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.
Olga Vilukhina won a silver medal in the sprint at the 2014 Olympics.
The Court for Arbitration in Sport (CAS) announced Thursday that three Russian biathletes implicated for doping at the 2014 Sochi Olympics had their lifetime bans overturned. The biathletes in question, Olga Vilukhina, Yana Romanova, and Olga Zaitseva were first handed lifetime bans in 2017 by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
The McLaren Report included information tying the three athletes to doping. The IOC subsequently ruled the three Russians had committed an ADRV, or anti-doping rules violation. Their individual and team results were nullified and they were banned from all future Olympic Games. All three skiers have retired.
In the case of Romanova and Vilukhina, CAS stated: “that none of the acts alleged to have committed by these two athletes had been established to its comfortable satisfaction and beyond the mere suspicion of a potential ADRV.”
Prior to the 2017 IOC penalty, Vilukhin won the 2014 Olympic silver medal in the 7.5-kilometer sprint. That medal was subsequently stripped. Thursday’s CAS ruling reinstated individual results from the Sochi Games for both Romanova and Vilukhina. As a result, the silver medal will be returned to Vilukhina.
Zaytseva’s penalty was handled differently. CAS ruled Zaytseva had committed an ADRV for both swapping her urine for clean urine and using a prohibited substance. CAS clarified that Zaytseva would not have a lifetime ban, but would be “ineligible” for the 2018 Games after Sochi.
Beyond having her individual results not reinstated on Thursday, CAS maintained the IOC’s 2017 decision to nullify results from any team including Zaytseva at the 2014 Games. Zaytseva had teamed up with Romanova, Vilukhina, and Ekaterina Shumilova to win silver in the women’s 4 x 6 k relay in Sochi. That medal was stripped in 2017 – CAS upheld that penalty. Zaytseva was also on Russia’s fourth-place mixed relay team.
Zaytseva won gold medals in the 2006 and 2010 Olympic relays and a silver in the 2010 Olympic mass start. Those results are not impacted by the recent CAS decision.
Russians Olga Zaitseva and Olga Vilukhina competing in the pursuit at 2013 World Championships. Both were disqualified from the 2014 Olympics by the International Olympic Committee, with a whistleblower stating that the biathlon team was doping in the years leading up to Sochi.
On Friday, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) posted the reasoned decision from its Disciplinary Commission, in which Russian biathlete Olga Zaitseva was disqualified from the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
Zaitseva’s disqualification had been announced previously, but this is the first full-length decision presenting the evidence for the disqualification of any biathlete. Olga Vilukhina and Yana Romanova have also been suspended, but the Oswald Commission’s full decisions for their cases have not yet been released.
The reasoned decision not only contains details about Zaitseva, but also additional information which should put the whole biathlon world on notice.
“Dr. Rodchenkov further states that the entire Russian biathlon team, including the Athlete Zaytseva, has been using the Duchess Cocktail before the Olympic Winter Games Sochi 2014,” paragraph 359 of the decision reads. “He also provided an email sent April 2013, whereby he raised concerns about the high levels of haemoglobin for the biathlete team that was detected by his laboratory.”
The Duchess Cocktail refers to a combination of performance-enhancing drugs designed by Rodchenkov, the former director of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory who assisted Russian teams in numerous sports to evade anti-doping rule violations before he became a whistleblower.
The Russian sports agency and the state security agency, FSB, developed a method to open anti-doping sample bottles. Using this method, they replaced the urine of athletes who had taken the Duchess Cocktail with previously-collected clean urine so that their doping would not be detected.
Thus, Rodchenkov is asserting that every Russian performance in the biathlon events at the 2014 Olympics was tainted by illegal performance-enhancing drugs.
This is notable because the men’s biathlon team, for instance, had not previously been implicated in doping scandal that has been raging for several years. Only the likely members of the women’s biathlon relay team – Vilukhina, Zaitseva, Romanova, and Irina Starykh (who was caught using the blood-doping drug EPO before the Olympics and suspended) – were on the “Duchess List,” a list of athletes presumed to have been given the drug cocktail. No male biathletes appeared.
However, it doesn’t seem surprising that they would, given that 14 cross-country skiers, virtually the entire Russian squad for Sochi, appeared on the list, as well as the female biathletes.
And that’s what Rodchenkov said, too.
“Dr. Rodchenkov… gives indications regarding the widespread use of Prohibited Subtances notably human growth hormones and EPO in the years preceding the Olympic Games,” another paragraph of the decision reads, referring to “members [of] the biathlon and cross-country skiing teams, for which the endurance is an absolutely critical elements.”
This raises the question of whether further action will be taken against more biathletes by the IOC, or by the International Biathlon Union (IBU).
The IBU has provisionally suspended the Russian Biathlon Union, but that actually has few consequences: Russia is still slated to host a World Cup weekend in March, Russian Victor Maygurov is still the First Vice President of the IBU, and all Russian athletes are still allowed to compete in the World Cup and the Olympics (Romanova, Vilukhina, and Zaitseva retired before they were suspended).
In the meantime, she has maintained her innocence. So has Wolfgang Pichler, the German coach who worked with the Russian women’s biathlon team in the four years leading up to the Sochi Olympics. For his troubles, he has been banned from attending the 2018 Olympics, where he would have coached the Swedish women’s team, which he now leads.
As the decision notes, Zaitseva and her legal team raised several objections to the case against her. She claimed that to suspend her was to pursue “collective justice” based on the widespread evidence of doping by Russia, rather than referring to any fault of her own. She also attacked Rodchenkov’s character, calling him an unreliable witness.
And finally, her team questioned the methods developed by Professor Champod at the University of Lausanne to detect whether anti-doping sample bottles had been tampered with.
That was wise, because the most damning evidence against Zaitseva comes from her sample bottles. Two of her sample bottles from Sochi had multiple marks on them consistent with tampering. In one of those bottles, the urine had such high amounts of salt that it is not possible that the concentration was produced by the human body. Together, these two pieces of evidence were used to argue that her samples had been tampered with.
According to logic used by the Disciplinary Commission in this and other cases, that tampering couldn’t have happened without Zaitseva’s knowledge. DNA testing showed that the urine in the samples was hers, which indicates that if the urine was replaced, it had to have been given by her at a different time. The Commission rejected the possibility that such a urine sample could have been collected without an athlete knowing its intended purpose.
But while two experts testifying on Zaitseva’s behalf criticized Champod’s methods as being incompletely described, they were unable to convincingly explain why their questions would absolve Zaitseva of blame.
“Neither Mr Alexei Bushin, nor Ms Evgeniya Burova did, in particular, offer any alternative explanations for the presence of marks consistent with the opening of the bottles with tools of the kind used by Prof. Champod,” the decision noted. “The IOC Disciplinary Commission finds this absence of alternative explanation even more significant in the case where one of the bottles not only bears marks strongly indicative of opening, but in addition contains urine with an abnormal salt content. Both elements support the conclusion that it was opened. The expertise of Prof. Champed convincingly demonstrates how this opening, which necessarily occurred, could be operated.”
This forensic evidence was used in the Commission’s decision that Zaitseva had violated the provision of the Anti-Doping Rules for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games which prohibits tampering with samples or with the integrity of the anti-doping process.
By doing so, they also found that she was complicit in a cover-up, thus breaking another provision of the Anti-Doping Rules.
In a strange aside, a urine sample belonging to Zaitseva but collected later, in October 2014, was analyzed in order to make a DNA comparison to the Sochi samples. What such a comparison actually revealed was that the October sample contained the urine of two different women mixed together, indicating that sample-swapping continued after the 2014 Olympics.
“This result does not concern the Olympic Games in Sochi and, as such does not fall within the scope of the application of the Rules,” the Commission wrote in its decision. “It however constitutes additional evidence that the Athlete was a protected elite athlete actively engaged in doping practices.”
The Commission also concluded that Zaitseva had used prohibited performance-enhancing drugs, on the basis of testimony from Rodchenkov.
“Use or Attempted Use of a Prohibited Substance can be established by any reliable means,” the Commission wrote. “This includes witness evidence.”
In an affidavit to the Disciplinary Commission hearing, Rodchenkov shared his own observations, many of which were based on detailed notes he had taken in a daily diary over the years. He also provided emails and documents related to Zaitseva and to the biathlon team.
“Dr Rodchenkov provides a list issued in October 2012 reflecting the clean urine bank existing at that time,” paragraph 358 reads. “The Athlete Zaytseva is mentioned on this list, with an indication that her urine was delivered to the Moscow Laboratory on 24 October 2012.”
“Dr Rodchenkov also recalled that in 2013 and early 2014 he had numerous conversations about the Athlete Zaytseva, as she was on a protected list,” another paragraph reads. “In autumn 2013, he took part to a discussion with the Athlete Zaytseva at the Ministry of Sports in Moscow. During this meeting the abnormal [Athlete Biological Passport’ data, due to her constant [performance-enhancing drugs] use, was discussed.”
And there was also evidence that Zaitseva was both doping, and also being tested more frequently than many other athletes, which is consistent with a previously-stated policy of the IBU to do “targeted testing” on athletes with suspicious biological passport profiles.
“Dr Rodchenkov specifically recalls swapping sessions of the Athlete’s numerous sample,” paragraph 361 reads. “Due to the intensity of the testing, Dr Rodchenkov underlines that they almost ran out of the Athlete’s clean urine. He remembers that the Athlete Zaytseva provided three plastic bottles of clean urine to freeze and store at the FSB and that additional urine had to be delivered.”
Zaitseva argued that Rodchenkov’s recollections and correspondence should not be used against her because of the illegal actions he had taken in the past. The Disciplinary Commission disagreed.
“Given the insistence of the Athlete’s attacks, the Disciplinary Commission will add the following,” the Commission wrote. “The Athlete refers to the past actions and behaviours of Dr Rodchenkov. In this respect, the Disciplinary Commission wants to be very clear in confirming that considering Dr Rodchenkov as a reliable witness is not in any way an approval of his past actions and his moral character. His actions, while being a director of the Moscow Laboratory, are despicable and inexcusable. This said, in a case of a conspirative scheme, the main evidence is often coming from participants, who accept to stand as witness.”
Anna Magnusson competing in the mixed relay in Östersund, Sweden, this season. The Swedish women’s biathlon team will be without its top coach at the 2018 Olympics. (Photo: Svenska Skidskyyteförbundet)
Wolfgang Pichler, the coach of the Swedish women’s biathlon team, will not be allowed to attend the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. The reason? He previously worked with Russian athletes who have now been convicted of doping violations.
The German rose to prominence as a coach when he led the Swedish team during the time of Magdalena Forsberg, coaching Anna Carin Zidek and Helena Eckholm as well. But he then left the team and decided to go to Russia.
An outspoken critic of doping who had previously called for the Russian team to be excluded from international biathlon for its raft of doping offenses, Pichler went there to clean up. He vowed to work with the women’s team, which he said had a lot of talent, and see what they could accomplish without performance-enhancing drugs.
Unfortunately, as the McLaren Report and now the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Disciplinary Commission investigations have revealed, doping did not stop in Russian biathlon after Pichler’s arrival and his public assertions about how his team would be run.
Several of his former athletes have been disqualified from the 2014 Olympics and all future Games.
Olga Zaitseva (RUS) gets encouragement from coach Wolfgang Pichler at 2013 World Championships in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic.
That includes Olga Vilukhina, who worked with Pichler at the beginning of his tenure before leaving his group and returning to Russian coach Vladimir Korolkevich.
Korolkevich had also coached several of the Russians caught doping in the past. Indeed, in the run-up to 2014, two of his athletes – Irina Starykh and Ekaterina Iourieva – were caught blood doping, in Iourieva’s case a repeat offense as she had already served a doping suspension. He is also now one of the current leaders of the Russian biathlon team.
Olga Zaitseva, who did continue working with Pichler through his entire tenure with the Russian team, was also recently disqualified by the IOC.
Pichler, who left Russia after 2014 and is now working with the Swedes again, has conceded that things may have happened behind his back. But he has insisted that he had no knowledge of doping among his athletes, and flatly disbelieves that Zaitseva was involved.
“I believe and say today that my team was clean,” he told Sport.de in January, also noting that he supported a ban on Russia competing internationally if the allegations in the McLaren Report were true: “If all that is true, as it has been said, then the Russians should have to take an Olympic break and be excluded.”
Wolfgang Pichler. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Whether he knew what was happening or not matters little. In its December 5 decision suspending the Russian Olympic Committee and mandating that Russian athletes compete in PyeongChang under the moniker “Olympic Athlete of Russia”, the IOC wrote that “No coach or medical doctor whose athlete has been found to have committed an Anti-Doping Rule Violation can be included on the invitation list” to PyeongChang.
That apparently includes Pichler. Reuters reported today that he will not be allowed to travel to the Olympics with his Swedish athletes.
“The Swedish Biathlon Federation still has strong confidence in Wolfgang, who throughout his career advocated for clean sport as an active leader, but accept and understand the IOC’s line that says that leaders who worked with Russian athletes who committed doping offences in conjunction with the Sochi Olympics in 2014 cannot attend Pyeongchang 2018,” the Swedish Biathlon Federation wrote in a press release, according to a translation.
According to Scandinavian media, the decision by the IOC cannot be appealed and the Court of Arbitration for Sport has no jurisdiction. It is not a doping case per se, and ratehr a decision by the IOC about who can be invited to its events.
This creates an unusual situation where coaches of athletes from other countries who have been suspended for doping, such as the coaches of Norwegian cross-country skiers Therese Johaug and Martin Johnsrud Sundby, Austrian cross-country skiers Johannes Düerr and Harald Wurm, or Slovenian biathlete Teja Gregorin, could be present in PyeongChang but Pichler will not.
“I was not involved in any way, not a single percent,” Pichler told Swedish paper Expressen, according to a translation. “It’s true. Everything may happen behind one’s back, of course, but I was not involved in any of it… No one is talking to me. None from [the World Anti-Doping Agency], none from the IOC. No one at all. There was no court process, no one has asked me questions or given me the opportunity to explain. What should I say? in my eyes, I am a victim, maybe a political victim.”
The young Swedish women’s team Pichler is heading may be the real victim. The women have had some strong results recently; 27-year-old Mona Brorsson was sixth in the Östersund 20 k individual, where Linn Persson and Sebastian Samuelson were fifth in the single mixed relay and the mixed relay team was also fifth. Last season, Brorsson, Persson, Hanna Oeberg, and Anna Magnusson were sixth in the women’s relay at World Championships.
“I will prepare the team the best I can,” Pichler told Expressen. “As usual, I will give 150 percent and during the Olympics I can also Skype with them.”
The Swedish team is looking for a solution so that the athletes also have a coach on the ground in PyeongChang.
Russia’s Yulia Tchekaleva (27) chasing during the women’s 10 k freestyle pursuit last March at 2017 World Cup Finals in Quebec City. She finished 23rd and ended last season ranked 10th in the Distance World Cup and 11th in the Overall World Cup. On Friday, the International Olympic Committee decided on a lifetime ban for Tchekaleva and another Russian cross-country skier, Anastasia Dotsenko, as well as Russian biathlete Olga Zaytseva. (Photo: Dustin Satloff/dustinsatloff.com)
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has handed down three more lifetime Olympic bans to two Russian cross-country skiers and a biathlete, all of which are women, based on the Oswald Commission hearings concerning Russia’s systematic doping at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
Russia’s Olga Zaitseva leads Canada’s Megan Imre in a 2014 IBU World Cup pursuit.
Cross-country skiers Yulia Tchekaleva and Anastasia Dotsenko and biathlete Olga Zaitseva have been sanctioned, according to an IOC press release on Friday.
“More hearings concerning other athletes will be held over the next few weeks,” the release stated. “As of now, the number of cases opened by the Disciplinary Commission has reached 36 after additional findings from the re-analyses.”
So far, 25 Russian Winter Olympians have been sanctioned for violating anti-doping rules in Sochi.
“As some investigations are still ongoing (notably the forensic analysis of the bottles), it cannot be excluded that there might be new elements that would justify opening further new cases. Today 26 athletes have been heard and one case has been filled,” the release stated.
While neither Tchekaleva nor Dotsenko medaled at the 2014 Games*, Zaitseva did — taking silver in the women’s relay. That medal was stripped earlier this week when her teammate Olga Vilukhina was sanctioned on Wednesday. Zaitseva, who retired in 2015, is a two-time relay gold medalist from 2006 and 2010; those results are unaffected.
Russia’s Yulia Tchekaleva racing at last year’s Davos World Cup in Switzerland. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Tchekaleva finished last season ranked 11th overall on the World Cup and 10th in the Distance World Cup. Now 33, she started this season a couple weekends ago at Sweden’s International Ski Federation (FIS) races in Gallivare, where she placed second in the 10 k classic and sixth in the 5 k freestyle. She hasn’t raced since.
Dotsenko, 31, hasn’t raced a World Cup since February 2016, but she also started this season in Gallivare (where her best result was 18th in the classic sprint), then raced another set of FIS races in Kontiolahti, Finland, last weekend, where she placed fourth and fifth place.
*At the 2014 Olympics, Tchekaleva and Dotsenko originally raced to sixth with two teammates in the 4 x 5 k relay, and the four team members received diplomas for that result, according to the IOC. Tchekaleva also placed 11th in the 10 k classic, 15th in the skiathlon, and 32nd in the 30 k freestyle mass start. Dotsenko finished 22nd in the classic sprint. All of those results have been erased.
Zaitseva notably competed in six Olympic events in Sochi: placing second in the women’s 4 x 6 k relay to take silver, and fourth in the mixed relay “for which she was awarded a diploma“. Individually, she finished 11th in the 10 k pursuit, 15th in the 15 k individual, 23rd in the 12.5 k mass start, 28th in the 7.5 k sprint. Those results are also voided.
Russia’s Anastasia Dotsenko (22) racing with (from left to right) Germany’s Sandra Ringwald, Norway’s Ragnhild Haga, American Sophie Caldwell, Norway’s Kathrine Rolsted Harsem, and Slovenia’s Anamarija Lampic during a World Cup classic sprint in February 2016 in Drammen, Norway. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Olga Zaitseva, Ekaterina Glazyrina, Olga Vilukhina, and Irina Starykh celebrate their IBU World Cup biathlon relay victory in Ruhpolding, Germany in January 2014. (Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus)
The International Biathlon Union (IBU) has received a list of 31 Russian athletes involved in doping, IBU President Anders Besseberg told Norway’s VG newspaper.
“Some of the 31 athletes are already banned, others have retired, but the most urgent thing is to assess the biathletes who are now participating in our international competitions,” Besseberg said. “I reckon that we on the board will make recommendations within a week… of those athletes who the Committee believes should be provisionally excluded.”
Some information about the athletes, however, can already be gleaned from the McLaren report.
For example, one document in the Evidence Disclosure Packet (EDP) failed to redact the names of four biathletes and replace them with alpha-numeric code identifiers. The four athletes were the planned roster for the women’s 4 x 6 k relay at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia: Olga Zaitseva, Olga Vilukhina, Yana Romanova, and Irina Starykh.
While the document identifying the women and their code numbers did not contain any evidence of doping, it means that any references to their code identifiers in other evidentiary documents can be connected to them.
For instance, such cross-referencing reveals that one of several samples deemed to be too dilute to be an authentic urine sample by the Drug Control Centre at King’s College London, used by the investigation for external analysis of suspicious samples, belonged to Romanova.
The team – with Ekaterina Shumilova replacing Starykh – won silver in the 4 x 6 k relay in Sochi.
Zaitseva retired after Sochi, as she had long planned to do. Romanova retired after the 2014/2015 season. Vilukhina took that year off and made an unsuccessful return last season, before announcing her retirement on November 14 of this year.
Nine other unnamed biathletes were shown in various documents to have tested positive for banned substances. In at least four of these cases, the results of the test were reported to the World Anti-Doping Agency’s ADAMS reporting database to be negative tests.
And at least 20 more athletes in the report belonged to biathlon, although in those cases there is no specific information about what substances they may have used.
Here is an extensive list of all the biathlon athletes mentioned in central documents from the evidence disclosure packet.
About the Documents
Professor McLaren (c) addressing the media after the his second report on systematic, state-sponsored doping in Russian summer and winter sports. (Photo: WADA/Twitter)
EDP1162 and EDP1149: Professor McLaren describes this document in his report: “Alexey Velikodniy created a daily competition schedule that identified protected athletes. The schedule was continuously updated during the Games and included all those on the Sochi Duchess List and athletes added during the Games, such as the female hockey team.”
EDP1149 includes English translation of the original EDP1162, and on page 44 of EDP1149 the names of the women biathletes are not redacted. Why redaction was successful in all other parts of the document, but not there, is questionable. Additionally, the document still seems to have been a planning document, as Staryk is still listed as competing in the relay even though she had long been off the Olympic team.
EDP1156: A list of sample numbers and collection during or immediately before the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, from protected national team athletes. Some data about the urine tests, like pH and specific gravity, are included, indicating that this was not merely a planning document but that the tests took place.
EDP1141: Results of a study done at King’s College London assessing whether the sodium concentration and specific gravity of some doping control samples were abnormal. (They were: in some cases, though none in biathlon, sodium concentrations were consistent with having added a teaspoon of salt to a one-cup urine sample.)
EDP1155: Translations of emails involving Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory who became a whistleblower and took his story to the New York Times.
EDP1166: A list of test numbers, mostly associated with athlete ID numbers, identified by the investigation. “The IP has identified more than 1231 samples where the Moscow Laboratory communicated the presence of a prohibited substance in a Russian athlete’s sample to the [Ministry of Sport] and later reported that sample as negative in ADAMS or did not report the sample at all.” This document lists those 1231 samples.
There are columns for which substances were positive in the sample (this column is often blank) and how the report was filed in the ADAMS database. Many samples were filed as “negative”, but this column is also often left blank. This may mean that the sample was never reported in ADAMS at all – as McLaren says was fairly common – or simply that there was no information about it.
In general, the investigation’s translations from Russian into English are not always smooth. This is particularly apparent in reference to competitions: the name or level of a series is hard to interpret. It’s possible that the anti-doping staff themselves were not familiar with the different race circuits because they were not necessarily biathlon experts, and worked more generally in all sports.
A further note: some documents are scanned and thus not searchable by text. Thus some names and numbers may be referenced in places where we have not yet found them.
The Biathlon Relay Team
A0944, Olga Vilukhina
Olga Vilukhina won a silver medal in the sprint at the 2014 Olympics.
Why do we know her name? Listed in position “1” on pages 44 and 45 of EDP1149, in the 4 x 6 k relay
Evidence of being a protected athlete? Yes, in multiple documents (although those documents may be redundant; without metadata, it is difficult to tell).
Evidence that positive tests were covered up? Maybe. In EDP1166, one of Vilukhina’s samples (2870741) is listed as being reported “negative” to the ADAMS database and referred to in a document titled (in Russian) “Biathlon 3”, indicating a date of 06.01.2014 for the sample. But there is no substance listed for this sample in EDP1166. Because this document was assembled to be a list of samples which were reported to the Ministry of Sport as being positive, it’s not clear what to conclude from this combination of facts.
Other tests? Besides that one sample, there are several other samples listed for Vilukhina: urine samples collected January 31, February 9, and February 16, 2014, and a blood sample collected February 15, 2014. While the urine samples are referenced in EDP1166, no substances were listed and the test does not seem to have been entered into ADAMS. February 9 was the day of the women’s sprint in Sochi, where Vilukhina won a silver medal. February 16 was the day before the women’s mass start, where Vilukhina placed 21st.
A0983, Olga Zaitseva
Olga Zaitseva blows kisses to the crowd as she brings Russia the gold in the Olympic biathlon relay in 2010.
Why do we know her name? Listed in position “3” on pages 44 and 45 of EDP1149, in the 4 x 6 k relay
Evidence of being a protected athlete? Yes, in multiple documents (although those documents may be redundant; without metadata, it is difficult to tell).
Evidence of positive tests? Maybe. In EDP1166, one of Zaitseva’s samples (2870735) is listed as being reported “negative” to the ADAMS database. But there is no substance listed for this sample or date of collection and it is not referred to in any other documents. Because EDP1166 was assembled to be a list of samples which were reported to the Ministry of Sport as being positive, it’s not clear what to conclude from this combination of facts.
Other tests? Besides that one sample, there are several other samples listed for Zaitseva. Around the time of Sochi, urine samples were collected January 31, February 14 and February 19, 2014, and a blood sample collected January 31, 2014. An additional undated urine sample is referred to in EDP1166. For these samples, no substances were listed and the test does not seem to have been entered into ADAMS. February 14 was the day of the women’s 15 k individual, where Zaitseva placed 15th, and February 19 was the mixed relay, where the Russian team including both Zaitseva and Vilukhina placed fourth.
A0714, Yana Romanova
Yana Romanova competing in Kontiolahti, Finland, in 2010. (Photo: Peter Porai-Koshits/Wikimedia/Creative Commons)
Why do we know her name? Listed in position “4” on pages 44 and 45 of EDP1149, in the 4 x 6 k relay
Evidence of being a protected athlete? Yes, in multiple documents (although those documents may be redundant; without metadata, it is difficult to tell).
Evidence of positive tests? The report from King’s College London indicates that one of Romanova’s samples (number 2889617, collected on February 2, 2014, just before the Sochi Olympics began, according to another document) was too dilute to be an authentic sample. In the report and the New York Times investigation, Rodchenkov described adding water or salt to samples that were being manipulated. The King’s College London test suggests that this may be one such sample.
In EDP1166, one of Romanova’s samples (2870745) is listed as being reported “negative” to the ADAMS database. But there is no substance listed for this sample or date of collection and it is not referred to in any other documents. Because EDP1166 was assembled to be a list of samples which were reported to the Ministry of Sport as being positive, it’s not clear what to conclude from this combination of facts.
Other tests? Besides those two samples, there are several others listed for Romanova. Around the time of Sochi, urine samples were collected January 31, February 2, 13, and 21, 2014, and blood samples collected February 14 and 15, 2014. An additional undated urine sample is referred to in EDP1166. For these samples, no substances were listed and the test does not seem to have been entered into ADAMS. February 14 was the day of the women’s 15 k individual, where Romanova placed 53rd, and February 21 was the day of the women’s relay.
A0856, Irina Starykh
Targeted testing based on data from the IBU’s Athlete Biological Testing program led to the suspension of Irina Starykh, above on her way to fifth place in the World Cup pursuit in Hochfilzen, Austria, in 2013, and another Russian biathlete for blood-doping. The IBU fined Russia for a cluster of doping cases.
Why do we know her name? Listed in position “5” on pages 44 and 45 of EDP1149, in the 4 x 6 k relay
Evidence of being a protected athlete? Yes, in multiple documents (although those documents may be redundant; without metadata, it is difficult to tell).
Evidence of positive tests? In EDP1166, two of Starykh’s samples (2870740 and 2870745) are listed as being reported “negative” to the ADAMS database. But there is no substance or date listed for either sample, and they are not referred to in any other documents. Because EDP1166 was assembled to be a list of samples which were reported to the Ministry of Sport as being positive, it’s not clear what to conclude from this combination of facts.
Other tests? No tests are listed for Starykh at the Sochi Olympics, because she was not there. However, there are five more samples of hers listed in EDP1166, for which no substances were listed and the test does not seem to have been entered into ADAMS.
Other Athletes with Positive Tests Described in Documents
Thirty-one other athlete ID numbers are associated with the sport of biathlon, and three additional mentions of biathletes which are not associated with any ID number. This means that they could belong to some of the 35 numbered athletes (the four named women plus the 31 unidentified, but numbered, athletes), or they could be completely separate cases.
Of those 31-34 other biathletes, here are the ones for whom positive tests for prohibited substances are explicitly mentioned in the documents.
A0241, female
Evidence of being a protected athlete? Maybe. This athlete was certainly competing internationally. By the time Russian anti-doping staff were discussing her case, she was in Ruhpolding, Germany, and then was set to travel to Antholz, Italy – consistent with the World Cup schedule – before checking into the Olympics. This plan does not seem to be jeopardized by her positive test, although the staff notes that she is at risk. After the positive test, Rodchenkov notes that “it is necessary to hide her immediately.”
Besides the four athletes named above, Shumilova competed in Sochi, along with Olga Podhufarova and Ekaterina Glazyrina. Several others were competing on the World Cup, but were unlikely to have been slated for Sochi participation because they did not have strong results so far in the season – the possible exception being Ekaterina Yurlova.
Evidence of positive tests? In EDP1166, this athlete’s sample (2866518) is shown as testing positive for methenolone, oxandrolone, and trenbolone, all anabolic steroids. The test was allegedly collected on 12.19.2013 in Izhevsk, Russia, at the biathlon championships.
How was the test handled? In the emails, which you can see in Russian here, this sample is given a “save” order, meaning that it should be reported as negative. And in EDP1166, the sample is shown as being negative in ADAMS. She may have additionally been quarantined: the anti-doping staff write in emails that if she was to be subjected to an international test (for instance, but the International Biathlon Union), she would certainly test positive and it would be “a very ugly situation for the lab if we ‘found nothing’ in such concentrations and for those substances.”
Other tests? In EDP1166, two of this athlete’s samples (2870746 and 2867708) are listed as being reported “negative” to the ADAMS database. But there is no substance or date listed for either sample, and they are not referred to in any other documents. Because EDP1166 was assembled to be a list of samples which were reported to the Ministry of Sport as being positive, it’s not clear what to conclude from this combination of facts. An additional blood test is listed in EDP1166 with no substances listed, and the test does not seem to have been entered into ADAMS.
Unnumbered Athlete, male
Evidence of being a protected athlete? No. The only other information about this athlete is that it was a man.
Evidence of positive tests? The emails refer to this athlete’s sample (2759623) being positive for 16a-hydroxyprednisolone (budesonide metabolite). Budesonide is a corticosteroid which is used in asthma medications such as Pulmicort inhalers, but it is also used in other forms: as pills, nasal sprays, and as a rectal foam to treat intestinal problems. The sample is written to have been collected on 11.1.2013 at in international competition in Ostrov, Russia. That day, IBU Cup sprints were held in Ostrov, with three Russian men (race winner Alexey Slepov, plus Sergey Korastylev and Sergey Klyachin) in the top six.
How was the test handled? There’s no information about how this test was handled. It is discussed in the email, but no conclusion is reached. It also does not appear in EDP1166.
Other tests? None listed.
A0028
Evidence of being a protected athlete? There’s no other information about this athlete.
Evidence of positive tests? In the emails, athlete A0028 is described as having tested positive for “methandienone circuit” at the Russian biathlon championships in Uvat on 31.07.2014. It’s unclear what “circuit” refers to – it may be an awkward translation – but methandienone is an anabolic steroid. In addition, the testosterone to epitestosterone ratio is listed as 6.2. A high ratio can indicate that an athlete was using exogenous testosterone, and a finding of a ratio above 4.0 triggers further investigation. The original email can be seen (in Russian) here.
How was the test handled? In the emails, the word “Quarantine” appears above the description of this athlete’s test results. This likely means that the athlete was kept in Russia until they could pass an anti-doping test. There’s no information about whether the test was reported to the ADAMS database or not.
Other tests? None listed.
A0179, female
Evidence of being a protected athlete? No. The only other information about this athlete is that it was a woman.
Evidence of positive tests? Document EDP1166 states that on 09.28.2014 at Russian biathlon championships in lzhevsk, a sample tested positive for isomers of amphetamines, which are banned stimulants. There is also discussion of the sample in the emails, with someone writing, “find out what she took!” The group seems to suspect that the substance came from a dietary supplement. The email (in Russian) can be seen here.
How was the test handled? In the emails, this case is listed with a “save” order: that means that a positive test should be turned into a negative one. Indeed, document EDP1166 states that this test was reported as negative to the ADAMS database.
Other tests? None listed.
A0461, male
Evidence of being a protected athlete? No. The only other information about this athlete is that it was a man.
Evidence of positive tests? EDP1166 shows that one of this athlete’s samples (2867705) tested positive for tuaminoheptane, a prohibited stimulant which is used in nasal decongestants. The emails (here) show that this sample was collected on 12.21.2013 at a Russian Cup race in lzhevsk.
How was the test handled? The emails are unclear, with someone writing, “and this one still does not have a decision (or I missed it).” However, in EDP1166 the test is listed as having been reported to ADAMS as negative.
One staff member, perhaps assumed to be Rodchenkov, writes this regarding the sample: “Alex, come on, I’ll close the whole shop… They are imprudent beyond measure… and then I will go to other laboratories after February 2014.”
Other tests? In EDP1166, two of this athlete’s samples (2918636 and 2870699) are listed as being reported “negative” to the ADAMS database. But there is no substance or date listed for either sample, and they are not referred to in any other documents. Because EDP1166 was assembled to be a list of samples which were reported to the Ministry of Sport as being positive, it’s not clear what to conclude from this combination of facts.
A0751, female
Evidence of being a protected athlete? No. The only other information about this athlete is that it was a woman.
Evidence of positive tests? EDP1166 shows that one of this athlete’s samples (2945500) tested positive for pthalates, which are plasticizers. They are prohibited because they are thought to indicate the use of blood transfusions, with the plasticizers being used to soften the plastic in blood bags and then diffusing into the blood. The emails show that this sample was collected on 09.28.2014 at Russian biathlon championships in lzhevsk, That email (in Russian) can be seen here.
How was the test handled? EDP1166 shows that this test was reported as negative to ADAMS.
Other tests? None listed.
A1244, male
Evidence of being a protected athlete? No. The only other information about this athlete is that it was a man.
Evidence of positive tests? The sample (2868394) is not listed in EDP1166, but only discussed in the emails (in Russian here). The emails refer to a positive test for trimetazidine, a metabolic modulator which protects against angina and heart problems, much like meldonium. According to the emails the sample was collected in Uvat at Russian biathlon championships on 6 April (assumed to be 2014).
How was the test handled? There’s no information about how this test was handled.
Other tests? None listed.
Unnumbered Athlete, male
Evidence of being a protected athlete? No. The only other information about this athlete is that it was a man.
Evidence of positive tests? In the emails, one of this athlete’s samples (2689927) is written to contain methylhexanamine, a banned stimulant common in dietary supplements (it is in fact the same substance which German biathlete Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle tested positive for at the 2014 Olympics). The sample was collected on 2012-12-17 at all-Russia competitions in Ekaterinburg.
How was the test handled? There’s no information about how this test was handled. In the emails, it is clear that nothing was done about the test until the following year (2013), but the final action is not discussed. It also does not appear in EDP1166.
Other tests? None listed.
Unnumbered Athlete, male
Evidence of being a protected athlete? No. The only other information about this athlete is that it was a man.
Evidence of positive tests? One of this athlete’s samples (2746493) is discussed in the emails as having tested positive for furosemide, a diuretic and masking agent. The sample was collected on 01/09/2013 at all-Russia competitions in lzhevsk.
How was the test handled? There’s no information about how this test was handled. Other than reporting the sample, there is no discussion of the test in the emails, and also does not appear in EDP1166.
Other tests? None listed.
Other Athletes Mentioned in the Documents
For the rest of the biathletes, sample numbers are listed in EDP1166, but no substances are listed and positive tests are not discussed described in any of the other documents. Because EDP1166 was assembled to be a list of samples which were reported to the Ministry of Sport as being positive, it’s not clear what to conclude about the samples.
Here is what we know about them.
ID Number
Gender
Samples reported as negative
Samples with no information about reporting
A0023
Male
2869722
A0136
Male
2870692
A0157
Male
2867964
A0201
Female
2869837
A0232
Male
2870747
2889906, 2890603, 2890739, 2944467
A0282
Female
2866843
A0321
Female
2868243
A0491
Male
2870733
857444 (blood)
A0508
Male
2868236
A0521
Male
2870742
857581, 857105, 857600
A0548
Female
2869752
A0567
Female
2867862
A0576
Male
2866527
A0579
Female
2870697
A0598
Female
2847214
A0639
Female
2869643
A0640
Male
2869203
A0687
Male
2867881
A0795
Male
2870739
2944657, 2890878, 2890855, 2889922, 2889808
A0804
Male
2869859
A0808
Female
2870743
857613 (blood)
A0930
Male
2870744
857573, 857440 (blood)
A0950
Male
2870748
A1031
Male
2869912
In addition:
A0142, male
Mentioned in EDP1166: Sample 2916590 is listed as having been reported as negative in the ADAMS database. There is no information listed about substances in the sample.
Other mentions: The same sample is described in an email which does not seem to have been translated into English. The sample was collected on 2014-07-17 in Toksovo, outside of Saint Petersburg.
American Susan Dunklee racing her way to seventh place in the World Cup pursuit in Kontiolahti, Finland. Photo: USBA/NordicFocus.
It’s not often in World Cup racing that the top five finishers are separated by two and a half minutes – especially not over just 10 kilometers – but once in a blue moon, that’s the effect the wind can have in biathlon.
Today’s gusty conditions in Kontiolahti, Finland, were just such a situation. In the women’s pursuit competition, Kaisa Mäkäräinen, racing on her home course, took a six-second lead from Saturday’s sprint and turned it into a one-minute blowout over Darya Domracheva of Belarus.
The listed wind speed of 2.7 meters per second at the start did not give an accurate picture of conditions, where large gusts could come from any direction and later die down.
“It was a bit luck of the draw if you would hit a calm note or not,” Canada’s Rosanna Crawford wrote in an e-mail.
“It shifted a lot from stage to stage how people moved up or down,” U.S. head coach Per Nilsson agreed. “In 20 seconds it shifted from okay conditions to really challenging ones. Many examples of this today.”
Mäkäräinen said in a press conference that she was “a little concerned about the wind” going into the race, but she managed to escape with just two penalties, better than most of the field.
In fact, the only one to outshoot her was Domracheva, who started in bib 20 but climbed all the way up to second place with a single penalty.
“I saw all of these girls on the penalty loop and knew there was a chance for the podium…I really tried to stay focused on the shooting range today,” Domracheva said in the press conference.
Olga Zaitseva of Russia moved from sixth place up to third with five penalties, 1:54 behind Mäkäräinen. Teja Gregorin of Slovenia was fourth, +2:25 with three penalties, and Tora Berger of Norway placed fifth, +2:38 with six penalties.
With the win, Mäkäräinen completed a sweep of all three competitions in Kontiolahti and extended her lead over Berger and Domracheva in the World Cup total score. Besides her strong shooting, she also had the fastest ski time of the day. Although she says that she has never performed her best in Oslo, where the World Cup is set to conclude next weekend, she seems set to continue her strong string of races.
The only woman who could come close to matching Mäkäräinen’s ski speed was American Susan Dunklee, whose split was just 0.3 seconds slower. Dunklee started the pursuit in eighth position, but moved up to seventh by the finish despite seven penalties.
“Extremely surprised,” was how she described her reaction to improving her position with so many missed shots. “I never would have guessed that I’d move up with seven misses. I would normally expect to be back in at least the 20’s. But because everyone else struggled so much in the shooting range, it worked out.”
The wind caused most of Dunklee’s misses, and she described the conditions as chaotic in a phone interview.
“My last standing stage for example, I came in and stood on the mat, and four or five girls in front of me were all standing on their mats and hadn’t taken a single shot yet,” Dunklee said. “They were just waiting for these gusts to calm down. Then I had to wait for a while. And then by the time I took that first shot, I was just so tense from overholding that I missed it, even though it had calmed down.”
Range times varied widely and were in general far longer than usual. Instead of shooting prone in 30 seconds, Dunklee took 40 and 43. That last standing stage was, instead of the usual 25 seconds, 49. And that took a toll.
“I’ve never had shaky legs before,” Dunklee said. “People talk about shaky legs in standing all the time, but I had never had that until today. You’re just standing there waiting to take the shot, and your body just gets tired.”
She ended up 3:01 behind Mäkäräinen, despite notching the best pursuit result of her career.
“Susan’s running is so good now,” Nilsson wrote in an e-mail. “And she is starting to get used to that! I think she will continue one more week with really solid results.”
Teammate Hannah Dreissigacker dropped from 41st to 49th with eight penalties, in her first appearance in a World Cup pursuit.
“The shooting was definitely rough for me,” Dreissigacker told FasterSkier. “It was pretty windy today, and I’m just not very good at shooting standing in the wind. I don’t think it was even super windy when I came in, so it was definitely also to some extent just me. But at least a lot of other people had rough shooting today, so I had company!”
Sara Studebaker, the third U.S. starter, placed 54th with four penalties.
For Canada, Rosanna Crawford started in 16th position and had an up-and-down race depending on the whims of the wind in each of her shooting staged. With a single penalty to start out, she moved up to 13th, before dropping into the mid-20’s and then climbing back to 14th. She finished the race out with three misses in the final standing stage, and placed 27th.
“I’m bummed with my last shooting, but the wind was howling!” Crawford wrote in an e-mail.
She also struggled with ski speed over the later stages of the race, although she did beat Franziska Hildebrand of Germany in a close finish.
“This is a tough course, and not one of my favourites,” Crawford wrote. “There’s one long climb that was made even harder today because you had to make a tight corner into it, that really fried my legs.”
After a long season with six of the best ten results of her career, Crawford hopes that she can keep up the good performances for one more weekend of racing.
“I am looking forward to Oslo and finishing the season strong,” she wrote. “Good shooting will be key in order to keep up these good results. Right now it’s mostly survival mode. Just 3 more races, then just 2 more then just one more then HOME! It’s been a long season and almost 3 months in Europe. I am glad we get to finish off in a great place like Oslo!”
Canadian teammates Zina Kocher and Megan Heinicke did not start the pursuit. Head coach Matthias Ahrens explained that both had sustained “minor injuries” in the sprint race and with bibs 54 and 60, it wasn’t worth starting the pursuit.
Hannah Dreissigacker shoots to a best-ever World Cup 28th-place finish. (Photo: USBA/Nordic Focus)
There was a gentle breeze and it was unseasonably warm when the women started racing this morning in Kontiolahti, Finland. The well-salted course was firm but very wet, with standing puddles in the snow that racers had to ski around. That didn’t stop Canada from putting three women in the top-30, including two in the top-15, and the US from putting two women in the top 30. Canada’s Megan Heinicke and the United State’s Hannah Dreissigacker were 15th and 28th, respectively, both posting best-ever World Cup finishes.
Finnish hometown-girl Kaisa Makarainen took first place in spite of one penalty in standing, out-skiing her competition and finishing in a total time of 20:36.3 on the 7.5-kilometer course. Russia’s Olga Zaitseva was second (+6.1) and another Finn, Mari Laukkanen was third (+22.7). Both women shot clean. Tora Berger of Norway was fourth (0+1), Russia’s Olga Vilukhina was fifth (0+0) and the Czech Republic’s Veronika Vitkova was sixth (0+0).
The Canadian squad showed strong depth, placing three women in the top-30 with two in the top-15. Rosanna Crawford was the top North American woman, finishing 1:05.8 off the pace to take 13th, with one penalty in prone. Heinicke was 15th (1+0) and Zina Kocher was 23rd (1+1).
Heinicke was relieved to have all the parts of her training line up on the same day, having just beaten a lingering post-Olympic cold and having not had her best shooting in a number of recent races.
“It was so much fun to feel strong again!” she wrote in an email. “I always tell myself that if I race like I train – just get out there, enjoy it and do my job – and everything will be fine, and that is what I was able to do today. My general feeling is: Thank goodness I finally pulled it together!”
Kocher was pleased with her performance, but had a bit of bad luck.
“Unfortunately I had the worst luck with the wind and had to wait for the gust to die because it was too strong. I hit four out of five prone but it wasted a lot of time.”
Though they didn’t rival their Canadian counterparts in the standings, the US team had two breakout performances: Dreissigacker’s best-ever World Cup finish in spite of one penalty in prone, and Susan Dunklee, just behind Dreissigacker in 29th, using her post-Olympic fitness to post her fastest-ever splits. Unfortunately, she was foiled by “extra mistakes” in the shooting, causing her to earn a penalty in prone and three in standing.
“I have been working on being more assertive in the aiming process by trying to use the bolting motion to land on the next target,” she explained in an email. “Unfortunately today I didn’t give myself time to fully settle the barrel on the target before taking the shot. It is a small detail to fix, but one that caused a some extra mistakes.”
Dunklee posted the second fastest course time, behind only winner Makarainen.
American finishers were rounded out by Annelies Cook in 75th (1+4) and Sara Studebaker in 80th (3+3).
World Cup competition continues Saturday with another sprint.
Susan Dunklee on her way to 16th place in the women’s 7.5km sprint in Ostersund. (Photo Credit: US Biathlon/Nordic Focus)
Conditions were excellent for racing this evening in Ostersund with mild temperatures and light winds. But perfect conditions demand perfection from those that wish to make the podium, and Noway’s Ann Kristin Flatland delivered, skiing and shooting her way to her second career victory in 21:41.2. In second place, Russian Olga Zaitseva also delivered perfect shooting to earn her a spot on the podium, finishing 15.9 seconds behind Flatland. Rounding out a good day for Norway, Tora Berger was able to chase down a podium spot after one missed shot in the prone stage, finishing 22 seconds behind the top spot. Yesterday’s winner in the 15km individual race, Czech Gabriela Soukalova delivered a solid performance to earn her sixth place with one penalty in the prone stage.
This victory is notable to Flatland as it is her first victory her pregnancy, giving birth midway through last season.
“It is of course very good for your self-esteem,” she said in an interview with the Norwegian newspaper NRK, “it shows that I have done a good job [of training] this summer.”
Flatland’s daughter and husband are with her Östersund, which makes it easier. She was so down at the end of last season that she considered retiring. A win boosts her confidence that continuing towards the Sochi Olympics was the right decision despite the huge changes in her family life.
“It’s been up and down in the fall, and there have been times when I’ve wondered if it was worth coming back,” she said. “… I showed that I can compete at the top with a perfect race. It has proven both to myself and those who may not have had faith in me, that I can do it.”
As for second-place Zaitseva, today’s result was an indication of more to come: “I am satisfied with my performance,” she said in an interview with Biathlon Russia. “I can say, ‘we are warming up.’ I always want to win, but I understand that the work is not done yet. Everything will be fine in pursuit.”
Ann Kristin Flatland (right) chases Olga Zaitseva in the 2013 World Championships pursuit, where both finished just off the podium. (Photo: Chelsea Little, FasterSkier)
Berger, last year’s runaway World Cup total score winner, said that she often has difficulty in the beginning of the season.
The top North American woman, Susan Dunklee, finished 16th with one penalty in the standing stage and a total time of 21:41.9, one minute behind first place.
“My shooting and skiing came together on the same day and that is a big confidence booster for me” Dunklee said of the day’s efforts, “popping a top 20 this early in the season is something I feel really good about.” Dunklee is optimistic about the coming days of racing, “later this weekend we have a pursuit based off of today’s results and there will be lots of great people to ski around – I’m excited!”
“Biathlon is very unpredictable sport,” Dunklee added in an email. “Every athlete on the World Cup is capable of ‘cleaning’ a race; we have all done it many times during practice. Even when we approach our races the same way every time, the shooting doesn’t always pan out due to any number of factors: wind, physical exertion, nerves, etc. It feels extra special when the pieces do come together on a race day.”
The top Canadian, and second North American woman, Megan Imrie, finished 22nd in 22:08.4, 1:27.2 behind Norway’s Flatland. This is Imrie’s third-best World Cup finish after two top-20 finishes in the 2011-2012 season, and a dramatic improvement over yesterday’s 85th place finish, where she had a disappointing nine penalties. Most importantly for Imrie, today’s result qualifies her for the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
“Biathlon Canada is not surprised that Megan was able to complete her Olympic qualification today,” Canada’s High Performance director, Christopher Lindsay, wrote in an email to FasterSkier regarding Imrie’s performance. “She has been training hard and her very strong performance in the WC1 Mixed Relay made it clear that she is ready to race at the top level. We are confident she will have more top 30 results this season.”
Rounding out today’s North American finishers were Canada’s Rosanna Crawford in 51st with three penalties, American Annelies Cook in 55th with two penalties, and Canadians Megan Heinicke in 56thalso with three penalties, and Zina Kocher in 64th with four penalties.
Crawford started strong, cleaning the prone stage, but had “a bit of a disaster” in the standing stage and missed three. Her total course time of 19:29 was 33rd in the field.
“I am glad that I still get to go to battle this Sunday in the pursuit!” she said of the day’s racing.
The final two North Americans were Sara Studebaker and Hannah Dreissigacker, both of the United States, in 71st and 93rd places, respectively. Both Studebaker and Dreissigacker were frustrated with their performances. Studebaker said that it usually takes her a few races get into race shape each season, adding that she was “pretty close to making the pursuit, so I hope to build on that and improve for next week.”
As for her race, Dreissigacker said that she was “sort of embarrassed, really. But at least everything was bad on the same day.”
Studebaker summed it up, “Overall, I think our team is in a good place and we’ll continue to improve as the season goes on. This is just the first week and the most important races are still a couple of months away.”
Let’s look forward to more exciting finishes like this one from last season in Ostersund, Sweden, where Martin Fourcade (FRA) played cat and mouse with Andreas Birnbacher (GER) in the last lap of biathlon’s 12.5 k pursuit before beating him to the line. Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus.
The IBU World Cup biathlon season kicks off on Sunday with a mixed relay in Östersund, Sweden. With everybody gearing up to have their best performances at the Olympics, it’s set to be an exciting season – and there are other unusual aspects, too. For instance Annency, France, will make its World Cup debut as the third venue the circuit travels to.
What about the racers? Here’s our breakdown of what to expect from the top four teams, listed in order of their combined men’s and women’s World Cup scores from last season. Stay tuned in the next few days for the rest of the teams.
Norway
At last year’s World Championships in Nove Mesto, the Norwegians won the mixed relay by 20 seconds, and it was no great surprise. Tora Berger was in the overall leader’s jersey for almost the entire season and took the title by a landslide; Emil Hegle Svendsen was in the fight for the men’s title all the way down to the wire, wearing the leader’s bib at times and ultimately finishing second. Both appear to be in good form already this year. Svendsen won a test race in Sjusjøen this weekend over a stacked field, and Berger had some shooting trouble but is certain to straighten that out before the season gets too far underway. She’s plenty fast.
Tora Berger of Norway medaled – gold or silver – in every race of last year’s World Championships, and dominated the World Cup Total Score. Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus.
On the men’s side, Norway looks even better than last year. Tarjei Bø, the 2011 overall World Cup winner, is back in good shape and was setting the pace in Sjusjøen; he struggled last year after missing a large chunk of the training season with illness, but managed a World Championship gold all the same. Ole Einar Bjørndalen didn’t always impress last year, but he also looks to be in better form, having won one of the Sjusjøen races and placed second in the other. The question is whether the 39-year-old can keep it together for a whole season all the way to the Olympics, but if anyone can do it, he can.
This year the national team went with a decision to favor youth over experience. It seems to have paid off: Vetle Sjåstad Christiansen was second in this weekend’s mass start, while World Junior Champion Johannes Thingnes Bø was seventh in both races in his first year as a senior. The move came at the expense of Lars Berger and Alexander Os, veterans who were left off the team and had to train on their own. But they seem to have weathered the storm; the pair were invited to Font Romeu, France, this fall by the Fourcade brothers. Berger was third in the Sjusjøen mass start and Os sixth in the sprint. They will both likely see World Cup starts as well.
On the women’s side, Synnøve Solemdal had a breakout year, winning her first World Cup race. But she had an up-and-down season, which may be partly attributed to her asthma; she says that she has now worked a lot on breathing techniques which help. Ann Kristin Flatland, a former World Cup winner, made her return partway through the season after having a baby, and is in good form again. Fanny Welle-Strand Horn broke into the top 10 for the first time and Elise Ringen and Hilde Fenne also provided support.
Russia
The Russian men edged Norway in the Nation’s Cup score with a variety of athletes who could hit the podium at any time. Anton Shipulin and Dmitry Malyshko each won two races, while Evgeniy Garanichev and Evgeniy Ustyugov were each twice second. Nobody can beat that depth in the men’s field, and yet Russia struggled when it counted: World Championships.
Anton Shipulin was Russia’s best performer at 2013 World Championships.
This past season, Shipulin was second in the mass start and third in the pursuit. Hardly bad results, but Russia expects medals, preferably gold, and preferably a lot of them. The pressure on the team for the home Games will be unbelievable. RBU Vice President for Elite Sport Viktor Maigurov told biathlonworld.com, “The Olympic Games is the competition, where only athletes with the best psychological resistance to stress and pressure, win. It will be twice as difficult for our biathletes to cope with this pressure, as these will be our Home Games.”
The men’s team, like Norway, has a few tricks up its sleeve to make it better than last year. Ivan Tcherezov, seven-time World Cup winner and one of the senior leaders of the team, is finally back in shape after a horrendous accident that resulted in a broken leg. And Alexander Loginov, a World Junior Champion, is coming into the senior field. He had a successful World Cup debut last season, placing fifth in the sprint and third in the pursuit in Oslo.
On the women’s side, it’s a familiar set of faces expected to be at the top. The Russian women’s team has been slipping a bit in the last years, with Olga Vilukhina and Olga Zaitseva leading the team in the Total Score in 12th and 13th. But each is more than capable to magical races and ended up on the podium several times last season. Zaitseva was practically guaranteed a medal in the World Championships pursuit, but was knocked down when Ann Kristin Flatland fell on the final lap.
Germany
Andrea Henkel en route to a podium finish last season in Ostersund. Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus.
Germany used to be the powerhouse of biathlon, and they can be again. But the team does not display the depth it once did: after veteran Andrea Henkel, who landed third in the Total Score, the next German was Miriam Gössner in ninth; the women nevertheless finished second behind Norway in the Nations Cup. On the men’s side, Andreas Birnbacher led the team in fifth and Erik Lesser was 16th, for fourth place overall in the Nations Cup.
For the men, Birnbacher confirmed his status from the previous year as one of the most focused and dangerous men in the field, winning twice and collecting a few more podiums. Lesser picked up his first two podium finishes; can he build on that this year? The biggest disappointment of the team was probably Arnd Peiffer, who lost his mojo after several excellent seasons. He seemed to be off to a good start in Sjusjøen, however, so maybe things are coming back together. Florian Graf and Simon Schempp provide relay help.
Henkel already seems on track for another excellent season, sweeping the Sjusjøen test races; she told FasterSkier in an interview this fall that she’s ready for her fourth and final Olympics. Gössner, meanwhile, has a tough road ahead. After her breakout season where she won three races (and also narrowly missed out on a medal at cross-country World Championships), she crashed her bike in Norway this spring and cracked three lumbar vertebrae. Franziska Hildebrand will replace her in the opening mixed relay. Germany also has high hopes for skiing Olympic gold medalist Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle and World Junior Champion Laura Dahlmeier, both of whom made their World Cup debuts last season with top-ten results.
France
When you think of France, you of course think of Martin Fourcade, who won the overall World Cup title last year over Emil Hegle Svendsen. Fourcade had nary a misstep the whole year; he was always in the fight, even if he didn’t win. It began to be unthinkable that he would lose, but he was eventually deprived on the biggest stage: World Championships. Unlike in 2012, where he swept the individual events, Fourcade won only the individual. Norwegians won the other three races. Fourcade has also been off to a tough start this year, bombing out of the Sjusjøen races.
Marie Dorin Habert of France competing at 2013 World Championships in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic.
He seems certain to bounce back, and his supporting cast, while overshadowed, is impressive. After all, France was second in the men’s relay at World Championships. Martin’s brother Simon Fourcade and teammate Alexis Boeuf also had individual podiums, while Jean Guillaume Beatrix was six times in the top ten. Fourcade told biathlonworld.com that he thought Beatrix and Simon Desthieux had improved the most this year; Desthieux made the case for himself with third- and sixth-place finishes in Sjusjøen.
The French women don’t get a lot of press, but that’s not fair. Marie Dorin Habert, the sprint bronze medalist from the 2010 Olympics, had three podiums and was one of the most consistent performers throughout the season; though she never won, she was always in the mix and finished fourth in the total score. Anais Bescond landed 17th in the total score, and Sophie Boilley and Marine Bolliet also had some good results. Marie Laure Brunet, who was bronze in the pursuit in Vancouver and once led the team, had a tough year and stopped her season short due to overtraining. She wrote a gut-wrenching blog post about how hard the decision was and her struggles to come back to top speed; hopefully she’s there now.
NOVÉ MĚSTO NA MORAVĚ, Czech Republic – Tora Berger of Norway took home the sixth World Championships title of her career in Sunday’s 10 k pursuit, which wasn’t all that surprising – the current World Cup leader started just six seconds out of the lead. But the rest of the race was more interesting – she lost the lead after the second shooting stage and didn’t regain it until the last lap. Then, Olga Zaitseva of Russia and Ann Kristin Flatland of Norway crashed, allowing Krystyna Palka of Poland and Olena Pidhrushna of Ukraine to snag the final medals. Here’s our race report; below are some images of how the race unfolded.
Sprint bronze medalist Vita Semerenko (UKR) leading Olga Zaitseva and Olga Vilukhina (RUS).
Olga Zaitseva (RUS) gets instructions from a coach as Krystyna Palka (POL) tries to chase her down.
Olena Pidhrushna (UKR) leading Tora Berger (NOR) on the first lap.
Miriam Gossner (GER) and Ann Kristin Flatland (NOR).
Tora Berger (NOR) leading Olena Pidhrushna (UKR) on the second lap as Olga Zaitseva (RUS) gives chase.
Veronika Vitkova placed 8th for the home team.
Russians Olga Zaitseva and Olga Vilukhina competing in the pursuit at 2013 World Championships. Both were disqualified from the 2014 Olympics by the International Olympic Committee, with a whistleblower stating that the biathlon team was doping in the years leading up to Sochi.
Elisabeth Hogberg (SWE).
Sophie Boilley (FRA) and Anastasiya Kuzmina (SVK).
Sprint champion Olena Pidhsrushna (UKR) was unable to handle the pressure and snag another gold.
Andrea Henkel (GER) at 2013 World Championships, where she took silver in the 15 k individual.
Olga Vilukhina (RUS) and Synnøve Solemdal (NOR) early on.
Norwegian fans were thrilled with Berger’s gold.
Veronika Vitkova (CZE), Jana Gerekova (SVK), and Magdalena Gwizdon (POL).
Tora Berger (NOR) leads Olena Pidhrushna (UKR) and Olga Zaitseva (RUS) on the second lap of the women’s 10 k pursuit at World Championships.
NOVÉ MĚSTO NA MORAVĚ, Czech Republic – On her best days, Tora Berger is perfect.
Today was not one of those days. The Norwegian, who leads the World Cup standings, missed three targets in the 10 k, four-stage pursuit, and had to ski three corresponding penalty loops. When she started, in bib two and just 6.4 seconds behind sprint winner Olena Pidhrushna of Ukraine, she was a favorite to take gold; by the time she left the third shooting stage that seemed unlikely, as she sat in third 23 seconds behind Olga Zaitseva of Russia.
“Before the fourth shooting, I was thinking that if I shoot clean in the last shooting, then maybe I would have a chance for a medal,” Berger said in a press conference. “I didn’t expect that I would take the gold.”
But the two women ahead of her, Zaitseva and Krystyna Palka of Poland, each missed a shot. And that gave the Norwegian, who is arguably the best standing shooter in the world, male or female, the opening that she needed.
“I saw that the first two had each had misses, and I knew that it was all on myself,” she said. “I hit all the targets, and then I went as hard as possible on the last loop.”
She left the range with a five-second lead on Palka, then skied the fastest last loop of anyone in the field to extend that to 18 seconds by the finish line. The usually reserved superstar could not contain her feelings, and was grinning from ear to ear with genuine happiness as she celebrated her gold medal – the second of this World Championships after she and her teammates won the opening mixed relay.
It was another success for the Norwegian team, which has rarely misstepped so far this weekend. Besides the mixed relay, Emil Hegle Svendsen has taken both men’s golds and Berger was silver in the sprint. After taking a day away from the stadium to do an easy classic ski tomorrow, Berger plans to be back in contention again in Wednesday’s 15 k individual.
“For me it’s most important that I try to do the best in all of the competitions,” Berger said. “And we’ll see after the Championships what that brings me.”
In Disastrous Crash, Medals Lost for Norway and Russia
Ann Kristin Flatland on the course’s first climb, before she lost the binding from her ski.
It was nearly an even better day for Norway – with a kilometer to go, Ann Kristin Flatland was locked in a battle for second place with Zaitseva. Both had passed Palka earlier on the loop. It would have been a storybook comeback for 30-year-old Flatland, who took last season off to have a baby and had just one penalty in the pursuit to move up from eighth position at the start.
But going around a corner, she and Zaitseva tangled. Flatland fell, taking out the Russian with her; Palka was able to fly past. Then Pidhrushna did, too.
“It was really shit – I don’t know what happened,” Flatland told Norwegian broadcaster NRK after the race (and after hiding from the press for a long time while she stopped crying and regained her composure). “It was a course that suited me well. On that last lap I felt so fit, like I was stronger than those around me.”
Indeed, Flatland’s skiing style is much like Svendsen’s – as her competitors skied up the hills in V1, she used her strength and power to V2 easily up the climbs. But she had even worse luck than Zaitseva, because when she crashed, Flatland’s binding ripped off her ski.
“I felt that time passed very slowly as I lay there,” Flatland said.
The team’s press coordinator, who watched Berger ski past and then wondered why Flatland wasn’t right behind, eventually found her on the trail and handed her a new ski. Flatland ended up seventh, over a minute behind Berger.
Zaitseva was able to get up more quickly, but the damage was done for her medal hopes as well. Although she was not hurt, she was unable to catch Palka and Pidhrushna, and finished fourth.
“Ann Kristin fell, and there was no room for me to maneuver in, so I fell too,” Zaitseva explained to the press. “She came up to me after the race and said she was sorry, and I understand that – it happens.”
Both the Norwegian and Russian teams filed protests about the accident – it’s hard to tell exactly what they hoped to accomplish – but withdrew them later, and the results stood as originally listed.
“Maybe we can play SingStar tonight,” Berger told NRK. “That’s at least one thing [Flatland] likes.”
Palka Capitalizes for Poland’s First Medal
Poland’s Krystyna Palka competing in Saturday’s sprint.
As Zaitseva and Flatland were trying to pick themselves up, Palka and Pidhrushna were carrying on their own battles – and wound up in the medals even though they weren’t necessarily expecting it when the left the range. Pidhrushna almost closed the gap to Palka, but the Pole was able to hold her off.
“Now we have medal from the World Championships for the women’s team!” Palka told FasterSkier as she waited for the press conference to start. “We have never had this.”
While Poland has had a World Champion before – Tomas Sikora won gold in the sprint back in 1995 – Palka indicated that there hadn’t been a medal for the women before. But the women’s team, which has seen several racers in the top ten on the World Cup this season, knew that it was possible one of these days. Starting with bib seven, Palka had her shot here in Nove Mesto.
“I know that we can really have some medals, and we were ready for this,” she told FasterSkier. “We have a lot of good competitions, but all the time we miss some shots or there’s something with the skiing. But we have a lot of chance for really good competitions, and finally I did this.”
She was helped along the course by the cheering fans, not only the rowdy Czechs, but also a large contingent from Poland; she said that it’s not so far to travel, so many came to see her and the other women race.
The World Championships medal adds another layer to Poland’s success in the nordic sports, and the biathlon team may be trying to emulate skier Justyna Kowalczyk. They aren’t so dominant just yet – but they certainly have more depth than the Polish ski team.
Pidhrushna leading Berger earlier in the race.
“We train alone as the biathlon group,” Palka explained. “But when I was a child I often had competitions with Justyna, and in school we were in one class together. We are friends.”
In the press conference, she struggled to describe what it meant to win a medal for her country.
“Today is a really special day for me,” she said. “It’s my first podium, and it’s at World Championships. That’s hard to say what I feel – I feel everything at once, all the time, I’m happy and I want to cry. I don’t know how to describe today.”
Pidhrushna also had conflicting emotions – she had been on track for gold at the race’s halfway point, but then missed two shots in the first standing stage.
“I think that was some internal pressure because I was leading,” she said through a translator in the press conference. “I was thinking about the second gold being possible, but I couldn’t cope with this pressure – I don’t have as much experience as some others. So I think that’s why I missed those two targets.”
She knew that her bronze medal today came at a cost to the other racers, too.
“After the last shooting I was skiing, and suddenly I saw two girls fall down on the track,” she said. “I went around them and was fine, so I was lucky today to get a medal.”
Despite the blown standing stage and the fact that her medal didn’t come exactly the way she would have hoped, Pidhrushna – who had never won a race before yesterday’s sprint, said she was still “happy” to be back on the podium.
Ekaterina Glazyrina of Russia and Andrea Henkel of Germany placed fifth and sixth after Zaitseva, capping off impressive runs through the field. Both hit a perfect 20 of 20 targets; Glazyrina moved up from bib 27 and Henkel from bib 33.
After Flatland crossed the finish line, Veronika Vitkova used the home crowd’s roaring cheers to propel herself past Vita Semerenko of Ukraine in a sprint finish for eighth, and Kaisa Makarainen of Finland rounded out the top ten.
On a day of consistently good shooting, it was skiing that ruled the day in the women’s 4x6km relay in Antholz, Italy on Saturday.
And even without retired star Magdalena Neuner, it is the Germans that jump to mind when speed and skis are equated.
Franziska Hildebrand got things started on the right foot, needing just two spare rounds to clean prone and standing, while posting the second fastest course time.
That was only good enough for third at the tag, with Poland’s Krystyna Palka shooting clean and skiing just as fast.
When Magdalena Gwizdon headed out on course for the second leg, the Poles held a 12 second lead on France and Germany.
Gwizdon maintained placing, but gave up the time with Russia’s Olga Zaitseva and Germany’s Miriam Gössner closing to within seconds.
Gwizdon and Zaitseva needed just a single extra round apiece, while Gössner used four, relying on exceptional skiing to close up.
This trend continued through the rest of the race — Germany consistently picking up seconds with their combination of good shooting and blistering times on the tracks.
Nadine Horchler opened up a gap on the third leg, shooting clean and skiing less than a second slower than leg leader Vita Semerenko (UKR).
Poland held on to the podium for one more leg as Monika Hojnisz used a single spare round, tagging in second, now over twenty seconds down.
That would be the end of an initially stellar day for the Poles. With just two spare rounds over three legs and six shooting stages, they were set up for a strong result, and victory was not out of reach.
The wheels came off however when anchor skier Weronika Nowakowska-Ziemniak imploded in standing to the tune of two penalty laps, dropping the team down to sixth.
Up at the front, veteran Andrea Henkel closed out for the winners, but not without some drama.
Needing three spare rounds to Russian Olga Vilukhina’s one, Henkel dropped nearly thirty seconds, and headed out on her second loop even with the Russians.
But the tables turned in standing, with Henkel using the single spare this time, and Vilukhina needing three. The German turned on the afterburners over the final kilometers, extending her 12.8 second lead coming out of the range to 17.4 at the finish.
France climbed up to third with Poland’s plummet, earning the podium spot with impressive shooting — the French women needed just four spare rounds over the entire day, often a performance worthy of victory. But the French did not have the skiing chops to back up their shooting, and settled for third.
Frequent podium contender Norway ended up with the wooden medal in fourth, undone by Synnoeve Solemdal’s penalty on the second loop.
Tora Berger made up two spots and significant time on the closing leg, but had too much ground to make up on the smooth firing French.
USA Strong in 10th
The American women, led by Sara Studebaker’s perfect shooting on leg 3 finished a season-best 10th, despite what Studebaker termed “not the best day for all our girls.”
Annelies Cook used four extra rounds and incurred a penalty on the scramble leg, leaving the U.S. in 14th headed into Susan Dunklee’s turn.
Cook had a good day on skis, posting the 7th best time of her leg.
Dunklee needed five extra rounds to hit her targets, but avoided the penalty lap. With the 10th fastest ski time, she moved the team up a spot before handing off to Studebaker.
Susan Dunklee on course (Photo: USBA/Nordic Focus)
Studebaker brought the team up to 11th, matching her perfect shooting with the 8th fastest leg time.
“I was really happy with my race today,” Studebaker wrote to FasterSkier in an email. “It was definitely nice to end the trimester on a really solid note. Shooting felt pretty relaxed today — I tried to focus on what I know works for me and be a little more aggressive than I’ve been the last couple races.”
She added that she “felt a lot better skiing” today, a positive sign after an up and down season thus far on the tracks.
Hannah Dreissigacker took over for the anchor leg in a virtual tie with Canada.
As Zina Kocher struggled on the range in prone for the Canadians, earning two penalty loops, Dreissigacker was solid with two extra rounds.
Three more extra rounds in standing did not derail the Americans, and Dreissigacker easily stayed clear of Kocher for the final result.
In just her second World Cup start Dreissigacker posted the 10th best ski time of her leg.
“Our goal for this season has been top-8 since we know when we have solid days together we can definitely do that,” Studebaker said.
Setting a season-best mark in the relay despite some subpar days leaves the team feeling confident with World Championships just around the corner.
“I think that gives us a lot of confidence that we can be up there solidly in top-10 and definitely can shoot for higher going into World Champs,” Studebaker said.
A single penalty in the final stage would have allowed the chasers to catch Olga Zaitseva of Russia. But the veteran carefully hit her targets, and skied off for her first win of the season.
The weather gods of Oberhof, Germany, had one last laugh on Sunday, as wind factored heavily in the fate of biathletes in the World Cup pursuits.
After notching victory in Saturday’s sprint, Miriam Gössner set out in a quest to win again – and make progress toward cathing Norway’s Tora Berger at the top of the World Cup rankings. The fastest skier in the field, she extended her two-second lead from the start and was the first to hit the shooting range.
But in her first prone stage, things went far from as planned. Try as she might, Gössner couldn’t hit a single target, and quickly picked up five penalties. While she has had a reputation in the past for squandering her ski speed by missing shots, Gössner seemed to be shooting more consistently this season. Then this.
“To me, I thought that no longer happens, but I guess I misjudged the wind,” she told biathlon-online.de.
She dropped to eleventh and ceded the lead to Berger, who had started second and cleaned the first stage. But when Berger entered the range for the second prone stage, she had a nearly identical experience: she entered all alone, but then missed four shots.
“I can’t remember the last time I shot so badly,” Berger told Norwegian broadcaster NRK after the race. “It was sad, but I guess I must have some bad days too. I don’t know what happened. The shots went to the right, so I guess the wind was somewhat different and I wasn’t able to read it properly.”
So Berger, too, dropped out of the lead.
That left the woman who had started third, Andrea Henkel. With clean shooting in the first stage and a single penalty in the second, the German veteran was able to take the lead, 17 seconds ahead of Russia’s Olga Zaitseva. Marie Dorin Habert of France moved into third, another ten seconds back.
Despite Gössner’s missteps – she had missed two more shots in the first standing stage – the Oberhof fans had something to cheer about. Henkel, who went to school there and is a hometown hero, skated into the stadium for her first standing stage hoping to turn things around for Germany.
Instead, she picked up two penalties. She didn’t drop out of contention, just into second behind Zaitseva, who had a penalty of her own. Henkel was down 14 seconds and hit the trail just ahead of Veronika Vitkova of the Czech Republic and Valj Semerenko of Ukraine, who had started 16th and 14th but each only missed one shot to gradually climb through the field.
On the last loop both caught Henkel, as did Ukraine’s Olena Pidhrushna; another chase pack loomed behind. With the top five women separated by less time than it takes to ski a penalty loop, the final stage was clearly going to determine the winner.
But Zaitseva did not cave under the pressure. The 34-year-old, who has twice won Olympic relay gold, carefully dropped all five targets and skied away as the others were taking their first shots.
“I think it was the final shooting stage both yesterday and today [that brought me success],” she said in a press conference. “I really concentrated on this both days; all during the loop before the last shooting, this was on my mind.”
As she skated off toward victory, Vitkova and Semerenko cleaned as well. Henkel had one penalty and Pidhrushna three, dropping them out of contention. The Czech left the range just under three seconds ahead of Semerenko thanks to her quick shooting, and held that margin to the end.
It was Vitkova’s first podium, and is helping the Czech’s assert themselves on the biathlon scene. Teammate Gabriela Soukalova had also never been on the podium before this year, but was in the top three in three separate races before the Christmas break, including when she won the sprint in Pokljuka, Slovenia. While Soukalova is sitting out this weekend of racing, she still helped Vitkova.
“The training that I did with Gabriela Soukalova” was why she could finish second, Vitkova said.
Meanwhile, Semerenko continued a string of success by her team this weekend after contributing to the winning relay effort on Thursday; the men’s team finished fourth on Friday.
“I am very happy for our team and all of the fans in the Ukraine,” she said. “Each good result is like a bit of sunlight for us each day.”
Berger managed to sneak into fourth despite missing a total of seven shots, while Darya Domracheva of Belarus was fifth with five penalties. Gössner finished tenth with ten missed shots.
She probably has the same feeling that Berger does.
“I think I’ll just forget this shooting as fast as possible,” Berger told NRK. “The positive thing is that I felt good physically.”
The lone U.S. racer to qualify for the pursuit, Sara Studebaker, did not start because she felt like she was getting sick.
For Canada, Zina Kocher had an impressive running, starting as the last woman in 60th place after a frustrating sprint but missing only four shots to move up to 34th. While four penalties isn’t usually impressive, given the blunders by almost every member of the field, it was a solid result. Megan Heinicke moved from 52nd up to 41st with just three penalties.
Bjorn Ferry of Sweden racing on the World Cup earlier this season. Photo: NordicFocus/Fischer.
Both Kaisa Makarainen of Finland and Björn Ferry of Sweden have won plenty of races before – including World Championships and Olympic gold, respectively.
But their win in the team competition of the Champion’s Race in Moscow on Saturday was almost certainly their most unusual.
For one thing, the pair teamed up despite their different nationalities, which is obviously not possible on the World Cup where they spend most of their time. Only at less strict competitions such as this and the Schalke Challenge in Germany are mixed teams encouraged.
More interestingly, though, Makarainen and Ferry didn’t exactly have the most conventional pre-race preparations.
“I didn’t expect to be able to win after a good time at a nightclub last night…. I allowed myself some white wine, so much so that I didn’t feel very good this morning,” Ferry told the Russian Biathlon Union. “It was quite tough.”
Makarainen racing Nove Mesto, Czech Republic in January. Photo: NordicFocus/Fischer.
Makarainen said that she had gone clubbing with Ferry because her plane came in late and “there was nothing else to do.”
Ferry later tweeted that the reports of him being hung over were exaggerated and that he’d mostly gone to bed “a little late.”
For biathletes, these races are something of a victory lap, so in a way it seemed appropriate that the athletes be rewarded for enjoying themselves. Even more so than for skiing, the IBU World Cup season is strictly structured, with nine weekends of racing, men and women racing three times each, and a long World Championships every year. Once the season starts, it’s an exhausting journey, and biathletes don’t have much time to dabble along the way, especially if they are concerned about the “total score.”
But now that the World Cup season is over, the athletes finally have a little bit of breathing room – and the chance to do more different races. Many countries have held their national championships in the last several weeks, and now venues in Russia are hosting competitions for the world’s best, luring them not only with the promise of fun but also substantial prize purses, in this case over $120,000 in total.
The invitation-only “Champions Race” featured an unusual format, and one completely different than in 2011, when it was held in an indoor stadium. This year, organizers trucked in snow to line 1.2 kilometers of paths in an outdoor park and set up a temporary shooting range outside. They may have regretted their decision when rain began pouring down Saturday morning, but fans were relatively undeterred.
Both men and women competed in mass start races, and then were allowed to choose partners for the two-person relay based on their order of finish.
In the women’s mass start, both Marie Dorin Habert of France and Olga Zaitseva of Russia shot clean, but Habert was able to ditch Zaitseva on the final lap and take the win by eight seconds. Four seconds later, Olga Vilukhina of Russia outsprinted Anastasiya Kuzmina of Slovakia for third place after each collected a single penalty.
Vita Semernko of Ukraine and Daria Domracheva of Belarus were fifth and sixth with one penalty apiece, followed by Synnøve Solemdal of Norway and Makarainen with three penalties each.
In the men’s race, all the competitors missed at least one target. Newly crowned world champion Jakov Fak of Slovenia took the win by eight seconds over Anton Shipulin of Russia, while the most exciting race was for third place a few seconds later. As they have so many times this season, Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen and France’s Martin Fourcade sprinted to the line, with Svendsen crossing first this time around. Ferry finished fifth and Andreas Birnbacher of Germany sixth.
The race that everyone came for, though, was the mixed relay, and the excitement began with the drawing of names.
Not surprisingly, Habert picked Fourcade as her partner; her French teammate won the overall World Cup this season as well as several World Championship titles. In addition, they had paired up for the win in Moscow last season.
“Last year I won the mixed relay at the Race of Champions with Marie,” Fourcade told the press. “Right then we decided that if Marie was invited back to Moscow we’d like to race it together… it was a joke!”
As the men’s winner, Fak chose Domracheva as his partner. The second woman, Zaitseva, chose Ole Einar Bjørndalen of Norway, joking later that she did so because “we are both kind of old.” Vilukhina chose Svendsen, allowing Kuzmina – a native Russian who switched her citizenship – to pair up with her brother, Shipulin.
“Ever since we heard of it, Anastasiya and I dreamed of winning the Champion’s Race,” Shipulin told the press.
But in the end it was Ferry who outsprinted Shipulin to the line by just a half second, leaving the siblings with silver.
“I fought like a monster on the last lap,” Ferry said. “I’m very happy to win.”
“He’s a real monster,” Shipulin agreed. “But next year I’ll avenge him.”
As for Makarainen, the win was both a surprise and completely fitting.
“I was expecting to have a lot of fun at the race, but not to win,” she said. “But when I paired up with Ferry, I realized we were going to win. I think it’s a good omen to be with the Swedes.
“Now we should convince the IBU to have a mixed relay on the World Cup, not just with mixed genders, but nationalities,” she joked. “Then I’d always choose a team of Swedish biathletes.”
24th-place Svetlana Sleptsova of Russia was lucky to start before things turned nasty. Photo: NordicFocus/Fischer.
This year’s World Cup biathlon schedule has presented a confusing dichotomy: it seems like races are either characterized by a lack or snow, or too much of it – sometimes at the same venue, just days apart.
While panning television shots of athletes racing along thin white ribbons in the woods has become all too common, so too have the fuzzy, gray screens where cameras struggle to pick skiers out through heavy snowfall.
The Nove Mesto stadium at the beginning of the race….
“We’ve had a lot of tough condition races this year,” U.S. biathlete Sara Studebaker told FasterSkier. “I like to think that it’s just going to make us tougher and better in the long run.”
Friday’s 7.5 k sprint race in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, was no exception. What began as a pleasant day turned into a blustery snowstorm as the first starters emerged from the woods the range for their prone shoot.
As more and more snow built up on the tracks, which at the start were “icy as a skating rink” according to American Susan Dunklee, the race turned into a nightmare – particularly for the latest starters, who weren’t able to ski even one loop on the icier trails. In addition, the wind became strong and variable, sometimes coming from one direction and at other points the complete opposite.
“You could get lucky and come into the range when there wasn’t too much wind, or you could come in with some big gusts,” Studebaker said.
… and at the end.
The women’s hair was visibly blowing in the wind, and many had to take clicks on their rifle sights as they hit the shooting mats, or sometimes even in the middle of their stage. A few had to stop and brush the snow off of their sights.
“I would not wish [these conditions] on my worst enemies,” said U.S. women’s coach Jonne Kahkonen.
Only one of the 92 women was able to drop all the targets, and that was Olga Zaitseva of Russia. In a sprint, which features two shooting stages for ten shots total, the number is usually much higher.
“I waited for the wind three or four times,” the Russian said in a postrace press conference. “On one shot, the rifle moved but it was a hit. I was the lucky one.”
In Zaitseva’s case, the old phrase “luck of the draw” held some weight. The Russian started with bib 13, and while she definitely encountered challenges on the range, neither her skiing nor her shooting included conditions as tough as those faced by later starters.
Berger pushing through for the podium. Photo: NordicFocus/Fischer.
Second-place Tora Berger of Norway started several minutes behind Zaitseva, but was still in the first third of the field. She was impressed with Zaitseva’s shooting, and not disappointed with her result given her two penalties.
“It was not easy to shoot,” she said. “The wind was so strong at times. It was not so bad when I was out there, but I think it was very hard for some of the late starters.”
Magdalena Neuner of Germany placed third, and remains atop the overall World Cup standings. With her victory today, Zaitseva passed Kaisa Makarainen of Finland to move into third place. Makarainen had won Wednesday’s individual, but today missed six shots, including all five in her standing stage [meaning that she “dirtied”], and still managed to finish 14th.
It was a good day for Russia, with not only Zaitseva’s victory but several more finishers in the top ten. Olga Vilukhina continued her best-ever season with a fifth-place finish, while Ekaterina Glazyrina improbably placed sixth despite starting with bib 55.
The North Americans were led, as usual, by Canada’s Zina Kocher, who finished 23rd. Starting with bib 29, Kocher had a decent first shoot, accruing a single penalty, but then a disastrous standing stage. She was left to ski three more penalty loops before heading to the finish.
“[It was a] definitely disappointing last standing,” she told FasterSkier. “I did what I could and went for it in standing, and then blasted out of there for a fast last lap.”
Neuner in the snow. Photo: NordicFocus/Fischer.
Her last lap was indeed fast – she ranked 12th over those 2.5 k and moved up ten places from when she had left the range. On the whole, though, Kocher was not particularly satisfied with her experience today.
“Today was an extremely gusty day in the range and on the tracks,” she said. “A preposterous day actually. I was lucky to have started when I did, as snow started to dump after I was finished and the track slowed down a lot for the other competitors.”
Even though Kocher, who had placed 15th in Wednesday’s sprint, was left looking for more, she has one more chance to get it in Nove Mesto. In Sunday’s pursuit, she will start almost two and a half minutes behind Zaitseva, but only 20 seconds out of the top 20 and one minute out of the top ten. With her ski speed and 20 opportunities for her competitors to make shooting errors, a lot is possible.
“For the pursuit Sunday, I will once again just focus on moving up the ranks with good shooting,” the Canadian said. “The trick will be mastering the wind if it is similar to today.”
After a career-best 20th place on Wednesday, teammate Megan Imrie slipped to 44th in the sprint on the back of five penalties.
She finished one place and three seconds ahead of Dunklee, who was the first American on the results sheet. Dunklee did her Canadian competitor one worse and missed six shots. Her prone stage was particularly rough; she racked up four misses only 2.5 k into the race.
“When I started the race, it was partly cloudy with a little bit of sunshine,” she wrote in an e-mail to FasterSkier. “When I came in for my first shooting, it had just started blizzarding.”
With bib five, Dunklee had some of the best luck of the day, but couldn’t capitalize. Still, there were several great aspects of her race – she had the 12th fastest ski time over the 7.5 k race. That included a fourth-fastest first lap, which Dunklee said was deliberate after she never found her zip in Wednesday’s individual.
“I did start today’s race fast because I wanted to feel like I was in the race right from the start,” she explained.
Like so many other early starters, she felt fortunate that she’d at least had the chance to excel, even if she didn’t have her best race. Some teammates, she said, had been doomed from the start.
Things turned blustery for Cook of the U.S.
“Today was a very complicated weather day, and that impacted much of what you see on the results sheet,” she said. “By the time the last starters got on course, they didn’t have a fair chance. They were plowing through centimeters of new snow and could barely see the targets.”
That group included Annelies Cook, who started with bib 71. Despite the poor visibility, Cook managed to hit seven of ten targets. And even though the tracks were slow, she placed 51st, good enough to qualify for the pursuit on Sunday.
“Had Annelies started earlier, she probably could have made points (top 40), but that’s racing,” Studebaker said of her teammate’s performance.
Studebaker will join the Dunklee and Cook on Sunday after finishing 54th with four penalties. It is the first time all season that three Americans will appear in the event, which includes only the top 60 finishers from the previous sprint.
“I had a rough standing stage, but in general I feel okay about my race,” Studebaker said.
The Idaho native has had several frustrating weekends so far this season, and has not shown the form that earned her four top-20 finishes last year. With the U.S. men having weaker performances in January than they had in December, Studebaker responded to questions about the team’s shape by saying that the main goal was to at their best in March for World Championships.
Neuner working on her rifle. Photo: NordicFocus/Fischer.
“For me, I know I’m not exactly where I had hoped to be right now, but I’m making slow improvements on the skis and am feeling confident that our plan, to be fast for World Championships, is going to work,” she told FasterSkier. “It’s for sure a bit frustrating for all of us after the season we had last year, but we’re learning to just evaluate ourselves on where we are, and looking forward. The big thing for us right now is to be making progress.
“Today was a better feeling on the tracks for me than Wednesday, so that’s an improvement, and I have to be confident that will continue.”
The final U.S. racer, Tracy Barnes, was literally one of the last women to start, and her 87th-place finish reflected her bad luck. By the time Barnes was competing, the weather was no longer merely bad, but had become dangerous.
“We couldn’t cool down on the warm-up loop due to the danger of falling trees,” Dunklee said.
While there have been plenty of storm-marred races in the last few years, Neuner of Germany perhaps summed up the Nove Mesto sprint the best.
“It was a crazy race,” she said. “We have seen some crazy days before, but this was special.”
The podium, l-r: Darya Domracheva (Belarus, 2nd), Olga Zaitseva (Russia, 1st), and Helena Ekholm (Sweden, 3rd). Photo: nordicfocus.com courtesy of Fischer USA.
Remember all those Russian shenanigans about firing coaches, during which Olympic biathlon gold medalist Olga Zaitseva abruptly announced her retirement in disgust?
It’s a good thing that Zaitseva returned to biathlon, because recently she’s been on a tear. The 33-year-old Moscow native picked up her first win of the season on Friday in a 10 k sprint in Hochfilzen, Austria, to go along with two podium finishes from last weekend.
She’s now finished on the podium four times in seven starts, and that’s the way she likes it.
“I would like to be on the podium in all races,” she said in a press conference.
Wouldn’t everyone? But part of Zaitseva’s confidence comes from working with the new coach, Wolfgang Pichler, who came in to head up the women’s team after a fairly disastrous 2010-11 season. Pichler had worked with the Swedes for over a decade, and launched the careers of Magdalena Forsberg, Anna Carin Zidek, and Helena Ekholm.
“With the training schedule of our coach, we know that anything is possible,” Zaitseva said. “We have seen what he has done with his athletes before.”
While many athletes her age would not necessarily jump on the chance to completely reconsider their training, Zaitseva, who won her first World Junior Championships medal in 1998 in Jericho, Vermont, seems enthusiastic.
The feeling was mutual: Pichler has said that he believes the Russian women are more talented than the Swedes, and likes Zaitseva in particular.
“Olga had a very good race,” he commented in a Russian Biathlon Union press release. “She demonstrated her professional level once again. Today was a great day! This result is a consequence of long and systematic work, which we did in the summer.”
Zaitseva missed a single shot, which was an accomplishment on a particularly windy day when only three women shot clean.
Behind her, two familiar faces rounded out the podium: Darya Domracheva of Belarus and Helena Ekholm of Sweden. But while neither was a surprise, it was for completely different reasons.
Domracheva has already won two World Cup races this season, and has consistently racked up some of the fastest ski times in the field. Today, she was twenty seconds faster than Zaitseva on her skis, but missed one more shot and finished fourteen seconds back. In the press conference, she stated that she is aiming for the overall World Cup title; she currently trails Germany’s Magdalena Neuner by 28 points.
Ekholm is no slouch on her skis, but more frequently shoots her way to the top. So far this season, she hadn’t been her usual sharpshooting self, but the Hochfilzen race was an improvement: like Zaitseva, she missed a single shot. Today was her first podium of the year.
“I have been very frustrated, especially last week when I was so close,” Ekholm said in the press conference. “[Today] I finally felt normal in standing. I have been struggling with my shooting this year; that is not a usual situation for me. This week, I worked really hard on my shooting.”
The 2009 overall World Cup champion finished thirty seconds down on Zaitseva. She was followed by the 2010 overall champion, Neuner, who had two penalties.
* * *
Out of all the North Americans, it could really only be said that one was thrilled with her performance. That honor went to Canada’s Megan Imrie, who despite windy conditions notched a career-best 25th place finish.
“Today was my best result ever, which is always exciting,” she told FasterSkier. “I commented before the race that these were my favorite conditions: challenging wind for shooting, and fast, warm, skiing conditions.”
While skiers might not find warm conditions to be the best, Imrie pointed to another consideration for biathletes: “When the temp’s above zero, my hands are the happiest of all- I can wear normal-person gloves, not massive insulated alpine ones, making shooting easier.”
Imrie missed only two shots, which was one of the things separating her from the rest of the North Americans.
“Hit targets were valuable today,” she said. “I made an error in my prone wind correction which resulted in two penalty loops. My standing was great- I was fully in control, and made a good lane choice (avoiding some high wind gusts) and just worked on one shot at a time.”
Imrie finished 1:41 behind Zaitseva, but only 35 seconds out of the top ten thanks to large gaps in the top finishers. As such, she’ll be right in the thick of things for Saturday’s pursuit, and she’s excited for the possibilities.
The 25-year-old said that her approach to racing this season was to keep things fun, and that seemed to have made a difference in her results so far.
“I have been focusing on fully enjoying each race, like just being the goofball I am in the start pen,” Imrie explained. “It relaxes me, and I’m able to have more clarity during the race.
“I’m easy to spot,” she joked. “I’ll be the one dancing around with huge mittens on.”
Imrie’s teammate Zina Kocher had a more disappointing race, missing four shots. Luckily, her usual quick skiing helped her to 50th place, and she will join Imrie in the pursuit tomorrow. Despite starting two and a half minutes behind Zaitseva, with clean shooting Kocher could make a splash – she had the eighth-fastest ski time today.
Rosanna Crawford, the final Canadian, missed three shots to place 73rd, and will sit out the rest of the weekend.
“Not a great day for me,” she tweeted following the race.
* * *
Annelies Cook in her first World Cup race of the year. Photo: nordicfocus.com courtesy of USBA.
If the Canadians had a single bright spot on the result sheet, then the Americans had none – or at least none that shone so strong.
The team qualified a single athlete, Annelies Cook, for Saturday’s pursuit, which takes the top 60 finishers. Cook was the last qualifier.
“I made it by the skin on my teeth,” she wrote in an e-mail. “I actually think it may have been my fast skis that got me into the pursuit! The course starts out rolling and then goes up a big climb and then is downhill with a small uphill before the finish. I think my split at the top of the uphill was out of the pursuit, so I am thankful for our good techs!”
It was Cook’s first World Cup race of the season; she spent the first two weekends on the IBU Cup circuit before getting exchanged for Lanny Barnes and Laura Spector.
“We want to have the athletes that perform to have a chance to show what they can also in the World Cup,” women’s coach Jonne Kahkonen told FasterSkier to explain the roster changes. “And also if the World Cup level is not there, the IBU Cup provides really good quality racing, so the train goes both directions.
“With this we also want to have the bar high enough for the athletes, so that they have to push hard to get there – even though we don’t have huge numbers, we want to create a competitive situation.”
Cook appreciated the strategy, and though she would have liked to have started the season on the World Cup, agreed that the progression was a smart decision.
“The first IBU Cup went poorly and I had to get my confidence back up,” she said. “My goals were not to be on the IBU cup but I also didn’t want to be racing at the World Cup and doing awful either. Last weekend [in Ridnaun, Italy] was awesome for me as far as skiing confidence went… that kind of feeling will keep you racing for another year.”
Dunklee, skiing fast. Photo: nordicfocus.com courtesy of USBA.
In the sprint, Cook missed three shots and had the 53rd fastest ski time; considering how great she felt, she said that she was disappointed not to have skied faster.
“But I really love pursuits and being in a race with people around me,” she said, looking towards Saturday.
Another inspiring thought? The only thing she can do is move up.
Susan Dunklee and Sara Studebaker, the two other Americans, struggled on the range and placed 71st and 72nd with seven and five penalties.
“The race for sure was not quite what we would’ve wanted today in the World Cup, but that’s biathlon,” Kahkonen said. “At the same time, I was pleased to see that both Susan and Sara are picking it up on the skis; Susan was less than a minute behind the fastest and Sara less than two minutes, for the first time this year. So, it is taking a bit longer but happening for sure.”
Dunklee had the 18th-fastest course time of the day, and beat 23 starters even though some spent literally minutes less time in the penalty loop than she did.
Olga Zaitseva blows kisses to the crowd as she brings Russia the gold in the Olympic biathlon relay in 2010.
At the end of the women’s relay at 2011 World Championships in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, star biathlete Olga Zaitseva abruptly announced her retirement, sending the biathlon world and the Russian team into a tailspin. As FasterSkier wrote at the time, Zaitseva was fed up with the Russian Biathlon Union (RBU), the politics, and the pressure associated with representing her country.
Since then, there has been much speculation about her possible return. Zaitseva initially stuck to her guns, citing not only her frustration with the RBU but her desire to spend more time with her young son. She felt that with so much training, racing, and travel, she was missing his childhood. Zaitseva repeatedly said that she had been considering leaving the team for some time, and that her announcement had not been a spur-of-the-moment reaction to the firing of her coach, Anatoly Khovantsev, in the middle of the relay.
However, at the end of last week she finally reneged and decided to continue competing through the 2014 Olympics in her home country.
“Skiing and shooting is all I know how to do,” she said in a press conference. “Because of that, it was easier to continue than to stop.
“The season was very difficult, and after its end I announced my retirement. This decision was not a hasty one, and I had been considering it for a long time. Then I took a break and talked it over with a lot of people, my relatives first of all. As a result, I have made a decision to continue my career until 2014.”
Zaitseva was encouraged by the hiring of Wolfgang Pichler to coach the women’s team. Pichler, a German who has for the last 16 years coached the Swedish national team, is one of the most admired and respected coaches in the biathlon world. He is outspoken and opinionated, confident in his techniques, and despises doping. A few weeks ago, FasterSkier covered his decision to switch teams, which, given his previous statements about systematic doping by the Russians, was somewhat surprising.
As soon as he was hired, Pichler began courting Zaitseva.
“She is an admirable athlete, a true leader,” he told sports.ru on May 1st. “And I really want Olga to continue her career. I’m even ready to make some concessions. Zaitseva has a child, and I understand perfectly well that she cannot be present in the training camp all year long.”
After meeting with Pichler and the other coaches, Zaitseva was able to work out a system where her training will differ slightly from the program and she will be able to spend more time with her son.
“My mom and sister help me,” the biathlete said. “Thanks to the team, we have full understanding and cooperation on this issue. Because a kid needs a mother- he even asked to be here today. He wouldn’t let me go alone. ‘Where are you? I want to be with you!’ I had to promise that I’ll be back soon.”
And she believed that bringing in Pichler was a good move for the whole team, not just because she now had a coach who would work around her needs.
“I see that the girls trust him,” she said in an interview with skisport.ru. “You know, it’s very important that athletes believe in the coach. In this regard, the team is now gripped by huge excitement. I think this should produce good results.”
Results are something to look forward to, as Zaitseva didn’t have her best season in 2011. She finished the year ranked twelfth in the overall World Cup standings, a drop of four places from the year before. The women’s squad as a whole underperformed, and their World Championships relay was the worst result in the history of the Russian team.
That team is real reason that Zaitseva, described by everyone as the leader not only in terms of performance but also emotionally, returned.
“One of the most important factors was my desire to mentor and support the up-and-coming and inexperienced stars, as I am the leader of the team,” she told RT, a Russian news channel, adding that she didn’t want to sound immodest but that it was the truth.
Zaitseva said that she knew firsthand how difficult it could be to lose a veteran teammate.
“This was the main argument, of the girls and leadership, and it settled the matter,” she said in the skisport.ru interview. “I remember how hard it was after Olga Medvedtseva retired. The team is looking for experienced athletes, so the younger ones feel more confident. The older athletes are more experienced, and they are someone to lean on. This has probably been the main reason.”
Her sister and coach, Oksana Rocheva, said that “Olga is really a very responsible person, always worried about the team than for myself.”
That’s why she will continue to put up with the politics of the RBU, which she still finds distasteful.
“I guess I’m somewhat of an idealist, so sometimes it is difficult for me to reconcile,” Zaitseva told skisport.ru. “Sometimes it seems like it just can’t be that people are kind and good, that it’s too much to ask for them to treat each other that way. But apparently, that’s just not how it works, and we have to accept it. Compromises are always necessary, and if you want to, anyone can find a common language.”
And so she did not apologize for her earlier announcement, and stood by her reasons for making it.
“I had thought about it for a long time,” she said in the skisport.ru interview. “Only in my plans, of course, would have gone more nicely.
“[My words] were provoked, it seems to me almost deliberately,” she continued. “After the finish, I wasn’t aware of anything. I was talking to a journalist, I answered him, and I heard what had happened [with Khovantsev] in front of the whole country. I was terribly disappointed, and tired, and unhappy. If we were talking at half an hour later, I would have behaved differently. What can you do? It happens.”
When FasterSkier last wrote about the Russian biathlon federation (RBU) it was in a state of crisis. In the middle of the women’s relay, the culminating event at 2011 World Championships in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, RBU President Mikhail Prokhorov had fired Anatoly Khovantsev, the coach of the women’s team. As soon as the race was over, star athlete Olga Zaitseva abruptly announced her retirement.
Since the fiasco in March, the federation has started to rebuild. While it has not named all of its teams for next year, it has introduced a new coaching staff and structure, in which both the men and women are split into A and B teams.
The women’s team in particular is the subject of intense speculation. The women had a very disappointing World Championships, with superstars Zaitseva and Svetlana Sleptsova failing to win a single medal and the team racing to a worst-ever relay result. Zaitseva is rumored to be considering a return to the team, but nothing has been finalized.
Perhaps the biggest question is whether the new coach of the women’s team, Wolfgang Pichler, will fit in and find success. A German who has worked for the Swedes for the past sixteen years, Pichler is undeniably one of the best coaches in the world. But Russia is unlike any other place, and Pichler – who in the past has angrily denounced what he perceived as systematic doping by the Russians – doesn’t even speak the language.
So why would he make the move?
“I have sixteen years of coaching with the Swedish national team, and I wanted a change,” Pichler said simply in an interview with Russian news site Sport-Express.
Abrupt Departure from Sweden
Pichler’s name has become synonymous with Swedish triumph on the trails. He coached Magdalena Forsberg to six World Championships gold medals and 42 World Cup victories, the most of any woman in the history of the sport. After her retirement in 2002, he was offered the head coaching position in Sweden.
“When I started, there was no base as far as biathlon was concerned,” Pichler said in a 2009 interview with Biathlon-Online.de. “But then a talent like Magdalena Forsberg appears, and no one could have expected that… she was simply a perfect biathlete. She had it all: she united the perfect shooter with a perfect cross-country skier. You find something like this once in a lifetime.”
Although Sweden has a strong cross-country skiing tradition, many people didn’t see a strong future for the country in biathlon after Forsberg’s retirement. They were wrong.
Helena Ekholm racing at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver
Under Pichler’s tutelage, Anna Carin Zidek (then Oloffson) won gold and silver at the Torino Olympics. Then in 2007, the team of Zidek, Helena Ekholm (then Jonsson), Bjorn Ferry, and Carl Johan Bergman captured World Championships gold in the mixed relay. Ekholm also won the overall World Cup in 2009.
In 2010, the Swedish team restructured, and Pichler was left in charge of only the women while Jonas Johansson took over the men. From its humble pre-Forsberg beginnings, the Swedish team had grown; the new structure reflected that change.
“I have worked close together with Wolfgang for many years,” 2010 Olympic gold medalist Bjorn Ferry told live-wintersport.com midway through his first season without the enigmatic coach. “It’s exciting to test something new. It was the right time for that.”
Soon, it was time for Pichler to test something new himself. On April 27th, he backed out of his contract with the Swedes, which ran through 2014, and signed a new contract to head the Russian women’s team for the next three years instead.
The timing was unfortunate as far as Sweden was concerned. With the training season about to start, they named Johan Hagström, their IBU Cup coach, as an interim replacement until they fill the head coach position. Since then training has begun, and the women are following plans drawn up by Pichler.
“It would have been much more of a shock five years ago, back then Wolfgang was biathlon in Sweden,” said Swedish Biathlon’s Information and Communication Director Patrik Jemteborn. “Of course it still is a big loss because he is a great coach, but now we have people who can absorb this to some degree. We will still be friends, with Wolfgang and with the Russians. There are no hard feelings.”
Many of the athletes conveyed a similar feeling to the public.
“It was a little bit of chaos now at the beginning because Wolfgang left so suddenly, but I am sure everything will work out fine,” Ekholm told IBU News.
Privately, however, Ekholm is said to be upset with how Pichler managed his departure from the team. And Zidek, who is in the process of deciding whether to continue her career as a racer, noted her frustration on her blog.
“I am perhaps a bit disappointed in how he handled the whole thing,” she wrote. “I had not heard anything about this until I heard it on the radio… especially after he was so disappointed in how he was treated by the men last year. It feels a bit like he did the same thing himself to us women.”
When the Russian sports site Championnat asked Pichler about whether he had discussed his departure with the Swedish team, he didn’t seem bothered.
“I was talking about retiring from the Swedish biathlon team,” he said. “In particular, I spoke about it with Anna-Maria Nilsson, who was the team captain. Apparently, Helena just didn’t know about it.”
Even Zidek, though, said she could see why Pichler would take the Russian job, as did many others in the biathlon world.
“I kind of understand,” U.S. Head Coach and native Swede Per Nilsson told FasterSkier in an interview last week. “Pichler, because he’s had big success in Sweden and many years… maybe it was time for him to move.”
Past Animosity with Russia
While the challenge of coaching a supremely talented yet frustratingly inconsistent group of women may be appealing to Pichler, the move to Russia is puzzling given his past relationship with the RBU.
For several years, Pichler – who is outspoken on many issues – very publicly accused the Russians of having a systematic doping program, and proposed severe measures to keep them in line. In 2008, he spoke as the representative of the national team coaches on the World Cup circuit.
Olga Zaitseva blows kisses to the crowd as she brings Russia the gold in the Olympic biathlon relay in 2010
“We have seen examples of suspended athletes coming back after two years’ suspension, pretending nothing has happened,” he told the International Sports Press Association on that occasion. “Or where their national team just presents new athletes that fill the positions. The rules are not strict enough and something better has to be done. Therefore we ask on behalf of the trainers and athletes, that nations which obviously are not afraid of cheating, must be punished.”
He proposed that if any nation had two or more doping cases in a two year period, the entire team should be suspended. At the time, the Russians and Austrians – who had a major scandal at the Torino Olympics – were the only teams such a rule would have affected.
Since then, the Austrians have cleaned up their act, but the Russians have not. In 2009, three Russian athletes – Albina Akhatova, Ekaterina Iourieva, and Dimitri Yaroshenko, all world champions – tested positive for EPO at World Cup races in Östersund, Sweden, prompting Pichler to speak again.
“We should keep the entire Russian team out of the World Championships and next year’s Olympics,” he told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. “I have always suspected that they were doing something. Three in the same race? It cannot be anything but systematic, and it has been going on for years. I think the whole team takes drugs.”
While Pichler worried that doping was a blow to the sport and that biathlon would lose the respect and interest of its fans, he also took the doping offenses personally.
“’I am quite sure that we have lost medals because they were doped,” he said in the Aftonbladet interview. “They were ahead of us in the mixed relay at the World Championships last year, for example. At the [2006] Olympics they were the second and we were fourth in the men’s relay. I can’t imagine that they were clean then either.”
Hit outspoken attitude rubbed off on his athletes; Ferry was widely quoted at the Vancouver Olympics as saying that dopers should get the death penalty, “or at least a lot of kicks in the balls.”
In 2009, Ferry and teammate Mattias Nilsson received death threats via e-mail from Russian IP addresses. In that case, Pichler defended his athletes and called on Russia and the IBU to protect the Swedish team at the season-ending World Cups.
“If the IBU does not ensure our safety, we will not be able to go to Russia to compete. We have several athletes who have a chance to win the World Cup, but security is paramount,” Pichler told German news channel ZDF.
Later that week, he claimed that a member of the Russian team staff attacked him in the VIP tent at a race.
“[Pichler] has always been against our team for some reason,” RBU Press Attaché Dmitry Loyev told Russian news channel RT at the time.
Integrating Into The Culture
These days, the attitude toward the German could not be more different.
“Today we rely on the experience of a world-class coach who has achieved huge success on the international level,” Prokhorov, the IBU President, told the International Biathlon Union in introducing the new coaching staff. “We have a huge desire to win, that’s why we’re making these changes. We want the best specialists to work for Russian biathlon and we will not back out of this strategy.”
And Pichler has warmed to his new colleagues as well.
“Russia isn’t a bad nation and I think the new leadership is a good one to cooperate with,” he told the IBU. “The team has huge potential, but of course we have to work hard.”
One of the things that the women had complained about in Khovantsev, last year’s coach, was that they did not work hard enough. They are definitely in for a change with Pichler, who has a reputation as a task-master.
“Now the Russians find out what training is,” Zidek wrote on her blog. “There are no shortcuts allowed.”
Pichler himself told Russian sports site Championnat that not all of the Russian women would be able to keep up with the training he had planned for them. He also spoke of making adjustments in the women’s diets, saying that weight loss would be a large goal of his program.
The German has said that he is too old to learn Russian, and will communicate with athletes through a translator. He coached the Swedes primarily from his home in Ruhpolding, so communication barriers obviously don’t intimidate Pichler, but it will be an added difficulty as he integrates himself into the culture of the program.
To ease the transition and attempt to smooth over any past animosity, Pichler has backpedaled on his doping comments, saying only that there will be no doping in his program.
“I will do everything to fight against doping,” he told Championnat. “It’s a disaster, when the athletes use illicit drugs. It poisons the sport. We will fight for medals only the honest way. When people see that we work hard and have good results, then they will treat us accordingly.”
Many of the athletes he is now coaching were part of the Russian teams which he indicted in his statements in 2008 and 2009, but only one of the banned athletes was hoping to work with Pichler this season. Iourieva returned to competition partway through the 2010-2011 season after serving her two-year suspension; she competed in the two World Cup weekends in northern Maine, where her best finish was 22nd place.
For Pichler, that wasn’t good enough, and he didn’t name her to the national team A squad.
“Everybody has made mistakes in their lives, and I am no exception,” he told sports.ru. “Iourieva has already served her punishment. My personal attitude to her doesn’t matter now… Have you seen her results this year? In my opinion, they are not good enough to speak about the national team. In any case, the road to the team is not closed for anybody.”
This was a sentiment he conveyed again in again in numerous interviews: Pichler will work with anyone, young or old, doped or not, famous or unknown, to try to make the Russians the best team in the world.
“Russia is not so bad, you have a lot of good biathletes,” Pichler told Sport-Express. “We will try as quickly as possible to create a strong team. And we must always give chance to young talents. For sure we will work with a wide range of people. The most important thing is to send to the start line at the Olympic Games in Sochi, the best team.”
On March 11th, Olga Zaitseva’s future in biathlon appeared, to all outsiders, to be bright. After competing in four events at World Championships, only the mass start and relay remained, both events in which Zaitseva had won gold in the past. She had also been elected to the International Biathlon Union’s Athlete’s Committee by her peers. With only two men and two women on the committee, it was an honor.
As the weekend progressed, things seemed to be going according to plan: the next day, a Saturday, she placed sixth in the mass start. It wasn’t the best finish for the Russian, who has won two Olympic relays, owns eight World Championships medals, and received the Order of Friendship from President Dimitri Medvedev last year, but it wasn’t a disaster.
By Sunday, however, things were falling apart. After two terrible relay legs by the Russian women, in which both Ekaterina Yurlova and Anna Bogliy-Titovets hit the penalty loop three times, and the team was in 19th place. (In relays, athletes are allowed to hand-load three extra rounds in each shooting stage to hit the targets, so penalty loops are unusual; Bogaliy-Titovets was later seen in tears.)
That’s when the changes began, for both Zaitseva and the entire Russian biathlon world.
While Svetlana Sleptsova dragged the team up to 14th place during the relay’s third leg, Mikhail Prokhorov, the billionaire head of the Russian Biathlon Union (RBU) who also owns the New Jersey Nets, fired team coach Anatoly Khovantsev, who had been working with the women for less than a year.
After racing the third-fastest anchor leg and pulling the team into ninth place, Zaitseva abruptly announced that she was retiring. The claim rippled through the Russian media; nobody was sure whether to take her seriously or not.
The Moscow News reported a few days later that Russian biathlon fans wanted Prokhorov’s head on a plate. But while both the firing and Zaitseva’s retirement were assumed to be hasty decisions, the coach and the star seem to be gone for good.
Both the relay result, which was the worst ever by the Russian women, and the personnel changes have brought to the fore questions that had been trickling though the Russian media all year, mainly these: how was the team being run, and why weren’t the athletes faster?
A Lack of Organization
For Zaitseva, her coach’s dismissal was the straw that broke the camel’s back after a year of poor relationships within the team.
“I do not like [it],” she later told Eurosport Russia. “Very annoying … just such an ugly act. The World Championships were not over, the race is still going on, and then suddenly… therefore, my personal desire to continue working with the team is not there.”
Khovantsev, while realizing that he probably wouldn’t have kept his job regardless, was also unimpressed with his boss’s tactics. He told the media after the race that he had learned from a media attaché that he was no longer needed by the team.
“I realized that if there were no medals, it would be a question of [who to fire],” he told Sport Express. “But I thought that we would analyze the work done, identify the errors and identify their perpetrators, whoever they were. And then leadership would decide who had to leave.
“Therefore, I was certainly surprised about the insulting manner in which this dismissal was made – it was a complete surprise.”
Khovantsev was not, officially, the head coach of the women’s team. His title was something that translates to “team coach”, and there was no official head coach of the women’s team. Khovantsev was told when he was hired that the team was trying a European style of management.
“I was wary, but decided not to judge the decision in the heat of the moment, and try it,” he explained. “Now I can say that it was a mistake. And this division of powers between the coaches on functional training, shooting and technique – that too. It should be the responsibility of all of one person, a senior manager.”
In Khovantsev’s mind, the lack of a head coach let some details slip through the cracks. And to make the problem even worse, the RBU began demanding better results in December, even though they had told Khovantsev to focus on peaking for World Championships, which didn’t start until March.
“Our mistake was that we could not stay with the original plan, changed it, and eventually got ‘neither there nor there,’” Khovantsev said.
Once athletes began to underperform, team morale headed south. Vladimir Barnashov, who coordinated the men’s and women’s teams, claimed on a Russian biathlon website that the women had “mutinied” and refused to work with Khovantsev.
Some athletes, however, shared Khovantsev’s frustration with the RBU.
“The sustained pressure on the team last year was terrible, especially by management,” Zaitseva told WinterSport News.
And her teammate Sleptsova had a unique way of looking at the disastrous relay.
“You know, I think it’s even good that we lost the World Championships relay so miserably,” she told SkiSport Russia. “If we had a medal, perhaps they’d say that the national team was all right… and the problem would be easier to ignore.”
Alexander Tikhonov, vice-president of the RBU, reportedly discussed the team with President Medvedev. Among his concerns were the lack of a clear structure on the team, exactly the issue that Khovantsev himself said was limiting.
Everyone in Russia seems to agree that the biathlon team is broken – but how to fix it remains to be seen. The fans at rusbiathlon.ru wrote a petition to President Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in which they called for Prokhorov’s dismissal.
“Russian biathlon is being destroyed in front of the fans, and we do not intend to put up with it,” the letter said. “We think that the RBU, headed by president Mikhail Prokhorov… is responsible for the current state of affairs in biathlon… We are asking you not to allow the final collapse of Russian biathlon.”
Rifts and Misunderstandings
While poor planning at the national level seems to be partially to blame for the team’s difficulties, some athletes said that they disliked working with Khovantsev. One of them was Sleptsova, a six-time World Cup winner who is seen as Zaitseva’s successor.
The 24-year-old had initially been enthusiastic about the new coach, but later began to doubt his training plan.
“Last summer, when the women’s team was taken over by [Khovantsev] and we began working, everything seemed wonderful,” she told Sport-Express. “I didn’t just do what the coach said, but gave myself to the work completely… [then] the training plan was drawn up as if for one week. He simply repeated it over and over again, without changing even in small things. This went on all summer, all fall, and all winter.”
The Russian athletes had expected results to improve with a new training strategy, but they did not. While Sleptsova had been aiming to move up in the overall World Cup standings this season, both she and Zaitseva lost several places. In addition, the Russian women didn’t win a single medal at World Championships.
Sleptsova also had personal issues with Khovantsev stemming from the Obersdorf World Cup, when she was left off of the relay team. She felt that the head coach did not treat her with respect. Khovantsev, however, claimed that some decisions, such as which athletes to start on the World Cup or include on relay teams, were dictated to him by the RBU.
The two butted heads again later in the season, when Sleptsova had to decide whether to go to a team training camp in Ridnaun, Italy, or to the World Cups in Presque Isle and Fort Kent. Because she did not feel she could have an honest conversation with Khovantsev, she said, she was “pushed to extremes” – and went to the U.S., to the detriment of her later performances.
Khovantsev said that he had not recommended the trip, and did not understand why Sleptsova went.
“For many seasons, her results have deteriorated over the course of winter, yet she continues to race. She needed to rest, and it did not happen. From other interviews, you’ve probably heard that I was totally against her trip to America.”
Despite the fact that she didn’t seem sad to see him go, Sleptsova didn’t carry a grudge, perhaps because she knew that some of the mistakes, particularly the American adventure, had been her own.
“You know, I don’t by any means want to blame the coaches for me not getting results,” she said. “The main thing is that I want to understand it for myself.”
And Natalia Guseva, who recently won a national championship, said that she didn’t understand what all the fuss was about with Khovantsev’s training plan.
“When it comes to a new coach, it is always difficult… he gets used to the athletes, and the athletes to his methodology and requirements,” she told Sport Express. “To some, this training came up, and someone… we can’t say that the coaches worked badly or something and we did not perform. We need to analyze and draw correct conclusions for next season.”
Back to Zaitseva
Regardless of the root of the team’s problems, one thing seems to be clear: Khovantsev is gone, and at 32 years of age, so is Zaitseva.
“Everyone thinks that she said it in a temper, because of the poor performance at World Championships,” Sleptsova told Sport Express. “But I know how much Olga suffers when she is away from her son. I still do not believe that she will leave- I do not want to believe it. For all of us she is like a rock… And to replace Olga in this capacity, no one can do that.”
Khovanstev agreed about Zaitseva’s personality and position on the team, but said that he was shocked at her announcement.
“[It was] totally unexpected,” he told Sport Express. “To say I was dumbfounded – it does not begin to describe it. I came off the course, and learned that she heard the news about my dismissal, and said she was retiring. I hope this wasn’t spur of the moment… I can say that it was a pleasure to work with her. She is a woman with tremendous athletic achievements, both hard-working and humble. A very nice person.”
His comments suggest that even though his firing was one of the factors that led Zaitseva to walk away from the team, the two were not particularly close. Instead, Sleptsova knew more about her teammate’s inner thoughts and motives.
Zaitseva confirmed that she had been contemplating retirement for some time.
“The idea began to grow long ago, right after the Olympics, and became stronger throughout the current season,” she said to Europsport Russia. “Psychologically I have already burned out.
“I have a family, a baby…” she continued. “I realized that when the Olympics are held in 2014, it will be time for him to go to school… I want him to grow up with me.”
She has repeatedly said that while she was frustrated with the team and its management, she appreciated the support she has received from fans.
“With all my truthful heart I want to thank all those who support and understand me,” she wrote on her website. “You reinforced my faith in real fans. And to all the other people, I’ll say that a friend in need is a friend indeed. I won’t ask for forgiveness – I’ve nothing to make excuses for.”
When asked whether a comeback for 2014 Olympic Games in Socchi was a possibility, the answer was no.
“I have no desire to keep working in this team,” she concluded.
Sara Studebaker led the U.S. women with a 55th-place finish in Rupholding on Thursday.
To say that it was raining in Rupholding, Germany, on Thursday would be an understatement.
“It was pouring rain, perhaps the worst rain I’ve ever skied in, winter or summer,” said U.S. biathlete Sara Studebaker. “It was tough out there… today was all about fighting through the conditions.”
For most of the women’s World Cup field, it was a tough fight as the tracks slowed to a cement-like consistency and the downhills became rutted and treacherous.
But three women set themselves above the fray in the 15 k individual race. In fact, even if fourth-place Valj Semerenko of Ukraine had shot clean and avoided a one-minute penalty, she still wouldn’t have been able to move up a single spot on the results sheet.
Veterans Olga Zaitseva of Russia and Helena Ekholm of Sweden were the fifth and sixth starters, and they set a high standard for the rest of the field. In fact, they had already passed a few of the skiers ahead of them by the time they entered the first shooting stage.
But the ante was upped again when Andrea Henkel of Germany set off wearing bib 30. She immediately moved into the lead with clean shooting and even faster skiiing than Zaitseva or Ekholm were able to muster.
After three shooting stages, Henkel was still atop the leaderboard, followed by Zaitseva and Semerenko. But as the race wore on, the women tired, and skied each loop slower than the one before. In addition, Semerenko missed a shot in the final shooting, removing herself from contention.
Only Zaitseva had the legs to push on, and her last loop was actually faster than her three middle loops. Her perseverance earned her a 14-second victory over Henkel – who had led for most of the race – with Ekholm rounding out the podium.
When asked in a press conference whether she had been aware of Henkel’s position just ahead of her throughout the race, Zaitseva simply answered, “nyet.”
She also said that nothing about her training had changed over the holiday break, and that the Russians were focused on skiing their fastest at World Championships.
“I felt very good today had a good performance today both on the shooting range and skiing,” she told IBU News. “Starting early was a big help. It maybe was a little bit easier for me than some of the athletes who started later. I also had good skis for this kind of weather.”
The drop to the rest of the field was severe. This was partly because only one other biathlete shot clean, and each miss is assigned a one-minute penalty. However, tenth-place Iana Romanova of Russia was almost three and a half minutes behind her winning teammate despite having only one penalty, and fifteenth-place Katja Haller of Italy, who also missed only a single shot, was more than four minutes back.
It wasn’t the best day for the North Americans, but Megan Imrie of Canada had what could be considered a breakout race, finishing 35th with one penalty. She has only had two better results in four years of World Cup racing.
“The race yesterday went well on the shooting range,” Imrie told FasterSkier in an e-mail. “With torrents of rain coming down, extreme conditions and a white-knuckle course, the range was my only place of calm. I have been playing around with my standing shooting tactics for a long time now. I seem to finally come across something that works. And with the way the day was going, I knew shooting was the ‘IT’ thing. My skiing was not quite as stellar, but World Champ’s is still a while from now, so I think it will pick up for March.”
The other Canucks struggled, with Melanie Schulz and Zina Kocher finishing 70th and 82nd.
The Americans also had a rough day: Studebaker led the team by tying for 55th place.
“I was not feeling great skiing today,” she told FasterSkier. “It was a tough one mentally in the rain. Missing three shots also was not great – in my first standing I nearly fell on the downhill into the range and as a result my legs were super shaky. I just wasn’t able to recover and feel good in time for shooting.”
Haley Johnson finished 62nd in her first World Cup start of the season, accumulating four penalties over the course of the day, while Laura Spector, fresh off of a career-best weekend in Oberhof, was 67th with five penalties.
“We are all looking forward to the sprint race,” Studebaker said. “Saturday’s forecast looks much better, so hopefully we can improve on today’s results.”
Competition continues in Rupholding on Friday with a men’s sprint.
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![Susan Dunklee racing her way to seventh place in the World Cup pursuit in Kontiolahti, Finland, today. Photo: USBA/NordicFocus.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/03/dunklee160314al026.jpg")
![Hannah Dreissigacker shoots to a best-ever World Cup 28th-place finish. (USBA/Nordic Focus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/03/dreissigacker130314al066.jpg")
![IBU world cup biathlon, sprint women, Oestersund (SWE)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/11/Dunklee-7.5km-biathlon.jpg")
![zaitseva flatland](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/11/zaitseva-flatland.jpg")
![Let's look forward to more exciting finishes like this one from last season in Ostersund, Sweden, where Martin Fourcade (FRA) played cat and mouse with Andreas Birnbacher (GER) in the last lap of biathlon's 12.5 k pursuit before beating him to the line. Photo: Fischer/Nordic Focus.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2012/12/Fourcade-win-nordicfocus.jpg")
![Tora Berger of Norway medaled - gold or silver - in every race of last year's World Championships, and dominated the World Cup Total Score. Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2012/12/Berger-win-12022012cm123.jpg")
![Anton Shipulin was Russia's best performer at 2013 World Championships.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/02/shipulin.jpg")
![Andrea Henkel en route to a podium finish last season in Ostersund. Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2012/12/henkel.jpg")
![Marie Dorin Habert of France competing at 2013 World Championships in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic.](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/02/Marie-Dorin-Habert-FRA-18.jpg")
![Susan Dunklee on course (Photo: USBA/Nordic Focus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/01/Dunklee012013cm014-web.jpg")
![Studebaker tags off to Dreissigacker for the last leg (Photo: USBA/Nordic Focus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2013/01/Group012013cm045-web.jpg")
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![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2011/12/Cook12162011cm085.jpg" "IBU world cup biathlon, sprint women, Hochfilzen (AUT)")
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![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2011/05/bi-rus-web.jpg" "Olga Zaitseva (RUS) blows kisses to the crowd as she brings Russia the gold in the Olympic biathlon relay in 2010")
![](http://images.fasterskier.com/2011/05/bi-ekholm-web.jpg" "Helena Ekholm (SWE) racing at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver")
