back more than 15 seconds within his first two kilometers and proceeded to shoot a perfect 10-for-10 to keep his team ahead of Norway for silver.
The 2 x 6 + 2 x 7.5 k mixed relay at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland, with the Czech Republic gold medalists (c), France (l) in second, and Norway (r) in third. (Photo: Kontiolahden Urheilijat/Jarno Artika)
“I have no thoughts about missing the team relay,” Fourcade said when asked whether he considered skipping the coed event to prepare for other races at World Championships. “It was important to me and important to team France so I’m really happy I did [it] and really happy we catch some medals.”
While Norway’s Fanny Well-Strand Horn cleaned both her stages to tag off in sixth, Tiril Eckhoff used all three spares in standing and skied a penalty loop. Yet she still managed to keep Norway in sixth, 1:32.4 out of first.
“It always sucks to get the penalty, but I just have to go and hope for the guys to take medal and they did so that was really good,” Eckhoff said.
The team’s third leg, Johannes Thingnes Bø noted how fast their skis were despite the conditions.
“The most [important] part of my race was the good skis today — they were really fast and also our shooting today was really strong,” the 21-year-old Bø said. “We had just one shooting that was bad. We are happy to get a medal.”
The Norwegian mixed-relay team, (from left to right) with Fanny Well-Strand Horn, Tiril Eckhoff, Tarjei Bø, and Johannes Thingnes Bø, after earning bronze at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland.
His older brother, Tarjei Bø, who anchored the team to third, cleaned as well.
“We are always happy with the medal. Of course, we’re going for the gold medal each relay … but still bronze is good,” Tarjei, 26, said. “It’s a big difference with bronze medal and fourth place. I think as a group, we’re happy.”
And at the end of the day, the Belarus team — at least Domracheva — wasn’t bummed, either.
“This is the best place for a few years for us in mixed relay,” she told the IBU. “From start to start, we have better and better results. Fourth place is really close to the podium, and I’m glad with my own race and it was not easy conditions today. We saw for our guys also some really strong competitors, and it was a good biathlon fight.”
Also in the top 10, Austria placed fifth (+1:00.3) with three total spares, Germany was sixth (+1:22.8) with six spares, Italy finished seventh (+1:24.7) with 10 spares, and the U.S. tied its best World Championships mixed-relay result in eighth (+1:46.6) with one penalty and eight spares. Finland ended up ninth (+1:59.5) with eighth spares and Russia was 10th (+2:00.2) with just two spares.
Ukraine finished 11th (+2:10.3) ahead of Canada in 12th (+2:27.9). The Canadians tied their nation’s mixed-relay best at World Championships in 12th (a year after placing 11th at the Olympics) with a total of four spares. After leading the first two laps of the race, Japan placed 21st out of 26 teams.
The Czech Republic mixed relay team celebrates with anchor Ondrej Moravec (second from l) at the finish after winning Thursday’s race by 20.2 seconds over France at 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland.
Nathan Smith racing in August in the men’s 10 k sprint at the 2014 North American Rollerski Championships in Jericho, Vt.
Note: This article has been updated to include emailed comments from Nathan Smith.
Seventy-eighth. That’s where Nathan Smith finished in the last IBU World Cup 10-kilometer sprint before Saturday’s race. And while the 29-year-old Canadian would probably very much like to forget that result in Antholz, Italy, it was a marker of how far he’d come in just over two weeks with some quality time spent training.
“January was a tough month of shooting and I felt like I was hitting my head against a brick wall trying to knock the targets down,” Smith told Biathlon Canada after Saturday’s 10 k sprint in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. “Even though I was trying hard it just wasn’t happening. After the last World Cup I decided to take a week off shooting, and thought of some key points to focus on – relaxing into the position and slowing things down a touch.”
While training in Antholz, he fell on his chest and hurt his back, aggravating an injury he sustained three years ago while rollerskiing, he explained in an email on Sunday morning.
“That made it really hard to ski for a few days and racing was pretty painful,” Smith added. “I focused a lot during the break getting my back to relax and stretching a lot. Aside from that I just revised a little bit of volume training to help maintain my fitness through the rest of the season.”
He also did’t touch his rifle during that time.
“I decided to not touch my rifle at all during the break and let thing reset,” Smith wrote. “When I picked it up again I made a big effort to focus on relaxing…”
Nathan Smith (Biathlon Canada) (Photo: olympic.ca)
So with some, but not too much restraint, Smith forged ahead on Saturday, starting 25th on a crystal-clear-yet-windy day and ultimately finishing seventh for his career-best World Cup result. Earlier this season, he placed ninth in the mass start in Pokljuka, Slovenia, and ninth in the sprint in Östersund, Sweden, but seventh was a new high.
He finished 37.7 seconds behind Saturday’s winner, Jakov Fak of Slovenia, who rounded the course in 24:09.9. Fak hit all 10 of his targets, as did Smith. In fact, seven of the top-eight men cleaned (with the exception of France’s Martin Fourcade, who missed one standing).
“Today the top men shot amazingly well which makes for a very tough day to medal when you aren’t within the top-five or 10 skiers,” Smith said. “A medal may have been possible if I’d also had the ski of my life today, however, the odds of perfect shooting and skiing coming together are pretty low. A more likely way to grab a first podium is to put yourself in a position where you can capitalize on a day when the favourites falter.”
He passed two people during the race, yet Smith knew that didn’t exactly indicate how fast he was moving.
“There was a glory train of athletes starting behind me so I knew it must’ve been pretty good if no one passed me,” he wrote. “The techs were giving me info the entire time so I knew I was fighting for a top 10 and that a medal wasn’t too far away.”
Both his range and shooting times ranked fifth overall, and he was 23rd-fastest on course throughout the three-lap race.
“My skiing felt strong but I can definitely give a little more,” he reflected. “The difference was shooting 10-for-10 today and I will try and reflect on that in the future.”
Smith has seen his share of top 15’s on the international scene; at his first Olympics last season, he placed 11th in the pursuit and 13th in the sprint in Sochi, Russia. He’s also recorded five top-10 World Cup results in the last two years. He credited his success this season in part to his teammates.
“Rosanna [Crawford] had an amazing first trimester, and Brendan [Green] really came into his own in Ruhpolding and Antholz. All three of us have been very close to the podium the last couple of years, and it’s a bit of a friendly competition to see who will do it first,” he said.
“Today reaffirmed that my form is still there and that I can shoot really well,” he wrote. “It gave me some good confidence for the next couple world cups and leading to world champs.”
“I decided to not touch my rifle at all during the break and let thing reset. … When I picked it up again I made a big effort to focus on relaxing.” — Nathan Smith, after career-best seventh in IBU World Cup sprint on Saturday
Slovenia’s Jakov Fak shot 10-for-10 and skied faster than anyone else to win Saturday’s 10 k sprint at the IBU World Cup in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. (Photo: IBU/Květoslav Frgal)
Ahead of Smith, Fak started 18th and ended up with the fastest-overall course time. He took his time on the range, hitting all his targets with the 60th-ranked range time out of 94 men.
Fak rose from fourth after his first stage to first with another clean shooting bout, skiing faster than Germany’s Simon Schempp, who started 29th. Schempp ended up second with perfect shooting, 12.8 seconds behind the Slovenian.
“It was important to shoot zero because in Antholz I missed the last shot,” Fak told the IBU after the race. “Today I hit it and could run my own race.”
The second starter, Jean-Guillaume Béatrix of France shot 10-for-10 and initially led at the finish before Fak crossed the line 26 seconds faster. Fourcade skied the second-fastest course time to counteract his single penalty and finished fourth, 0.3 seconds after Beatrix.
The men’s 10 k sprint podium at the IBU World Cup in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic: with Slovenian winner Jakov Fak (c), German runner-up Simon Schempp (l), and France’s Jean-Guillaume Béatrix in third. (Photo: IBU/Květoslav Frgal)
Michal Slesingr of the Czech Republic was another 0.4 seconds back in fifth with clean shooting, and Russia’s Anton Shipulin cleaned for sixth, 29.5 seconds behind the winner.
Smith initially finished fourth, then was bumped to seventh by Fourcade, Schempp, and Shipulin respectively. He ended up 8.2 seconds away from sixth and a spot at the awards ceremony.
“He showed great consistent skiing in all three laps,” Biathlon Canada Head Coach Matthias Ahrens wrote in an email, “and displayed again his strong shooting efficiency which showed in his personal best result of finishing 7th in a [World Cup].”
In all, three Canadian men made the top 60 to qualify for Sunday’s pursuit: Green placed 22nd (+1:12.8) with a single standing penalty, and 22-year-old Macx Davies finished 54th (+2:20.9) with one prone miss. That result tied Davies’ season best after he placed 54th in the World Cup sprint in Oberhof, Germany.
Canada’s fourth man, Scott Gow placed 63rd, 2:35.7 back from the winner and 3.8 seconds out of 60th with two prone penalties.
“It would have been nice to qualify all 4 men for the pursuit tomorrow, Scott Gow just missed it by a small margin,” Ahrens wrote. “Happy that Macx was able to continue in good form which he started at [IBU Open European Championships]. I am looking forward to next week’s relays since I believe we have a nice mixed team of eager younger and older more experienced athletes who supplement each other quite well.”
Macx Davies racing in the 2013 North American Biathlon Rollerski Championships 12.5 k pursuit in Jericho, Vt.
Last Sunday at the European Championships in Otepää, Estonia, Davies led Canada in 27th in the 12.5 k pursuit.
“I am elated to finally pull my shooting together after some crazy conditions in Otepaa,” Davies wrote in an email. “My skiing felt good, I spent most of the race pushing myself harder and harder. Until I felt like I was at the redline for my whole final loop.”
He set two personal goals on Saturday: to shoot 10-for-10 and make the top 40 to score World Cup points.
“Though I didn’t quite achieve either of these I still feel happy with my performance today and am excited to race tomorrow,” he wrote.
Davies will start Sunday’s 12.5 k pursuit 2:21 behind Fak in first; Smith will head out 38 seconds back in seventh, and Green will start 1:13 back in 22nd.
“Today was another good result for me and it sets me up well for tomorrow’s pursuit,” Green wrote in an email. “It’s a tight race amongst the top 30 and tomorrow will be another good opportunity. The shooting will be especially important for me tomorrow if we continue to face more wind.”
After Friday’s mixed relay, in which Green skied a penalty loop and used three spares to anchor Canada to 14th, he was looking for more.
“I knew today that I would have to step up my game,” he wrote. “I knew with the wind we’ve been experiencing here that the shooting would be challenging so I really tried to make each shot count. It’s a tough race course here as well and I tried hard to make time in the areas that I thought played into my ski strengths.”
He ended up rising from 34th overall after prone to 28th after missing his lone shot of the day in standing, and closed his last lap with the 17th-fastest course time to place 22nd.
“My skiing was better than yesterday. I definitely pushed and made myself hurt more on course, and at the same time tried to focus more on areas such as the gradual climbs that I felt would play more into my strength while skiing,” Green added. “I was happy shooting 9/10.”
Nathan Smith (Biathlon Canada) racing to 13th in the first Olympic race of his career, the 10 k sprint in last season in Sochi, Russia.
This wasn’t Nathan Smith’s first time in a mass-start rodeo. The 28-year-old Canadian biathlete, who turns 29 on Christmas, had raced a 15-kilometer mass start in his first Olympics last winter. That was his first one — and he crashed out of it in a downhill pileup in the first 500 meters.
Sunday was going to be different — at least he’d know what to expect. Starting in the last of 10 rows in bib 30 out of 30 racers, Smith knew he was at a disadvantage from the get-go and tried not to stress over it on the first lap.
Not long into the final IBU World Cup race in Pokljuka, Slovenia (the last one of the circuit’s first trimester), Smith watched as a few competitors crashed in front of him. Fortunately, he saw the chaos coming and had enough time to move around them.
“I knew that if would take really strong skiing to maintain position because these are the 30 fastest in the world,” Smith reflected in an email on Monday.
Russia’s Anton Shipulin celebrates his IBU World Cup mass-start victory on Sunday in Pokljuka, Slovenia, which he won by 1.2 seconds over France’s Martin Fourcade (back). (Photo: IBU/Rene Miko)
Meanwhile, two of the top men in the overall World Cup, Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen in bib 1 and France’s Martin Fourcade in bib 2, set the pace out of the start. The third-ranked man in the World Cup at the time, Russia’s Anton Shipulin went with them. All three started in the first row.
Another Russian, Timofey Lapshin, who start in bib 29 near Smith, lost a ski on that first lap. By 2.2 k, Shipulin was leading a three-man train with Fourcade and Svendsen, and American Lowell Bailey was up to 11th, four seconds behind them. His US Biathlon teammate Tim Burke was another three seconds back in 17th, and Smith trailed by 11 seconds in 24th.
By the first shooting stage, all 30 racers lined up in their designated lanes, and Smith headed to the farthest mat from the exit — all the way off to the left. Then he missed his first shot.
“I’m not sure why I missed the first shot, but I had to be super, super careful after that,” he wrote.
It worked, he added, as he knocked down the next four targets — and went on to hit 18 straight on Sunday. Smith left the range in 20th, 33.7 seconds behind Shipulin, who cleaned, followed by Austria’s Dominik Landertinger 1.9 seconds back in second, Fourcade 3.5 seconds behind in third, and another Austrian, Simon Eder 4.8 seconds back in fourth.
The top 13 men after the first prone all cleaned, leaving Svendsen, who missed one, 21.7 seconds back in 14th.
The two other North Americans in the race, Bailey missed one and Burke had two penalties to put them in 26 and 28th, respectively, 46 and 54 seconds behind.
On the next lap, Fourcade took the lead, ahead of Landertinger, Shipulin, France’s Jean Guillaume Beatrix, who left the range in fifth, and Eder.
By the time the second prone rolled around, a large group of about 10 men entered the range together. Landertinger cleaned quickly, Shipulin matched him, as did Eder, Fourcade, and Beatrix. All five left the range within 1.6 seconds of one another.
Smith hit every target to move to 13th, 34 seconds behind.
“Shooting was excellent after that [first stage],” he reflected. “After the second prone I knew it was gonna be a great race.”
Bailey and Burke both cleaned to improve to 21st and 24th, respectively, both about a minute out from the lead.
Shipulin led Fourcade, Landertinger, Beatrix, and Eder through 8.2 k, then Fourcade took charge after the third stage. He quickly cleaned his standing shots, and Beatrix, Shipulin, and Sweden’s Fredrik Lindström, who had been hovering in the top 10 with perfect shooting, did as well. Eder had one penalty, Bulgaria’s Krasimir Anev jumped to sixth with clean shooting, and Smith found himself in seventh with another flawless stage.
“I had to reset once in the first standing but other than that there were no problems until the last few shots of the race,” Smith wrote.
The wind picked up for the men’s afternoon race, after a mostly calm-and-bluebird week in Pokljuka. It was still sunny, with more of a headwind coming at the athletes as they shot into the range.
Bailey also cleaned his second-straight stage to move to 19th (+1:07), and Burke had one miss to drop to 25th (+1:31).
Beatrix led around 10.6 k into the penultimate lap, with Shipulin and Fourcade right on his heels. Lindström fell 20 seconds off the pace, followed by Eder, and Smith was another nine seconds back — up to sixth, and just ahead of Anev and Ondrej Moravec of the Czech Republic.
Shipulin (3) leads Frenchmen Fourcade (l) and Beatrix (r) around 11.2 k during Sunday’s 15 k mass start in Pokljuka, Slovenia.
Shipulin took his turn leading at 11.2 k, followed by Beatrix and Fourcade, while Lindstroem and Eder hung together in fourth and fifth, about 13 seconds ahead of Smith.
Shipulin led into the range for the last time, where his first miss of the day put him 8.1 seconds back in fifth behind Eder, who cleaned, and Fourcade, who missed one but shot quickly to stay within three seconds of Eder.
Lindström finished the stage out with 20-for-20 shooting, the only man to do so, to leave the range in third, 7.2 back, and Beatrix missed one to head out fourth (+8.0), just ahead of Shipulin.
Smith missed his final shot to drop to 11th, but left the penalty loop feeling like he had a lot left to give — 37 seconds out at the time. Less than three seconds ahead of him, Germany’s Andreas Birnbacher in eighth, France’s Quentin Fillon Maillet in ninth and Russia’s Dmitry Malyshko in 10th were within reach.
“I really struggled to hold it together and those last three [stages],” Smith explained. “I almost felt dizzy trying to aim and concentrate from the pressure. That shot cost me a position where I could’ve been fighting in the lead pack for a medal.
“I almost felt dizzy trying to aim and concentrate from the pressure.” — Nathan Smith (Biathlon Canada), after placing ninth in Pokljuka mass start
“I held back behind a couple guys and waited to attack at the top of the second last climb,” Smith added. “I made a good gap on them and almost shook [Slovenia’s Jakov] Fak [who left the range in 12th], but he surged again on the next hill and got in front of me.”
At the front of the race, French teammates Beatrix and Fourcade led side by side up a hill, and attacked together to try to drop Shipulin, Eder, and Lindström — and perhaps each other. Beatrix picked up the pace again with about a kilometer to go, and Fourcade went with him, as did Shipulin trailing off the back of the breakaway.
Beatrix fell, apparently tripped up by Shipulin, and the Russian pounced on the opportunity to get ahead, attacking up and over the last rise to drop the field, soaring down into the stadium well ahead of Fourcade, as well as Eder and Lindström, who also passed Beatrix.
“I would like to apologize to Jean Guillaume; sometimes these things happen in sports, but I did not mean anything and did not do it on purpose,” Shipulin told the IBU media after the race.
Fourcade backed him up. “I think this is a part of the game,” he said. “I am 100-percent sure that Anton did not do it consciously. It kept me from battling Anton on the final stretch, but I have only to blame myself for not winning today; I missed one shot on the shooting range.”
Shipulin took the victory in 35:16.8, while Fourcade finished 1.2 seconds back in second, and Eder outsprinted Lindström in a photo finish for third (+1.4). Beatrix took fifth (+4.8).
“I am the guy who benefitted from the ‘wheel-banging’ in the last loop,” Eder said. “I might have been fourth! This is biathlon; I did not give up and you can see what happened!”
Norway’s Tarjei Bø placed sixth with a single penalty on his third stage, Moravec took seventh with one miss on his second prone, and Fak edged Smith by 0.6 seconds for eighth (+29.8).
Canada’s Nathan Smith racing to ninth in the IBU World Cup 10 k sprint in Östersund, Sweden, earlier this season. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
For Smith, ninth stood as his second-best World Cup result (after tallying two eighth-place finishes in a sprint and pursuit last season) in his second-ever mass start. After finishing 30.4 seconds behind the winner, he posted the third-fastest shooting time, seventh-ranked range time and eighth-fastest course time.
“Mass starts are a lot different than pursuits. It’s nice to get one under my belt now and I hope to do a few more this season, too,” Smith reflected. “I’m very happy with yesterday’s race and it’s a perfect way to cap off a strong trimester. It gives me extra motivation to rest up and train over the Christmas break.”
Just a few weeks ago, Smith placed ninth in the sprint at the World Cup opener in Östersund, Sweden, and 16th in the pursuit there, after skiing in the top three.
“I’m happy with the season so far. A bit disappointed that I missed a few medal opportunities due to last standing misses,” Smith wrote. “Skiing hasn’t been on average quite as good as last year yet, but it has been more consistent. My two best skis so far though are definitely at least as good as anything I did last year. Prone has been amazing, but standing needs to come up just a little and then I will be where I want to be.”
He’ll spend his holidays mostly in Vernon, British Columbia, with his girlfriend, Emma Lunder, and her family. After that, Smith planned to head to Canmore for a week, then back to Oberhof, Germany.
Lowell Bailey (US Biathlon) racing to 21st with two penalties in the 15 k mass start on the last day of IBU World Cup racing in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
In the final shooting stage of Sunday’s race, Bailey had another penalty and Burke missed three to drop to 22nd (+1:25.7) and 28th (+2:29.8), respectively. Bailey held his position to finish 22nd with two penalties, 1:34.6 behind Shipulin, while Burke moved up one spot to 27th (+2:32.3) with six misses.
“I was actually pretty satisfied with most of my race today,” Bailey said in a US Biathlon press release. “I felt better on the ski course and the shooting was pretty decent. The only issue was early on in the first prone stage. I had some trouble with my rifle and probably lost an extra 25 seconds getting that figured out. This made it pretty hard to recover and catch the rest of the pack. Other than that, I’m satisfied with the race and looking forward to the Christmas break.”
Fourcade regained the World Cup lead, and Shipulin moved up to second, 25 points back and just one point ahead of Svendsen — who finished 17th with four penalties on Sunday — in third overall.
Weronika Nowakowska is calling it a career. The 31-year-old picked up two World Cup podiums in the 2015 season before taking a break from competition to give birth to twins. She made a successful return this season and represented Poland in PyeongChang, with a top finish of 21st in the individual. She also had sixth- and fourth-place finishes on the World Cup this year and contributed to four different top-eight relay efforts, including one at the Olympics.
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![Tiril Eckhoff of Norway on her way through the stadium on her way to second place in the 7.5 k sprint in Sjusjøen, Norway.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/11/DSC_0109.jpg")
![Norwegians Thomas Fenne (bib 94) and Emil Hegle Svendsen (bib 96) on the shooting range in the 10 k sprint in Sjusjøen.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/11/DSC_0026.jpg")
![American Lowell Bailey (l) leads eventual-winner Jean-Guillaume Béatrix (c) of France, and Simon Fourcade during Sunday's 15 k mass start at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. While Beatrix won by 0.3 seconds over Norway's Emil Hegle Svendsen, Bailey placed 23rd behind U.S. teammate Tim Burke in 22nd. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/12/Bailey20122015cm19.jpg")
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