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From the FasterSkier archive — posts syndicated from athletes’ and coaches’ own blogs between 2004 and 2012, kept online as published. Current coverage is at fasterskier.com.

Tag: Lowell Bailey

  • The Case for Transparency in the USA Biathlon–USSS Integration Talks

    The Case for Transparency in the USA Biathlon–USSS Integration Talks

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    I was reviewing recent U.S. Ski & Snowboard Cross Country Sport Committee meeting minutes and came across an interesting note in the April 7, 2026, meeting. The following item stood out:

    “Rick shared the announcement of adding Para Cross Country and that there is a strong drive from the USOPC to move Biathlon governance under USSS.”

    That immediately raised a larger question. Years ago, U.S. Ski & Snowboard decentralized Nordic disciplines because they were financially difficult to sustain. Now, the organization appears willing to absorb another financially struggling discipline.

    Campbell Wright (USA) takes aim during the men’s relay at the IBU World Championships in Lenzerheide (SUI) in 2025. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    The Questions

    Over the last week, I reached out to representatives from USA Biathlon, U.S. Ski & Snowboard, and the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee with several specific questions regarding the discussions around potentially moving USA Biathlon under USSS governance. The questions were straightforward:

    • Why is the USOPC driving this discussion?
    • What does the USOPC believe the benefit of this move would be?
    • Is the push in any way related to USA Biathlon’s previously reported cultural and athlete protection failures?
    • If these discussions are connected to systemic governance failures, why were the corrective mechanisms outlined in the Sports Act not pursued first, including mandated reforms, leadership changes, sanctions, or ultimately decertification of the NGB?

    In its spring meeting minutes, USA Biathlon framed the discussions as an opportunity to transform the sport and accelerate long-term development, specifically through expanded athlete support, increased visibility, broader talent identification, and enhanced fundraising and sponsorship opportunities.

    The response from USSS was carefully worded:

    “U.S. Ski & Snowboard and U.S. Biathlon are exploring a potential integration aimed at growing the sport and strengthening long-term performance. Discussions are ongoing, and both organizations are committed to a thoughtful, athlete-first approach.”

    The USOPC response was similarly broad:

    “Can confirm that we are engaged and aware of the ongoing discussions between USSS and USA Biathlon, and supportive of actions that provide increased levels of athlete support and long-term organizational stability.”

    None of the organizations addressed the underlying questions.

    It is difficult to believe the negative publicity and lack of accountability surrounding multiple abuse cases within USA Biathlon did not create operational and funding consequences. It is equally difficult to understand how moving USA Biathlon under USSS materially improves athlete opportunities when the existing Nordic programs already operate under significant financial pressure.

    The 2007 Precedent

    The discussion also seems contradictory given what occurred in 2007, when the then-United States Ski Association/U.S. Ski Team eliminated direct national team funding for Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined, citing financial sustainability concerns. At the time, the core message from USSA leadership was clear:

    • Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined were too financially difficult to sustain within a centralized national team structure.
    • The sports needed to develop independent fundraising and governance models.
    • The creation of USA Nordic Sport was presented as a way to ensure the long-term survival of those disciplines through independent leadership and donor support.

    The rationale then was limited resources and the need to prioritize disciplines with stronger medal potential. If those same arguments were applied consistently today, they would appear to point toward similar conclusions regarding USA Biathlon.

    The U.S. Biathlon team and staff celebrate a Lowell Bailey’s gold medal in Hochfilzen in 2017. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus.com/Twitter)

    The Performance and Financial Picture

    USA Biathlon has struggled for decades within its centralized development model. The program has never won an Olympic medal. Its financial structure remains heavily dependent on external institutional support. The closest the United States has come to a modern Olympic breakthrough was Lowell Bailey, whose 2017 World Championship gold medal represented a historic result for the program.

    More recently, Campbell Wright’s rapid rise has dramatically changed expectations. Olympic podiums now appear to be viewed internally as realistic rather than aspirational.

    Financially, the organization remains highly dependent on the USOPC and the International Biathlon Union. In 2023, those two sources combined to provide just under $2 million in funding. Membership revenue totaled approximately $305,000. Together, those categories represented roughly 70% of total organizational revenue, illustrating how limited the organization’s independent sponsorship and fundraising capacity remains.

    Overall, USA Biathlon reported approximately $3.2 million in annual revenue against roughly $3.2 million in expenses, essentially operating at break-even. Based on expense reporting, it appears less than $800,000 was directed toward direct athlete programs and support. USA Biathlon categorized approximately $2.4 million under “Functional Business” expenses tied to trials, training, competition, and development programs, yet more than $700,000 of that consisted of staffing and contract labor costs. In total, staffing and operational expenses appear to exceed $2 million annually, roughly 63% of total expenditures.

    That leaves very little financial margin for error. USA Biathlon appears to be operating in a structurally fragile position where revenues and expenses are essentially balanced while administrative and operational costs consume the majority of available resources.

    What Does USSS Gain?

    Given the current financial picture, and the program’s historical performance trajectory, it is difficult to see how USA Biathlon brings anything other than additional financial pressure to USSS. So the obvious question becomes: what does USSS gain from the arrangement?

    Presumably, increased USOPC funding. USA Biathlon’s own 2030 strategic plan lays out explicitly outcome-based goals:

    • “Consistent medal winning performances every year,”
    • beginning with “one Olympic medal in 2026,”
    • and progressing toward “four [Olympic medals] in 2030, at least one gold.”

    That language closely mirrors the increasingly performance-driven funding expectations the USOPC now places on National Governing Bodies.

    It is clear USA Biathlon currently faces significant operational and financial challenges in supporting athletes at the level required for sustained international success. Campbell Wright’s emergence has only intensified the pressure surrounding those expectations. What remains unclear is how simply moving the sport under USSS materially changes the equation.

    There may be some operational efficiencies through shared services and administrative consolidation, perhaps several hundred thousand dollars annually. But regardless of governance structure, the fundamental reality remains the same: the sport will require substantially more funding if it expects to support athletes at a level capable of producing consistent Olympic success.

    Athlete Trust

    The unresolved issue in all of this is athlete trust. Financial instability and competitive underperformance are one thing. Failures involving athlete safety, organizational culture, and accountability are something entirely different.

    Over the last several years, USA Biathlon has faced significant public scrutiny surrounding athlete abuse allegations and broader questions about organizational oversight. Whether or not those issues are directly tied to the current governance discussions, it is difficult to believe they are irrelevant to the long-term stability of the organization.

    For athletes and families, trust matters. Those athletes impacted by abuse allegations have asked for accountability for those who minimized their reports of abuse and failed to report. Parents should be evaluating a development pathway, not simply assessing coaching quality or race results. They should be asking whether the organization can provide a healthy, stable, and safe environment for athletes.

    Once an NGB develops a public reputation for cultural or athlete protection failures, rebuilding confidence becomes extraordinarily difficult. That impacts membership growth, fundraising, athlete retention, and ultimately performance itself.

    The Case for Transparency

    Which is why transparency matters here. If the proposed integration is fundamentally about operational efficiency and athlete support, then that case should be made openly and directly. If it is also connected to concerns surrounding governance, accountability, or organizational stability, those questions deserve equally direct answers.

    Without that transparency, the process begins to look less like strategic planning and more like institutional consolidation without meaningful public accountability.

     

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    Campbell Wright (USA) after the IBU World Championships Biathlon, sprint in Lenzerheide (SUI). (Photo: NordicFocus)
  • U.S. Biathlon Season Preview with Lowell Bailey: Part I

    U.S. Biathlon Season Preview with Lowell Bailey: Part I

    This article is Part One of an interview with Lowell Bailey who represented the United States in biathlon in four Olympic games, 11 World Championships, and 15 World Cup seasons. He is currently Director of High Performance for U.S. Biathlon. His World Championship gold medal race remains one of the most thrilling races ever. The race is available on YouTube, ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yguD6SEAAmw) and is a great watch. His enthusiasm for biathlon continues, and is contagious.

    This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

     

    Lowell Bailey is the Director of High Performance for U.S. Biathlon (Photo: USA Biathlon)

    You’re Director of High Performance for U.S. Biathlon.  What does that job entail?

    I maintain programing for our athletes at all levels. That includes World Cup, IBU (International Biathlon Union) Cup, and the National team, and all the resources that go into athlete support. It covers staffing, logistics, and managing coaches. Things like how do you get teams from the U.S. to Europe to compete on international circuits.

    The most exciting part is strategizing about how we as a country can improve. It includes long range planning for U.S. Biathlon. It’s very analogous to any CEO position. I look at what our strengths and weaknesses are, and where are our advantages. We look at other sports and what they do well and gain information from that.

    We are at the highest level of competition and the margins are very small. We ask how do you get the final fraction of percentage which puts you on the podium? How are we going to move things up one notch? We’re constantly looking for fresh perspectives. We can tend to be myopic. There’s a lot to be gained by looking outside of your comfort zone. I don’t want to give away any secrets, but we’ve learned a lot from U.S. speed skating with their approach to innovations. We don’t just look at biathlon, but we look at other sports as well to learn from their approaches.

    What does summer training traditionally look like for the team?

    We generally have camps which last two to three weeks and happen almost every month of the training year, which is broken up by athletes training at home. We manage the entire year for the athletes, 365 days.

    What does a typical plan look like?

    There really is no such thing. Training plans are always changing and are a result of dialogue between athletes and coaches. Each athlete needs different things, and we work to tailor training to those needs.  We are always looking at where we’ve been and how we get better. The best coaches help athletes clarify what comes out of the athlete’s self-reflection. It’s the coach’s job to say whether goals are achievable, and here’s the changes to the plan to achieve those goals.

    Clare Egan races to fourth place in the 15km Women’s Individual competition in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    Are you satisfied with the way summer training has gone?  What’s changed in summer training?

    Yes, I am satisfied.  One of the biggest changes has been the reassessment of goals for the next eight years. We have the singular goal of a U.S. athlete stepping onto the podium, what will it take to get us there, and keep us there. This analysis resulted in a very specific plan to focus on the areas that will have the biggest impact on those goals. Those include focusing on looking at development pipeline for improvement. That’s been one of the biggest changes.

    Coming out of the last two years so much of our work was just keeping the team going during the middle of a pandemic. So, this is a big change.

    The race season starts in a couple of weeks.  What do preparations look like now? What’s it like to make the transition from summer training to the beginning of the season?

    We have staff on the ground in Europe throughout the summer testing skis and wax. So, preparations have begun well in advance of now. Most of our testing is based in Europe since that’s where the ski companies and snow tunnels are. For staff that does ski preparation, they tend to be European based, and that works well for us. When the skiers travel, staff travels with them. We have a big staff that goes with the athletes that manages logistics, travel plans, hotels, skis, and anything else we can to support athletes. Preparation for getting an athlete to the start line in December starts in April.

    We’ve finished our last dryland camp in Utah, which was very intense. We head to Finland on the 12th of November for final preparations and a final two week camp on snow. Right now it’s basically a matter of tweaking things; you’re just putting the icing on the cake.  Most of the hard training blocks are done. There’s only so much which can be done in two weeks. A lot of the next couple of weeks will be getting used to being back on snow. Most of our athletes had one week on snow in September. Other than that, they’ve been on roller skis for the last six to eight months.

    The team has had some big changes from last year: Susan Dunklee, Clare Egan, and Leif Nordgren have retired.  How do you fill that void?

    It’s a big void to fill. But, we’re in a very good place now with new leadership. Every team has ebbs and flows as veterans retire and younger athletes take their place, that’s natural. We have an experienced team.  We do try to intentionally manage team leadership, but it also has to develop organically. You definitely have both an organic and intentional process. It’s our job to manage that process to get the best team culture. I commend the athletes for working through the transition and honoring the athlete leaders they looked up to for years. We have a really good mix of experience levels. Our continuity of leadership is in a good place and a lot of that is due to the job our prior athlete leadership has done.

    Deedra Irwin had a fantastic result in Beijng finishing seventh in the 15 kilometer individual. Does that bring with it the pressure of high expectations?

    Deedra Irwin (right) competes in the Women’s 15km Individual race during the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games. (Photo: Nordic Focus)

    I’ll answer it this way; it does set up internal expectations. I mean that in the sense that an athlete now knows what it takes to make it to the top. The expectation from the athlete internally changes: “I know now what it takes to be seventh place at the Olympics.” It reframes the approach and the mindset. It also changes coaches’ expectations in the sense that they need to know the athlete and whether the athlete thrives under this type of pressure, or whether the athlete needs to downplay those results and not make it the focus. The sports psychologists and everyone around the coach needs to understand these differences. Everyone supporting the athlete needs to know which cue words to say and which cue words to avoid. These are things that an athlete needs to succeed. So, it’s not pressure in the sense you mean.

    Deedra Irwin competes in the Women’s 15km Individual race during the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games. (Photo: Nordic Focus)

    During Covid racing there weren’t fans at the venues.  It was strangely silent.  Was that difficult for the athletes, and do you now have to retrain athletes to get them used to shooting during fan noise?

    What happened with the crowds was unprecedented. We have traditionally had 20,000-30,000 at a venue. Dealing with it varies athlete to athlete. Some athletes thrive on the crowd noise. Others just focus on what can I do on a given day to be at my best. We do use various forms of distraction during training to account for this. Sometimes it’s as simple as loud noise. Sometimes it’s a singular voice which is the most distracting. We practice things such as coming into the range for the final shooting round and putting the athlete in a situation where we simulate that they are leading a high stakes race. We train athletes how to regain focus in moments of distraction whether that’s crowd noise or race pressure. The athlete who can still focus on the fundamentals and adapt to those scenarios will come out in a better position. That’s the secret to success. Being able to refocus in the moment.

    Thoughts on the World Championships in Oberhof, Germany? Expectations of an American being on the podium?

    We’re ready. We know the venue really well. I’m optimistic that we can see podiums. Any given day, any athlete can make it. We’ve shown podiums are within reach. Everyone wants World Championship podiums, so they are hard to come by! Of course World Championships are the focus, but something to remember though is that every World cup race is just as competitive as World Championships because of the limited number of spots for different squads. So, in a sense, stepping on a World Cup podium is just as important as stepping on a World Championship podium.

    How’s the ban on Russian athletes affecting what we see in competition?  Any sense how the participating athletes feel?

    I’m not sure. When the invasion first happened, it appeared there was overwhelming support to rally behind the Ukrainian’s cause. The IBU has made their decision. We need to see how that affects the World Cup.  I can’t really comment on how current athletes’ feel. If I were still competing, I’d have a mix of emotions. There’s no universally right answer.

    FasterSkier will continue its interview with Lowell Bailey in Part Two, including how support for Team U.S.A. compares to other countries, dealing with a long race season, fluoro bans, and the legacy of Mr. Bailey’s World Championship gold medal race.

    The U.S. Biathlon team and staff celebrate Lowell Bailey’s World Championship gold medal in Hochfilzen in 2017. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus.com/Twitter)
  • Long time US Biathlon President Max Cobb named Head of International Biathlon Union: Sustainability and Competition keys to Growth He Says

    Long time US Biathlon President Max Cobb named Head of International Biathlon Union: Sustainability and Competition keys to Growth He Says

    Max Cobb. (Photo: International Biathlon Union).

    For the first time ever, an American will preside over international governance of a nordic sport. On Tuesday, the International Biathlon Union (IBU) announced that longtime U.S. Biathlon President and CEO Max Cobb has been named the IBU Secretary General. Cobb will finish up his second term on the IBU Executive Board and leave his post as at U.S. biathlon at the end of September, then begin his new role overseeing international competition, governance, and sport development this October.

    The appointment of Cobb as IBU Secretary General marks the culmination of a long career in U.S. biathlon in which he has overseen the organization through stark growth in the sport, success on an international scale for U.S. biathletes, and through unique challenges like hosting the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, where Cobb served as the chief of competition.

    On his new appointment, Cobb said in an email with FasterSkier that, “I am really honored to be selected for this position. The chance to serve the sport I love from a different position is really exciting. [Outgoing Secretary] Niklas Carlsson did a fantastic job and the IBU staff is well-structured and very capable.”

    Cobb’s journey to overseeing biathlon is one marked by persistent and carefully thoughtful forward-thinking, along with an enduring connection to the nordic community in the United States. A New Englander through-and-through, Cobb competed at Dartmouth College while taking on leadership roles heading up the College’s Outing Club and Biathlon Club. It was the latter that translated into a career, accepting a job opportunity with the U.S. Biathlon Association in 1989. Founded in 1983, U.S. biathlon was still in its nascent, path-finding stages then, looking to build off the successes it had seen concurrently with U.S. skiing more broadly in the late 1970s and early 1980s. There were flashbulb glimpses that the U.S. could bring the popular discipline of biathlon to a new continent, a bronze in the women’s team relay event at the 1984 World Championships (Holly Beatie, Julie Newman, and Kari Swenson), and an individual silver for Josh Thompson in 1987 (20 k Individual). Without real infrastructure to develop the sport however, U.S. biathlon would have to reset towards the long-term goal of getting more talented athletes, in more places, into the sport before success would come again.

    In 1992 Cobb took up that challenge as U.S. Biathlon’s Program Director, and since has been the steady hand guiding the sport between the punctuated successes that usually draw attention. First there was a gold medal at Junior World Championships in 1997 with Jay Hakkinen, then later the World Championship medals – first a silver with Tim Burke in 2013 (20 k Individual), then gold and silver with Lowell Bailey and Susan Dunklee, respectively, in 2017 (20 k Individual and 12.5 k Mass Start), and again a silver with Susan Dunklee in 2020 (7.5 k Sprint). In between, the development of training sites from Soldier Hollow (concurrent with the 2002 Salt Lake City Games) to Fort Kent, Maine (which, tucked away in the most rural corner of a rural state, improbably hosted a World Cup in 2004).

    The U.S. Biathlon team and staff celebrate Lowell Bailey’s World Championship gold medal in Hochfilzen in 2017. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus.com/Twitter)

    Those highlights represent a consistent attitude and approach by biathletes across the United States put into sum by their consistent leader, as Cobb reflected, “The biggest take away is challenges can’t keep you from pursuing ambitious objectives. Collaboration, planning and determination to achieve a bold vision often overcomes more than we could ever imagine. Teamwork aligned around a common vision is powerful, but it takes time and constant tending. Today, Americans are regularly bringing home medals – something that seemed impossible three decades ago.”

    Now tasked with scaling his approach to an international scale, Cobb sees a different set of challenges which stand in tandem, not separated, from the world’s geopolitics and concerns. “I think the most immediate challenge [this winter] will be the high cost of energy in Europe that will impact every part of international sport; from travel for the athletes to the energy needed to host major events,” said Cobb. His solution follows a pattern he’s already helped develop, with the IBU being on the forefront of sport sustainability – they were the first international winter sports governing body to meet the UN’s planning requirements to go carbon neutral by 2050 last year. “Our sport gives us a platform from which we can help influence millions to live lives that are climate friendly, we all have to act more sustainably in our daily lives and at our events.”

    A 2016 photo of Max Cobb, the president and CEO of U.S. Biathlon and newly named IBU Secretary General. (Photo: Nordic Focus)

    Cobb is also looking to prioritize confronting the challenge of resource disparity that is inhibiting parity in the sport – a persistent problem across the broader nordic disciplines. “[There’s a] big technology and training gap between the very biggest nations who have armies of ski tech and coaches and middle-sized teams with just a few hard-working staff. As this gap grows it could endanger the diverse set of nations that can win medals, [which] has been a hallmark of international biathlon for many decades.”

    In confronting all of the challenges, Cobb said his hope is, “To serve the athletes well, both those in the sport today and those who need a chance to discover the wonderful challenge that [biathlon] is – two opposing disciplines with an unforgiving clock marking every second to the tenth.”

    Lowell Bailey (USA) celebrates with Max Cobb after winning the gold in the 20 k indivudual at the 2017 IBU World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo:NordicFocus)
  • U.S. Biathlon Team Heads to Italy for Final World Cup Before World Championships

    U.S. Biathlon Team Heads to Italy for Final World Cup Before World Championships

    Clare Egan during training in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: NordicFocus)

    Press Release from US Biathlon: By Bill Kellick

    After back-to-back IBU World Cup events in Oberhof, Germany, the U.S. Biathlon team and the rest of the world’s best biathletes are headed for Antholz, Italy, for the final World Cup races before the IBU Biathlon World Championships. This week’s BMW IBU World Cup event, running Jan. 21-24, will consist of individual races, mass starts and relays.

    Antholz played host to last year’s world championships and the U.S. team enjoyed a banner competition with Susan Dunklee winning a silver medal in the women’s sprint, adding to her silver medal in the mass start three years earlier. Other Team USA highlights from last year’s world championships in Antholz were an eighth-place finish in the men’s relay, and a career-best eighth place on 20-for-20 shooting by Leif Nordgren in the men’s 20km individual.

    “Oberhof took a lot out of the athletes these past two weeks,” said U.S. Biathlon Women’s National Team Coach Armin Auchentaller. “These first days in Antholz we have been taking it pretty easy to recover from the past two weeks. We hope for some good races here in Antholz which historically fits us pretty well.”

    If anyone should know Antholz, it’s Auchentaller, who resides in the northern Italian town. And through him, the U.S. Biathlon team has come to know the trails of Antholz well through off-season training sessions there.

    “It feels like my home course more than anywhere else and I’m looking forward to using that experience to my advantage,” says Clare Egan who trained in Antholz the entire month of September as well as 10 days over the recent holiday break.

    “The team has spent a lot of time there over the years because of the fact that Armin lives there,” added U.S. Biathlon Director of High Performance Lowell Bailey. “We’re looking forward to this virtual home-course advantage. Antholz is a great place, a great course, and it is sure to produce some exciting racing.”

    Coming off two weeks of racing on the difficult tracks of Oberhof, which had been altered to host the world championships in two years, U.S. team members are looking forward not only to racing in the familiar confines of Antholz this weekend, but also to the sunshine that usually accompanies competition in the Antholz valley.

    “Oberhof suits my climbing prowess but Antholz suits my altitude soul,” noted Joanne Reid. “I had a really great time racing in Oberhof, and I’m also looking forward to racing here.”

    “I’m looking forward to sunshine,” said Jake Brown. “Through Armin I think we all feel some sort of special connection to this valley.”

    Added Paul Schommer: “I really like the course here with longer gradual climbs and some rolling transitions. That, coupled with some cold hard tracks, and I think it provides a great opportunity for great race results.”

    This week marks roughly two months on the road for most of the U.S. Biathlon team. A long stretch by any means but made significantly longer due to all the necessary COVID precautions and safety measures put in place by the IBU around the World Cup competitions.

    “Bubble life has been going really well,” said Deedra Irwin. “The IBU has done an amazing job containing active cases. Our team guidelines have been very effective against COVID. Also, no one on the team has gotten any major ‘normal’ sicknesses either.”

    Most of the team’s feelings around the restrictive protocols can best be summed up by Brown, who says, “I like racing, so the more I race the more sane I feel.”

    The Antholz World Cup offers the final tune-up before the IBU World Championships begin in Pokljuka, Slovenia, on Feb. 10, and coaches and athletes alike are keen on fine-tuning their efforts this weekend in Italy.

    “My advice going forward, as always, is to be proud of and continue doing the things that are good, target and improve the things that can be better,” said Shooting Coach Matt Emmons. “Champions pick themselves up and commit to improving.”

    “I think the men’s team has been building some momentum in the relay and I would love to see us have a great performance here,” added Schommer.

    Following this week’s racing in Antholz, the team will enjoy some well-deserved rest days before beginning the world championships pre-camp in Antholz. The team will head directly to the world championships in Pokljuka on Feb. 7.

    The BMW IBU World Cup events in Antholz run Jan. 21-24, with the following schedule (all times Eastern):

    Thursday, Jan. 21
    8:15 am – Women’s 15km individual

    Friday, Jan. 22
    7:15 am – Men’s 20km individual

    Saturday, Jan. 23
    7:10 am – Women’s 12.5km mass start
    9:05 am – Men’s 4×7.5km relay

    Sunday, Jan. 24
    6:45 am – Women’s 4x6km relay
    9:05 am – Men’s 15km mass start

    All events will be streamed live on Peacock with some events on the Olympic Channel and NBCSN. Find full schedule HERE.

  • U.S. Biathlon Announces Nominations for Opening World Cup and IBU Cup Rosters (Press Release)

    U.S. Biathlon Announces Nominations for Opening World Cup and IBU Cup Rosters (Press Release)

    Press Release by Bill Kellick/USBA:

    Paul Schommer was named to the IBU Cup roster for the start of the 2019-20 season Photo: Rachelle Weymuller)

    (Oct. 28, 2019) — Following the completion of the U.S. Biathlon Fall Festival and IBU Cup Trials held over the weekend in Soldier Hollow, Utah, 15 athletes have been nominated to the U.S. Biathlon teams competing at the opening events of the 2019-20 season.

    “We had an impressively competitive trials this season, with several lead changes throughout the competitions,” said U.S. Biathlon Director of High Performance Lowell Bailey. “I feel really good about the teams we are sending and their ability to compete with the world’s best on the international stage.”

    Six members of the 2018 U.S. Olympic Team have been selected to compete at the first three International Biathlon Union World Cup events on this year’s calendar, including women’s Olympic Team members Clare Egan (Cape Elizabeth, Maine), Susan Dunklee (Barton, Vt.), Joanne Reid (Grand Junction, Colo.) and Emily Dreissigacker (Morrisville, Vt.). Named to the men’s World Cup team are 2018 Olympians Sean Doherty (Center Conway, N.H.) and Leif Nordgren (Hinesburg, Vt.), along with Travis Cooper (Kenai, Alaska) and Alex Howe (Gilford, N.H.).

    The IBU kicks off its 2019-20 World Cup season in Oestersund, Sweden, Nov. 30-Dec. 8. That will be followed by World Cups in Hochfilzen, Austria, Dec. 13-15, and Le Grand Bornand, France, Dec. 19-22.

    Named to the U.S. squads competing at the IBU Cup competitions in Ridnaun-Val Ridanna, Italy, Dec. 12-15, and in Obertilliach, Austria, Dec. 18-21, are Kelsey Dickinson (Winthrop, Wash.), Hallie Grossman (South Burlington, Vt.) and Maddie Phaneuf (Old Forge, N.Y.) on the women’s side, and Lars Hammernes Leopold (Truckee, Calif.), Max Durtschi (Ketchum, Idaho), Paul Schommer (Appleton, Wis.) and Jake Brown (St. Paul, Minn.) on the men’s side.

    “It’s an exciting time for U.S. Biathlon, with several new names in the mix on our international teams. It will be fun to watch,” Bailey added.

  • Lowell Bailey and the High Performance Vision

    Lowell Bailey and the High Performance Vision

    Lowell Bailey (US Biathlon) leading France’s Martin Fourcade in the men’s 12.5 k pursuit at the 2017 IBU World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea. Fourcade went on to win after starting third, and Bailey placed ninth after starting second. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

    For years under the leadership of Bernd Eisenbichler and Per Nilsson, US Biathlon was a polyglot enterprise. It’s often claimed the high performance staff at USBA had a decidedly United Nations vibe. As a sport firmly entrenched in Europe, siphoning some of that expertise into the U.S. program paid dividends over the past two decades.

    IBU World Cup podiums and World Championship medals were the payback. Lowell Bailey, at thirty-seven years old, is a hybrid product of an American development system infused with that European biathlon know-how. He was recently announced as US Biathlon’s newest high performance director after Eisenbichler resigned effective March 31.

    Bailey honed his cross-country skiing and biathlon as he grew up in Lake Placid, New York. Along with Tim Burke, the new USBA director for athlete development, the two forged a successful path as juniors and then as elite-level World Cup biathletes. Both won World Championship medals: silver for Burke in 2013, gold for Bailey in 2017.

    “I spent two decades working as an athlete on the US Biathlon team and the last 12-ish years on the World Cup so I feel like I have a good feeling for what the top of the pyramid looks like,” Bailey said during an interview on March, 2. “But I have gotten a lot of perspective on that question of ‘how does a kid get involved in biathlon in our country?’”

    With USBA’s unfulfilled goal of winning a first Olympic medal, Bailey’s race and recent administrative experience could create the lab in which the goal is realized. Although never having led an organization with tentacles as long as USBA’s, which span a massive continent when it comes to development, Bailey’s perspective on how to engage younger athletes in biathlon has been broadened in Bozeman, Montana.

    “Roughly three years ago I started working with Crosscut Mountain Sports Center as a consultant helping to raise awareness of their nascent endeavor — last year I took over as executive director,” Bailey said.

    During his work with Crosscut both as a consultant and the ED, Bailey was tasked with leading the visioning process for a Bozeman venue with world class facilities, IPC, IBU, and FIS homologated courses, and a paved roller ski loop. Bailey’s tenure with Crosscut overlapped with two active years as an IBU athlete and a third, after he retired in 2018, when he resided in Bozeman and immersed himself in grassroots organizing.

    “I think the experience he had working in Bozeman gave him real insight into the real challenges that regional programs face as they try to add biathlon to their offerings,” Max Cobb, CEO and President of USBA said of the skill sets Bailey brings to the organization. “I think we will see him come at that in a really practical and helpful way. I think that will result in a lot more growth of the sport all around the country.”

    Bozeman provided Bailey with a lens into how to build from the ground up. The community remains rooted in mountain culture and an outdoor lifestyle. Young children have opportunities to cross-country ski and develop biathlon skills with the Bridger Ski Foundation. Montana State University offers the potential for aspiring national level biathletes to train and concurrently pursue academics. Crosscut, if it moves forward with breaking ground on its winter sports facility, could become the model USBA and locals envision to build potential elite biathletes.

    The flower ceremony for the 2018 IBU World Cup women’s sprint in Oslo, Norway, which American Susan Dunklee appeared in after placing fourth. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)

    The “what ifs” Bailey pondered in Bozeman also reinforced his deep understanding of the hurdles biathlon faces in a massive geographic swath like the U.S. Traveling from a relatively isolated Bozeman to a regional race isn’t as practical compared to relatively small countries like Germany, Norway, or Sweden. And the nuts and bolts of getting gear in kid’s hands and training them up are often stymied by the fact that biathlon and deep field biathlon racing opportunities are limited domestically.

    “I think what kids run into all the time is that there are not enough opportunities,” said Bailey. “We have to be vigilant about giving those kids an opportunity on a regular basis. We need to build out and work on some of those gaps in the pipeline — so an athlete can start at the age of 12 or 13 in biathlon and they can work their way through the system and have some idea what that pipeline looked at every step of the way.”

    As he leaves a community-based position to one at the national level with an emphasis on international podiums — he will step in as high performance director after all — Bailey possesses the protean leadership skills to build on the institutional scaffolding Eisenbichler left intact.

    Bailey will be helped by Burke and Danika Frisbie who were hired last year to assist USBA with athlete development. Burke takes on the new title of director of athlete development while Frisbie continues in her role as sport program manager.

    “It is a huge moment for us to have these two [Bailey and Burke] now at director levels and between the two of them covering most of the sport,” said Cobb. “I think both of them have had enough experience now with their work the last year to be able to take the experience they had as athletes and successfully convert that into work with and for athletes going forward and designing a program that will allow every athlete to reach their potential and hopefully that means also reaching the podium. It is a very exciting time.”

    Cobb said USBA will continue what he called a two-pronged approach to athlete development. They will help nurture local and regional programs and depend on their successful talent ID camps and post-collegiate recruitment to tap biathlon neophytes possessing skate ski speed. Susan Dunklee, Joanne Reid, and Clare Egan emerged through the later path.

    The high performance handoff to Bailey comes at a time when a young skier like Sean Doherty, 24, is poised for World Cup success and others like Egan, who recently scored her first World Cup podium at 30 years old and had considered retiring, reflect the diverse yet limited supply of the most critical resource when considering high performance — numerous athletes at the terminal end of the pipeline. Software development Ukraine with Echo.

    “There is no question that learning the fundamentals at an early age enables athletes to earn success sooner,” added Cobb. “Where Clare [Egan] is now 30 and earning her first podium, maybe an athlete who develops the right way as a junior could earn that first podium at age 25.”

    What this all means is the U.S. must build depth in its athlete ranks. Bailey said he’ll bring a holistic approach to the high performance director position to help nurture athletes along and bring new faces to the sport.

    “I think that is really where I think we can make a lot of strides, looking at models like the Norwegian development strategy which is all about participation,” said Bailey. “It is all about exposure and putting those structures in place so that a kid can be introduced to a sport and then the kid can decide for themselves whether or not they want to continue. And that I think is when you hit the sweet spot of Olympic success. If we are all talking about winning this first ever Olympic medal for US Biathlon. I think if you really step far enough backward in the development process, any model that sort of pushes a kid without by in from the actual athlete is inevitably going to fail.”

  • Bernd Eisenbichler and his US Biathlon Legacy

    Bernd Eisenbichler and his US Biathlon Legacy

    U.S. Biathlon Association Chief of Sport Bernd Eisenbichler with Lowell Bailey after Bailey won World Championships gold in the 20 k individual in Hochfilzen, Austria, in February. (Photo: Glen Crawford)

    “Twenty years and two months ago I began with US Biathlon,” Bernd Eisenbichler said to FasterSkier last week during a phone call to discuss his March 31, resignation as high performance director.

    For those of you unfamiliar with the name, Eisenbichler has worn many hats during his tenure with US Biathlon: Ski/wax tech, high performance director, and chief of sport. With a title like chief of sport, more fitting head-ware might have been a crown. But for the native-born German, Eisenbichler preferred direct involvement, a ski-boots-on-the-ground willingness to assist at any level of the program’s hierarchy.

    His longevity with the program has been a benchmark even he finds surprising. Asked if he intended on steering the U.S. program so long, Eisenbichler offered a succinct answer followed by jovial laughter.

    “No…No,” he said.

    Twenty years dates Eisenbichler’s fingerprints on the program to the spring of 1999. Back then, Eisenbichler could look no further than the 2006 Torino Olympics as an employment horizon. After which, he explained, he expected to reassess his commitment.  

    “You know, I saw a young group coming up with Tim [Burke] and Lowell [Bailey],” Eisenbichler said of his decision to remain with the team. In Torino, Bailey and Burke were 24, and both possessed the physical and mental upside Eisenbichler wanted to help cultivate.

    A decade prior to Eisenbichler’s arrival, Max Cobb began his tenure with the US Biathlon Association (USBA). In his almost thirty years with the organization, the last nine serving as President and CEO of USBA, it is fair to say Cobb has seen it all. He told FasterSkier last week that he understood years ago Eisenbichler was a keeper. 

    “Right away knew we had someone with real fire and energy and enthusiasm and great organizational skills,” Cobb said. “Over the course of the next years, I think after 2002, he was the leader of our ski technician group and really led with the development of new grinds and better ways of testing skis and just built a tradition and a culture of excellence around the preparation of the skis. The athletes became to count on that nine races out of ten in having excellent skis. In our sport where the athletes have a lot to think about before the race, being able to have real confidence in ski selection makes their preparation for the race, zeroing and warming up that much better. That was only the beginning of Bernd’s contribution to the sport. Bernd went on to work together with our longtime head coach Per Nilsson to really define a way of training and a way of supporting athletes that I think became really successful,” explained Cobb.”

    Eisenbichler became high performance director in 2007. Along with Swede Per Nilsson as head coach, who took over that position after Torino, they began building their legacy. Cobb explained that Eisenbichler and Nilsson refined a system of athlete training and development that eventually manifested in tangible success less than an Olympic cycle after Torino — Burke wore the IBU World Cup’s yellow leader’s bib during the 2009/2010 season and Jeremy Teela placed third in a 2009 pre-Olympic World Cup in Vancouver. Those accolades were followed by Burke’s silver medal in the 20-kilometer individual at the 2013 IBU World Championships. 

    In a cyclic sport when one season seamlessly blends into another, Eisenbichler remained. Let’s not fool ourselves. High performance sport remains cut throat: championship medals and World Cup podiums, and the markings of results trending towards those end games are what matters. Had Eisenbichler not delivered, he most likely would have been out. 

    Burke and Bailey became consistent performers. Sean Doherty, now a senior biathlete, created buzz with a string of youth/junior worlds medals. Susan Dunklee, became the face of an emerging women’s program. She remains a podium threat skier. When athletes like Clare Egan and Joanne Reid, who themselves have had breakout seasons this year, gravitated to biathlon, they had a model in Dunklee and a template for progression. 

    The 2017 IBU World Championships was the capstone for Eisenbichler. Bailey won the 20 k individual gold, and Dunklee won silver in the women’s mass start.

    Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) with her IBU World Championships silver medal after placing second in the women’s mass start in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

    “Yah, in 2017 after Lowell won the gold medal and Susan won the silver, I was thinking like ‘hey maybe soon it is time’ you know,” Eisenbichler said about when he had contemplated moving on from the U.S. program. Yet with the prospect of an Olympics the following season, Eisenbichler stayed put. Then, post-PyeongChang, the team lost several coaches and began a reboot.

    Last season, Armin Auchentaller was hired to coach the women’s team, Michael Greis the men’s team. Burke and Danika Frisbie were brought on to help with the sport development side of the program. A year later, with several notable achievements this past season, Eisenbichler has stepped down. “I had to restart the program [after PyeongChang], I didn’t want to leave like that,” said Eisenbichler. “Now it just feels like the right time. With Eisenbichler’s apogee in the U.S. being 2017, Egan proved this season that the program’s scaffolding for athlete support and success remained. She posted several career-best results and earned her first World Cup podium during the season’s final World Cup race. Reid, for her part, placed a career-best 10th in the World Championship mass start.  

    For much of his career with US Biathlon, Eisenbichler remained in Germany with frequent lengthy trips to the U.S. during the off-season. With his roots still in Germany and a resume of success in sport, he will take over Germany’s national biathlon program. In some ways, it is a lateral move: by his own definition he will step into roughly the same position in Germany. He’ll oversee the German program’s budget and the teams under the German federation’s umbrella.

    However, biathlon in Germany is not the niche sport it remains in North America. It is prime time. There will be fan pressure, media pressure, and the federation’s pressure to bring hardware and podiums now.

    “Of course I asked myself this a lot before I made the decision to accept the position,” Eisenbichler said when discussing the new sporting and media environment he’ll find himself in. “First of all, I have to say I like pressure quite honestly. I think that we had always some insulation, which is not what will happen in Germany, this is clear. This is very clear.”

    The U.S. men’s team, staff, and Bailey’s family celebrate on the podium after the flower ceremony. “Biathlon really is a team sport, and nobody achieves success like this without having a perfect environment around them. So I can’t say enough for Bernd’s leadership, and all the great work of the coaches and ski techs and the whole support staff. Because that’s what makes it possible. And we have been talking about it for a long time. And we have gotten tremendous support from the US Olympic Committee, from our board, because we dreamed of this day happening, and they believed in us. Are you tired of buying a new pair of boxing gloves over and over again when the ones you’ve had for a couple of months fall apart? Visit Sportegan.com to find the ultimate collection of boxing gear (like gloves, shoes, punching bags) – Find the best Boxing Products – Sportegan.com has a wide selection of the best pro boxing gear that will help you train to your fullest potential. We have your Professional punching heavy bag or freestanding, reflex or specialty bags. When it comes to pro boxing gear, Sportegan.com is here to help! Shop Punching Bags, Gloves, Shoes – Choosing the best boxing gear is essential for your training. I couldn’t be more grateful for all that.” (Photo: Glen Crawford)

    In as much as he is German, Eisenbichler will import an American biathlon lens when it comes to wringing value from his German budget. Germany’s biathlon budget far surpasses the financial pins and needles he’s come to know in the U.S., but he maintains he will seek efficiencies. Something he learned to master in the U.S.

    Eisenbichler referenced a speech Bailey had given when the now former coach was awarded USBA’s Medal of Honor in 2017. Bailey honed in on the David v. Goliath mentality Eisenbichler brought to the program. The parable was do more with less. 

    “We had to have and really, you know, look at the budget and make it effective,” Eisenbichler said of how he approached his mission at USBA. “Really make smart decisions. Not to spend the money in the wrong places. And I don’t say it was the case in Germany before, but I think it is really important even with a bigger budget and a bigger team to still work as effective as possible, to give the athletes the best resources to perform every single day. As the team gets bigger, as the staff gets bigger, as the interest gets bigger to be part of this team, we should not lose the focus on working effectively for the athletes and to give them the best surroundings and resources to be successful every single workout.”

    In any career spanning two decades, the human connections run deep. Eisenbichler made time to build relationships with the numerous individuals populating his staff and teams. Beyond those connections, Eisenbichler leaves a profound legacy. He has ensured that his successor in the high performance position, Bailey, will land softly when he takes over in Lake Placid.

    baclofen

    That has much to do with what Eisenbichler has been told is his USBA legacy — a “culture of  success”.

    “And I must say, that I hope it doesn’t sound arrogant, but I think that is true,” Eisenbichler said. “Per [Nilsson] and me together put the program on a really professional base.”

    Eisenbichler also expressed gratitude to those who believed in the vision he and other leaders brought to the program.  

    “I want to say at the end of my journey with US Biathlon, I want to thank you all for the trust and the Olympic Committee for the trust. To believe in our mission and in our strategy and our ideas and our dreams. And I want to thank the athletes and staff that follow my leadership. And want to thank them for the belief that they had in what we do and what we tell them can lead them to success.

    “I will miss my team and my staff a lot. It is still emotional for me you can hear…so yah.”

    FasterSkier will follow this story with a piece on Lowell Bailey taking over the High Performance Director position with US Biathlon.

     

  • Bailey and Burke Named to New Positions at US Biathlon (Press Release)

    Bailey and Burke Named to New Positions at US Biathlon (Press Release)

    Press Release

     

  • US Biathlon’s New Coaches, Michael Gries and Armin Auchentaller, Lead the Way

    US Biathlon’s New Coaches, Michael Gries and Armin Auchentaller, Lead the Way

    The newest additions to US Biathlon’s coaching and sport-development staff (from left to right): Michael Greis, Tim Burke, Armin Auchentaller, and Danika Frisbie as seen on May 1 outside the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, N.Y. (Photo: US Biathlon)

    This season, the US Biathlon Association (USBA) hired on two new coaches; 47-year-old Armin Auchentaller from Italy and Germany’s 42-year-old Michael Greis. Auchentaller’s primary duties are with the women’s team whereas Greis will focus on the men.

    The U.S. team comes off the retirements of two of its steady-stars; Lowell Bailey and Tim Burke. (Burke was hired in May as USBA’s athlete development manager.) The hiring of the two coaches is part of a plan to reinvigorate veterans like Susan Dunklee and continue to develop athletes like twenty-three-year-old Sean Doherty – a four-time World Junior Champion.

    Sean Doherty (US Biathlon) racing to 14th in the 10 k sprint for a season-best individual result at the 2018 IBU World Cup in Oslo, Norway. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

    FasterSkier connected with Auchentaller last summer in Lake Placid. As he guides the women’s team, he will remain European based, travelling back to the U.S. for specific training camps. Married and the father of two teenage girls, Auchentaller foresees the arrangement as beneficial, with the on-season travel minimized due to the mostly European based IBU World Cup schedule.

    Auchentaller is no stranger to the USBA, he was brought on as the shooting coach in 2009 and remained with the team through the 2014 Olympics. From 2014 to the PyeongChang Olympics, Auchentaller worked with the Swiss elite biathlon team.  

    “You know, it’s a small family, the biathlon family is a small family, so the training itself doesn’t change that much,” Auchentaller said about the differences he has seen working with different national programs. “There are some little things which might be a little different depending also on the training background they had in the past years. So training, training philosophy, training science is pretty much universal in the whole world. It’s just a matter of how you apply different things to the group you have right now to work with. The bigger change is the mentality, so that’s nice. Languages, and, you know, Switzerland is for sure different than Italy, and Italy is different than US culture, but that makes it really nice for me at least to see those differences and everybody has a good culture, there is no bad culture.”

    The women’s team Auchentaller inherits is a stable of committed biathletes. Susan Dunklee has been the team’s top performer for years, Clare Egan has emerged into a top-ten skier this early season, Joanne Reid and Emily Dreissigacker are proven World Cup talents.

    “It was interesting when I started before the first camp, it was a little of, um, how do you say that I wasn’t sure what to expect how motivated they could be or are,” Auchentaller reflected. “But it turned out that they are really motivated. … So, if they continue like they work now, they will have some personal bests. I would say, we don’t talk about podiums and these things, but its to reach at least your personal best for the first thing. So they are all different characters, but they have built in this short time a good group atmosphere.”

    Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) racing to fourth in the women’s 7.5 k sprint at the 2018 IBU World Cup in Oslo, Norway. It was her best individual result of the season by two places. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

    Last week’s racing in Pokljuka, Slovenia, the initial IBU World Cup outing for the women’s team under Auchentaller’s leadership proved successful. Dunklee earned an 11th place in the 15-kilometer individual, and Egan placed 15th in the 7.5 k sprint and a career-best sixth in the 10 k pursuit.

    “The experience level in the team is for sure huge, it’s a lot of difference, so it’s also a balance to find the right balance between all of those capacities, all those characters, that makes it nice also,” Auchentaller said. “If they respect each other, if they have a lot of respect, they will help each other and grow as a group. It’s an individual sport, but if you grow as a group in the single trainings, you will be better also for your own results.”

    Auchentaller also admitted he sees himself as a generalist when it comes to assisting any biathletes during training – that includes biathletes on the men’s team.  

    “I just cannot stay there in a corner and look at some things where I see ‘this can be better’, I just jump in and tell them,” Auchentaller stated. “And if they are alone here, [without a coach] then it’s obvious that I help them. I am a coach. It’s the profession I have, so you just ask if you can help them, and it’s pretty normal for me.”

    Clare Egan (US Biathlon) tucking and gliding during a 2015 IBU World Cup. She finished the 2015/2016 season ranked 66th overall. (Photo: USBiathlon/NordicFocus)

    Greis comes to the US Biathlon team as a storied three-time Olympic champion for Germany. Having retired from competition six years ago, Greis most recently coached Swiss junior biathletes based in and around Lenzerheide, Switzerland. His work with the U.S. men’s team will evolve as he learns the capacities of each athlete.

    “I ’ll try to understand how my athletes have trained in the past and then develop their individual capacity,” Greis emailed this November about how he spent his first dryland season with the men’s team.  “The foundation is the key: Matt Emmons [our shooting coach] and I worked on a great execution in shooting in order to improve the hit-percentage. Also in endurance training, we logged a lot of rollerski training to increase efficiency and improve the routine in combo sessions.”

    Greis guided the men’s A and B teams during the off-season, but his primary responsibility will be those on the World Cup this winter.

    “During the winter I am mainly responsible for World Cup with a good communication with the  IBU-Cup team in order to change athletes if they compete well,” Greis said.

    Greis comes from a system and a nation where in winter, biathlon is king. The proximity to biathlon specific training venues is relatively easy compared to North America. Yet, Gries noted some key differences between a European and American based model. In places like Germany, a biathlete can join the army or police force and still be able to focus nearly all their time on biathlon. In the U.S., athlete funding can be tenuous, the training venues and athletes dispersed across widespread regions.

    Those factors complicate communication and inhibit easy scheduling for group training.

    Acknowledging those limitations, Greis has immersed himself in a U.S. system that now focuses on camps to help team bonding and create efficiencies when athletes live as far away as Colorado from the hub of U.S. biathlon training in Lake Placid.  

    “US Biathlon tries to support the athletes in the best way,” Greis wrote. “We try to organize a lot of camps in order to train together and learn from each other. And it’s also important that Lake Placid, Craftsbury, Soldier Hollow continues to invest in the infrastructure to develop a great training venue. I think it would also be a good idea if cross-country and biathlon would work more to bring more kids into nordic sports.”

    Leif Nordgren (US Biathlon) skiing the second leg of the 2017 IBU World Cup men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay in Hochfilzen, Austria. The U.S. men ended up ninth overall out of 26 teams. (Photo: IBU/NordicFocus)

    Last season, the men’s team placed 13th in the IBU World Cup Nation’s. With Bailey and Burke gone, Gries said in the short-term, matching that 13th this season is a modest objective.

    “Our goal is to take the same place in the Nation Cup as last year and each athlete should improve his individual performance in the overall season,” Gries said. “None of my team took a top-ten career result so far – this is also an individual goal for each.”

    The IBU World Cup continues in Hochfilzen, Austria on December 13.

  • FasterSkier’s North American Performances of the Year

    FasterSkier’s North American Performances of the Year

    North American skiing performances of the year: U.S. junior men’s silver medal in the 4 x 5 k relay at 2018 Junior World Championships (l) and Kikkan Randall and Jessie Diggins winning gold in the team sprint at the 2018 Olympics. (Photos: Julia Kern & FlyingPointRoad)

    With the 2017/2018 season officially in the rearview, FasterSkier is excited to unveil the last of its annual award winners for this past winter. Votes stem from the FS staff, scattered across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and while not scientific, they are intended to reflect a broader sense of the season in review. This set of honors goes to the North American Performances of the Year in cross-country, biathlon and nordic combined.

    Previous categories: Junior Skiers of the Year | Collegiate Skiers of the Year | Biathletes of the Year| Para-Nordic Skiers of the Year | NoCo Skier of the Year | Canadian Breakthrough Skiers of the Year | American Breakthrough Skiers of the Year| Coach of the Year | U.S. Continental Skiers of the Year| Canadian Continental Skiers of the Year| International Performances of the Year | International Skiers of the Year

    ***

    Women’s Cross-Country: U.S. Women’s Olympic Gold in Team Sprint

    Kikkan Randall (l) and Jessie Diggins after winning a historic gold for the U.S. in the women’s freestyle team sprint at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)

    It had been 42 years since the last U.S. medal in an Olympic cross-country event, that being Bill Koch’s silver medal from the 1976 Winter Games. Never before had a U.S. woman taken home any Olympic hardware. Never before had an American taken home gold. Not until this year’s freestyle team sprint at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

    With the Alpensia ski trails serving as their backdrop, U.S. Ski Team teammates Kikkan Randall and Jessie Diggins paired up to win the first U.S. women’s Olympic cross-country medal. The duo bested European nordic powerhouses, such as Norway, Sweden and Finland, as well as 17 other teams, to win the much-sought-after gold.

    While Randall matched Norway’s Marit Bjørgen and Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla in her legs of the 6 x 1.25-kilometer race, Diggins paced Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla and Sweden’s Stina Nilsson. Thanks to tactical skiing by Randall, 35, and tenacious moves by Diggins, 26, the Americans put the Swedes and Norwegians behind and the U.S. in front.

    “We came into this race just knowing that if we skied smart and doing our jobs, good things could happen,” Randall told FasterSkier after the race. “We never really talked about medals. We said let’s just go out and do it and have fun. I think that really worked well for us today.”

    Men’s Cross-Country: U.S. Junior Men’s Relay ( Luke Jager, Ben Ogden, Hunter Wonders, and Gus Schumacher) 2nd at Junior World Championships

    In early February, the U.S. junior men’s 4 x 5 k relay team went all-in at Junior World Championships in Goms, Switzerland. In their medal quest, the American team, with Luke Jager, Ben Ogden, Hunter Wonders, and Gus Schumacher, passed two teams on Schumacher’s anchor leg and came close to catching Norway, too, ultimately placing second, 2.2 seconds behind Norway in first.

    The men’s 4 x 5 k relay podium at 2018 Junior World Championships with Norway (c) in first, the U.S. (l) in second (Ben Ogden, Luke Jager, Gus Schumacher, Hunter Wonders), and Russia (r) in third. (Photo: Julia Kern)

    The silver-medal finish is the best American relay result to date at a Junior Worlds championships. They finished 3.3 seconds ahead of Russia, which placed third, for a new mark for the U.S. team.

    “I thought it was possible, but actually getting it feels amazing,” Schumacher wrote in an email to FasterSkier after the race. “This whole trip has been really cool even without this success, it’s such an amazing place and the team is tight. I think individually I anticipated results maybe a little better, but this seems about right, and as a team I think we all surprised ourselves. Together we can make some big waves.”

    Jager also attributed the team’s success to the particular chemistry of the group.

    “This is something this group of guys has been dreaming of and training for for a really long time now,” Jager wrote in an email.

    “To be able to watch that dream come into fruition today was indescribable. Probably the best day of my life since Cole Morgan added me on Snapchat,” Jager continued. “We came here this year to show the world that US skiing is the real deal and that we’re here to stay and I think we did that. To be able to be a piece of that history was an honor.”

    Honorable Mention: Sophie Caldwell 3rd in Sprint World Cup 

    Two years ago, Sophie Caldwell, encouraged by the U.S. Ski Team Women’s Coach Matt Whitcomb, made a goal of finishing in top three of the season-long Sprint World Cup. By the end of this winter, she achieved that goal, closing out the 2017/2018 season in third place with a total of 396 points. Just ahead of Caldwell with 495 points was Sweden’s Stina Nilsson in second and Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla in first with 573 points.

    The 2017/2018 women’s Sprint World Cup podium with Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla (c) in first, Sweden’s Stina Nilsson (l) in second and American Sophie Caldwell (r) in third. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    Caldwell’s race season was littered with strong sprint performances, with the 28 year old finishing in the top 10 in all but one of the sprint races she entered. She made it to the finals in four of the 10 World Cup sprints she raced and landed on the podium three times.

    During World Cup Period 1, she finished eighth in the classic sprint in Kuusamo, Finland, ninth in the classic sprint in Lillehammer, Norway, and eighth in the freestyle sprint in Davos, Switzerland. Her first podium of the season came at the Tour de Ski in Lenzerheide, Switzerland, where she finished second in the freestyle sprint.

    Moving on to Period 2, Caldwell opened the second cycle of World Cup racing with another top-three, finishing third in the freestyle sprint in Dresden, Germany. In the classic sprint in Planica, Slovenia, she tied Switzerland’s Laurien van der Graff for first place in the freestyle sprint in Seefeld, Austria.

    Following the Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea (where she raced to an eighth place in the classic sprint), Caldwell raced to eighth in the World Cup freestyle sprint in Lahti, Finland, 27th in the classic sprint in Drammen, Norway, and sixth in the freestyle sprint at World Cup Finals in Falun, Sweden.

    “It’s been a good season with some really good results, but I think maybe what I am most proud of is just the consistency of my season — making it into the semifinals almost every sprint and skiing with confidence throughout the year,” Caldwell told FasterSkier in Falun.

    “We were really psyched that she took after it because, all of us coaches, really believed it could be done,” Whitcomb had said of Calwell.

    Honorable Mention: Alex Harvey 3rd Overall in Tour de Ski 

    Canada’s Alex Harvey (r) on the podium after placing third in the overall 2018 Tour de Ski, along with Switzerland’s Dario Cologna (c), who celebrated his fourth Tour de Ski title, and Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby (l) in second place. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

    Even Alex Harvey will admit, the Tour de Ski’s final stage hill climb has long been his weakness.

    “I have been well-ranked up until the last stage a few years in a row, but just never been able to quite do it on the last stage,” Harvey had told FasterSkier in early January following the Tour.

    This year, by the Stage 7 hill climb in Val di Fiemme, Italy, Harvey had found his form.

    The 29-year-old Canadian raced to third in the Tour, behind Switzerland’s Dario Cologna in second and Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby in second.

    Prior to this season, Harvey had finished in 20th in the overall in 2011 and 40th in 2012. For a few years, the Canadian did not finish the Tour due to circulatory problems in his legs, which particularly plagued him when skate skiing up hills. In the spring of 2015, he had surgery to remedy that.

    In 2016, he finished 14th in the Tour de Ski (TdS), and last year, he bumped up to seventh. This season’s third place is his first in the TdS overall top three.

    “I still tried to go by Sundby at the end, he had a little bit more than me,” Harvey told FasterSkier. “It is good terrain for him, a steady climb like that. He is such a strong climber — it was simply good I was able to just hang onto him until the end.”

    The U.S. men’s sixth place in the Olympic 4 x 7.5 k biathlon relay is one of FasterSkier’s North American Performances of the Year. (Photos: US Biathlon/NordicFocus)

    Men’s Biathlon: U.S. Men’s Relay (Lowell Bailey, Sean Doherty, Tim Burke, Leif Nordgren), 6th place at Olympics

    Individually, the 2018 Olympics were below expectations for the U.S. men’s biathlon team. The four men who competed only notched one top-30 result combined — Tim Burke placing 17th in the pursuit.

    But the men’s relay, the very last biathlon competition of the Games, was another story. In a topsy-turvy race with a lot of wind and a lot of penalty loops, the Americans stayed right in it. Less than a minute out of the lead at the halfway point, they finished sixth (+3:50.2), tying the best relay result ever by an American team at any Olympics.

    “On a day like today, you saw that France was in the loop, now Germany, so the top nations are in there,” Lowell Bailey said at the time. “I cannot tell you how challenging this range is. It is so much different than most of the other ranges we shoot on.”

    Best ever? Yes. But Leif Nordgren and Sean Doherty, the two team members who are not retiring, were left wanting more.

    “Honestly it is a little disappointing,” Nordgren said after. “I know we were gunning a lot more as a team. I had some mistakes there in prone, too. That hurt a lot since we were right there in contention with some top teams in the world.”

    Rosanna Crawford’s third-place finish and first-career podium at the Ruhpolding IBU World Cup is one of FasterSkier’s North American Performances of the Year. (Photos: Salomon/NordicFocus)

    Women’s Biathlon: Rosanna Crawford 3rd in Ruhpolding World Cup 15 k

    The women’s performance award goes to someone who had a podium coming for a long time. And in Ruhpolding, Germany, this year, Rosanna Crawford finally got it.

    She shot 20-for-20 in the 15 k individual, the most grueling race format on the women’s schedule. And then she pushed her hardest over the course’s big hills to hang on to a top-three finish. One of the last starters in the field, she mixed up the podium after the pre-race favorites had already finished and perhaps had thought their positions were secure.

    “I actually didn’t know I was fighting for a podium until the fourth loop,” Crawford told FasterSkier on the phone after the race. “I was like, Oh God! But I think that kind of helped, because then I knew to expect the crowd for the last standing.”

    It was a big day for the Canadian team, too: their last podium was when the men’s relay won bronze at 2016 World Championships. A lot has changed since then, including a tough season in 2016-2017 for many of the team’s veterans.

    But Crawford bounced back.

    “Julia [Ransom], Emma [Lunder] and Sarah [Beaudry], they kind of pushed past the IBU guys [into the finish zone], which I don’t think they were allowed to do, but Canada’s not on the podium every day so they let them sneak by to give me a hug so that was really special,” Crawford told FasterSkier. “I’ve been with these girls the past couple years now and so to be able to celebrate with them is amazing. Their results have been so inspiring for me … [My coach Roddy Ward] also jumped the fence, which I don’t think was allowed, so that was nice to be able to see him as well. It’s just such a team effort to get to the podium. I’m the one out there skiing and shooting, but I couldn’t have done it without the amazing skis on my feet or my coaches behind the scope, so Matthias and Roddy were really important there, and I couldn’t have done it without the girls who I train with all summer. I’m just so grateful for this team that I’m on.”

    Ben Loomis’s bronze-medal performance at Junior Worlds and Bryan Fletcher’s seventh place in his last World Cup competition are FasterSkier’s North American Nordic Combined Performances of the Year. (Photos: Romina Eggert & USA Nordic)

    Nordic Combined: Ben Loomis 3rd at Junior World Championships & Bryan Fletcher 7th in last race

    Nineteen-year-old Ben Loomis already received our nod for Junior Skier of the Year, but his bronze-medal performance at Nordic Combined Junior World Championships deserves “Performance of the Year” accolades as well.

    At his fourth and final Junior Worlds, Loomis jumped to seventh and raced to third in the first competition in Kandersteg, Switzerland.

    “Taking a step on the podium was an excellent feeling today,” Loomis wrote in an email to FasterSkier after that normal hill/10 k. “I have been working very hard, especially towards this specific race for a long time now. Accomplishing this is a huge relief and very motivating for the future.”

    He went on to race to seventh and finally a fourth place in the other two individual competitions at 2018 Nordic Combined Junior Worlds. Then he competed in three events at his first Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.

    But his main goal for the season, and his main goal for the last two years, had been to take a medal at Junior Worlds.

    “I’ve always done pretty well against juniors my same age so that gave me confidence going into Junior Worlds,” he told FasterSkier in an email earlier this month. “Of course, I was very happy and at the same time relieved to have meet my goal. This result was huge because it not only helped myself out, but it opened up another World Cup spot which is a help for the whole team. This certainly made everyone happy.”

    Then, there was U.S. Nordic Combined’s team veteran, Bryan Fletcher, who placed seventh in the last World Cup race of his career — tying his best result of the 2017/2018 season. He was our pick for this year’s Nordic Combined Skier of the Year, and we think they way he ended his career is worthy of recognition in this category as well.

    On March 14 in Trondheim, Norway, the 31-year-old Fletcher jumped to 12th then skied to seventh in the large hill/individual 10 k, posting the seventh-fastest 10 k time in the process. Fletcher scored World Cup points by finishing the the top 30 of nine of 10 individual races he entered. He also placed 17th in two individual races at the Olympics.

    “I think that it’s going to be bittersweet,” Fletcher said of his retirement in a video interview with FIS. “I’m happy that it’s over and that I’ve gotten to experience the whole journey. But it’ll also be a little sad because it’s a long journey coming to an end … and there’s going to be a lot of things to remember and miss of this sport.”

  • US Biathlon Nationals Rundown: Season Ends at SoHo (Updated)

    US Biathlon Nationals Rundown: Season Ends at SoHo (Updated)

    In the last race of their careers, Tim Burke leads Lowell Bailey up a climb in the men’s mass start on Saturday, March 31, at USBA Nationals at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. The two finished together. (Photo: Terry Wickland)

    2018 USBA Junior/Senior Nationals

    American biathletes officially wrapped up their race seasons at the 2018 US Biathlon Association (USBA) nationals last Thursday through Saturday at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah.

    The event kicked off with Lowell Bailey edging his teammate and longtime training partner Tim Burke by 5 seconds in the men’s 10-kilometer sprint on Thursday, March 29. Bailey started 15th out of 17 men and skied a single penalty lap after his prone shooting then cleaned standing (1+0). He crossed the finish line in 22:48 minutes, bumping Burke, who started 11th and had two standing penalties (0+2), out of first place. A third national-team member Sean Doherty completed the podium in third place, 20 seconds out of first with one standing miss (0+1).

    In the women’s 7.5 k sprint on Thursday, Susan Dunklee raced to the win in 22:45, 11 seconds ahead of Clare Egan in second place. Dunklee and Egan started sixth and eighth, respectively, out of 10 women, and had two standing penalties apiece (0+2). Joanne Reid, also of the national team, placed third, 1 minute back from Dunklee with one standing miss (0+1).

     

    Tim Burke leads Lowell Bailey in the men’s mass start on Saturday, March 31, at USBA Nationals at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. (Photo: Terry Wickland)

    On Friday, Bailey and Dunklee returned to the top step of the podium with victories in the men’s and women’s pursuits, after starting first in each race based on their sprint results.

    Dunklee started 11 seconds ahead of Egan and won the women’s 10 k pursuit by 1:20.6 minutes with two penalties (1+0+1+0). Egan repeated in second place with three penalties (1+0+1+1), and Emily Dreissigacker improved on her fourth-place sprint result by finishing third (+3:46.9) with two misses (1+0+0+1).

    Bailey started 5 seconds ahead of Burke and 20 seconds ahead of Doherty, then finished first, 1:31.7 clear of Doherty in second place. Bailey shot three penalties (1+0+1+1) and Doherty overcame six misses (3+1+1+1), while Burke finished 7.1 seconds behind Doherty for third place (+1:38.8) with nine penalties (1+1+2+5) after crossfiring on the final stage.

    In Saturday’s mass starts, Bailey and Burke tied for first place in the men’s 15 k to celebrate the last race of their careers (check out this Instagram video). Bailey shot 19-for-20, with his lone miss coming in the last standing stage (0+0+0+1), while Burke had two one-minute penalties (0+1+1+0). They entered the finishing straight together and crossed the line in unison in 36:23.3. Doherty once again reached the podium in third (+36.1) after shooting three penalties (0+1+2+0).

    Like Bailey, Dunklee swept nationals as well with a win in the women’s 12.5 k mass start. She finished with the fastest time of 39:51.6 despite five penalties (1+2+1+1), while Egan was runner-up for the third-straight day, 1:25.4 back with seven penalties (2+1+2+2). Dreissigacker shot clean to repeat in third place (+1:32.5).

    Marcus Gore (33) of Casper Mountain Biathlon and Ski & Snowboard Club Vail leads Nick Burkhart (32) of Auburn Ski Club and Bjorn Westervelt (31) of Craftsbury in the youth men’s pursuit at 2018 USBA Nationals in Midway, Utah. Burkhart went on to edge Westervelt for the win. (Photo: Terry Wickland)

    In the youth races, Bjorn Westervelt of Craftsbury and Lexie Madigan of the Auburn Ski Club (ASC) won the youth men’s and women’s sprints, respectively. On Day 2, Madigan raced to her second-straight win in the youth women’s 7.5 k pursuit while Nikolas Burkhart, also of ASC, won the youth men’s 10 k pursuit by 10 seconds over Westervelt in second place.

    On Saturday, Burkhart won the youth men’s 10 k mass start in 35:23.8, while Helen Wilson of the Anchorage Biathlon Club topped the youth women’s 7.5 k podium with a win in 26:37.3.

    Results: 

    Sprint | Pursuit | Mass start

    Complete results (with youth, boys/girls, and masters results)

  • Bye Bye Biathlon: Many Retirements After 2018 Olympic Season

    Bye Bye Biathlon: Many Retirements After 2018 Olympic Season

    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, who was 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.

  • Makarainen Makes Late Push to Claim World Cup Title; Fourcade Locks Up His Seventh

    Makarainen Makes Late Push to Claim World Cup Title; Fourcade Locks Up His Seventh

    Kaisa Makarainen celebrates her third overall World Cup title after securing it with a sixth-place finish in the last race of the season, a mass start in Tyumen, Russia. (ZDF screencap)

    Martin Fourcade didn’t have to do much at the final IBU World Cup weekend in Tyumen, Russia, in order to lock up the overall crystal globe. But the French biathlete came in guns blazing, so to speak, winning Thursday’s sprint by 33.2 seconds and claiming the Total Score title.

    His only close(ish) challenger in the overall score, Johannes Thingnes Bø of Norway, had finished just 14th in the sprint. He raced up to second in the pursuit, but by then it was too late to take the globe from Fourcade.

    It is the Frenchman’s seventh overall title; the last time anyone else won one was in 2010-2011.

    “I am really satisfied with what I did today,” Fourcade told the IBU on Thursday. “It was mentally challenging all these days fighting with Johannes for the Crystal Globe. It seems easy watching on TV, but I can confirm that it is not. I must admit that it was not my main goal back [at the first World Cup weekend] in Östersund; it was the Olympics. But as the season went on, the globe became the most important aim for both of us.”

    After that, Fourcade could relax a little.

    “You know, before the race I planned to act like usual, be calm on the shooting range and being strategic,” Fourcade told German broadcaster ZDF after winning the pursuit, this time by 47.9 seconds. “But when I came to the zeroing [target practice] I told my coach ‘today I will play a little’. I don’t have many races to enjoy my biathlon [without pressure], to do what I would like to do. I told him ‘do not think (worry?) I will go full attack’, but I wanted to show that the strategy I had all year long is [just] a strategy not a need to shoot slow.”

    On Saturday it worked; then came Sunday’s mass start. Fourcade had his worst race of the season, with four penalties and skiing to 19th place, over a minute behind winner Maxim Tsvetkov of Russia. But it didn’t matter – the globe was already decided, and Fourcade had already found his satisfaction.

    The fight for the women’s crystal globe had much more drama. Coming into the weekend, Slovakia’s Anastasiya Kuzmina led by 41 points over Finland’s Kaisa Makarainen. But it was Belarus’s Darya Domracheva, in third in the standings, who won Friday’s sprint, by just 1.2 seconds over Makarainen; Kuzmina was 12th.

    “Before today’s race I tried to focus only on this race, not think about the overall World Cup so much because I know that I am really [far] behind,” Makarainen told ZDF after the sprint. “But I know that everything is possible. I think that’s also the best tactic for tomorrow: not think about the others or the Total Score, just focus on a good race and enjoy that.”

    Makarainen saw her chance and went for the win in the pursuit, edging France’s Anais Bescond by an even smaller margin – 0.2 seconds.

    With Domracheva winning the mass start, Makarainen rallying for sixth despite three missed shots, and Kuzmina 11th with the same tally, the title went to the Finn. She edged out Kuzmina by just three points, while Domracheva was only another 15 points back.

    Makarainen jumped up and down when she saw the score announced, and her teammates rushed her and placed a pink paper crown on her head. It is her third overall title; she also won in 2011 and in the 2013-2014 season, when she likewise secured the crystal globe in the very last race of the season.

    The fields were somewhat reduced in size and depth as the Canadian, U.S., Czech, and Ukrainian teams all skipped the event due to Russia still remaining out of compliance with the World Anti-Doping Code. Other individual athletes skipped the races as well.

    Other Notes: 

    Simon Desthieux of France got his first career World Cup podium, finishing second in the sprint behind teammate Fourcade.

    Maxim Tsvetkov of Russia claimed his first career win in the mass start, edging Norway’s Erlend Bjøntegaard by 2.7 seconds as each shot 20-for-20.

    In the men’s mass start, Slovakia’s Paulina Fialkova got her first World Cup podium, finishing second, just 1.8 seconds behind Domracheva as each had a single penalty.

    The top ranked North American biathletes in the Total Score are Susan Dunklee in 34th in the women’s standings, and Tim Burke in 32nd in the men’s standings, both from the United States. The U.S.’s Lowell Bailey and Sean Doherty ranked 35th and 36th. No Canadians were ranked in the top 40.  

    -Harald Zimmer contributed

    Results:

    Men’s Sprint – Women’s Sprint

    Men’s Pursuit – Women’s pursuit

    Men’s Mass Start – Women’s Mass Start

    Overall World Cup standings:

    Men’s Total Score – Women’s Total Score

  • U.S. Seventh in Oslo Relay as Bailey, Burke End Careers; Norway Wins, Canada 16th

    U.S. Seventh in Oslo Relay as Bailey, Burke End Careers; Norway Wins, Canada 16th

    Clare Egan cheers on Tim Burke in the final World Cup race of his career, racing the third leg of the U.S. men's relay in Oslo.
    Clare Egan (r) cheers on her US Biathlon teammate Tim Burke in the final World Cup race of his career, as he races the third leg of the U.S. men’s relay at the IBU World Cup in Oslo, Norway.

    OSLO, Norway — In some ways, Sunday’s 4 x 7.5-kilometer men’s relay was very special for the U.S. biathlon team.

    Two stalwart members – World Championships gold medalist Lowell Bailey and silver medalist Tim Burke – were retiring. It would be the last race of their long international careers.

    In other ways, though, the team wanted it to just be a normal race. Their goal was to put together a good relay and a good result.

    “Nothing’s changed in terms of, it’s about getting the best result we can,” Bailey said after leading off the relay and tagging teammate Sean Doherty in seventh place, having used just one spare rounds. “At the end of the day, that’s what we all want, and I couldn’t be happier if that’s how my career ended.”

    After Bailey’s relay leg, the team moved around quite a bit within the top 10, but by the race’s end, they came back to seventh place, 2:01.5 behind Norway, who took a blowout win over Austria (+50.3) and Russia (+56.9).

    All the American men had good skiing, with their relay legs ranked fourth (Bailey), eighth (Doherty), sixth (Burke), and eighth (Leif Nordgren) for ski times, respectively. Together, they used eight spare rounds – far more than the winning Norwegian team’s three, but similar to many other teams in the middle of the field.

    “That’s solid,” Burke said. “See how tight it is up front, besides Norway with the big lead? Other than that, it’s really close. We’re in the mix. You always want more, but it’s a solid result … the Olympic relay, we were very happy with. The sixth place there [in PyeongChang, South Korea], we were right there. That was a great race for us, but this is solid as well.”

    Even though the U.S. had started in bib 24, in the very back of the mass start, Bailey had been able to find his way through the crowded pack and move up to seventh place. He then used a spare round in prone, dropping to 12th, but with clean standing and his good skiing, moved the U.S. back into contention.

    “It didn’t seem it, but it took a lot of mental energy and focus to execute a good race,” Bailey said. “I told myself this morning that I just wanted to go out on a high note. 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.”

    After Bailey, Doherty used two spare rounds and moved up to sixth place.

    “I had a little ride there for the first lap, which was nice, and got into a good rhythm,” he said. “I had one spare [in each stage] … no harm there. It’s not ideal because it would have been really good to try to get contact with that kind of pack of four or five guys that were kind of together ahead, but we’re still right in it.”

    Burke had clean shooting in prone to stay in sixth place, but used two spare rounds in standing and dropped to 10th, where he stayed until he tagged off.

    Given his emotions, however, he was more than happy with just two spare rounds.

    “I was more nervous for this race than nearly any other race in my career,” he admitted. “I was like, pull it together, because the other guys are counting on you today. So I tried to approach it like any other race, but honestly, it was a challenge to keep bringing myself back into the race mentally. I’m was happy to have stayed out of the penalty loop.”

    Nordgren anchored the team and despite using all three spare rounds in standing, he moved up to eighth place when he left the range and passed another racer on the trails to bring the team home in seventh.

    “I’ve been here a long, long time, and an top eight today is very different than a top eight when I came on the World Cup 14 years ago,” the 36-year-old Burke said, looking back over his career. “It’s so close now. There’s so many good teams. So it’s a solid result.”

    The fact that he and Bailey, also 36, were here competing is a result of many changed plans over the last decade. The two initially planned to retire after the 2006 Olympics in Torino, Italy.

    “The original goal was 2006 or bust,” Bailey said. “You know, like make the Olympic team, be an Olympian and move on. I’m so glad I didn’t follow through with that, because, you know, it’s a great feeling and accomplishment to make an Olympic team, but biathlon is so much more than that.”

    “… It’s a great feeling and accomplishment to make an Olympic team, but biathlon is so much more than that.” — Lowell Bailey, US Biathlon

    Both retiring athletes plan to stay involved with biathlon in one way or another. Bailey is a board member at the Crosscut Mountain Sports Center in Bozeman, Montana.

    “I wouldn’t even say goodbye, because I intend to still be in contact with everyone and I really want to see US Biathlon move forward in the next four to ten years,” Bailey said. “I think the future is bright, and we have some great athletes that still have a lot to contribute on the World Cup. But then also, there’s new athletes out there right now that will come onto the World Cup stage. The future definitely is bright.

    “I can honestly say biathlon has made my life so much better,” he continued. “So I feel very fortunate to have been introduced to the sport so many years ago. And it’s taken me on a wild roller coaster ride.”

    Burke is not sure of his plans moving forward, but won’t be saying goodbye to biathlon permanently either.

    “Nothing’s set in stone yet,” he said. “I really want to take a few months to myself right now. You know, I’ve been married for three years; I’ve never spent any anniversary with Andrea. We just built a new house last year. I haven’t really spent any time in it. I’ve missed all my nieces and nephews’ birthdays for the last eight years. I’m so excited to have more time with my family and friends, and try and make up for some lost time there.

    “But I will absolutely stay in biathlon in one way or another,” he continued. “I’d like to think I’ve learned a lot in the 14 years I’ve been on the World Cup. Done some things right. Made a ton of mistakes. I would love to be able to share those experiences with the next generation coming up.”

    Burke said that while he had been a wreck and barely able to focus on his race in Saturday’s pursuit, with the prospect of his last World Cups weighing on him, at the same time he wasn’t fully processing that his career was over.

    “It’s weird. I don’t honestly I don’t know if it’s truly hit me,” he said. “It might take weeks. It’ll probably be May 1 when my body’s telling me, ‘OK, time to get back into training routine. Time to open up the training log. All right, what’s the plan?’ 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.”

    Even for those not retiring, it was a memorable day.

    “It is special, for sure,” Doherty said. “It’s an honor to race with these guys and to have raced with them for the few years that I have. It has been great.”

    As the sun shone, the team and a staff drank champagne and then stood out in the middle of the stadium soaking it all in.

    “You know, it’s such a beautiful venue and a great place to compete,” Bailey said of Holmenkollen. “It’s about the history, and the course obviously is spectacular. But, you know there’s a little bit of luck involved in World Cups, and you can have really bad weather and you can have good weather, and this is the best weather we’ve had the whole year. I feel kind of blessed to be able to experience my last World Cup in these conditions, with the sun out and everyone smiling. I’ve never really thought about it or pictured it, but if I have, this is what it would look like.”

    The Canadian team of Christian Gow, Scott Gow, Brendan Green, and Macx Davies finished 16th (+5:42.4) with 10 spare rounds.

    “I’ve been kind of out of gas since like I got pretty sick after the Olympics, and I just haven’t been able to build my shape back,” Christian Gow said. “It’s been an arduous couple race weekends — even if the shooting’s good, I’m physically just exhausted. So, it’s disappointing to feel that way. … After the [Olympic] peak, you need to rebuild a bit, and I wasn’t able to do any of that because I had to take a week off or something like that [due to illness]. So, yeah, I’d rather be strong at the Olympics and then not as strong at the end of the year, but it doesn’t make it easier in the moment.”

    Results

  • Sunday Rundown: Diggins and Harvey 2nd, Bjornsen 3rd in Falun Pursuit; Dunklee 3rd in Oslo (Updated)

    Sunday Rundown: Diggins and Harvey 2nd, Bjornsen 3rd in Falun Pursuit; Dunklee 3rd in Oslo (Updated)

    Norway’s Marit Bjørgen celebrates her overall win in the last race of 2018 World Cup Finals, the 10 k freestyle pursuit, on Sunday in Falun, Sweden. (Photo: Svenska Skidspelen/Instagram)

    FIS Cross Country World Cup Finals (Falun, Sweden): 10/15 k freestyle pursuits

    Men’s report

    In the last women’s race of the World Cup season, U.S. Ski Team members Jessie Diggins and Sadie Bjornsen made it one they’ll remember for a long, long time as Diggins raced to second in the 10-kilometer freestyle pursuit and Bjornsen outlasted two Norwegians for third. The two finished the World Cup Finals mini tour in second and third, respectively, behind Norway’s Marit Bjørgen who won it in 24:18.9 minutes.

    Bjørgen started with a 36-second cushion to her Norwegian teammate Ingvild Flugstad Østberg in second. Diggins started third, 41 seconds back, just ahead of Finland’s Krista Pärmäkoski in fourth (+43.0), based on their cumulative performances over the last two days of the mini tour (skate sprint and 10 k classic mass start).

    While Østberg, Diggins and Pärmäkoski formed a chase pack, Diggins dropped them in pursuit of Bjørgen on the first lap. The American continued to push the pace throughout the three-lap race, coming within 16.7 seconds of Bjørgen at the finish.

    Meanwhile, during the pursuit, a chase group of five, which included Bjornsen, caught Østberg and Pärmäkoski. The group of seven dwindled to three on the last two climbs, where Bjornsen and Norway’s Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen and Ragnhild Haga broke away in a race for third.

    The three were even entering the finishing stretch, where Bjornsen then beat them in a final 100-meter push to the line. Bjornsen claimed third (+1:11.5) for her fourth podium of the season and first in a distance skate race. Haga followed in fourth (+1:12.0) and Jacobsen fifth (+1:12.8), while Pärmäkoski placed sixth (+1:16.2), Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla seventh (+1:17.9), Østberg eighth (+1:19.0), Sweden’s Jonna Sundling ninth (+1:30.5) and Ebba Andersson 10th (+1:44.7).

    Bjornsen now has five-career individual World Cup podiums to her name, and this is the first in a skate race longer than 5 k.

    Diggins clocked the fastest time of day in 23:54.4, while Haga was second-fastest (+10.7) after starting the race in 17th. Bjørgen’s time ranked third, Jacobsen was fourth-fastest and Bjornsen fifth-fastest.

    Diggins’s performance elevated her to second in the Overall World Cup standings, just 40 points behind Norway’s Heidi Weng (who placed 18th in the pursuit) in first for the second-straight year. Østberg slipped to third overall, 22 points behind Diggins. In the Distance World Cup, Weng took the title by 63 points over Østberg in second, while Diggins was another 32 points back in third.

    Bjornsen ended up sixth in the Overall World Cup and 10th in the distance standings.

    Also for the U.S., Caitlin Patterson raced from 46th at the start to 35th (+3:58.4) with the 22nd-fastest time of day, Sophie Caldwell placed 36th (+4:00.7), Kikkan Randall finished her last World Cup race in 43rd (+4:33.3) with the 29th-fastest time, Rosie Frankowski placed 46th (+4:41.3), Liz Stephen 50th (+4:57.2) in her final World Cup race, Kaitlynn Miller 56th (+6:13.8), and Ida Sargent 57th (+7:06.4).

    For Canada, Cendrine Browne picked off 10 places to finish 39th (+4:14.4) with 27th-fastest time of day, Emily Nishikawa finished 48th (+4:43.7), Dahria Beatty 54th (+6:04.3), and Zina Kocher 60th (+9:28.4).

    The men’s 15 k freestyle and 2018 World Cup Finals podium, with Russia’s Alexander Bolshunov (c) in first, Canada’s Alex Harvey (l) in second and Switzerland’s Dario Cologna (r) in third. (Photo: Svenska Skidspelen/Instagram)

    In the men’s 15 k freestyle pursuit that followed, Russia’s Alexander Bolshunov started 38 seconds clear of Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo in second, and Sweden’s Calle Halfvarsson and Italy’s Federico Pellegrino headed out together another second later in third and fourth, respectively.

    Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby started the race in seventh (+53.0), and Switzerland’s Dario Cologna followed in ninth (+56.0), while Canada’s Alex Harvey started 1:16 back in 18th.

    While Bolshunov skied the entire race on his own and won the weekend mini tour in 35:03.3, a number of racers battled for second, with Sundby moving into second in the chase pack, ahead of seven others, less than 2 k in. Several skiers found themselves at the front of that group, including Cologna, Halfvarsson, and even Harvey (with Harvey leading the chase at 9.3 k), while the time gap to Bolshunov grew.

    With about 2 k to go, the group was down to six. Harvey attempted an attack, but Cologna matched him. Then, on one of the course’s final climbs, Cologna made his move to get a slight gap, but lost his balance slightly on the downhill, allowing Harvey to catch back up.

    With one last uphill to go, Harvey was in the driver’s seat in second, Cologna in third and Sundby in fourth. That order held to the finish, with Harvey claiming second, 47.1 seconds behind Bolshunov, Cologna placing third (+47.5) and Sundby fourth (+48.7). Just behind them, Russia’s Maxim Vylegzhanin crossed in fifth (+50.3), ahead of Norway’s Hans Christer Holund in sixth (+51.7), Halfvarsson in seventh (+54.1), and Norway’s Sjur Røthe in eighth (+54.9). Nearly 10 seconds later, Norway’s Niklas Dyrhaug outlunged two Russians for ninth (+1:04.1): Denis Spitsov in 10th (+1:04.2) and Andrey Larkov in 11th (+1:04.3).

    Harvey, who finished the season in fourth in both the Overall and Distance World Cup standings, won the time of day in 34:34.3. Holund had the second-fastest course time, 1 second off Harvey’s time, after starting the race in 22nd.

    Harvey’s Canadian teammate Devon Kershaw tallied his fifth-straight distance top 30 in 28th (+2:21.9), after starting 27th, and Graeme Killick finished 56th (+4:33). Julien Locke did not start.

    For the U.S., Erik Bjornsen clocked the 22nd-fastest time en route to 38th (+3:10.4), after he started 51st. Simi Hamilton improved 10 places to finish 49th (+4:07.8), Scott Patterson and Paddy Caldwell worked together to move up from 72nd and 73rd, respectively, to 58th (+4:41.5) and 59th (+4:41.6), respectively, at the finish. Kevin Bolger placed 60th (+4:43.5) and David Norris 64th (+5:09.8).

    While Klæbo slipped from second to 25th in the pursuit (+1:45.8), the Norwegian still won his first Overall World Cup by 119 points over Cologna in second. Sundby placed third, 29 points out of second and 82 points ahead of Harvey.

    Cologna claimed the Distance World Cup Crystal Globe by 41 points over Sundby, and Holund reached the Distance World Cup podium in third, 58 points out of second and just 5 points ahead of Harvey in third. France’s Maurice Manificat had been third heading into the final day of racing, but finished the pursuit in 26th (+2:11.9) and dropped to fifth in the final distance rankings.

    Results: 

    Women: Pursuit | Time of day | Final Overall World Cup rankings | Final Distance World Cup rankings

    Men: Pursuit | Time of day | Final Overall World Cup rankings | Finals Distance World Cup rankings

    ***

    IBU World Cup (Oslo, Norway): Women’s pursuit + men’s relay

    Women’s pursuit report | Julia Ransom retires 

    Men’s relay report

    In her last race of the season, Susan Dunklee returned to the podium. The American started fourth in Sunday’s 10-kilometer pursuit at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Oslo, then made her way into third by the final shooting stage. Dunklee shot 18-for-20 (1+0+1+0) and finished 29.5 seconds behind the winner, Darya Domracheva of Belarus, who missed two targets as well (1+0+1+0) and finished first in 30:37.4. Slovakia’s Anastasiya Kuzmina started the race in first (ahead of Domracheva in second) and ended up second (+9.2) with four penalties (0+2+2+0).

    Canada’s Julia Ransom and Rosanna Crawford finished together in 51st and 52nd, respectively, both 4:52.4 out of first. Ransom had four penalties (0+1+1+2) while Crawford missed five (1+3+1+0). Emma Lunder did not finish.

    In the men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay on Sunday, Norway’s team of Lars Helge Birkeland, Henrik L’Abee-Lund, Tarjei Bø, and Johannes Thingnes Bø used just three spare rounds to clean eight shooting stages and took the win in 1:13:13.7 hours. Austria finished 50.3 seconds back in second place, with Dominik Landertinger, Felix Leitner, Simon Eder, and Julian Eberhard, with a total of five spares. Russia’s Maxim Tsvetkov, Anton Babikov, Dmitry Malyshko, and Anton Shipulin raced to third (+56.9) with just four total spares.

    The U.S. men placed seventh (+2:01.5) with eighth spares, after Lowell Bailey put the team in seventh on the first leg. Sean Doherty skied them up to sixth on the second leg, Tim Burke slipped to 10th on the third leg, and Leif Nordgren posted the seventh-fastest anchor leg to put them in seventh at the finish.

    Canada placed 16th (+5:42.4) with Christian Gow, Scott Gow, Brendan Green, and Macx Davies. The team had been in 19th at the final exchange, but Davies skied them up to 16th with the 14th-fastest anchor leg. In all, they used 10 spares.

    Results: Women’s pursuit | Men’s relay

  • Fourcade Collects 10th Holmenkollen Win, Doherty 17th in Pursuit

    Fourcade Collects 10th Holmenkollen Win, Doherty 17th in Pursuit

    The men's field heads out of the start in the 12.5 k pursuit in Oslo, Norway.
    The men’s field heads out of the start in Saturday’s IBU World Cup 12.5 k pursuit in Oslo, Norway.

    OSLO, Norway — Henrik L’Abée-Lund took his first World Cup win on Thursday, on home turf in Norway no less.

    As the kilometers and shooting stages ticked by, it looked possible that L’Abée-Lund would do it again, or at least come close. After two prone stages, one standing stage, one penalty lap, and 7.5 kilometers of skiing, L’Abée-Lund hit the trails together with the man who is always a pre-race favorite: Martin Fourcade of France.

    Over the next 2.5 kilometers, Fourcade skied faster, but wasn’t able to put too much of a gap on the Norwegian. Fourcade came into the range with a 4.5-second lead and hit his first target before L’Abée-Lund started shooting.

    Fourcade kept right on going, hitting all five targets for a score of 18/20 on the day, and cruised to victory.

    When asked at the post-race press conference whether the win was easy, Fourcade replied, “It wasn’t, because the fight on the beginning was really tight. I had a lot of pressure on the standing shooting. So I must say I’m really satisfied about the win today. I heard it’s my 10th win in Holmenkollen and I’m the most-awarded biathlete in Holmenkollen. It’s probably my favorite place on the World Cup. I’m really happy I did that.”

    L’Abée-Lund missed two and fell out of podium contention.

    In his absence, Johannes Thingnes Bø – the more favored Norwegian – also missed a shot on the final stage. Italy’s Lukas Hofer cleaned and went past him into second, and that was the podium at the finish.

    It was Fourcade’s seventh win in a season where he has never been off the podium in a World Cup race (although he was twice off the podium at the Olympics), and he now has a 49-point lead over Bø in the World Cup Total Score standings with three individual races to go.

    “It’s really nice fight,” Fourcade said in a press conference. “I must say, I’m surprised [to say it], but I like it. Johannes is an amazing opponent. No matter what happens in Tyumen, I know that I will thank him for the fight we had. Even if he wins the World Cup, I don’t want that, but I will thank him. I really appreciate the good fight, the fair fight we had, and the good biathlon show we made for people.”

    “I think I have maybe 10-percent chance to win this,” Bø said of the overall World Cup title. “So it’s not a big chance, but you know, many things can happen. I know for sure that Martin will probably on the podium every race next weekend. And then there is no chance for me to win the globe. So then I have to just do my best and then we see, but it has been a good season no matter what happens, and it’s a big step in my career.

    Hofer finished 18.1 seconds back in second place with one penalty, and Bø 32.5 seconds back reached the podium despite four missed shots.

    “I went out [from the last shooting stage] and my trainer told me, ‘It’s only a small gap, only four seconds,’ ” Hofer said, although he actually led Bø by nearly 15 seconds at that point. “I think they told me this so that I keep pushing on the last loop. I tried to keep some energy for the last 600 meters a the end. When I saw Johannes and that I had a bigger gap to him, I was really happy.”

    “I knew that Hofer is one of the strongest guys on the last laps,” Bø said. “But I was feeling really good today, so I was thinking there was a chance [to catch him]. We had really good material and skis. And I had good shape today, but in the end of the last lap, I saw there was no chance. So then it was just to look behind and secure the third place. “

    Fourth place went to Russia’s Maxim Tsvetkov (+42.7), who cleaned the whole race and moved up from bib 28. L’Abée-Lund finished fifth (+45.2).

    US Biathlon’s Sean Doherty started the day in bib 14, and cleaned all his prone targets to stay in contention for a top 10. He missed a shot in each standing stage but still finished 17th on the day (+1:34.2), tying his second-best result of the season.

    “I’m really happy with today,” Doherty said. “I really had a goal in mind to stay in my own lane, on the range there. Skiing with these top guys, the pace is really high, so stay focused on my [shooting], and I did that well. I’m happy with how I shot and how I executed this race. I obviously left two in standing there, but those were just my mistake … Standing is usually stronger for me, but I was kind of pushing the limit, which you have to do if you’re still trying to make up some time on the range. So I was just a little hasty at times, and that’s just kind of my nature.”

    Doherty had the 23rd-fastest course time on the day.

    “It’s been a pretty lousy season in a lot of ways,” he said. “There were some good moments before Christmas, and it’s good to finish on a really strong note with Finland and with these races here. So I’m really happy about that – it’s nice for the body to be picking up. But it’s a little bit of a bummer that we are not going to Russia, because I’m starting to ski better, and really feeling like I’m in good form for some more racing.”

    Teammate Lowell Bailey started in 42nd and had two missed targets to move up to 28th (+2:07.2), thanks to the 19th-fastest course time of the day. For both him and Tim Burke, who finished 47th (+4:12.6) with four penalties, it was the last individual World Cup starts for long careers, as the U.S. is boycotting next weekend’s World Cup stage in Tyumen, Russia.

    Leif Nordgren finished 40th (+3:07.5) with four penalties, three of which came in the second prone stage. He had the 27th-fastest course time.

    “It was a really good race except for one stage,” Nordgren said. “That second prone stage set me back quite a bit. But I was really happy with my skiing today. [Ski speed] came just a couple weeks late after the Olympics unfortunately. I definitely feel a lot stronger now, and it’s too bad it’s the end of the season. But it’s nice to end on a high note. You don’t have to be pissed off all spring.”

    For Canada, Scott Gow finished 51st (+4:59.7) and younger brother Christian Gow 54th (+5:07.4) with five and two penalties, respectively.

    Results

  • Saturday Rundown: Pärmäkoski Beats Bjørgen in Falun 10 k Classic; Bolshunov Notches First Win

    Saturday Rundown: Pärmäkoski Beats Bjørgen in Falun 10 k Classic; Bolshunov Notches First Win

    The women’s 10 k classic mass start podium at 2018 World Cup Finals in Falun, Sweden, with Finland’s Krista Pärmäkoski (c) in first, Norway’s Marit Bjørgen (l) in second and Ingvild Flugstad Østberg (r) in third. (Photo: FIS World Cup Svenska Skidspelen/Facebook)

    FIS Cross Country World Cup Finals (Falun, Sweden): 10/15 k classic mass starts

    Women’s report

    Men’s report

    Day 2 of World Cup Finals in Falun entailed 10- and 15-kilometer classic mass starts on Saturday, and in the first race of the day, Finland’s Krista Pärmäkoski pulled out a thrilling finishing-sprint victory over Norway’s Marit Bjørgen.

    After American Jessie Diggins led early in the first 2.5 k loop, Bjørgen set the tone from the front for most of the race. With less than a kilometer to go, Norwegian powered up the final horseshoe-shaped climb in first, with Pärmäkoski and Bjørgen’s Norwegian teammate Ingvild Flugstad Østberg just behind her. The three had dropped the field while lapping through the stadium around the 7.5 k.

    While Østberg fell off the pace on that final uphill, Bjørgen accelerated as she took a few quick strides over the top, gaining a few meters on Pärmäkoski as they headed into the descent. The finishing stretch is long in Falun, and Pärmäkoski was able to come on strong just before she and Bjørgen entered the final 100 meters before the finish. There, Pärmäkoski’s double-pole speed not only matched Bjørgen, but beat her, as Pärmäkoski passed her with several meters to go and took the win by 0.2 seconds in 26:00.5 minutes. It was Pärmäkoski’s second win of the season and fourth of her career (including time-of-day pursuit stage wins).

    Just behind Pärmäkoski and Bjørgen, who congratulated each other immediately at the finish, Østberg finished 5.1 seconds back in third. Five women fought for fourth place, with Sweden’s Ebba Andersson taking it (+14.5) ahead of Japan’s Masako Ishida in fifth (+14.8), Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla in sixth (+15.2), Austria’s Teresa Stadlober in seventh (+15.4), and Diggins in eighth (+15.5).

    Norway’s Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen was the next finisher across the line in ninth (+24.8), then Finland’s Kerttu Niskanen in 10th (+26.2) and American Sadie Bjornsen in 11th (+26.3).

    Canada’s Emily Nishikawa was the next North American in 36th (+1:31.1), and she led her teammates Cendrine Browne, who placed 50th (+2:05.7), Dahria Beatty in 61st (+2:46.6) and Zina Kocher in 69th (+6:12).

    For the U.S., Sophie Caldwell finished 41st (+1:36.1), Rosie Frankowski 44th (+1:43.7), Caitlin Patterson 47th (+1:54.8), Ida Sargent 52nd (+2:10.2), Liz Stephen 54th (+2:20.0), Kikkan Randall 57th (+2:34.1), and Kaitlynn Miller 64th (+2:50.7). Rosie Brennan did not start.

    The men’s 15 k classic mass start podium at 2018 World Cup Finals in Falun, Sweden, with Russia’s Alexander Bolshunov (c) in first, Sweden’s Calle Halfvarsson (l) in second, and Italy’s Francesco de Fabiani (r) in third. (Photo: : FIS World Cup Svenska Skidspelen/Facebook)

    In the men’s 15 k classic mass start on Saturday afternoon, Russia’s 21-year-old Alexander Bolshunov notched his first-career World Cup win after reaching the podium seven other times this season (placing third in six of those seven races).

    Bolshunov hung in the pack and took the lead at the start of the final lap at 11.25 k, ahead of four of his Russian teammates, Alexey Chervotkin in second, Evgeniy Belov in third, Andrey Larkov in fourth, and Maxim Vylegzhanin in fifth. Behind them, Switzerland’s Dario Cologna skied just ahead of Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby and Canada’s Alex Harvey, who were among 29 skiers within four seconds of first.

    While Sweden’s Calle Halfvarsson led the final climb before the stadium, Bolshunov caught him on the downhill and out-double-poled him in the finishing stretch, taking first by 1.3 seconds in 36:59.8. Halfvarsson finished second and Italy’s Francesco de Fabiani scored his second World Cup podium of the season in third (+3.1).

    Kazakhstan’s Alexey Poltoranin missed the podium by 0.6 seconds in fourth (+3.7), Chervotkin followed in fifth (+5.2), ahead of Cologna in sixth (+5.6) and Italy’s Federico Pellegrino in seventh (+5.6), after they finished together. Sundby and his Norwegian teammate Niklas Dyrhaug also crossed the line at the same time in eighth (+6.3) and ninth (+6.3), respectively, just 0.1 seconds ahead of another one of their teammates, Sjur Røthe, in 10th (+6.4).

    Less than five seconds later, Harvey finished 20th (+10.7), ahead of Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo in 22nd (+13.6). Klæbo slipped out of contention on the third of four laps, as he dropped from fourth to 22nd in less than two kilometers.

    Canada’s Devon Kershaw finished 26th (+14.6) for his fourth-straight race in the top 30 (including his 26th-place finish in the Olympic 50 k classic mass start), Graeme Killick placed 41st (+1:13) and Julien Locke was 81st (+3:29).

    Erik Bjornsen was the top American man in 52nd (+1:47.1), Simi Hamilton finished 62nd (+2:06.4), Kevin Bolger was 69th (+2:27.1), David Norris 70th (+2:31.2), Scott Patterson 71st (+2:40.6), Paddy Caldwell 75th (+2:52.7), and Andy Newell 86th (+4:47).

    World Cup Finals conclude with 10/15 k freestyle pursuits on Sunday.

    Results: Women | Men

    ***

    IBU World Cup (Oslo, Norway): Women’s relay + men’s pursuit

    Women’s relay report

    Men’s pursuit report

    France won the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup women’s 4 x 6 k relay to start the day at Holmenkollen, ahead of Germany and Italy, while the Canadian women’s team (Sarah Beaudry, Julia Ransom, Emma Lunder, and Rosanna Crawford) placed 11th and the U.S. (Clare Egan, Susan Dunklee, Joanne Reid, and Emily Dreissigacker) came back from 21st to finish 15th.

    In the men’s 12.5 k pursuit that followed, France’s Martin Fourcade won his 10th race at Holmenkollen, putting himself 49 points ahead of Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø with three individual races in Tyumen, Russia, remaining. US Biathlon’s Sean Doherty tied his second-best result this season in 17th and his teammate Lowell Bailey raced up to 28th with the 19th-fastest time of day. Leif Nordgren placed 40th and Tim Burke was 47th, while Canada’s Scott Gow finished 51st and Christian Gow was 54th.

    Results: Women’s relay | Men’s pursuit

  • Dunklee Surprises Herself in 4th, Doherty Nabs Season-Best 14th in Oslo

    Dunklee Surprises Herself in 4th, Doherty Nabs Season-Best 14th in Oslo

    Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) racing to fourth in the women’s 7.5 k sprint on Thursday at the IBU World Cup in Oslo, Norway. It was her best individual result of the season by two places. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

    Susan Dunklee had been looking for something all season, a sort of spark. And while the U.S. biathlete hadn’t necessarily found it on Thursday, she had still pulled off fourth place in the women’s 7.5-kilometer pursuit at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Oslo, Norway.

    “I feel like right now I’m relying on good habits to carry me through the rest of the season,” Dunklee, 32, of US Biathlon, said in a phone interview on Thursday. “Normally you need more than just that, you need that spark.”

    The spark had fueled her to a silver medal in the mass start at last year’s IBU World Championships. It had helped her reach the podium in four individual World Cup races of her career, twice in second place and twice in third place. Thursday marked her third time placing fourth in a World Cup, and it was her best result of the 2017/2018 season after she finished sixth in a December pursuit in Annecy, France.

    Last year in Oslo, Dunklee placed seventh in the sprint. They year before, she finished eighth in the 2016 Oslo World Championships sprint at the Holmenkollen biathlon venue.

    The flower ceremony for the IBU World Cup women’s sprint on Thursday in Oslo, Norway, which American Susan Dunklee appeared in after placing fourth. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)

    On Thursday, she shot clean (hitting all 10 of her targets) and finished 35.7 seconds behind the winner, Slovakia’s Anastasiya Kuzmina, and 6.5 seconds out of third, which went to Ukraine’s Yuliia Dzhima.

    The race was Dunklee’s last World Cup sprint of the season, since US Biathlon (along with several other teams) is boycotting next week’s final World Cup in Tyumen, Russia.

    “I feel like that spark has been missing a little bit so I was really surprised to be able to put this one together,” she said. “But maybe there was too much spark, maybe I wanted things too much and now I’m finally kind of letting go a little bit and that’s what I needed to do all along.”

    A two-time Olympian who raced at five World Championships, Dunklee has been competing internationally in biathlon for the last nine years after a relatively late start in the sport. The daughter of Stan Dunklee, a two-time Olympic cross-country skier, she started skiing at age 2 but didn’t learn to shoot until age 22 when she joined US Biathlon’s development program after graduating from Dartmouth College.

    And despite currently being the veteran member of the US Biathlon women’s team, Dunklee said she still gains a great deal from her younger teammates. Clare Egan, 30, who switched from cross-country ski racing to biathlon five years ago, raced to a career-best 13th in last week’s sprint in Kontiolahti, Finland.

    “I was definitely inspired by Clare’s race last week,” Dunklee said. “I’ve never seen her so composed and confident out mixing it up with the top ladies in the field and that got me excited for the team. … I often feed off of other people performing well.”

    US Biathlon had another breakthrough on Thursday when Sean Doherty finished 14th in the men’s 10 k sprint later in the afternoon in Oslo. It was his season best as well and just one place short of tying his career-best individual World Cup result of 13th (which he achieved in a sprint during the 2015/2016 season in Presque Isle, Maine).

    “Sean just had his best result of the season today, so the whole team’s kind of rounding into form just in time,” Dunklee said of the season’s end.

    Slovakia’s Anastasiya Kuzmina racing to her fifth World Cup win of the season in the 7.5 k sprint in Oslo, Norway. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)

    Kuzmina, who won the women’s race in 21:31.8 minutes with one prone penalty (1+0), started the sprint a minute and a half behind Dunklee, who headed out of the gate in bib 10. Despite cleaning both stages, Dunklee knew she was in second on her final loop after hearing about the kind of race Kuzmina was having. The Slovakian posted the fastest overall course time to overcome her early penalty and beat Belarusian Darya Domracheva, who shot clean, by 8.9 seconds. Dzhima also shot 10-for-10 (as did the rest of the top-seven women) and finished 29.2 seconds off Kuzmina’s winning time.

    While Dunklee initially finished first and was bumped to second by Kuzmina just under a minute later, she knew there were plenty of later starters capable of strong performances that could bump her off the podium. Considering that, Dunklee, who skied the 18th-fastest course time and had the 14th-fastest range time, said she was “very happy” to finish in the top six and earn flower-ceremony recognition.

    Asked how she felt about the last races of the season, Dunklee said she was trying not to overthink it.

    “I’m not looking at it like this is the last sprint, I’m looking at it like, well, just one more,” she said. “I’m going to try to put everything I can into doing the best I can this weekend because there’s nothing else to save it for.”

    While Dunklee will start Sunday’s 10 k pursuit 36 seconds back in fourth based on her sprint result, her three teammates missed the sprint top 60 required to qualify for the pursuit. Egan finished 68th (+2:44.8) with three penalties (1+2), Joanne Reid was 75th (+3:02.2) with three misses (1+2) and Emily Dreissigacker placed 83rd (+3:24.8) with three penalties (2+1) as well.

    Meanwhile, three Canadian women qualified for the pursuit. Rosanna Crawford placed 38th (+1:51.8) with one standing penalty (0+1), Julia Ransom was 46th (+2:10.1) with one miss (0+1) and Emma Lunder in 57th (+2:28.2) with one penalty (0+1) as well. Also for Canada, Sarah Beaudry finished 84th (+3:30.7) with three penalties (1+2).

    Sean Doherty (US Biathlon) racing to 14th in Thursday’s 10 k sprint for a season-best individual result at the IBU World Cup in Oslo, Norway. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

    In the men’s sprint that followed, Doherty was one of nine in the top 14 that shot clean, and he finished 47.1 seconds out of first. Norway’s Henrik L’Abée-Lund won the race with perfect shooting for his first World Cup win with a time of 26:10.3.

    Four years ago, Doherty made his World Cup debut in Oslo, where he finished 82nd in the sprint. He explained in an email that he has fond memories of the venue.

    “The skiing on and off the race course is fantastic and it’s always a special atmosphere,” wrote Doherty, now 22.

    He started in the middle of the field in bib 53 and kept himself competitive with the race leaders with flawless shooting and the 33rd-ranked course time. His overall range and shooting times ranked 24th and 26th fastest, respectively.

    Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø, who started 30 seconds behind him in bib 54, went on to finish second, 6.1 seconds behind L’Abée-Lund. Bø led throughout the race even after skiing a penalty lap after his standing stage (0+1), but lost time to his teammate, L’Abée-Lund, on the last loop.

    “That’s what you hate, being in the lead after the last shooting and not in the lead in the finish,” Bø told German broadcaster ARD after in an English interview. “It’s not the best feeling, but I fought with what I had, just wasn’t enough.”

    “He was a great marker for me to chase,” Doherty said of Bø. “After cleaning heading out onto the [last] loop I knew I was having a good one.

    “I felt strong skiing today, which in turn helps your confidence on the range,” Doherty continued. “As for the good shooting I have been working on some good things in the days leading up to today and I was able to execute my race plan on the range as I wanted. Which I am very happy about.”

    He was pleased to put together a complete race in the last sprint of the season, especially considering how it sets him up for Saturday’s 12.5 k pursuit.

    “It feels good to end the season on some good momentum and it is fun to be towards the top of a extremely competitive field,” Doherty said. “Now I am just looking forward to the possibilities of the pursuit.”

    Henrik L’Abée-Lund (top) and his Norwegian teammate Johannes Thingnes Bø after they placed first and second, respectively, in the men’s 10 k sprint at the IBU World Cup in Oslo, Norway. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)

     

    In the pursuit, L’Abée-Lund will start six seconds ahead of Bø in second and seven seconds ahead of France’s Martin Fourcade in third. Fourcade placed third on Thursday, 6.9 seconds back, after shooting clean but falling and breaking a pole on a downhill.

    “I just tried to push one more time in the downhill to get more speed and I pushed aside my ski, I fell, I broke my pole, and I lost seconds for the victory today,” Fourcade told ARD in English. “It’s a good place close to Johannes [for the pursuit], but today wasn’t my time.”

    Austria’s Julian Eberhard, who placed fourth, just 0.2 second behind Fourcade, will start the pursuit at the same time as Fourcade.

    With one race to go, Fourcade leads the overall World Cup Total Score standings by 37 points over Bø in second.

    “It will be tough, it will be almost impossible,” Bø said of beating him. “Today I was ahead but I have to beat him in every race and actually make more points [than him].”

    A total of four American men qualified for Saturday’s pursuit, with Lowell Bailey finishing 42nd (+1:41.1) with two penalties (0+2)), Leif Nordgren 43rd (+1:43.3) with one miss (0+1) and Tim Burke 57th (+2:12.8) with four penalties (2+2). In his second World Cup start, Alex Howe finished 89th (+3:39.5) with four misses (3+1).

    For Canada, the Gow brothers qualified for the pursuit, with Scott Gow placing 49th (+2:02.1) with one penalty (0+1) and Christian finishing 56th (+2:12.3) with clean shooting. Brendan Green finished 71st (+2:31.3) with two penalties (1+1) and Macx Davies was 96th (+4:27.2) with four penalties (2+2).

    In the women’s World Cup Total Score, Kuzmina leads by just six points over Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen.

    “There is no special secret,” Kuzmina said of her five World Cup wins and Olympic gold (in the mass start) this winter. “It’s hard work before the season, good work together with my team, great support from my family and that is all.”

    Born in Russia and the sister of Russian biathlete Anton Shipulin, she said she’s looking forward to the Tyumen World Cup.

    “Tyumen is my home, where I was born, and I am really really excited for the time there and to see my family,” she said.

    Racing in Oslo continues with the women’s relay and men’s pursuit on Saturday, followed by the women’s pursuit and men’s relay on Sunday.

    Sprint results: Women | Men

  • Thursday Rundown: Dunklee Fourth, Doherty 14th in Oslo Sprints

    Thursday Rundown: Dunklee Fourth, Doherty 14th in Oslo Sprints

    American Susan Dunklee cleaning her second-straight shooting stage of the women’s 7.5 k sprint on Thursday at the IBU World Cup in Oslo, Norway. (Screenshot: ARD broadcast)

    IBU World Cup (Oslo, Norway): Women’s and men’s sprints

    Full report

    In her last International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup sprint of the season, Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) raced to a season-best fourth place in the women’s 7.5-kilometer sprint on Thursday at Holmenkollen in Oslo. Dunklee shot clean and finished 35.7 seconds behind Slovakia’s Anastasiya Kuzmina, who had a single prone miss (1+0) but skied the fastest course time to win in 21:31.8 minutes.

    Darya Domracheva of Belarus finished 8.9 seconds back for second place with perfect 10-for-10 shooting. The rest of the top-seven finishers also shot clean, with Ukraine’s Yulia Dzhima placing third, 29.2 seconds out of first and 6.5 seconds ahead of Dunklee.

    Rosanna Crawford led Canada in 38th (+1:51.8) with one penalty (0+1), and two of her teammates also qualified for Sunday’s pursuit by finishing in the top 60: Julia Ransom in 46th (+2:10.1; one penalty) and Emma Lunder in 57th (+2:28.2; one penalty). Sarah Beaudry finished 84th (+3:30.7; three penalties).

    Four Americans competed, with Clare Egan finishing 68th (+2:44.8; three penalties), Joanne Reid 75th (+3:02.2; three penalties) and Emily Dreissigacker 83rd (+3:24.8; three penalties).

    Sean Doherty (US Biathlon) racing to 14th in Thursday’s 10 k sprint for a season-best individual result at the IBU World Cup in Oslo, Norway. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

    In the men’s 10 k sprint that followed, Sean Doherty (US Biathlon) raced to his best result of the season as well, and was one place away from tying his career best, placing 14th with clean shooting.

    Doherty finished 47.1 seconds off the winning time set by Norway’s Henrik L’Abée-Lund, who notched his first World Cup win in 26:10.3. He also shot clean, while his teammate Johannes Thingnes Bø missed one in his standing stage to come 6.1 seconds short of winning at the finish. Bø finished second, while France’s Martin Fourcade placed third (+6.9) after shooting clean but falling on a downhill and losing valuable time.

    Doherty posted the 24th-fastest overall range time, 26th-fastest shooting time and 33rd-ranked course time. The 22-year-old New Hampshire native was one of nine men in the top 14 that shot clean. His individual World Cup career best is 13th, which he notched during the 2015/2016 season in a sprint in Presque Isle, Maine. His 14th place on Thursday bested his 17th-place finishes in a sprint and a pursuit earlier this season.

    Four out of five of the American men competing qualified for Saturday’s pursuit, with Lowell Bailey finishing 42nd (+1:41.1; two penalties), Leif Nordgren 43rd (+1:43.3; one penalty) and Tim Burke 57th (+2:12.8; four penalties). In his second World Cup start, Alex Howe finished 89th (+3:39.5; one penalty).

    Canada’s Scott Gow and Christian Gow qualified for the pursuit, with Scott placing 49th in the sprint (+2:02.1; one penalty) and Christian finishing 56th (+2:12.3) with clean shooting. Brendan Green finished 71st (+2:31.3; two penalties) and Macx Davies was 96th (+4:27.2; four penalties).

    Results: Women | Men

  • Sunday Rundown: Holmenkollen 30 k; Kontiolahti Mass Starts

    Sunday Rundown: Holmenkollen 30 k; Kontiolahti Mass Starts

    The Holmenkollen women’s 30 k freestyle mass start podium on Sunday in Oslo, Norway, with Jessie Diggins (l) in second, and Norway’s Marit Bjørgen (c) in first and Ragnhild Haga (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)

    FIS Cross Country World Cup (Oslo, Norway): Women’s 30 k freestyle mass start

    Full report

    Marit Bjørgen, the Norwegian queen of distance cross-country events, racked up another victory at Holmenkollen in the women’s 30-kilometer freestyle mass start on Sunday for her seventh win in the World Cup’s ultimate distance event at the famed Norwegian venue. (She had previously won in 2005, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2017).

    But she did so in not-so-typical fashion. Instead of breaking the field mid-race and skiing to a comfortable win, like she did in the last race of the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea (a 30 k classic mass start), Bjørgen came from behind to win Sunday’s Holmenkollen 30 k and wasn’t able to let off too much before finish. She didn’t take the lead until less than a kilometer to go and put just enough time into her competition to take the win in 1:18:12.4 hours, while American Jessie Diggins outlasted the chase group of three to place second (becoming the first American woman to reach the Holmenkollen podium), 3.6 seconds behind Bjørgen. Norway’s Ragnhild Haga edged Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla by 0.1 seconds for third place (+4.3), while Kalla settled for fourth (+4.4).

    The rest of the field was strung out, with Norway’s Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen finishing fourth (+11.5) and Ingvild Flugstad Østberg nearly another 1 1/2 minutes back in fifth (+1:39.5). Finland’s Krista Pärmäkoski placed seventh (+1:51.7), Germany’s Stefani Böhler notched eighth (+2:10.2), Austria’s Teresa Stadlober ninth (+2:10.2), and Sweden’s Ebba Andersson 10th (+2:11.9). Less than a second behind Sweden’s Ida Ingemarsdotter in 11th (+2:22.8) was American Sadie Bjornsen in 12th (+2:23.4).

    In the Distance World Cup standings, Diggins gained some valuable points to keep herself in third, now 63 points ahead of Pärmäkoski in fourth. Heidi Weng, who finished 18th on Sunday, still leads the distance standings by 104 points and Østberg is second, 51 points ahead of Diggins.

    In the Overall World Cup, Weng leads by 153 points over Østberg. Diggins is another 104 points back in third, 100 points ahead of Pärmäkoski in fourth. At World Cup Finals next week in Falun, Sweden, a total of 300 points is up for grabs for the winners (50 for freestyle sprint, 50 for classic individual start, and 200 for freestyle pursuit).

    The U.S. had three in the top 20 and four in the points (top 30) in Sunday’s 30 k, with Kikkan Randall in 19th (+3:21.9) and Caitlin Patterson in 28th (+4:13.1). Rosie Frankowski (Alaska Pacific University) missed the top 30 by about 28 seconds in 31st (+4:45.4), Liz Stephen placed 51st (+10:01.7) and Kaitlynn Miller (Craftsbury Green Racing Project) finished 53rd (+16:05.0).

    Cendrine Browne led four Canadian women in 36th (+6:16.1), Emily Nishikawa was 44th (+7:36.1), Zina Kocher (Foothills Nordic) finished 47th (+8:52.0), and Dahria Beatty placed 49th (+9:45.1).

    Results | Distance World Cup standings | Overall World Cup standings

    ***

    Germany’s Vanessa Hinz celebrates her first IBU World Cup win and podium in the women’s 12.5 k mass start on Sunday in Kontiolahti, Finland. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)

    IBU World Cup (Kontiolahti, Finland): Men’s and women’s mass starts

    (Note: This rundown has been updated to include comments from Lowell Bailey and Rosanna Crawford.)

    Germany’s Vanessa Hinz won her first International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup race (and achieved her first World Cup podium) and Austria’s Julian Eberhard won his first race of the season (and first mass start of his career) in the women’s 12.5 k and men’s 15 k mass starts on Sunday in Kontiolahti.

    Germany’s Vanessa Hinz celebrates her first IBU World Cup win and podium in the women’s 12.5 k mass start on Sunday in Kontiolahti, Finland. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)

    Hinz shot an impressive 20-for-20 with the third-fastest range time and fifth-fastest shooting time to take the win in 35:47.9 minutes. Third after the first prone stage, she moved into second, then third after cleaning the next two stages. After knocking down her final five targets in the last standing, Hinz left the range almost 24 seconds ahead of France’s Anaïs Chevalier in second and 26 seconds ahead of Italy’s Lisa Vittozzi in third. Hinz stayed ahead of her challengers on the final loop, finishing 13.5 seconds clear of Vittozzi, who claimed second. Chevalier finished third, 16.8 seconds back, while Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen was next across the line in fourth (+43.4) with a gap to Sweden’s Hanna Öberg in fifth (+1:02.1).

    Vittozzi and Chevalier both cleaned the first three stages then had to ski a penalty lap after the last standing bout (0+0+0+1). Mäkäräinen missed three (1+0+1+1) yet skied the second-fastest course time on her home course, and Öberg missed two (0+0+2+0). The fastest course time of the day was clocked by Darya Domracheva of Belarus, who had to ski five penalty laps (0+1+1+3) and ended up 10th (+1:18.2).

    “I always dreamed of shooting four times clean and today I did it,” Hinz, 25, said, according to an IBU press release. “I was so often close to the podium. I knew I could do it. Today, I said, ‘OK, let’s try it and if it works, it is OK … and if not there is another season waiting and other races.’ Now I am on top of the podium and it is crazy.”

    Vittozzi, who placed fourth in the mass start at the 2018 Olympics, was glad to improve on a third-place finish in Friday’s sprint by placing second on Sunday.

    “I have been third so many times and that was not satisfying for me,” Vittozzi said, one day after she won the mixed relay with her team in Kontiolahti. “Today I am very happy about my second place.”

    For Chevalier, it was her first individual podium of the season and it came a day after she and Antonin Guigonnat won the single mixed relay. Chevalier, 25, was severely injured when she was hit by a car last spring, according to an IBU press release.

    “I am very happy to be here today, because it was a very hard season,” she told the IBU. “I forgot how nice it is to be on the podium … I forgot that it was not easy, so I am very happy … I did my best on the last lap; [Vittozzi] was faster, but I am third and happy with that!”

    Canada’s Rosanna Crawford shot 19-for-20 to place 13th (+1:25.9) with her only miss coming in the second prone stage (0+1+0+0). Her overall shooting and range times were 10th fastest of the 30-woman field, compared to her 26th-ranked ski time. Crawford had been in 11th after cleaning the final standing stage, then slipped two spots to finish 13th in her second mass start of the season.

    “Since the skiing wasn’t feeling great today I made sure I was super focused in the range,” Crawford wrote in an email to FasterSkier. “I knew that was my only chance to get a good result today. My one prone miss was a bad trigger pull, but the rest were nice solid hits. I made sure to have a solid set up and then just trusted my rhythm and shooting.

    “I knew that I wanted that top 15, so I just kept fighting and trying to stick with the women when they caught me,” she wrote of her last loop. “The last time up the wall I managed to stay close to [France’s] Anais Bescond, and hold off the two people behind me. Really happy to be in the top 15 again.”

    Clare Egan was the lone American woman to qualify for Sunday’s mass start, and it was the second mass start of her career. She was on track for a top-15 result after missing just one target in the first three stages, but she had to ski three penalty laps on the last standing (0+1+0+3), which put her in 23rd by the finish (+2:05.6). Notably, she skied the 14th-fastest overall course time.

    “I didn’t have quite the same energy level tonight as the last two days, but I still had the 14th rank course time and that means anything is possible in the race,” Egan wrote in an email to FasterSkier. “To put it in perspective, the winner of the race, Hinz, had the 13th rank, just 2 seconds faster than me. This is the first time I’ve felt totally comfortable skiing with the fastest women, and I certainly hope I can maintain this speed for one more week of World Cup racing.”

    Egan was pleased with her 9-for-10 prone shooting and her clean standing stage (“which is the first time I’ve cleaned a standing stage in an individual race this entire year, believe it our not,” Egan wrote).

    “But when I missed my second shot on the final stage, I let that throw me off my game, and really blew the rest of the stage,” she explained. “It’s so hard to keep 100% focus in every scenario, and I find it gets harder and harder towards the end of the race when I’m not necessarily the most lucid. I know that I have to work on so I have a goal to manage the final stage better next week and in the future.”

    Her 23rd-place finish was one better than her previous World Cup mass start finish, which was 24th last season in Hochfilzen, Austria.

    “In my only other mass start, which was last year at World Championships, I felt like an imposter,” Egan reflected. “Maybe because I was the first ‘reserve’ to get called up when one of the top women [did not start]. But this was totally different. I knew I deserved to be there today and was confident about competing with the other top women.”

    “In my only other mass start, which was last year at World Championships, I felt like an imposter … This was totally different. I knew I deserved to be there today and was confident about competing with the other top women.” — Clare Egan (US Biathlon) on Sunday’s mass start

    While the women raced Sunday night, the men’s 15 k mass start took place in the afternoon, when Eberhard passed the likes of France’s Martin Fourcade and Russia’s Anton Shipulin after a tangle late in the race to take the win.

    The Austrian team celebrating Julian Eberhard’s fourth career victory, his first this season and his first in a mass start on Sunday after the IBU World Cup men’s 15 k mass start in Kontiolahti, Finland. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)

    The Austrian had cleaned the first two prone stages to move into third by the race’s halfway point, behind Germany’s Benedikt Doll and Arnd Peiffer in first and second, respectively. Eberhard missed one in the next standing stage, yet left the range in second, 15 seconds behind Peiffer (who cleaned) in first, while Doll missed one as well to slip into third, 19 seconds back.

    With two loops to go, Fourcade was coming back from two early prone penalties and found himself in fifth after a clean standing stage, less than a second behind Shipulin in fourth. On the next standing stage, Fourcade cleaned to take the lead and left the range about five seconds ahead of Shipulin (who also cleaned) in second.

    Eberhard missed one yet remained in contention in third, 17 seconds behind Fourcade. On the last loop, Shipulin caught Fourcade before the course’s notorious climb known as “The Wall”, and Eberhard closed on the two frontrunners as they ascended it. Still several seconds behind over the top, he caught Shipulin on the bridge before the stadium, but the two tangled skis and Shipulin fell. Eberhard stayed upright and pulled even with Fourcade, passing him to take the win in 38:04.8. Fourcade finished second (+6.9) and Shipulin third (+19.3).

    Austria’s Julian Eberhard (l) and Russia’s Anton Shipulin after the finish of the men’s 15 k mass start the IBU World Cup in Kontiolahti, Finland. Shipulin fell when his skis tangled with Eberhard’s. While Eberhard raced to the win, Shipulin placed third. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)

    “I wanted to be in a sprint with all three, but the bridge is too small for this,” Eberhard said, according to an IBU press release. “I came up the bridge with too much speed. Anton and I were in the same track and there was an accident. I apologized to Anton at the finish but he said these things can happen and it was OK with him.”

    “I hold no grudge against Julian,” Shipulin told the IBU. “This can happen in sports and is all fair … I am in good shape and want to preserve this and perform my best in the last World Cups.”

    Fourcade explained that illness caused him to sit out Thursday’s sprint, and he was only able to train three hours this week.

    “It is really difficult to race in this situation without any feeling or training,” Fourcade told the IBU. “I did not know what to expect today but I am quite satisfied. I would have liked to win, but I used too much energy trying to come back in the early laps and had no energy when it was time to attack.”

    Behind them, Doll picked off one place on the final loop to finish fourth (+21.9), passing his German teammate Erik Lesser, who finished fifth (+23.9). Peiffer followed in sixth (+27.1) as Germany had three in the top six.

    American Lowell Bailey raced to 14th (+1:06.3) with two penalties, both of which came in the standing stages (0+0+1+1). Bailey had been fourth after cleaning the second prone, 16 seconds behind Doll in first, but slipped to 10th after missing one on the next bout. He had to ski another penalty lap on the last stage, and left the range in 14th.

    Overall, Bailey posted the 10th-fastest shooting time, 15th-fastest range time and 18th-fastest course time.

    “I finally felt like I was back in the spot that I ended last season,” Bailey wrote in an email when asked about his consistency. “I felt controlled and able to keep the pace with the top of the field throughout the race.  It was nice to be back in the mix.

    “Although I would have liked to see this ski speed a few weeks ago, better late than never!” he continued.

    Next week’s World Cup in Oslo, Norway, will be his last of the season and his career.

    “After nearly two decades of international racing, Oslo will be my final World Cup as a U.S. Biathlete,” Bailey wrote. “I’m sure it will be emotional but I hope to end my World Cup career on a high note!”

    Results: Women | Men