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

Tag: Pokljuka World Cup

Emotional Day for Belgium’s Rösch; Fourcade Tops Another Pursuit; Bailey Repeats in 18th

Michael Rösch became Belgium’s most successful biathlete on Saturday with a sixth-place finish in the IBU World Cup 12.5 k pursuit. “It’s just a lousy sixth place in the World Cup, but it means so much to me,” Rösch, 33, told German broadcaster ZDF. A former German racer, it was his first top six in an individual race in nearly eight years. (Photo: IBU)

At the top of the starting field in the International Biathlon Union (IBU) men’s 12.5-kilometer pursuit in Pokljuka, Slovenia, a large part of the race on Saturday was determined by two pairs skiing and shooting in almost perfect synchrony together: France’s Martin Fourcade with Russia’s Anton Shipulin, and the two Norwegians Emil Hegle Svendsen and Johannes Thingnes Bø.

For the first three shooting stages, all four athletes shot clean and fast, with Shipulin able to close the gap to Fourcade on the second loop and then each one taking the lead at times.

“That was a great fight against Anton,” Fourcade stated during the press conference. “We did almost the whole competition together. When he [caught up to] me, he asked me to help him. But I was so exhausted I could not help him much on the track. As soon as my shape came back we collaborated together, and that was a great collaboration because Emil was not so far behind. We knew we had to fight together to keep our advantage.”

For the final shooting stage, Fourcade began to shoot first and kept his cool once more while Shipulin missed his second shot, forcing him to ski a penalty lap.

“At the end Anton is always really good, really fast, so I knew I had to stay close…,” Fourcade said. “On the last shooting, I got one more clean [target] than him, so that gave me the win. But that was really tough.”

“I was a little bit nervous,” Fourcade said of the last shooting stage to German broadcaster ZDF. “I needed a little more time for my installation [taking position]. But then when I was focused on my shooting, it was very good. I am very satisfied with my win today. It was a crazy beginning of the season, maybe my best. Even if my shape wasn’t so good today, I managed to do what I needed to be strong on the shooting range. So that’s amazing.”

Behind the two leaders, similarly Svendsen also managed to shoot clean again in the final stage, while Bø missed two targets to finish fourth (0+0+0+2, +48.0). Shipulin came back on the track as Svendsen was also leaving the range. Both were 13 seconds behind Fourcade, and in his current ski shape it was clear that those two would have to fight for second place with nobody directly behind them.

“Like Martin and Anton, we had good collaboration,” Svendsen said at the press conference about racing with Bø for a long time. “It was very difficult to catch any time on those two, they were shooting fast and good, and skiing fast as well. So as Martin said, it was a quite high level in the competition. I am just happy to shoot clean on the last lap; that was the key. Now I am back on the podium, and it feels very good.”

The men’s podium in the IBU World Cup 12.5 k pursuit on Saturday in Pokljuka, Slovenia, with winner Martin Fourcade (c) of France, Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen (l) in second, and Russia’s Anton Shipulin (r) in third. (Photo: IBU)

On the last lap into the finish, Fourcade waived and clapped to the spectators in the stands taking out the tempo a bit to ski over the line in a time of 30:27.4 minutes, while just a few seconds behind him Svendsen and Shipulin skated furiously in a sprint on the short finish stretch down from a bridge, which the Norwegian decided for himself (0+0+0+0, +6.0) and the Russian just 0.2 seconds behind (0+0+0+1).

“Anton is for sure one of the best sprinters in the biathlon field,” Svendsen added when asked about the finish. “So I knew it was like a 50/50 chance to beat him. I felt quite strong on the last loop and managed to stay in front, but it was very close. On the last 200 meters he was just on my side, and I managed to get a little more speed on the last hundred.”

The second place was Svendsen’s first podium finish of the season, following some missed time in the last preparation phase in the fall due to an illness.

“I think my mistake was that I wanted too much to shoot zero [misses],” Shipulin commented on his race in the press conference via a translator. Regarding his final lap he added: “I made some tactical mistakes. I felt like on the last loop I didn’t have too much power left. And second of all, to be honest Pokljuka is not the best place to have a strong finish just because of the tricky downhill and uphill, so that’s probably why.”

Fifth place went to Germany’s Simon Schempp, who skied fast and incurred just one penalty in the first standing stage (0+0+1+0, +59.8). Still, that was only good enough to improve by one position from the sprint, not able to close up to Bø and the others.

“Today you could see again how good the shooting results throughout the field are,” Schempp told ZDF. “Then it’s very hard to advance. One miss is a decent result for twenty shots, but just not good enough to make up a little more [time or positions]. But I am very satisfied anyway.”

The weather conditions were sunny with almost no wind again, and a few athletes even decided to start in short-sleeved suits.

“It was a really great competition with great conditions, fair conditions, and that’s what I like in biathlon,” Fourcade explained at the press conference. “We all had the same chances today on the shooting range, you can see it when you look at the result… The level of competition has been amazing this week in Pokljuka.”

“The conditions could not have been better today,” US Biathlon’s Lowell Bailey confirmed in an email to FasterSkier.

Former Olympic Champion with Best-Ever Result for a Belgian

Behind these racers who perennially finish at the top of the field, an international surprise in the race was Michael Rösch for Belgium, improving 10 positions to finish sixth with clean shooting, thus achieving the best biathlon result of all time for his country (0+0+0+0, +1:21.0). At the beginning of his career, Rösch raced for Germany and won an Olympic gold in the men’s 4 x 7.5-kilometer relay at the 2006 Olympics in Torino and three bronze medals at World Championships, before later being cut from Germany’s World Cup team due to inconsistent performances.

Always believing in his ability for a successful comeback, Rösch switched nationalities, missing the 2014 Olympics in Sochi due to bureaucratic problems, and struggled for several seasons to get anywhere close to his former shape. Competing on the World Cup circuit, often as the lone starter for Belgium, having to organize everything himself, he frequently finished outside of the points with, for example, a 45th place in the individual in Oslo as his best World Cup result last season. He also sustained multiple injuries, including an Achilles-tendon tear. Since last summer, Rösch has been training with the Swiss national team and seen a noticeable improvement.

“I’m sorry, it’s just a lousy sixth place in the World Cup, but it means so much to me,” a very emotional Rösch told German broadcaster ZDF with tears in his eyes. “I had to give up so much. My family, my friends, my sponsors always supported me. This is just wickedly great. I tried it again and again and now managed to do it. A sixth place… that isn’t worth much to a lot of people, but it means the world to me.

“On the last lap I thought about my late coach Klaus Siebert,” he continued. “I always said one day I would have a good race again. And today I achieved a perfect race shooting clean four times. I already thought about him on the last lap, I was already crying back then. This is for you Klaus, and also for Bernd, who made my rifle stock, unfortunately they have both passed away. And yeah, you watched the race yourselves. I skied in circles and shot on black targets, the rest is history… This race is for all the people who supported me!”

“I skied in circles and shot on black targets, the rest is history…” — Michael Rösch of Belgium, who achieved sixth for his best result in nearly eight years on Saturday

Bailey Repeats in 18th, Christian Gow Up to 31st

US Biathlon’s Lowell Bailey (front) leading Germany’s Arnd Peiffer (second from l) in the IBU World Cup 12.5 k pursuit on Saturday in Pokljuka, Slovenia. Bailey started 18th and went on to finish 18th. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

For the U.S., Lowell Bailey missed one target in the first prone stage, which cost him five positions, but remained clean for the next three stages. With that solid performance, he moved into 13th after the final stage, but could not quite hold that place on the last lap, with athletes like Austria’s Simon Eder and Switzerland’s Benjamin Weger overtaking him. Bailey finished with the same position he started with in 18th place (+2:01.6).

“Happy with my shooting but I just don’t have the ski speed I need to compete with the top guys on the tracks right now,” Bailey wrote in an email to FasterSkier. “I’ve had good training all summer so I’m hoping to see my speed improve as the season moves forward.”

As the most consistent North American biathlete so far this season, he leaves Pokljuka in 10th in the overall World Cup standings.

For Biathlon Canada, Christian Gow followed up perfect shooting in the sprint with only one miss in the pursuit to improve on his previous personal best by two places, finishing 31st for a new World Cup best (0+1+0+0, +2:41.7).

“Nothing too crazy happened during my race,” Gow explained in an email. “It was a fun and fast paced race with a lot of jockeying for positions. It was exciting to get in there and race with a lot of the top guys and see what I could do!”

On his final lap, Gow found himself fighting for positions agains top contenders such as Austria’s Dominik Landertinger and Italy’s Lukas Hofer and Dominik Windisch.

“The last lap was tough,” Gow said of that phase of his race. “I didn’t realize it was those guys that were chasing me, but it was not easy to fight with them at that point in the race. All 3 of them skied super well today and I had little chance of being able to stay ahead of them.”

American Tim Burke started his race strong, improving from 53rd at the start all the way to 25th with two clean prone shootings, but he struggled in his standing bouts with five penalties (0+0+2+3). Still, thanks to another good skiing performance with the 25th-fastest overall course time, Burke finished the day in 42nd (+4:09.8), just out of the World Cup points.

Canada’s Scott Gow also shot five misses on Saturday (2+1+0+2) after a clean shooting performance in the sprint, falling back from 23rd at the start to 48th (+4:39.0) at the finish.

Similarly, his teammate Brendan Green had five penalties to finish 57th (1+1+2+1, +5:36.4).

The World Cup weekend in Pokljuka concludes with men’s and women’s relays on Sunday. Since the U.S. only has three members available at this World Cup stage for both the women and men, it will not be able to field a team in either race. Canada is starting the men’s race with Christian Gow, Scott Gow, Macx Davies and Brendan Green (bib 6); and Sarah Beaudry, Rosanna Crawford, Megan Tandy and Julia Ransom (bib 12) for the women.

Results

December 10, 2016
Dunklee Ties Best-Ever Pursuit in Fifth; Dahlmeier Doubles Up in Pokljuka

Susan Dunklee being hoisted up by her US Biathlon support team at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia, after tying her career-best result in a pursuit. Dunklee placed fifth on Saturday for a season best as well. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

(Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Canada’s Julia Ransom.)

Susan Dunklee laughed a little when she thought about her reputation as a World Cup biathlete. Often one of the fastest skiers in terms of course time, she said she’s also been known for some of the slowest shooting times.

Until this weekend.

The US Biathlon veteran broke through in Pokljuka, Slovenia, with her best results of the season so far: 11th place in Friday’s 7.5-kilometer sprint and fifth in Saturday’s 10 k pursuit. Both races entailed 95-percent shooting accuracy or better (on Friday, she cleaned the two-stage sprint with the second-fastest shooting and third-fastest range times overall).

Susan Dunklee (front) going head to head with Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier (1), Austria’s Lisa Theresa Hauser (12), and France’s Marie Dorin Habert (left) in the women’s 10 k pursuit at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

On Saturday, her range time ranked third and shooting time was fourth overall.

That was a big step up from last season, and she said it was something she’s been working on for the last two years.

“It’s pretty obviously where my weak link is, my shooting speed … that’s what’s been holding me back,” Dunklee said on the phone after Saturday’s race. “There’s no reason not to try to gain speed there. It took a lot of work…”

After starting 11th in the pursuit, 43 seconds behind the leader (Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier, who won Friday’s sprint), Dunklee raced into sixth and 28 seconds back with a clean first prone and her distinctively fast skiing. Her course time on the first loop ranked first out of 56 finishers.

One loop later, Dunklee cleaned again to move into fourth, 18.7 seconds behind the leader. Dahlmeier had slipped into fifth with two penalties, and Norway’s Marte Olsbu, who started third, took the lead.

Still in fourth for the first standing bout, Dunklee recalled being in a sort of a trance.

“I was aware of everything going on around me in the range, but I wasn’t concerned by it. … I just had this detached kind of feeling,” she said.

That was a good thing — something she wasn’t necessarily used to feeling — but something she hoped for in future races.

“It’s a really good feeling to have in the race when the pressure’s on,” Dunklee said.

Entering the range in fourth, 28 seconds out of first and without anyone directly around her, Dunklee shot clean for the third-straight stage. Suddenly, she was in second, 0.7 seconds behind Olsbu, who had to ski one penalty lap and narrowly remained in first.

The rest of the top six left the range within 14 seconds of Olsbu and Dunklee — with Dahlmeier bringing up the tail end of the group in sixth.

On the second-to-last loop, Germany’s Franziska Hildebrand passed Olsbu and Dunklee, while Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen moved into fourth right behind Dunklee. With about 2.5 k remaining, Dahlmeier recaptured the lead and Mäkäräinen followed her just 0.7 seconds back in second. Hildebrand sat in third, Olsbu in fourth and Dunklee 3 seconds back in fifth.

For the final shooting, Dahlmeier led the group of six, including Austria’s Lisa Theresa Hauser, into the range. All were within 3.5 seconds of one another.

Dahlmeier hit all of her targets, Dunklee missed one, as did Hauser, Olsbu, Hildebrand, and Mäkäräinen. Eva Puskarčíková of the Czech Republic cleaned her five standing targets to move into fourth (after three consecutive clean stages: 1+0+0+0), yet Dunklee remained in second, 22 seconds behind Dahlmeier and 0.7 seconds ahead of Hauser in third.

“That penalty was a close miss,” Dunklee said. “I knew, ‘Oh, I just go in the penalty loop,’ and I wasn’t too concerned with what that meant.”

When Dunklee exited the penalty loop and headed back out onto the course, she had no idea where she stood. She couldn’t see anybody ahead of her, nor did she know how big the group was behind her.

“I knew I was probably fighting for a podium and I should push as hard as I could,” Dunklee said.

While she felt like she was missing her top-end skiing gear, which she expected at this point in the season, Dunklee used some course tactics to catch two of the five women that passed her at the beginning of the final loop: Hauser and Hildebrand.

“It’s really important to try to get to the front of the pack at the top of that first camel-hump,” Dunklee said of the Pokljuka course. “I was able to pass two people back so I was able to get back into the flower ceremony, which was great.”

Reflecting on the detached feeling she felt on the range, Dunklee said it was a different story out on the course.

“Out on the course, you’ve got to be hungry and you’ve got to be able to push yourself to a different zone,” she said. “I was missing that ability to fight on skis today. I was going at the pace I felt like I could maintain and not getting overly concerned with people passing.”

Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) finishing fifth in Saturday’s 10 k pursuit at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. “I felt pretty flooded,” she said of her finish. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

At the same time, she focused on putting everything she could into a strong finish.

“What was on my mind is, ‘I’m going to feel really bad about myself if I don’t give it everything I have,’ ” she said of her last loop. “… I figured I had nothing to lose.”

Dunklee finished 24.1 seconds behind Dahlmeier (who won her second-straight race) in the top six to reach the flower ceremony for the first time this season. That also met Dunklee’s goal of a top 10 in one of the first two World Cups.

“That was a big goal to put out there. I’m very pleased; I knew it wasn’t a sure thing” Dunklee said.

Acknowledging that she’s never had such competitive results this early in the season, Dunklee explained that she was fueled by some disappointment in Friday’s sprint.

“I was pretty bummed yesterday to get bumped down so far,” she said of crossing the finish first then ending up 11th.

As for her much-improved shooting this season: “It gives me a lot of confidence for sure,” Dunklee said. “The shooting speed has been my number-one focus for this year and much of last year, too … just seeing it pay off is wonderful. It’s very satisfying and it gives me a lot of faith in what I’ve [worked on].”

The women’s 10 k pursuit podium at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia, with German winner Laura Dahlmeier (c), Finnish runner-up Kaisa Mäkäräinen (l) and third-place finisher Eva Puskarčíková of the Czech Republic. (Photo: IBU)

While Mäkäräinen closed hard in the final 2 k (starting the loop in seventh, nearly 30 seconds behind Dahlmeier), she ended up second and 16.8 seconds behind Dahlmeier, with a total of two penalties (0+0+1+1).

The 25-year-old Puskarčíková held off France’s Marie Dorin Habert by 0.1 seconds for her first World Cup podium in third place (+18.7). Dorin Habert, the 17th starter, settled for fourth, with one penalty (0+0+1+0).

For Dahlmeier, it was her 10th World Cup victory and fifth in a pursuit. Asked what she credited her success to, the 23 year old told German broadcaster ZDF, “Staying cool. My motto is, ‘Scheiß da nix, dann feid da nix’,” (which vaguely translates to “Don’t worry be happy” or “Just do it”).

“That was worth gold today,” she continued. “I was a bit surprised about my two misses in prone. Apparently I already had an aberration in the first stage, then I clicked [adjusted the sights] and was a bit surprised that the two misses still happened.”

She was quick to regroup and cleaned the remaining two stages (0+2+0+0) to finish first in 30:43.1.

“I just try to keep it not too complex,” Dahlmeier told ZDF. “… In terms of skiing I didn’t feel quite as springy today, so I had to rely on the shooting. And that worked well for me.”

Asked if her three wins, four podiums, and one fourth-place in five individual races so far this season had sunken in, she said, “No.”

“It’s almost a bit unrealistic, but when looking at the men to [France’s] Martin Fourcade, you know what is possible,” Dahlmeier said. “That is my great goal, to one day be able to have successes comparable to Martin.”

Leading Canada for the second-straight day in 34th, Julia Ransom finished in the same position she started in. After cleaning the first three stages, Ransom moved into 20th and 1:09.8 out of first, but two misses on the final standing put her in 34th at the finish (+2:33.5, 0+0+0+2).

“I was in the top 25ish mix for majority of the race, inching up to 20th before the last shooting bout,” Ransom wrote in an email. “Pursuits are my favourite format so I was actually pretty stoked to jump into the chaos. Everything was great both on the skis and in the range until the focus unravelled a little and I found myself in the penalty loop!

“The field is so tight right now that those mistakes were hard to recover from and get back into the top 30,” she continued. “I am a little bitter-sweet about a second 34th. Happy I’m still in the points but really itching to be in the top 30!”

Also for Canada, Rosanna Crawford improved from 58th to 49th (+4:06.4) with three penalties, all of which came in prone (2+1+0+0), and Megan Tandy did not finish after shooting seven penalties (1+1+3+2). The second U.S. woman in the race, Clare Egan missed six (2+0+1+3) to finish 56th (+5:32.4) after starting 53rd.

With three women and three men in Pokljuka, the U.S. will not field relay teams on Sunday. But they’ll be cheering on the Canadians, Dunklee said.

“I am stoked for our relay team tomorrow,” Ransom said of teaming up with Sarah Beaudry, Crawford and Tandy. “I think we have a great opportunity on our hands and with a little luck, all four of us girls will have solid performances.”

The men’s 4 x 7.5 k starts at 5:15 a.m. EST, and the women’s 4 x 6 starts at 8:30 EST on Sunday. (Stream live at Eurovisionsports.tv).

Results

December 10, 2016
Béatrix Bests Svendsen for First World Cup Win; Smith 12th in Pokljuka Mass Start

American Lowell Bailey (l) leads France’s eventual-winner Jean-Guillaume Béatrix (c) and Simon Fourcade during Sunday’s 15 k mass start at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. While Beatrix won by 0.3 seconds over Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen, Bailey placed 23rd behind U.S. teammate Tim Burke in 22nd. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

On Sunday afternoon, French biathlete Jean-Guillaume Béatrix knew he was the luckiest man in Pokljuka, Slovenia, achieving the first International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup victory of his career in a men’s 15-kilometer mass start he hadn’t planned on racing. His place on the start list originally belonged to Austria’s Simon Eder, who qualified for one of 30 spots in the mass start based on his overall World Cup standing. But in the morning Eder did not feel well and had to decline his participation, with that start instead going to Beatrix as the highest-ranked athlete on a “standby reserve” list.

Beatrix made the most out of the opportunity that was handed to him, cleaning all four shooting stages as the only athlete in the field, and beating out Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen by 0.3 seconds in the finishing sprint to win in 35:33.7.

Third place just 2.5 seconds back went to Svendsen’s teammate, 41-year-old veteran Ole Einar Bjørndalen, who in turn beat Germany’s Simon Schempp in a photo finish by mere inches.

In an up-and-down race closely watched by more than 6,000 spectators in the arena, many different athletes remained in contention for the podium for a long time, with the field sticking closely together due to excellent weather conditions that prompted few misses on the shooting range.

“This [race] was a perfect advertisement for our sport once again,” commented Germany’s men’s head coach Mark Kirchner in a post-race interview with TV broadcaster ZDF, himself a three-time Olympic gold medalist in biathlon. “When you consider that on the third loop about twenty athletes were still together within 14 or 15 seconds, you know how hard it is to focus on the shooting range because you know every miss will throw you back behind the top 20.”

At the halfway mark, US Biathlon’s Lowell Bailey was in second place, in part due to two perfect prone shootings. But he could not hold onto that position after he missed two targets in the first standing stage, and then added another miss in the final shooting, ultimately coming in 23^rd(+1:29.5), one position and just 0.5 seconds behind his teammate Tim Burke, who had four misses (2+0+1+1) and placed 22nd.

Nathan Smith (Biathlon Canada) racing to 12th in the 15 k mass start at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

“Today was a little bittersweet,” Bailey wrote in an email. “On one hand, I was psyched that my ski speed had improved and I was able to hang with the lead group. On the other hand, I have felt good about my standing shooting all season, so it was frustrating to throw my chances away in that first standing stage.”

Canada’s Nathan Smith, who had placed ninth on the same course last season, also missed three targets (0+1+1+1) and finished 12^th overall, 27.1 seconds behind Beatrix and 25 seconds off the podium.

“It’s pretty much a fact in biathlon that in order to medal in a mass start you have to shoot clean in the final standing,” Smith said in a Biathlon Canada press release. “I had one miss, which left me a penalty loop behind at the end.”

On the final loop after the last shooting, six athletes from three countries skied close together in a lead group, all vying for the podium after France’s Simon Desthieux had managed to close a small gap to his teammate Beatrix, Germany’s Andreas Birnbacher and Schempp, and Norway’s Bjørndalen and Svendsen.

About halfway through the loop, Svendsen charged ahead to break up the group, and only Beatrix was able to stay near the tails of his skis. The two came together into the finishing stretch, with Svendsen took the middle lane and Beatrix skied to his left. As Beatrix pushed toward the finish with elongated glides and no poles, he bested Svendsen — an athlete widely respected among his peers for his ski speed and sprinting — by three-tenths of a second.

This was Beatrix’s first World Cup win and fourth-career podium, after placing second in a pursuit in Antholz, Italy, and third in another pursuit in Sochi Russia, two seasons ago, and third in a sprint last season in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic.

Jean-Guillaume Béatrix of France winning Sunday’s mass start for his first IBU World Cup victory in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: IBU/Kvetoslav Frgal)

“I didn’t think I could win as Emil was strong,” Beatrix recounted when asked about the finishing push at a post-race press conference. “He looked a little tired on the last downhill though. Thanks to good skis, I managed to make a nice finish.”

“It is nice to finish a year with a podium. It’s sad to lose on such a margin though,” Svendsen said. “I need some rest to be in my best shape, but mentally I am very motivated.”

Bjørndalen used his extensive experience and skied a controlled race, making all but two of his 20 shots and staying clean in the decisive final shooting (1+0+1+0). At the end of the last round he could not quite keep up with Svendsen and Beatrix, but he still had some reserves.

In a sprint for third place against Schempp, winner of the preceding sprint and pursuit in Poklujka who had also missed two shots in this race (0+1+1+0), Bjørndalen lunged across the line in what almost looked like a dead-even tie. The photo finish ultimately proved Bjørndalen beat Schempp by the tip of his boot for third. Both athletes were recorded as 2.5 seconds behind.

“The last sprint was very hard. I focused on the third place, but Simon was so close to me,” Bjørndalen described at the press conference. “I saw his shadow on the finish line and tried to move out my feet.”

“Right when I put forward my foot I noticed he was probably ahead of me,” Schempp told ZDF. “But still, this race was a nice conclusion [to the weekend], and now I’m looking forward to Christmas.”

Schempp’s teammate Birnbacher placed fifth, 7.2 seconds back. It was his best result of the season. Asked whether team tactics came into play on the last loop, Birnbacher told ZDF with a laugh: “Well, unfortunately I didn’t have any power left on the last climb. Andi [German assistant-coach Andreas Stitzl] yelled to us, ‘Stay in two and three and attack out of the wind shadow,’ but I just wasn’t able to do that anymore”.

France’s pursuit runner-up Martin Fourcade took seventh in the mass start, one behind his teammate Desthieux who was 11.4 seconds back, and also a bit behind his own expectations. Fourcade’s race got derailed early after he missed two targets in the first prone shooting, which set him back far in the field to 27^th place. With two more misses later (2+0+2+0), and despite once again skiing the fastest course time of all athletes, he was never quite able to catch up to the leaders again, and finished 17.8 seconds back.

In the overall World Cup standings, Fourcade still remains in the lead after the first trimester of races with 384 points, ahead of Bjørndalen (337) and Schempp (331). Also in the top 30, Smith is currently in 12^th with 175 points, Bailey is 21^st (128) and Burke is 27^th (108).

Misses Stunt North Americans

Similar to Fourcade, Burke missed two shots in the first prone stage, setting him back all the way to the 30^th in last position at that time, out of the focus of the TV cameras. He was unable to fully make up that early deficit despite steadily improving on the next loops to reach 24^th before the final loop. He skied the 17th-fastest last loop to finish 22nd overall.

Nathan Smith (Biathlon Canada) racing to 12th in the 15 k mass start at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

His teammate Bailey and Canada’s Smith had more visibility on the broadcast, with Bailey moving to the front of the field for a while after he managed to clean the first two stages. On the third loop at 7.6 k he was skiing in second, just 0.5 seconds behind France’s Quentin Fillion Maillet, and entered the range in that position for the first standing. There, Bailey missed two targets and fell way back to 18th place, 49.1 seconds behind the leaders as he set out on his fourth loop.

“The pace was reasonable at the front of the race and at several points. It even slowed as everyone was jockeying for position,” Bailey recalled. “So, I can’t blame the misses on coming in too hard. Sometimes you just miss!”

After another miss on the last shooting stage set further him back, Bailey found himself in 22^nd and 1:16.5 back, around where Burke had been skiing with throughout the race. On the final loop Burke caught up to him, then was able to narrowly beat Bailey by half a second to the line.

“I’m satisfied with the first trimester; a few good results, a couple of missed opportunities, but overall, a solid start,” Bailey wrote.

Smith skied fast on Sunday, with the 10th-ranked course time overall, despite one miss on each of the last three stages. After each penalty loop, he made up 10 seconds or more on the leaders to significantly reduce his time back on each loop. After the second shooting, he left the range in 13th place, 17 seconds out of first, then had already reduced that to 7 seconds by the first split time on the next loop and 5 seconds by the second timing point.

“After the sprint and pursuit I was worried about how my ski shape would be today. I had been feeling really lethargic on course,” Smith wrote in an email. “Thankfully today I was able to put out some solid ski speed. I ate an entire Toblerone and a large serving of chips yesterday evening. I’ll give some credit to that.”

But despite his fast skiing, the three penalties prevented Smith from making a push into the top 10.

“I was fine with the couple penalties earlier in the race, but I know that in the final shooting of every mass start 5/5 is a requirement if you want a medal,” he wrote. “I missed one. That’s biathlon.

“I was hoping to grab a top 6 or individual medal before Christmas, but on the other hand, the single mixed relay with Rosanna [Crawford] was a definite highlight,” Smith added. “My world cup overall ranking is also a lot higher than last year at this time. With a couple close opportunities already I think that I’m on track for a very successful next trimester. “

Results

December 21, 2015
Mäkärainen Tops Pokljuka Mass Start for Second Win of Season; Dunklee 22nd

Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen celebrates her second IBU World Cup victory of the 2015/2016 season on Sunday at the 12.5 k mass start in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

“I know I will probably feel tired, but everyone else in the race will be exhausted from the past month so that shouldn’t be a big problem,” US Biathlon’s Susan Dunklee predicted in an email to FasterSkier on Friday.

Several other athletes had echoed this feeling of really looking forward to a break, including France’s Marie Dorin Habert and Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier, winners of the IBU World Cup races last Friday and Saturday, respectively.

A bit of mental and physical exhaustion toward the end of a long stretch of eight races was evident in the women’s 12.5-kilometer mass start race on Sunday afternoon. Even athletes who had already been highly successful this season skied slower and shot more misses than usual. At least one woman seemed to be at the top of her game: Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen.

After achieving third place in Saturday’s pursuit, the two-time Overall World Cup champion improved on that by winning the mass start in 34:40.2 minutes.

Despite a penalty lap in the first prone shooting, which set her back to 20^th place, with her skiing strength as the fastest athlete on the course and three-consecutive clean stages thereafter (1+0+0+0), Mäkäräinen was able to close the gap to the leaders again.

On the final loop, she managed to distance herself from the Czech Republic’s Gabriela Soukalová and Russia’s Olga Podchufarova, two athletes who cleaned the entire four-stage race.

“When I had one penalty in the first prone, I thought the day would not be that good,” Mäkäräinen said in the post-race press conference. “But I decided it would be my last mistake for this competition!”

On the third loop, she had come back to the top of the field and was skiing in a small group with Soukalová and her Czech teammate Veronika Vítková. Both strong skaters with the eventual fifth- and seventh-fastest course times, they nonetheless had no chance to keep up with Mäkäräinen when she decided to push the tempo.

She came first into the final shooting and fired before the others had reached their positions, hitting all her targets, and left the stage 4 seconds ahead of Soukalová in second. On the last loop, she almost tripled that lead until the finish.

Soukalová finished second, 11.8 seconds back, and Podchufarova placed third, 27.7 seconds after Mäkäräinen. Vítková was fourth, 12.5 seconds off the podium, with her only miss in the final stage.

The women’s IBU World Cup mass start podium in Pokljuka, Slovenia: with Finland’s winner Kaisa Mäkäräinen (c), runner-up Gabriela Soukalova (l) of the Czech Republic, and Russia’s Olga Podchufarova (r) in third. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

For Mäkääainen, the win was her 17^th in an IBU World Cup and her second one of the season.

Asked in an English interview with German TV broadcaster ZDF if the improved shooting was most likely reason for her recent successes, Mäkäräinen said, “Probably. It seems like all the women are shooting really well, and skiing times are more and more close to each other, so I cannot do that much on the course even if I feel strong. So I also need to shoot well.”

“I now plan to go home to Joensuu [Finland] to spend time with my family, with my parents,” Mäkäräinen said when asked about her plans for the holiday break.
“I think the first week is a little more easy, and then I will start preparing for Oberhof [Germany, the site of the next World Cup races Jan. 6-10].”

Runner-up Soukalová was satisfied with her result, commenting in the press conference about the race and about Pokljuka in general, the site where she achieved her first World Cup victory.

“I am so happy, I was feeling that I lost energy from yesterday,” Soukalová said. “My teammate Veronika Vítková was helping me on the track. Pokljuka is my favorite destination, I would like to continue to be on the podium here.”

After Vítková had shot a miss in the final shooting, Podchufarova was still able to overtake her to grab the final spot on the podium. It was the Russian’s first World Cup podium, and while this result might have been unexpected to outside observers, she believed she executed her game plan well.

“I am not surprised. I had a certain plan before the competitions, and everything went according to the plan,” Podschufarova said at the press conference. “I was almost the last one at the start, as I was trying to take it slowly and save my energy for the final loops.”

Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) placed sixth in the IBU World Cup sprint on Friday, Dec. 18, in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

Podchufarova added that she expects this result will also help her team, since this was the first podium for the Russian women this season.

“I think it’s because of the last preparation period, it was hard for us to start,” she said. “With this podium, things will get easier as the pressure will be off.”

At the halfway mark, 22-year-old Norwegian Hilde Fenne had been in the lead, after creating a little gap to a larger chase group. But in the first standing, she missed three of five shots and lost almost a minute in the penalty laps. She finished in 16^th place with four penalties (0+0+3+1), 1:40.2 minutes back from Mäkääainen.

Austria’s Lisa Theresa Hauser, also 22, was one of four athletes in the women’s field to clean all four shooting stages, but could not quite keep up with the fastest skiers on Sunday, coming in eighth place (+1:08.7) to tie her career best.

“Four times zero, that’s amazing. The mass start seems to be my race,” Hauser told Austrian TV broadcaster ORF. “I am almost surprised it worked so well today because the last two days were quite hard. Today I even could improve on the track during the course of the race. I am super happy. Now I can really enjoy the holidays.”

Dunklee was the lone North American to qualify for the mass start as the best athlete outside of the top-25 due to her results in the preceding two races (sixth in the sprint and 10th in the pursuit) in Pokljuka. She finished 22^nd(+2:29.5) after missing four targets throughout the mass start( 1+0+1+2).

Starting out of the ninth row in bib 26, Dunklee initially attempted to improve her position on the first round, but broke or lost a ski pole early in the first loop. After recording a miss in the first prone, she exited the penalty loop in 22^nd place, already 31.9 seconds behind the leaders.

After the second loop and a clean second prone shooting, she improved to 16^thand 38.4 seconds behind. She skied a strong third loop with the 11^th-fastest course time, but a miss in the first standing prevented her from moving up more, as she fell back 30 more seconds to 19^th place.

Then in the final shooting, Dunklee had two more penalties, almost doubling her time back behind the leaders to 2:11.6 in 22^nd place. She kept that position to the finish, only losing a bit more time to Mäkäräinen.

New Women’s World Cup Leader is The Old One

Martin Fourcade tweeted the following photo on Saturday of him and French teammate Marie Dorin Habert holding up the overall World Cup leader’s bibs: “This does not happen every day!” he wrote. (Photo: Martin Fourcade/Twitter)

On Saturday evening, a proud World Cup leader Martin Fourcade posted a picture on Twitter that showed himself and teammate Dorin Habert both holding up the “yellow bibs” of the Overall World Cup score leaders, with the caption “this does not happen every day!”

While Fourcade was able to defend his position on Sunday, Dorin Habert, who had said in a press conference after the pursuit that she hoped, “I won’t wear it just for one competition,” didn’t get her wish granted after finishing seventh on Sunday.

When the World Cup resumes in Oberhof next month, Soukalová will be the woman in yellow again, leading the overall standings with 359 points to Dorin Habert’s 345. After eight competitions, Germany’s Franziska Hildebrand is in third place (307), while Mäkäräinen moved up to fourth (278).

“This is really good motivation for me,” Soukalová said. “I know that the season will be long. We will have a lot of competitions, and girls are very strong. We will see.”

Dunklee improved to 27^th place in the World Cup standings with 97 points, and Biathlon Canada’s Rosanna Crawford, the other North American in the top 30, ranks 29^th with 91 points.

Results

December 21, 2015
Schempp Holds Steady with Pursuit Win; Burke Back in Top 10 in Ninth

Simon Schempp of Germany celebrates his second-straight win at the men’s 12.5 k pursuit in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: IBU/Kvetoslav Frgal)

Perfection in a pursuit. That’s what’ll get you ahead and keep you there, as Germany’s Simon Schempp demonstrated on Saturday at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia.

Two days after winning the men’s 10-kilometer sprint, Schempp started the 12.5 k pursuit with a 15-second head start on Norway’s Ole Einar Bjørndalen in second. Twenty-five and 26 seconds back in third through fifth, respectively, Russia’s Evgeniy Garanichev and Alexey Slepov and France’s Martin Fourcade set out after Schempp.

After placing third in the sprint, Garanichev fell out of contention for another podium with a miss in the first prone stage. He went on to clean the next two stages, but missed another on the final standing to end up sixth overall.

Slepov fared worse, with two penalties in each of the first two prone stages, then one in each standing for a total of six penalty laps. He placed 25th at the end of the day, while Schempp controlled the race from start to finish, winning with perfect 20-for-20 shooting in a time of 30:46.5.

France’s Martin Fourcade finishing second in the IBU World Cup pursuit on Saturday in Pokljuka, Slovenia, while Russia’s Anton Shipulin enters the finishing straight for third. (Photo: IBU/Kvetoslav Frgal)

Only Fourcade, the fifth starter, came close, rivaling Schempp with clean shooting through the first three stages. The Frenchman missed one on the last standing, which put him 18.4 seconds back leaving the range after a costly penalty loop. He finished 16.6 seconds after Schempp in second, and Russia’s Anton Shipulin rose from sixth to third with the fastest course time.

Shipulin finished 23.4 seconds after Schempp with two penalties (0+1+1+0), besting Norway’s Tarjei Bø, who was 1.8 seconds off the podium in fourth. Bø posted the second-fastest course time to pick off five places after starting ninth.

Only three out of 59 finishers cleaned the four-stage race: Schempp, France’s Simon Fourcade (who placed 10th), and Sweden’s Fredrik Lindström (14th).

“Maybe the last 200 meters were easy. Everything else was extremely hard,” Schempp said in an post-race interview with ZDF. “I didn’t quite have my best day out on the course today, and except for one loop with Martin, I always had to ski in front alone. That was quite energy-sapping.”

Fourcade was the fastest out of the start early on, racing from fifth up to third behind Schempp and Bjørndalen as they entered the range for the first time. There, all three men cleaned and Bjørndalen left the range nine seconds after Schempp in second while Fourcade was another 10 seconds back in third.

Second prone was more of the same, with the three leaders cleaning, yet Schempp maintained his distance with a 10-second cushion to Fourcade and Bjørndalen skiing together in second and third.

On the third loop, Fourcade, 27, dropped the 41-year-old Norwegian and entered the range right behind Schempp, where the top two cleaned all five targets once again. They set out on the penultimate loop together, where Fourcade made clear that he did not want to take the lead. Despite shooting faster, he waited for Schempp to go ahead of him.

Germany’s Simon Schempp and his smoking gun. Schempp shot 100 percent on Saturday to win the men’s pursuit at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: IBU/Kvetoslav Frgal)

“That was the same as last week, he just didn’t want to go in front,” Schempp said of Fourcade. “He had shot faster, then he stepped to the side and wanted to let me pass. I just yelled ‘Together!’ to him, and then he nodded and we changed back and forth. At first there was a bit of a disagreement, but then that calmed down…”

“I don’t really understand why he does that sometimes,” Schempp added. “We were in front, but the others are pressuring from behind, and if you work together, you should be faster and can create a small gap. My opinion is that you should work together, except for the last loop of course, but before that, yeah, I just have a slightly different opinion than him.”

“We collaborated a lot …,” Fourcade said in a post-race press conference. “It was a good solution. We were making sure we had positions one and two.”

In the final standing stage, Fourcade shot quickly, but missed the fourth shot, while Schempp cleaned.

“In the last shooting, I thought his second shot had missed. At least it sounded that way,” Schempp recalled.

“Before the race, I thought that I would try to do all I can to be first,” Fourcade said in the press conference. “Simon was a little calmer at the last shooting. He had his own rhythm.”

Fourcade came out of the penalty lap with an 18.4-second deficit, which proved insurmountable. He skied what appeared to be comfortable pace to the finish for second, 6.8 seconds ahead of Shipulin. After the race, Fourcade and Schempp hugged each other. It was Schempp’s eighth World Cup victory, his third win this season, and the third time he won both a sprint and the following pursuit in the same venue.

While Shipulin secured third on the final loop, he overcame a couple penalties. One miss in the second stage dropped him to eighth, and he left the range after another penalty in the third stage in sixth. When Bø missed one in the final shooting, Shipulin seized the opportunity and cleaned when it counted, leaving the range in fourth, three seconds behind Bø and passing him on the final loop to avoid a sprint to the finish.

“After the second penalty loop, I thought it was possible,” Shipulin said in a press conference. “I was hoping to shoot clean and thought I had a chance to get on the podium.”

According to the IBU website, with one race to go — Sunday’s mass start — Shipulin is eager to see his newborn son.

“I want to go home and see my son, but I try to stay motivated and focused on the upcoming competitions,” he said.

Burke Cracks Top 10

American Tim Burke (14) during one of his last two standing stages, while shooting alongside a German, Slovenian, and Russian. (Photo: IBU/Kvetoslav Frgal)

After starting 14th and 55 seconds behind Schempp, American Tim Burke improved to ninth with a single penalty (0+0+1+0), finishing 1:21.9 behind the German winner.

“[I’m] really happy with today; I had a really simple game plan with my shooting to try to stick to my few key words,” Burke said in a post-race phone interview. “I felt really comfortable out there.”

He skied alone for most of the race, which he found both odd and challenging. Burke started 9 seconds behind the 13th starter, Simon Desthieux of France, and four seconds ahead of US Biathlon teammate Lowell Bailey.

After cleaning the first prone stage, Burke had made his way up to 11th and 50.7 seconds behind Schempp, while Bailey had slipped one spot to 16th, 1:02 back. Both Americans cleaned the first shooting, but Bailey went on to miss one in each stage thereafter (0+1+1+1) and ended the day in 29th (+2:46).

“Not a bad day for me, but without near perfection, it’s hard to compete with this field,” Bailey said in a US Biathlon press release. “There was great overall shooting in the men’s field today so I lost a few places with penalties in each of the last three stages.”

Meanwhile, Burke cleaned the second prone and missed one on the third shooting to hover in the top 10 throughout the race. After hitting all his targets on the final standing, he left the range in ninth. Simon Fourcade trailed him by almost seven seconds in 10th at the beginning of the last loop, while Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen was almost 18 seconds ahead in eighth.

Tim Burke (US Biathlon) racing to ninth in the men’s 12.5 k pursuit on Saturday at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

That left Burke in no-man’s land once more. On the first loop, he had worked hard to catch the group that was fighting for top-10 results, and while he bridged the gap 500 meters before the range, he exited the range just far enough behind those skiers that he remained alone, one loop after another.

“It was a little bit tougher for sure,” he said of the solo race. “I was hoping I’d be able to tuck in on the second loop and catch a little bit of a break.”

Burke worked especially hard the first couple loops to catch those ahead of him and said he felt the effects of that effort later in the race. Still, he held on and most importantly held it together for the last shooting.

“So much can change on the last shooting…,” Burke said. “I was hoping that people would finally start making mistakes there on the end. The last shooting, I shot on point 11 and shot zero and moved up one place. I was really happy to move back into the top 10; it’s the best race I’ve had in a while.”

At the same time, he reflected on how tight the race was. Given the race he had, with 19-for-20 shooting and the 19th-fastest course time, Burke would have guessed he would have finished in the top six. Not the case when the fastest guys don’t have to ski many penalty laps.

“It’s a fairly easy approach to the range here of so a lot of people shoot well here,” he noted.

Burke will be one of three North Americans starting Sunday’s 15 k mass start, with Canada’s Nathan Smith in bib 12, Bailey in 19th and Burke in 26th out of 30. Three seasons ago, Burke placed third in the Pokljuka mass start.

“I think it’ll be a great opportunity for me,” Burke said. “Typically I do well at the end of these trimesters … these three weeks of racing.

“At this point, fatigue definitely plays a big role for everyone, both mentally and physically,” he added. “A lot of people want to get home at this time. … For me, it’s one more race. I need to focus for 40 minutes out there and I think I can handle that.”

On Monday, the day after the Pokljuka World Cup ends and the IBU World Cup goes on holiday break, he’ll fly home to Lake Placid, N.Y.

While Bailey was the second man for the U.S. in 29th, Brendan Green was the top Canadian in 30th (+2:53.3). After starting 46th and cleaning the first three stages, Green missed two on the last standing and fought for a top 30 on the final loop.

For the first time in history, five Canadian men started the pursuit. Smith finished 35th (after starting 24th) with three penalties (1+0+2+0). Scott Gow started 35th and finished 45th with four misses (1+1+2+0), and Macx Davies slipped from 34th to 57th with six penalties (3+2+2+1). Despite skiing in the top-30 for a portion of the race, Christian Gow, in bib 37, did not finish.

“On my fourth lap I developed a debilitating cramp and had to stop the race,” Gow wrote in an email about his DNF. “I really wanted to finish, especially since I was having a good race, but I simply couldn’t. It is disappointing for me, but sometimes these things are out of your own control.”

“It was a tough day for our team,” Biathlon Canada’s High-Performance Director Eric de Nys said in a press release. “The coaches are thinking there may be a bit of a flu bug going around. Nathan and Rosanna [Crawford] both felt off today. Christian completely cramped up and Megan [Tandy] blacked out on the course. It was an off day, but they will review the day with the athletes and bounce back from this.”

American Leif Nordgren made up a few spots in 49th (after starting 52nd) despite four penalties (0+1+2+1).

Results | Mass start extended start list

December 19, 2015
Dahlmeier and Dorin Habert ‘Duelling’ Again; Dunklee 10th in Pursuit

Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier after winning the women’s 10 k pursuit at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: IBU/Kvetoslav Frgal)

The IBU Biathlon World Cup season, and especially this weekend of races in Pokljuka, Slovenia, is shaping up more and more as a duel between German and French athletes at the top.

Just like Martin Fourcade and Simon Schempp battled it out on the men’s side, the women’s weekend was highlighted by close races between France’s Marie Dorin Habert and Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier.

In Friday’s sprint, Dorin Habert prevailed by just over a second. But after skiing together for most of the pursuit on Saturday, the positions on the podium were reversed and Dahlmeier was victorious, finishing first in 30:08.9 minutes, 18 seconds ahead of her French rival, just like she had publicly announced as her goal after the race on Friday.

In sunny and warm conditions on Saturday afternoon with almost no wind on the shooting range, the two athletes quickly established a sizable lead to the rest of the field, which kept growing until the finish as neither incurred a penalty lap in the four shooting stages.

Third place went to Finland’s Kaisa Mäkärainen, winner of the first pursuit of the season in Östersund, Sweden, who has since been struggling with her shooting accuracy. Mäkärainen missed just one target in her final stage in this race (0+0+0+1) and left the range in fourth, just behind the Czech Republic’s Gabriela Soukalová (0+0+1+0) in third. Mäkärainen was able overtake her on the last loop and finish 9.4 seconds ahead of her for the final step on the podium. Mäkärainen skied the fastest course time of 55 finishers.

“It’s very nice to be back on the podium,” Mäkärainen said in a post-race press conference. “I felt very good today and very happy about my range time. I hope to be back in the top five every competition, but most important are the World Championships in Oslo next March.”

After Gabriela Soukalová in fourth, Germany’s Franziska Preuss placed fifth, edging teammate Vanessa Hinz in sixth by 0.5 seconds. Both had only one penalty in the third shooting (0+0+1+0).

Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) racing to 10th in the women’s 10 k pursuit at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

US Biathlon’s Susan Dunklee, who started sixth, 31 seconds behind Dorin Habert, hit 18 of 20 targets (1+0+1+0) and finished the day in 10th (+1:35.4).

“I realized halfway through the race that my typical greatest strength, my skiing, wasn’t quite in top form today,” Dunklee explained in an email. “Usually I move up through packs, but today big trains of people passed me and I had to let them go.

“Perhaps I overdid it in the second loop,” she added, referring to the loop where she posted the third-fastest course time. “Luckily I had another great day on the shooting range and that kept me in the race.”

Friendly Rivalry

Unlike in the men’s race where Schempp and Fourcade seemed to disagree about skiing tactics, not wanting to make the pace for each other, Dorin Habert and Dahlmeier skied together from the start and frequently exchanged in the lead in order to create a gap to the rest of the field.

“I was lucky that I could ski all four loops with Marie Dorin. I think we distributed that well, with her taking the first part of the round, and me taking the lead on the second part being faster out of the downhill,” Dahlmeier told the German TV broadcaster ZDF. “I think that was decisive. And then of course a zero [clean shooting] on the shooting range is still required.”

The crucial situation deciding the race happened on the third loop leading into the final stage, when Dorin Habert stumbled in soft snow in a sharp downhill turn, falling on her belly and just narrowly avoiding the V-boards on the edge of the track. She quickly got back up, and at the next split time, she was still only 7.4 seconds behind Dahlmeier.

France’s Marie Dorin Habert (l) and Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier stuck together for the majority of Saturday’s pursuit at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: IBU/Kvetoslav Frgal)

“I don’t know what happened,” Dorin Habert said in an English interview with ZDF.
“I think I just made a wrong movement with my ski, and that’s why I was a few seconds late behind Laura, and I think that’s why I lost the win because of that. But no problems, it’s good to be second.”

In the press conference, she elaborated: “It was a stupid error. I made the wrong move with my skis,” she said. “Falling on a downhill is stressful, as it’s hard to come back to the race.”

In addition to the seconds Dorin Habert lost when she fell, Dahlmeier gained another advantage when she was able to hit her first targets before the French skier even reached the shooting mat. In previous shooting stages, Dorin Habert had put some pressure on the Dahlmeier by beginning and cleaning her targets first.

“I let her in front before the shooting range because we had zeroed our aim [before the race] on range 3 and 4 and the French on 1 and 2, and you always prefer to shoot there,” Dahlmeier said of another tactic. “I generally try to focus just on my own targets, clean the shots one by one. Of course you notice when the spectators are yelling [after a hit or miss], but I try to ignore that as much as possible.”

Both cleaned all targets for the fourth time, but Dahlmeier left the range 10.8 seconds in front of Dorin Habert, who was not able to catch up to her again on the last loop. Despite opening her ski pole straps and waiving to the crowd already on the final stretch, in the finish Dahlmeier expanded that lead, winning by 18 seconds.

Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier after winning the women’s 10 k pursuit at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: IBU/Kvetoslav Frgal)

Despite her mishap, Dorin Habert was not disappointed at all with second place.

“No, no, no, because we made a perfect race with Laura,” she told ZDF. “It was very exciting to compete with her all the time. I am very happy that my shooting was perfect, I always want to do races like that, and congrats to Laura.”

The two athletes hugged each other after the finish, exhausted but smiling.

“Today you had to run a smart race,” Dahlmeier said. “The strength is fading towards the finish, and this is the last block of races before Christmas.”

Despite the pursuit loss, Dorin Habert achieved a different kind of victory on Saturday by taking over the yellow bib as the overall women’s World Cup leader. She has 309 points after seven competitions, and is currently five points ahead of Soukalová, and she’ll wear the bib in Sunday’s mass start.

“I don’t want to compete tomorrow. It will be very hard. I hope to get a good sleep and perform well tomorrow,” Dorin Haber joked in the press conference. “Yellow is a very nice color, I like it a lot. I hope I won’t wear it just for one competition.”

10^th for Dunklee

Dunklee finished the pursuit in 10th and seemed happy with that result, briefly pumping her right fist and later waiving to the many spectators in the arena that was filled to capacity. She recorded the 12^th-fastest skiing time on the course among all athletes, but was most satisfied with her shooting with just two misses (1+0+1+0).

“Cleaning the last standing stage especially is extremely important in a pursuit,” Dunklee wrote. “I was pleasantly surprised to hear I was in tenth heading out on the last loop. I realized I had to fight hard early in that loop to dissuade Doro [Dorothea Wierer of Italy] from thinking she might be able to hunt me down.”

Her effort got rewarded, with Dunklee skiing the 10^th-fastest final loop, and Wierer, who had already won a World Cup 15 k in Östersund this season, finishing 14 seconds behind her.

Biathlon Canada’s Julia Ransom, who achieved her best World Cup result of 31st in Friday’s sprint, held her position for a long time, then missed three shots in the final shooting (1+0+1+3), which set her back. After leaving the range in 47th, she finished 44^th (+4:46.2).

One position and a second behind her in the finish was teammate Rosanna Crawford, who started the race in 23^rd, but got off to a problematic start after missing four shots in the first prone. That put her in 54^th heading into her second loop.

“My misses were all high but moving around, so not a group,” Crawford explained in an email. “I think I was maybe so focused on wanting to hit my standing shots that I didn’t give my prone enough thought and focus. It’s amazing how quickly you can go from thinking you are a good shooter to missing 4 in your first bout!”

She had two more penalties before the finish (4+1+0+1), yet steadily picked off racers along the way to end up 45^th (+4:47.4).

“For the next 3 shootings I was mostly over it, I didn’t hammer the skiing, just thought of it as a good opportunity to work on some good ski technique and cleaning my standing,” Crawford wrote.

Canada’s third woman in the pursuit, Megan Tandy had a scare when she lost consciousness on the course. After starting in 51^st position, she skied the 39^th fastest time on the first loop, then had to ski three penalty laps after the first stage. Shortly after that on the second loop, she was seen on the TV broadcast suddenly collapsing to the ground on a fairly flat section, seemingly not caused by an obvious skiing error or contact with another athlete.

A bit later she was shown sitting on the side of the track, conscious and receiving attention from coaches and course staff. She could not finish the race.

“Unfortunately, my race ended unexpectedly early today when I lost consciousness on course, eek,” she later posted on Facebook. “While passing out on TV during the pursuit was a far cry from my idea of a “good day”, I can assure you that the footage looked much worse than it felt. Not to worry, I am already feeling much better and am being well taken care of. Thanks a lot to all the people who helped me out today. After a good Christmas break I will be ready to go again ☺”

In an email, she confirmed that she was unharmed by the incident: “I am really not sure what happened, I felt unwell skiing and a bit lightheaded, but I was just thinking to make it to the top of the hill so I could tuck and rest a second, and then I was aware of blackness closing in very fast – but I don’t remember falling at all,” Tandy wrote. “There were several people around me when I came to and they had already taken my skis and rifle off.”

She had not noticed any warning signs ahead of time: “Only that I was feeling exhausted and unwell during the race for a minute or two before. Other then that, no — I actually had a good ski performance yesterday and felt completely healthy and normal.”

This was only the second time she did not finish a race, she explained.

“I think I will be just fine, I am just taking it easy and feeling a bit weak / tired,” she wrote.

Most of the team plans to return to Canada on Monday for the holiday break.

Mass Start on Sunday

The weekend in Pokljuka concludes Sunday with the first mass start of the season, 10 k for the women and 15 k for the men. In this discipline, all participants start at the same time in 10 rows of three athletes each. The 25 best athletes on the World Cup total-point score standings at that time of the season are pre-qualified, plus five more athletes not among those top 25, who achieved the best results in the events that race weekend, make the cut.

Via this second criterion, Dunklee qualified for the women’s race, and is scheduled to start out of row 9 (bib 26).

“One more day left of full focus and full gas for the mass start. I know I will probably feel tired, but everyone else in the race will be exhausted from the past month so that shouldn’t be a big problem,” Dunklee wrote.

No other North American woman made the cut, though Crawford would be the first athlete on the “reserve standby list” in case another qualified athlete would not be able to start, for example due to illness.

“I thought I was a bit safer for the mass start in the overall World Cup standing, but I guess not,” Crawford wrote in an email. “Now I am sitting as first reserved for tomorrows race. So that’s disappointing. Looking forward to heading home and getting back to real winter and some family time.”

On the men’s side, Canadian Nathan Smith as well as Americans Tim Burke and Lowell Bailey qualified.

Results | Mass start extended start list

December 19, 2015
Dunklee Retrieves Old Feelings to Finish Sixth, Best Sprint Result in Two Years (Updated)

Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) placed sixth in the IBU World Cup sprint on Friday in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

(Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

Note: This article has been corrected to include Susan Dunklee’s sixth-place pursuit finish last season in Antholz, Italy. On Friday in Pokljuka, Slovenia, Dunklee tied her best result last season and posted her best sprint finish in two years.

***

For Susan Dunklee, it felt really good to smell the roses (and gerbera daisies or whatever those orange flowers were) on Friday at the third International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup stop in Pokljuka, Slovenia.

It’s not that she hadn’t been to the flower ceremony before; the 29-year-old US Biathlon veteran placed sixth in a pursuit last January in Antholz, Italy, and she reached the podium two seasons ago at a World Cup sprint in Oslo, Norway. Before that in January 2014, Dunklee placed fourth in a sprint in Antholz, Italy, which, at the time, stood as the best result by a U.S. female biathlete since 1994.

In the time since Dunklee’s 2014 sprint podium, she has continued to lead the U.S. women’s team while experimenting with some tweaks to her training and her approach.

“Biathlon is a notoriously up and down sport,” Dunklee wrote in an email after Friday’s 7.5 k sprint, in which she placed sixth for her best result in two seasons.

In two weeks of racing beforehand, Dunklee had not finished higher than 31st this season. She placed 64th in the World Cup opening sprint in Östersund, Sweden, then 53rd at the sprint last weekend in Hochfilzen, Austria. In both races, she missed four of 10 targets.

“After getting off to a rough start this season, I realized that my biggest challenge would be to remain happy and confident, and to keep my focus forward,” Dunklee explained.

She described her summer training as high-quality.

“I took a lot more ownership in the planning, specifically targeting my weakest areas,” she wrote. “After seeing huge steps forward in training, I was hoping for big things this winter. In those first few races of the season I did a great job executing my race plan, but the results didn’t reflect that at all. That was frustrating and disappointing.”

Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) racing to sixth in the women’s 7.5 k sprint at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

Thank goodness for breakthroughs. On Friday, Dunklee knocked down 9 of 10 targets for her best shooting of the season. Combined with fast skiing (with her overall course time ranking seventh of 103 finishers), she ended up sixth, 30.6 seconds behind winner Marie Dorin Habert of France and 17.6 seconds off the podium.

Dunklee started second and set a long list of split times to beat for those behind her. Her time on the first loop held up as third-fastest of the day, and her last loop ranked eighth.

The eventual top four — Dorin Habert in first, Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier in second (+1.1) and Franziska Hildebrand in third (+13.0), and Veronika Vitkova of the Czech Republic in fourth (+16.4) — all cleaned the two-stage race. Another Czech skier, Gabriela Soukalová in fifth (+25.2) missed one prone shot, like Dunklee. Fortunately, prone hasn’t been Dunklee’s problem.

“Skiing and prone shooting have already been strong,” Dunklee observed. “Standing shooting has been what held me back this season. I’ve been working to fix a very minor issue with my timing. The trigger-finger/brain connection has been off and caused my shots to land left.”

In Pokljuka, her standing shots grouped more toward the center, she explained. She cleaned that stage, and that was the moment she knew Friday’s race could be a good one.

The second starter, she didn’t hear much in terms of split information, so she told herself to imagine she was fighting for a top 10. Dunklee finished first and held the lead until Soukalová in bib 15 finished 5.4 seconds faster.

“I felt relaxed today,” Dunklee noted. “Everything seemed so quiet that first loop — it reminded me of starting bib number 1, at Ruhpolding World Championships in 2012 when I had one of my best performances [placing fifth in the 15 k individual]. I tried to recreate that feeling.”

Back then, she was 26 and only four years into her biathlon career. Fifth stood as the best result ever for a U.S. woman at IBU World Championships.

Susan Dunklee and the US Biathlon support crew following Dunklee’s sixth-place finish in the women’s IBU World Cup sprint in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

Three and a half years later, she was back at the flower ceremony and within striking distance of the podium.

“This is a huge confidence booster for me going into the Christmas break and reaffirms the work I did this summer,” she wrote. “I am very happy today. Our whole staff is happy. Seeing them so excited at the flower ceremony reminds me of how many people are behind creating a good performance.”

According to US Biathlon Chief of Sport Bernd Eisenbichler, the last few weeks haven’t been easy for Dunklee.

“She struggled a bit in the last weeks with her confidence, especially in standing shooting, but made a great step forward in the pursuit in Hochfilzen and today was just perfect,” he said in a US Biathlon press release. “She worked hard to cut her shooting times over the summer and showed that today very impressively. On the track she looked good and the seventh ski time reflects that. But I also know there is quite more to come for her on the ski speed in the coming weeks.”

U.S. Women’s Coach Jonne Kähkönen said he’d seen her progression throughout the summer and fall, but knew Dunklee needed a good race “to get the ball rolling.”

“Susan had the patience to analyze and the hunger to keep working during the first weeks of racing,” Kähkönen said. “We talked a lot about the challenges of the shooting specifically at this venue and it is just great to see her stick with the plan and get a reward for all the hard work. What is even greater is the fact that this was not by all means a perfect race, so there are still things to keep working on and trying to get even better — as always.”

Dunklee will start Saturday’s 10 k pursuit in sixth, 31 seconds behind Dorin Habert.

“I am very happy today. Our whole staff is happy. Seeing them so excited at the flower ceremony reminds me of how many people are behind creating a good performance.” — Susan Dunklee, sixth in Pokljuka sprint

Also qualifying for the pursuit, Canada’s Rosanna Crawford finished 23rd (+1:11.4) in the sprint with a single standing penalty. She started early in bib 10 and while her race was slower than Dunklee’s (her course time ranked 38th overall), Crawford cleaned standing, and hit every target up until her last shot.

At that moment, she let out an audible scream, which TV cameras picked up, and she shook her head as she skated out of the range and into the penalty lap.

“I’m feeling a bit frustrated with my ski speed right now,” Crawford said afterward in a Biathlon Canada press release.

Like Dunklee, the 27-year-old Crawford also tried something different this training season. Specifically, she was hoping to peak later this winter.

“The shooting has been pretty good but the shape isn’t quite there,” Crawford said. “I knew that with changing things the first trimester of racing might now be where I want to be. Hopefully things pay off and the ski speed will come.”

About 15 seconds behind her, Crawford’s teammate Julia Ransom placed 31st (+1:26.3) for a new career best, improving upon 32nd in the Östersund sprint this season. The 22-year-old Ransom finished the day with a single prone penalty.

A third Canadian woman, Megan Tandy, made the pursuit in 51st (+2:00.8), finishing with three penalties (1+2). One of the latest starters in bib 95, Emma Lunder got some TV time during her shooting stage, where she missed two in addition to two preceding prone penalties en route to 89th (+3:31.7).

In the men’s race on Thursday, five Canadians qualified for the pursuit — a first for their team.

“This has been a pretty good start for the team, and our younger athletes are definitely ahead of where I was at their age,” Crawford said. “I think the good results by the older athletes in the past few years has allowed us to better prepare athletes coming up. With more support on Tour, less Tour fees, and more money put towards summer training – the results are showing with many of the team members getting World Cup points.”

Three U.S. women missed the top-60 pursuit criteria, with Hannah Dreissigacker finishing 7.3 seconds back from 60th in 64th (+2:20.5) with a single standing miss. Clare Egan placed 84th (+3:18.8) with two prone penalties, and Annelies Cook finished 94th (+3:47.0) with five misses (2+3).

Saturday’s races start at 11:15 CET (5:15 EDT) with the men’s pursuit, followed by the women’s pursuit at 13:30 CET (7:30 EDT).

Results

December 18, 2015
With 1 Year Old at Home, Dorin Habert Wins Pokljuka Sprint

The women’s 7.5 k sprint podium on Friday at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia, with winner Marie Dorin Habert of France (c), and two Germans: Laura Dahlmeier (l) in second and Franziska Hildebrand (r) in third. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

Note: This article has been corrected to include American Susan Dunklee’s sixth-place pursuit finish last season in Antholz, Italy. On Friday in Pokljuka, Slovenia, Dunklee tied her best result last season and posted her best sprint finish in two years.

This season, several of the best cross-country skiers in the world, including Norway’s Marit Bjørgen, Kikkan Randall of the U.S. Ski Team, and Finland’s Aino-Kaisa Saarinen, are taking a sabbatical while expecting the birth of their first children. If the skiing of France’s young mother Marie Dorin Habert is any indication, they really don’t need to worry about making successful comebacks.

For quite a while during the women’s 7.5 kilometer sprint at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia, it looked like Germany could achieve another victory on Friday — just like the team did a week ago with a podium sweep of the sprint in Hochfilzen, Austria. But Dorin Habert had other plans and claimed the top spot on the podium with a winning time of 20:17.8 minutes.

France’s Marie Dorin Habert takes aim during the standing stage of Friday’s sprint at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. She cleaned the two-stage race and won by 1.1 seconds. (Photo: IBU/Kvetoslav Frgal)

Last March, the 29-year-old French biathlete was the big surprise of 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland, with two gold medals (in the sprint and pursuit) and two silvers (relay and mixed relay), which she achieved just half a year after the birth of her daughter Adele in September 2014. She returned to the World Cup last January.

On Friday, Dorin Habert added and first victory of the season (and third World Cup win) to her list of achievements, beating two Germans, Laura Dahlmeier — the winner of last week’s pursuit — by 1.1 seconds and Franziska Hildebrand, the winner of last week’s sprint, by 13.0 seconds.

Under sunny skies with calm, stable wind, just like the men raced in Thursday, all of the three women on the podium shot clean in the two-stage race, incurring no penalties.

Asked how she is managing her life with a 1-year-old while competing as a World Cup athlete, Dorin Habert explained in an English interview with German broadcaster ZDF: “It is very complicated to organize everything. I am lucky because my husband [retired French biathlete Lois Habert] can sometimes go with me. He is a commentator on TV for Eurosport France,” she said.

He and the baby joined her at the first IBU World Cup in Östersund, and last week, Adele returned home while Dorin Habert raced in Hochfilzen.

“This week she is with me in the hotel in Bled [Slovenia] with the nanny,” she explained. “So very nice, but very complicated to organize the travel and flights and everything.”

Dorin Habert started 35th on Friday and after two flawless stages, she left range for the second time trailing Dahlmeier, in bib 30, by 5.4 seconds.

“My standing [shooting] was very bad throughout all the start of the season,” Dorin Habert told ZDF. “[Today is] the first time that I am okay, so I’m very happy for that.”

Already skiing fast and with the added advantage of hearing her coaches call out split times to the leaders, Dahlmeier and Hildebrand, Dorin Habert pushed hard on the final loop to make up the deficit. Descending down a small ramp into the stadium, she entered the finishing straight with long, gliding steps while swinging her arms without using her poles, and crossed the line 13 seconds faster than Hildebrand (who started 20th) to take the lead. At the end of the day, nobody else out of 105 starters could catch her, although Dahlmeier came within 1.1 seconds at the finish.

“I am not surprised, but I am very happy,” Dorin Habert said of her win at an IBU press conference. She posted the third-fastest course time.

“I did a good job on the shooting range. I worked hard on my standing shooting,” she added. “It was hard on the skis, as we had a lot of races last week. I tried to be very concentrated on each target.”

Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier racing to second in the women’s IBU World Cup sprint in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

Looking like the winner for a long time, Dahlmeier shot clean and skied the fourth-fastest overall course time.Despite missing out on another win by just over a second, the 22-year-old German was very satisfied with her performance.

“This is the first time this season that I’ve managed to shoot a ‘zero’ [no misses],” she told ZDF. “I’m extremely excited to be back on the podium. I knew it would be a close race, and that you really would have to deliver a ‘zero’ on the shooting range.

“It was a perfect day for me,” she said at the press conference. “Marie was first today, we will see what happens tomorrow. I am happy about my form. We are a little higher above sea level, and that’s stressful [on the body]. I am already looking forward to the Christmas break.”

Dahlmeier missed the World Cup opener in Östersund, Sweden, with a nagging cold. She’ll start Saturday’s pursuit 1 second behind Dorin Habert and 12 seconds ahead of Hildebrand, her teammate.

Like the other two podium finishers, Hildebrand, 28, took her time on the shooting range to hit all 10 targets. Her standing shooting time ranked 96th.

“I had to catch my breath after the second or third shot. From my point of view that was a great series, all very secure hits, everything in, everything white,” Hildebrand told ZDF. “That saved me today.”

But she more than made up for a few lost seconds on the range by avoiding the penalty lap and skiing fast, recording the fifth-ranked overall course time. From the last shooting to the finish she still lost about ten seconds to Dahlmeier, but for a reason: “I’m a little bit under the weather today,” she said. “I didn’t know how it would work. I felt during the race, especially on the last lap, that I was not quite as fresh anymore. But I think it was still a great race, and overall I’m really satisfied.”

Showing the depth of their team, all six of Germany’s starters finished in the top 15 with Maren Hammerschmidt in seventh, Franziska Preuss in ninth, Vanessa Hinz in 13th, and Miriam Gössner in 15th. Less than two years after leaving the 2014 Olympics without any women’s biathlon medals — and with several decorated athletes such as Magdalena Neuner and Andrea Henkel (now Andrea Burke) having retired in recent years — the team feels like it is on a good trajectory again.

“We trained hard. We are a good team, and we can push each other to become better,” Hildebrand said in the press conference.

“We have proven that we have arrived at the top again, and you always have to account for us,” Dahlmeier told ZDF. “I hope we can keep this up all season, and then achieve our peak at the World Championships [in March].”

Fourth place went to Veronika Vítková of Czech Republic, who finished 16.4 seconds behind Dorin Habert, also with two clean stages. Her teammate and overall World Cup leader Gabriela Soukalová placed fifth (+25.2), as the best athlete who had to ski a penalty lap (with a single standing miss).

American Susan Dunklee placed sixth for her best sprint result in two seasons. She finished 30.6 seconds behind Dorin Habert and 17.6 seconds off the podium. She might have been able to make it had she avoided her penalty lap in the prone shooting, and was the second-best athlete with a penalty on Friday. She’ll start 31 seconds back in the pursuit.

The women’s top six at the flower ceremony following the IBU World Cup sprint in Pokljuka, Slovenia, with Marie Dorin Habert of France in first, Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier and Franziska Hildebrand in second and third, respectively, Veronika Vitkova (third from r) and Gabriela Soukalova (second from r) of the Czech Republic in fourth and fifth, and American Susan Dunklee (far right) in sixth. (Photo: IBU/Kvetoslav Frgal)

Pursuit up next

The times back from Dorin Habert as the winner of the sprint carry over into the pursuit race on Saturday.

“Everyone can expect a very exciting race,” Dahlmeier told ZDF. “The shooting range will be decisive again. You just have to shoot well, and then everything is possible, I am looking forward to it.

“Everything is possible,” she said in the press conference. “It is difficult to predict who will win, but I will fight for the first place in tomorrow’s competition.”

Results

December 18, 2015
Schempp Rolls to Perfect Sprint Victory in Pokljuka; Burke 14th, Bailey 15th for U.S.

The men’s sprint podium at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia, with winner Simon Schempp (c) of Germany, Norway’s Ole Einar Bjørndalen (l) in second, and Russia’s Evgeniy Garanichev (r) in third. (Photo: IBU/Kvetoslav Frgal)

Does anybody remember when Simon Schempp placed 77th in the first International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup sprint of the season two weeks ago in Östersund, Sweden? The German missed four out of five targets in each of two shooting stages for an insurmountable eight penalties. That was three days after he placed second in the 20-kilometer individual race, in which he hit 19-of-20 targets.

As the best biathletes know, sometimes you’ve got it, sometimes you don’t.

Lowell Bailey (US Biathlon) cleaned the IBU World Cup sprint to place 15th on Thursday in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

However, Schempp, 27, appears to be on something of a streak after winning his second-straight sprint in the last two World Cup weekends: he fired on all cylinders and cleaned to win in Hochfilzen, Austria, then topped Norway’s Ole Einar Bjørndalen with some blazing-fast loops in Pokljuka, Slovenia, to win the men’s 10 k sprint on Thursday.

With a winning time of 23:02.5, Schempp shot 100 percent with the best of them: Bjørndalen in second (+15.2) also cleaned, as did the two Russians in third and fourth — Evgeniy Garanichev (+25.1) and Alexey Slepov (+25.3), respectively.

France’s Martin Fourcade was fastest with a single miss (0+1) and ended up fifth (+25.6).

“I just felt good again today,” Schempp told the German broadcaster ZDF after the race. “Everything worked well on the shooting range again. The conditions for shooting were very good. … I felt good on the track, and of course it’s crazy if it was sufficient again today.”

For Schempp, the World Cup victory was his seventh in his career and it came on a day with practically invariable conditions. The sun was shining in Pokljuka and there wasn’t much wind, helping nine of the eventual top-15 finishers hit all of their targets.

Norway’s Tarjei Bø racing to ninth on Thursday at the IBU World Cup sprint in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: IBU/Kvetoslav Frgal)

While Schempp started 52nd and picked off his biggest rivals for the win, including Bjørndalen in bib 14, Garanichev in bib 17 and Fourcade in bib 20, with the second-fastest overall course time, US Biathlon’s Lowell Bailey started seventh and cleaned both stages for his moment in the spotlight.

Albeit briefly, Bailey was initially first at the finish after holding off Norway’s Tarjei Bø on the final loop. Bø started 30 seconds behind Bailey, and ultimately bested the American’s time by 22.2 seconds. With a single standing penalty (0+1), Bø placed ninth overall (+36.9), while Bailey settled into 15th (+59.1).

“Although I started out fairly slow in the first lap, I was happy that I was able to keep Tarjei off my back for the final loop,” Bailey wrote in an email. “He’s in great shape right now and I wasn’t sure I could keep him behind me until the finish!”

Bailey explained the Pokljuka course is one of his favorites on the circuit, with long gradual uphills — totaling 336 meters (1,100 feet) of climbing per loop — and several transitions. He chose the early start as he and his coaches thought the tracks would be fastest at the beginning of the race.

There were some icy patches, as Fourcade nearly crashed on the first loop on a steep downhill where racers approached 70 kilometers per hour. Fourcade narrowly avoided skiing off the trail and finished the race 0.5 seconds off the podium.

Germany’s Arnd Peiffer fell at the end of his first loop while approaching the range, breaking the sole of his boot and costing him valuable time. Despite clean shooting, he ended up 42nd (+1:38.6).

Tim Burke (US Biathlon) leads Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen (21) on Thursday in the men’s IBU World Cup 10 k sprint in Pokljuka, Slovenia. Svendsen placed 11th and Burke finished 14th. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

Bailey’s teammate, Tim Burke set out on the course in bib 37, cleaned prone and missed one standing to place 14th, 4.5 seconds ahead of Bailey. It was Burke’s first top 20 of the season.

And Bailey, like Schempp, had recovered from 68th in the Östersund sprint (with six penalties), to place 12th in Hochfilzen with perfect 10-for-10 shooting.

“I was really happy with the way that shooting went [today],” Bailey wrote on Thursday. “I didn’t feel 100% on the tracks, but it wasn’t bad either.”

While Bailey had the fifth-fastest shooting time (and 41st-ranked course time), Burke was 13th-fastest on the course.

“This is definitely one of my favorite courses,” Burke wrote in an email. “I think it suits my strengths well with long, sustained gradual climbs. I am able to V2 most of the course, which is definitely my best technique.”

He explained he focused on his race plan rather than a specific result. In two previous sprints this season, Burke placed 30th in Hochfilzen (and 27th in the following pursuit), and 45th in Östersund. Thursday marked his best shooting in an individual race this season.

“Of course I always want a better result but I am satisfied with my time back,” he wrote. “In the sprint last week and this week, I had the skiing to make it to the podium with clean shooting and that’s where I want to be.”

Nathan Smith led the Canadians in 24th with 90-percent shooting (1+0). He started ninth and finished 1:15.9 back from Schempp, notably with the second-fastest shooting time and third-ranked range time of 102 finishers.

Burke, Bailey and Smith all qualified for Saturday’s pursuit, along with four other Canadians, including Macx Davies in 34th (+1:28.8), and Scott Gow in 35th (+1:30), both with a single penalty. Christian Gow cleaned to place 37th (+1:31.3) and meet the top-60 pursuit criteria, as did Brendan Green, who had two prone misses en route to 46th (+1:47.3). American Leif Nordgren finished 52nd (+2:02), with one standing penalty, and his teammate Sean Doherty placed 71st (+2:31.3) with four misses (3+1).

Men’s sprint results

December 18, 2015
In Second-Ever Mass Start, Smith Clinches Ninth; Shipulin Causes Late Trip to Win in Pokljuka

Nathan Smith (Biathlon Canada) racing to 13th in the first Olympic race of his career, the 10 k sprint in last season in Sochi, Russia.

This wasn’t Nathan Smith’s first time in a mass-start rodeo. The 28-year-old Canadian biathlete, who turns 29 on Christmas, had raced a 15-kilometer mass start in his first Olympics last winter. That was his first one — and he crashed out of it in a downhill pileup in the first 500 meters.

Sunday was going to be different — at least he’d know what to expect. Starting in the last of 10 rows in bib 30 out of 30 racers, Smith knew he was at a disadvantage from the get-go and tried not to stress over it on the first lap.

Not long into the final IBU World Cup race in Pokljuka, Slovenia (the last one of the circuit’s first trimester), Smith watched as a few competitors crashed in front of him. Fortunately, he saw the chaos coming and had enough time to move around them.

“I knew that if would take really strong skiing to maintain position because these are the 30 fastest in the world,” Smith reflected in an email on Monday.

Russia’s Anton Shipulin celebrates his IBU World Cup mass-start victory on Sunday in Pokljuka, Slovenia, which he won by 1.2 seconds over France’s Martin Fourcade (back). (Photo: IBU/Rene Miko)

Meanwhile, two of the top men in the overall World Cup, Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen in bib 1 and France’s Martin Fourcade in bib 2, set the pace out of the start. The third-ranked man in the World Cup at the time, Russia’s Anton Shipulin went with them. All three started in the first row.

Another Russian, Timofey Lapshin, who start in bib 29 near Smith, lost a ski on that first lap. By 2.2 k, Shipulin was leading a three-man train with Fourcade and Svendsen, and American Lowell Bailey was up to 11th, four seconds behind them. His US Biathlon teammate Tim Burke was another three seconds back in 17th, and Smith trailed by 11 seconds in 24th.

By the first shooting stage, all 30 racers lined up in their designated lanes, and Smith headed to the farthest mat from the exit — all the way off to the left. Then he missed his first shot.

“I’m not sure why I missed the first shot, but I had to be super, super careful after that,” he wrote.

It worked, he added, as he knocked down the next four targets — and went on to hit 18 straight on Sunday. Smith left the range in 20th, 33.7 seconds behind Shipulin, who cleaned, followed by Austria’s Dominik Landertinger 1.9 seconds back in second, Fourcade 3.5 seconds behind in third, and another Austrian, Simon Eder 4.8 seconds back in fourth.

The top 13 men after the first prone all cleaned, leaving Svendsen, who missed one, 21.7 seconds back in 14th.

The two other North Americans in the race, Bailey missed one and Burke had two penalties to put them in 26 and 28th, respectively, 46 and 54 seconds behind.

On the next lap, Fourcade took the lead, ahead of Landertinger, Shipulin, France’s Jean Guillaume Beatrix, who left the range in fifth, and Eder.

By the time the second prone rolled around, a large group of about 10 men entered the range together. Landertinger cleaned quickly, Shipulin matched him, as did Eder, Fourcade, and Beatrix. All five left the range within 1.6 seconds of one another.

Smith hit every target to move to 13th, 34 seconds behind.

“Shooting was excellent after that [first stage],” he reflected. “After the second prone I knew it was gonna be a great race.”

Bailey and Burke both cleaned to improve to 21st and 24th, respectively, both about a minute out from the lead.

Shipulin led Fourcade, Landertinger, Beatrix, and Eder through 8.2 k, then Fourcade took charge after the third stage. He quickly cleaned his standing shots, and Beatrix, Shipulin, and Sweden’s Fredrik Lindström, who had been hovering in the top 10 with perfect shooting, did as well. Eder had one penalty, Bulgaria’s Krasimir Anev jumped to sixth with clean shooting, and Smith found himself in seventh with another flawless stage.

“I had to reset once in the first standing but other than that there were no problems until the last few shots of the race,” Smith wrote.

The wind picked up for the men’s afternoon race, after a mostly calm-and-bluebird week in Pokljuka. It was still sunny, with more of a headwind coming at the athletes as they shot into the range.

Bailey also cleaned his second-straight stage to move to 19th (+1:07), and Burke had one miss to drop to 25th (+1:31).

Beatrix led around 10.6 k into the penultimate lap, with Shipulin and Fourcade right on his heels. Lindström fell 20 seconds off the pace, followed by Eder, and Smith was another nine seconds back — up to sixth, and just ahead of Anev and Ondrej Moravec of the Czech Republic.

Shipulin (3) leads Frenchmen Fourcade (l) and Beatrix (r) around 11.2 k during Sunday’s 15 k mass start in Pokljuka, Slovenia.

Shipulin took his turn leading at 11.2 k, followed by Beatrix and Fourcade, while Lindstroem and Eder hung together in fourth and fifth, about 13 seconds ahead of Smith.

Shipulin led into the range for the last time, where his first miss of the day put him 8.1 seconds back in fifth behind Eder, who cleaned, and Fourcade, who missed one but shot quickly to stay within three seconds of Eder.

Lindström finished the stage out with 20-for-20 shooting, the only man to do so, to leave the range in third, 7.2 back, and Beatrix missed one to head out fourth (+8.0), just ahead of Shipulin.

Smith missed his final shot to drop to 11th, but left the penalty loop feeling like he had a lot left to give — 37 seconds out at the time. Less than three seconds ahead of him, Germany’s Andreas Birnbacher in eighth, France’s Quentin Fillon Maillet in ninth and Russia’s Dmitry Malyshko in 10th were within reach.

“I really struggled to hold it together and those last three [stages],” Smith explained. “I almost felt dizzy trying to aim and concentrate from the pressure. That shot cost me a position where I could’ve been fighting in the lead pack for a medal.

“I almost felt dizzy trying to aim and concentrate from the pressure.” — Nathan Smith (Biathlon Canada), after placing ninth in Pokljuka mass start

“I held back behind a couple guys and waited to attack at the top of the second last climb,” Smith added. “I made a good gap on them and almost shook [Slovenia’s Jakov] Fak [who left the range in 12th], but he surged again on the next hill and got in front of me.”

At the front of the race, French teammates Beatrix and Fourcade led side by side up a hill, and attacked together to try to drop Shipulin, Eder, and Lindström — and perhaps each other. Beatrix picked up the pace again with about a kilometer to go, and Fourcade went with him, as did Shipulin trailing off the back of the breakaway.

Beatrix fell, apparently tripped up by Shipulin, and the Russian pounced on the opportunity to get ahead, attacking up and over the last rise to drop the field, soaring down into the stadium well ahead of Fourcade, as well as Eder and Lindström, who also passed Beatrix.

“I would like to apologize to Jean Guillaume; sometimes these things happen in sports, but I did not mean anything and did not do it on purpose,” Shipulin told the IBU media after the race.

Fourcade backed him up. “I think this is a part of the game,” he said. “I am 100-percent sure that Anton did not do it consciously. It kept me from battling Anton on the final stretch, but I have only to blame myself for not winning today; I missed one shot on the shooting range.”

Shipulin took the victory in 35:16.8, while Fourcade finished 1.2 seconds back in second, and Eder outsprinted Lindström in a photo finish for third (+1.4). Beatrix took fifth (+4.8).

“I am the guy who benefitted from the ‘wheel-banging’ in the last loop,” Eder said. “I might have been fourth! This is biathlon; I did not give up and you can see what happened!”

Norway’s Tarjei Bø placed sixth with a single penalty on his third stage, Moravec took seventh with one miss on his second prone, and Fak edged Smith by 0.6 seconds for eighth (+29.8).

Canada’s Nathan Smith racing to ninth in the IBU World Cup 10 k sprint in Östersund, Sweden, earlier this season. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

For Smith, ninth stood as his second-best World Cup result (after tallying two eighth-place finishes in a sprint and pursuit last season) in his second-ever mass start. After finishing 30.4 seconds behind the winner, he posted the third-fastest shooting time, seventh-ranked range time and eighth-fastest course time.

“Mass starts are a lot different than pursuits. It’s nice to get one under my belt now and I hope to do a few more this season, too,” Smith reflected. “I’m very happy with yesterday’s race and it’s a perfect way to cap off a strong trimester. It gives me extra motivation to rest up and train over the Christmas break.”

Just a few weeks ago, Smith placed ninth in the sprint at the World Cup opener in Östersund, Sweden, and 16th in the pursuit there, after skiing in the top three.

“I’m happy with the season so far. A bit disappointed that I missed a few medal opportunities due to last standing misses,” Smith wrote. “Skiing hasn’t been on average quite as good as last year yet, but it has been more consistent. My two best skis so far though are definitely at least as good as anything I did last year. Prone has been amazing, but standing needs to come up just a little and then I will be where I want to be.”

He’ll spend his holidays mostly in Vernon, British Columbia, with his girlfriend, Emma Lunder, and her family. After that, Smith planned to head to Canmore for a week, then back to Oberhof, Germany.

Lowell Bailey (US Biathlon) racing to 21st with two penalties in the 15 k mass start on the last day of IBU World Cup racing in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

In the final shooting stage of Sunday’s race, Bailey had another penalty and Burke missed three to drop to 22nd (+1:25.7) and 28th (+2:29.8), respectively. Bailey held his position to finish 22nd with two penalties, 1:34.6 behind Shipulin, while Burke moved up one spot to 27th (+2:32.3) with six misses.

“I was actually pretty satisfied with most of my race today,” Bailey said in a US Biathlon press release. “I felt better on the ski course and the shooting was pretty decent. The only issue was early on in the first prone stage. I had some trouble with my rifle and probably lost an extra 25 seconds getting that figured out. This made it pretty hard to recover and catch the rest of the pack. Other than that, I’m satisfied with the race and looking forward to the Christmas break.”

Fourcade regained the World Cup lead, and Shipulin moved up to second, 25 points back and just one point ahead of Svendsen — who finished 17th with four penalties on Sunday — in third overall.

Results

(Stay tuned for women’s mass-start report)

December 22, 2014
Mäkäräinen Rallies for Pokljuka Mass Start Win; Crawford Caps Trimester Off in 12th, 8th Overall

Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen celebrates her 7.6-second victory over Anais Bescond of France (back left) on Sunday in the 12.5 k mass start at the IBU Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: IBU/Rene Miko)

No matter what anyone else thought, Kaisa Mäkäräinen knew she still had it. Even at the end of a long string of 10 IBU World Cup races in 22 days, even as the laps wore on in Sunday’s 12.5-kilometer mass start, even after falling nearly 29 seconds back with two penalties in her third shooting.

“I did not feel too bad this morning and hoped some of the other girls would be more tired,” the 31-year-old Finnish biathlete told the IBU after the last race in Pokljuka, Slovenia. “After the third shooting, I felt that I had to work a little bit harder.”

Kaisa Mäkäräinen racing to second in Saturday’s 10 k pursuit at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

And so she did.

Embarking on her fourth of five 2.5 k laps, she came within 15 seconds of France’s Anais Bescond, who found herself in the lead after the first standing with clean shooting through three stages. Mäkäräinen latched onto Ukraine’s Valj Semerenko, who, like her, had also been in the top two without a miss up until the third bout. There, a single penalty lap put Semerenko 13.2 seconds out of the lead in fifth.

On the second-to-last lap, the two worked to catch the four women ahead of them: Bescond, Germany’s Vanessa Hinz, Gabriela Soukalova of the Czech Republic, and Nadezhda Skardino of Belarus. Hinz, Soukalova and Skardino had also hit all of their shots to that point.

At the last shooting, Bescond led Hinz and Soukalova into the range, carefully hit all of her shots and left the range in first once again. Hinz missed her first shot, and Soukalova and Skardino both cleaned, followed closely by fast-shooting Mäkäräinen and Semerenko, who also hit all five targets on the last standing.

France’s Anais Bescond leading on her own with one lap to go in the Pokljuka mass start.

Bescond, 27, left the stadium with a 9.8-second head start on Soukalova, tucking on her own on a descent, catching her breath and preparing for a tough final lap.

Mäkäräinen took off in fourth, 18 seconds out of first and 4.3 seconds behind Skardino in third. It didn’t take long for Mäkäräinen to get around Skardino and Soukalova, and the three-woman chase quickly formulated — then soon after dissipated when Skardino and Soukalova couldn’t keep up.

With just over a kilometer to go, Mäkäräinen caught and passed Bescond, who gave everything she had to stay with her. Skardino was another 11 seconds back in third, followed closely by Soukalova, and Semerenko, now 23.6 seconds behind.

Mäkäräinen took her tempo to the next level on a downhill leading into the final rise before the stadium. On the descent, she cruised toward the finish uncontested, pumped her arms and swung one fist up victoriously.

She had done it again, winning her 13th World Cup in 34:18.8 and tallying her eighth podium of the season. Bescond held onto second, 7.6 seconds behind Mäkäräinen, and waved to the crowd as she celebrated her second-best World Cup result and best mass-start finish.

“Today was a perfect day for me,” Bescond told the IBU. “My feeling on the skis was better and the shooting was perfect. I am happy to finish 2014 with a podium.”

Skardino locked up third, 15.8 seconds back, and Soukalova held off Semerenko by 1.1 seconds in fourth (+24.1).

Rosanna Crawford (Biathlon Canada) finishing 12th on Sunday in the IBU World Cup mass start in Pokljuka, Slovenia.

Canada’s Rosanna Crawford finished 12th, 1:25.2 back with three penalties (1+1+1+0), for her second-best mass-start result after a series of career bests in Pokljuka and Hochfilzen, Austria, the weekend before.

“I was feeling really confident going into the race, feeling like maybe today could be the day for that elusive 20/20,” Crawford reflected in an email on Monday. “There was a bit of wind, but nothing crazy. My shooting average has been great so far, 88% I think, much better than I’ve ever shot, but prone is definitely my weak spot right now and it’s almost always one miss!”

In three weeks of racing, she missed more than one shot in a single stage just twice.

“So I am happy with [that], but I really need some 100% races if I want to be on the podium,” she wrote. “Skiing was decent today, our skis were good, nothing like the Hochfilzen pursuit ski feeling, but that race was one of that ‘awwww yea’ days that don’t happen too often!”

Crawford explained she struggled on the longer uphill, but usually caught back up to her closest competitors on the second half of the course. On the last lap, she glanced back to see Italy’s Karin Oberhofer just behind her.

“I knew if I could just make it to the top of the hill first I would hold her off!” Crawford wrote. “Last loops have been good for me this year. I feel like I usually have bit of gas left to make up some ground or hold someone off, but still cross the finish line totally empty, knowing that I passed the race well.”

At the end of the day, she posted the third-fastest range time with 85-percent shooting and wrapped up the first trimester in eighth overall in the World Cup. On Monday, she was flying home to Canmore, Alberta.

“I am really happy with where I am heading into the Christmas break, only one race that wasn’t in the top 16,” she wrote. “I’ll take a few days to recover and spend time with my family and dogs and then try to get some good training in before coming back to Europe. … After a mental break, I’ll put some focus into prone shooting and see if I can stop missing one shot every time :)!”

Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) racing to 22nd in the women’s 12.5 k mass start at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

The other North American in the race, American Susan Dunklee finished 22nd (+2:26.9) with four penalties (2+1+1+0) to put herself 22nd in the overall World Cup.

“It was a beautiful, sunny day to end on in Slovenia and I had fun in my last race of 2014,” Dunklee said in a US Biathlon press release. Like Crawford, she had been battling a cold since earlier in the week.

“My body felt a lot better than [Saturday’s pursuit] and even though I missed a couple shots early in the race and lost touch with the lead pack, I had people to chase down every loop,” she said. “Team USA is looking forward to the holiday break and some time back home. All the European athletes are jealous that we’ll have lots of snow; it looks like a green Christmas for everyone over here.”

Mäkäräinen (l), Domracheva (c), and Valj Semerenko (r) leading the women’s 12.5 k mass start on Sunday at the Pokljuka World Cup in Slovenia. (Photo: IBU/Rene Miko)

Also worth noting, early in the race after the first shooting, Darya Domracheva of Belarus fell out of contention as she was exiting her penalty loop after one miss. The Pokljuka pursuit winner, she had been leading the mass start with Mäkäräinen throughout the first lap, but collided with another racer, who was heading into the loop. Crawford was right behind Domracheva when it happened.

“It was a pretty crazy crash,” she recalled. “Darya and I were the first ones to enter and as we were leaving I was looking left to make sure I could get out unscathed and then smack, she collides right with a French athlete, lands right on her back/rifle and spins a bit, looked like it hurt!”

Halfway around the second 2.5 k lap, Domracheva rebounded to pass Crawford and a number of others. But she struggled with her spare rifle in the second prone, missed four, and pulled out of the race on the third lap.

While Crawford described the incident as “unfortunate,” she added, “I’m pretty sure the rule is that people leaving the penalty loop have to yield to people entering. This penalty loop is also one of the more sketchy ones for that happening.”

With the DNF, Domracheva currently sits third overall in the World Cup, behind Mäkäräinen in first and Semerenko in second.

Results

December 22, 2014
In the Spotlight, Crawford Pulls Off Seventh in Pokljuka Pursuit; Domracheva Comes Out Strong (Updated)

Rosanna Crawford (Biathlon Canada) smiling for the camera before the start of the IBU World Cup 10 k pursuit on Saturday in Pokljuka, Slovenia. She started fourth and finished seventh.

(Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Canada’s Megan Heinicke, who had a career-best pursuit result on Saturday in 14th.)

Ever since last Sunday, Rosanna Crawford’s been trying to keep her success in perspective.

“I try not to bring previous results with me into my next races,” she told FasterSkier on Thursday. That was after she topped her career-best fifth, which she achieved in the IBU World Cup pursuit Dec. 14 in Hochfilzen, Austria, with a fourth-place finish in the World Cup sprint in Pokljuka, Slovenia.

Rosanna Crawford one place away from the podium on Thursday in the women’s IBU World Cup 7.5 k sprint in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Rosanna Crawford/Facebook)

Where would she go from there? The 26-year-old Canadian tried not to think about it. Overconfidence could be her enemy, but nerves? Those were unavoidable.

She started to feel them just before breakfast on Saturday, the morning of the women’s 10-kilometer pursuit in Pokljuka. Crawford was slated to start fourth, 37 seconds behind Gabriela Soukalova of the Czech Republic, who won Thursday’s sprint to lead the pursuit.

So she went for a jog.

“Then it slowly started to sink in,” Crawford recalled in an email.

At the start, she lined up with the likes of Soukalova, Italy’s Dorothea Wierer in bib 2, and Ukraine’s Valj Semerenko in bib 3. When the cameraman stood in front of her, she smiled and called out “Hey Brendan!” to her teammate and boyfriend, Brendan Green.

Then she took a breath. This was it — her chance for a podium, or at least a top finish. But she’d have to gain at least 12 seconds on Semerenko and hold off 56 other women behind her.

Soukalova went out first, 18 seconds ahead of Wierer. She held her own until the first shooting, where she missed three to drop to 18th and nearly a minute behind Wierer, who cleaned her first prone to take the lead.

Crawford lost her position on an early climb out of the stadium, when Darya Domracheva of Belarus in bib 6 passed her near the 0.7 k mark.

“Darya came flying by on the first loop and I stayed with her for a bit but then decided it was too fast for me,” she wrote.

In the range for the first shooting, Crawford missed two and slipped to 21st, 1:07.9 behind Wierer after two penalty loops.

Her goal had been to maintain her focus from her first shots during zero all the way through the race.

“Unfortunately the pressure still got to me for the first shooting and I missed one left, one right and the hits were all centre, so it was all me,” Crawford wrote. “But this was good information to get before my next prone, that I just needed to be bit more settled and focused for each shot.”

From there, she clawed her way back into the mix with perfect shooting through the next three stages. She lifted herself to seventh after the final standing, then posted the sixth-fastest course time on the last lap to finish seventh overall.

Domracheva held steady as well with clean shooting through the first three stages. After the first shooting, she left the range 10.8 seconds behind Wierer in first, and 5.5 seconds behind Semerenko. She passed them both before the second stage to enter the range first and stayed there through the finish.

Despite missing her last shot and having to ski a penalty loop on the last standing, she fended off Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen, who started 15th and charged hard in the final laps, by 10 seconds for her second win of the season in 29:55.9. Semerenko outsprinted Wierer by 0.4 seconds for third, 36.8 seconds behind Domracheva.

An exhausted Darya Domracheva (Belarus) celebrates her second win of the IBU World Cup season on Saturday in the Pokljuka pursuit. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

“Today I felt I was very concentrated on the shooting range and in control of the race,” Domracheva told the IBU after the race. “Maybe I left too fast from the last shooting stage … but you see as always, I never give up.”

However, she did look back to make sure she didn’t let off the gas too early. As Domracheva crossed the finish line, Mäkäräinen — who had a single miss on her second prone — came soaring down the final descent into the stadium.

Domracheva went down onto her knees and doubled over with exhaustion. Mäkäräinen threw up her arms a couple times to the crowd, as if to say, “I tried.”

Forty-six seconds behind the Belarusian after the third stage, Mäkäräinen in third passed Semerenko early as they left the stadium together on the fourth of five laps. From there, she began her quest for first.

“I was a bit unsure before the start today because my shooting was so bad in the sprint,” Mäkäräinen told the IBU after placing 15th with four penalties in Thursday’s qualifying race. “Today I told myself that it was just a bad day at the office and my shooting would get back to normal.”

While Domracheva was finishing her penalty loop, Mäkäräinen got settled for her final shooting. She cleaned and had 23.6 seconds to make up over the last 2 k. At the end of the day, she posted the fastest course time, 26 seconds faster than Domracheva, who ranked second.

Semerenko was a little slower on skis, with the 17th-ranked course time, but hit 19-of-20 targets as well (with one miss on the third stage) to hang around second and third for most the race.

Wierer had two penalties on the second shooting to drop to sixth, then came back with clean shooting in her standing stages to finish fourth (+37.2).

Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier skied up from ninth to fifth with a single miss on the first stage, and finished 1:12.1 after Domracheva without anyone close to her. Another Belarusian, Nadezhda Skardino took sixth (+1:15.7) with clean shooting.

Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen secures second after pushing hard to close the gap to winner Darya (Photo: IBU/Rene Miko)

She was one of two women to clean all day; the other was Canada’s Megan Heinicke — who improved from 41st to 14th.

“Perfect shooting is never easy and on any given day there are usually only a handful of ‘clean’ shooters in this sport,” Heinicke wrote in an email “I am just glad I was able to do it today — this was my first time ever shooting 20/20 in a world cup race.”

Crawford took seventh (+1:20.7), holding off Italy’s Karin Oberhofer, who left the range behind her in eighth, by 5.5 seconds at the finish.

“After hitting the last standing target I knew it was fighting time! Dalhmeier and Skardino were just in front of me and Oberhofer was just behind,” she explained. “I knew that if I could get to the top of the hill in front of the Italian that she probably wouldn’t catch me. Top 6 was so close, but with how skiing felt today I am really happy with top 10! This has been the best start to the season ever for me and I can’t wait to see what the rest of the season holds.”

Despite achieving her third-best World Cup result, Crawford didn’t feel in top-top shape on Saturday, still fighting a sore throat which she came down with earlier in the week.

“But just like last week, feeling bad one race doesn’t mean that tomorrow I won’t feel good, hopefully!” she wrote, referencing Sunday’s 12.5 k mass start.

As the lone Canadian starter in bib 8, she’ll aim to mimic her teammate’s perfect shooting.

“It’s really motivating and inspiring to see Megan Tandy hit 20/20 today and move up so many spots! I’ll try to channel my inner Megan tomorrow :)!” Crawford wrote. “I’m sitting in 8th place for overall World Cup points. All I can control tomorrow is skiing well and hitting the targets, if that happens, then anything is possible!”

For Heinicke, the pursuit marked her second-best World Cup result after finishing 12th in the individual race in Östersund, Sweden, at the start of this season. Her previous best in a pursuit was 29th.

“This was my first time ever shooting 20/20 in a world cup race.” — Megan Heinicke (Biathlon Canada), after starting 41st and skiing up to her second-best World Cup result in 14th on Saturday

With the clean shooting and the 11th-fastest time on the range, Heinicke worked her way up from 28th after the first stage to 14th by the end of the final shooting. She finished in that position, 2:09.5 behind Domracheva.

Before the start, she thought she’d be pleased with a top 30.

“My main ski goal going into this race was to ski a bit more tactically and aggressively in the group with the other girls — even with start bib 41 I started in a good pack of girls,” Heinicke wrote. “My main goal on the range was to follow my race plan for standing. I have shot quite well prone so far this season but have struggled a few times with my standing shooting so that was critical.

“I was getting information about my position on course and I was really happy to have moved into the top 30 after my 2 clean prone shootings,” she added. “Because I knew that standing shooting would be the hardest part of the race for me I didn’t really celebrate too soon … even after my first standing I kept that little voice in my head that was telling me this was an awesome race pretty quiet because I know how fast everything can change. I didn’t really believe it until after the last standing.”

“Even after my first standing I kept that little voice in my head that was telling me this was an awesome race pretty quiet … I didn’t really believe it until after the last standing.” — Heinicke

Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) racing to 28th in the women’s IBU World Cup 10 k pursuit on Saturday in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

Two Americans qualified for the pursuit — Hannah Dreissigacker and Susan Dunklee — and they started within three seconds of each other in 18th and 19th, respectively, a minute back from Soukalova.

With a clean first prone, Dunklee was up to 12th, 48 seconds behind the leader. She went on to miss one in each of the next two stages, then three on the final standing to drop to 32nd with one lap to go. She passed four people on that lap and finished 28th (+3:17.1).

“I have been struggling with a head cold and a sore throat and today I was in survival mode,” Dunklee explained in an email. “Often it is smarter to not race through sickness, but this is the last week of the trimester and we get a long break after tomorrow.”

She wanted to finish the trimester off in the top 25 overall, which comes with full support from the IBU in the form of room and board. It would also help her lock down more mass-start opportunities.

“I have started the season on the wrong side of that top-25 bubble in the past and it’s an uphill battle to earn mass start rights later,” Dunklee wrote. “Today’s performance wasn’t pretty and I lost a lot of places because of that disastrous last stage, but tomorrow is a new day and I get to race the mass start.”

Currently ranked 22nd overall, she’ll start in bib 22 on Sunday in row 8 of 10. Mäkäräinen stands as the overall World Cup leader, followed by Domracheva and Semerenko, respectively.

Dreissigacker fell out of the top 30 on the first stage with two misses, then missed two more on her second prone. In an email, she attributed her initial penalties to rushing a bit, and thought she might have lost her focus for a “split second” on the second stage.

Hannah Dreissigacker (US Biathlon) en route to a career-best 17th place in the IBU World Cup sprint on Thursday in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

She cleaned her first standing, but missed two more on her last stage to leave the range in last place. She passed Sweden’s Emma Nilsson on the final lap to finish 56th with six penalties, but was hit with another two-minute penalty for miscounting her penalty loops.

“My biggest regret about the race is that I somehow forgot a penalty loop after my second prone stage,” Dreissigacker explained. “This is a huge, DUMB mistake and I am really kicking myself about it. I guess my brain just shut off for a minute, and I only did one lap instead of two … I was having a bad day anyways, and I can analyze that a lot, but in the end the only thing that was unacceptable about today was the missed penalty loop.”

After tallying a career-best 18th in the sprint, she was especially excited for the pursuit. But like, Crawford, she tried to be cautious.

“I knew that ‘biathlon giveth, and biathlon taketh away,’ ” Dreissigacker wrote. “I’m not sure who said that, but it’s the truth.I was hoping to ski better today, pacing off of the girls around me. Instead, I felt flat and just sort of empty during the skiing.”

Leaving Pokljuka and flying home to Craftsbury, Vt., on Monday, she’ll hold onto her “awesome memory of the sprint race, and look forward to more races like that after the Christmas break,” she wrote. “I think that our whole team will just be getting stronger as the season progresses, and there is still lots of time!”

Results

December 20, 2014
Shooting ‘So Easy’ for Svendsen; Burke Top North American in Pokljuka Pursuit in 21st

Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen on his way to a perfect 20-for-20 IBU World Cup pursuit, which he won on Saturday in Pokljuka, Slovenia.

Emil Hegle Svendsen’s strategy for Saturday’s pursuit was pretty simple. Don’t miss.

The 29-year-old Norwegian started 24 seconds behind Russia’s Anton Shipulin, who won Friday’s 10-kilometer sprint to start the 12.5 k pursuit first.

He had Austria’s Dominik Landertinger 12 seconds ahead of him in second, and after the first shooting stage, it became fairly evident that everyone in the top 11 was “on” — at least early on.

Shipulin, Landertinger and Svendsen all cleaned, leaving the range in that order, followed by France’s Martin Fourcade, who started fourth. Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø in bib 10 was already up to fifth, Germany’s Simon Schempp left the range in sixth, then France’s Quentin Fillon Maillet in seventh, and Italy’s Lukas Hofer, up from 15th to eighth. Three more men also cleaned the first prone — Germany’s Daniel Boehm, France’s Jean Guillaume Beatrix, and Vladimir Iliev, respectively — to leave the range in the top 11.

Shipulin led into the stadium for the second prone, where he hit his first four shots but missed the last. Landertinger, Svendsen and Fourcade were quick to capitalize on his mistake and cleaned, leaving the range 6.8 seconds, 7.6 seconds and 14.6 seconds behind him, in that order.

By 6.8 k, Landertinger and Svendsen essentially caught Shipulin, trailing him by a second. They approached the third stage as a unit, where Svendsen cleaned, Shipulin missed another, and Landertinger missed two. Suddenly, Svendsen was in sole control, leaving the range 21 seconds ahead of the Russian in second and 33 seconds head of Fourcade, who missed one but hung in fourth.

Landertinger started his fourth lap 56 seconds off the pace, four seconds ahead of Hofer, who missed one on his second prone but cleaned his first standing.

Russian runner-up Anton Shipulin cleaned his final standing stage in the Pokljuka pursuit, but was unable to close the gap to Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen in first.

Svendsen went on to clean his final stage, and so did Shipulin, but at that point, the Norwegian was too far gone — with a 25.4-second lead with 2 k to go.

Fourcade was still shooting when Shipulin left the range to chase Svendsen down, yet he took his time to clean the final stage and keep him soundly in podium position.

Meanwhile, Svendsen powered through the last lap, keeping 20 seconds between himself and Shipulin at 11.8 k. Cruising down into the stadium, he stood up and relaxed, waved to the crowd then let out a fist pump at the finish.

The only man in the top 12 to hit all 20 targets, Svendsen won by 17.8 seconds. Shipulin placed second, nearly 42 seconds ahead of Fourcade, who looked back to make sure no one was challenging him for third.

Svendsen waves to the crowd in Pokljuka, Slovenia, before winning the men’s 12.5 k pursuit on Saturday for his second IBU World Cup win of the season.

“It was a fantastic day today,” Svendsen told the IBU. “I am a sunshine boy; I like the sun. I had a lot of energy.”

It was certainly sunny on Saturday afternoon, with shadows covering the targets for the men’s race, but bright sunlight blanketing the rest of the course.

“On the shooting range it was so easy,” Svendsen continued. “It was one of the easiest days of my career on the shooting range. I was faster and felt better on skis.”

For Svendsen, who reclaimed the overall World Cup lead on Saturday over Fourcade, it was the second-straight race in which he shot clean and his second win of the season (after winning the individual World Cup opener in Östersund, Sweden, also with perfect shooting).

Shipulin said he made a couple mistakes, two to be precise, which took him out of the hunt.

“I hope to improve on that in the next race,” he told the IBU.

Svendsen will start Sunday’s 15 k mass start in bib 1 as the World Cup leader, next to Fourcade in bib 2 and Shipulin in bib 3. Landertinger placed fourth on Saturday (+1:12.9) with three total penalties (0+0+2+1) and will start in bib 4. Ondrej Moravec of the Czech Republic placed fifth (+1:14.2) with two penalties (1+1+0+0).

Burke Improves to 21st

Americans Lowell Bailey, Tim Burke and Leif Nordgren started the pursuit 16th, 26th and 53rd, respectively. Nathan Smith led the Canadians in the sprint to start 25th (four seconds ahead of Burke), and teammate Brendan Green went out 19 seconds later in 34th.

By the first stage, Smith cleaned to leave the range in 17th, a minute and 15 seconds behind the leaders, and Bailey missed one to move to 19th, 2.9 seconds behind Smith.

American Lowell Bailey leads a chase pack, including Russia’s Evgeniy Garanichev directly behind him, on his way to 29th in the men’s 12.5 k pursuit on Saturday in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)

In the second prone, Smith and Bailey both cleaned to leave the range in 13th and 14th, respectively, just over a minute behind the leaders. By the third stage, they were up to ninth and 10th, respectively, despite one miss each, 1:21 and 1:23 out of first.

The two dropped into the top 30 after the fourth stage, with two penalties apiece. Smith headed out on his last lap in 23rd and Bailey was 26th with 2 k to go.

“My shooting felt really solid today, right up until the last standing,” Smith recalled in an email. “My shooting speed is always an advantage in short-loop races like the pursuit. Even if I lose a little time skiing I can catch back up after gaining a couple in the range.”

Burke was right behind Bailey in 27th after a single miss on his final stage and two on his first prone.

“It was actually a really rough start for me with two penalties in that first stage,” Burke said on the phone Saturday. “I think I fell back almost twenty places [to 44th], but I was able to claw myself back in it.”

With clean shooting on his second and third stages, he improved to 36th and 26th, respectively. And on his last lap, Burke passed six people to finish 21st with three penalties, 1:56 behind Svendsen.

“I was really happy with my last lap,” Burke said. “I just tried to keep a little bit of distance over the last group over that last climb. I think I just tucked over the line.”

He treated that last rise before the straightaway downhill into the stadium like the finish line, and made sure to lead over the top of it. At the actual finish, Burke edged Smith by 0.8 seconds and Germany’s Erik Lesser by another one-tenth of a second in 23rd. Smith narrowly topped Lesser in the photo finish for 22nd, and beat out Austria’s Sven Grossegger in 24th by 0.8 seconds.

“Leaving the range I could see ahead a German who was suffering,” Smith wrote. “I could also feel a good 5 people breathing down my neck. So I did my best to keep them at bay and catch the German. Tim looked really strong skiing and passed a bunch of us like it was nothing on the longest climb.

“Thankfully I managed to stay somewhat in contact with the guys that followed right behind him,” he added. “Tim was too far ahead at the finish, but I had a good draft heading into the ridiculously fast finish and could free skate past the other two.”

Bailey finished 29th (+2:07) with four penalties (1+0+1+2), Brendan Green cleaned his first and third stages but missed three total (0+1+0+2) to place 33rd (+2:22.7), and Nordgren ended up 51st with three penalties (0+1+2+0).

“Skiing felt decent. Shooting got a little shaky toward the end,” Bailey wrote in an email. “I don’t think I was nervous, but I my legs were definitely a little unstable from late-race fatigue. … I definitely didn’t feel completely in sync with my standing shooting today and missing those two targets in the end hurt pretty bad. But, tomorrow another day!”

On Sunday, Burke, Bailey and Smith will start the mass start in bibs 15, 18 and 30, respectively — which is where they stand overall on the World Cup. And while Smith will start in the 10th-and-last row, he explained he was excited to make the mass start.

“It’s only my second one ever,” he wrote. “The first one was at the Olympics, but unfortunately that one ended 500m in thanks to a crash. I’m not sure what to expect, but a top 15 would be nice. Since I’m starting way at the back I’ll just hang out there and not worry about trying to move up at all first lap. I will have to also be quite careful entering the range as lane 30 is right at the bottom of the downhill entry, where you have to slam on the brakes.”

Since the more-condensed start format is new to mass starts this season, Burke wasn’t sure exactly what to expect.

“I’ve never done one of these starts before; I haven’t heard many positive things about it so it’ll be interesting,” he said. “I imagine I’ll be right in the middle of the pack, which isn’t necessarily where I want to be.”

But he’ll try to ski the first loop relaxed. “I just try to avoid any trouble,” he said. “I try to tell myself that the race really start after the first prone.”

Results

December 20, 2014
Shipulin Finds His Mojo in Pokljuka Sprint; Bailey Cleans for 16th

Russia’s Anton Shipulin leads Martin Fourcade of France in the men’s 10 k sprint on Friday at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: IBU/Rene Miko)

Clean shooting just doesn’t cut it. Ask anyone on the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup circuit: ask Friday’s runner-up, Dominik Landertinger of Austria, ask Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen, who finished third in the men’s 10-kilometer sprint in Pokljuka, Slovenia.

Ask Frenchman Martin Fourcade, who placed fourth and was the only one in the top nine that didn’t clean. And be sure to ask American Lowell Bailey, who hit all his targets and put together one of his best races all season to finish 16th.

“You always want to be up there fighting for a podium when you clean,” Bailey said on the phone Friday after shooting 100 percent and finishing 54.3 seconds behind sprint winner Anton Shipulin of Russia, who also cleaned.

“I’m just not there yet on the skis there this season,” Bailey added. “… The most important thing is shooting accurately and then you get the speed, and hopefully you get both of those things.”

Friday’s sprint winner, Anton Shipulin of Russia (l) stands up after catching France’s Martin Fourcade at the finish. Fourcade started 30 seconds ahead of him and ultimately placed fourth with a single penalty.

That’s precisely what Shipulin possessed en route to his sixth World Cup win and second podium this season. All of the top-three men cleaned, but the Russian posted the fastest range and second-fastest course times, which made him untouchable on Friday.

Only Fourcade was faster. But the overall World Cup leader missed one standing on a sunny and relatively calm day in Pokljuka. That cost him.

After entering the range in fourth, 6.8 seconds behind Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø, Shipulin and Landertinger, respectively, Fourcade missed one to slip to seventh, 29 seconds back.

For Bø, who had cleaned prone just like Shipulin, Landertinger, Fourcade, and France’s Jean Guillaume Beatrix in fifth before the second stage, it was worse. Bø missed two and fell 38 seconds behind Shipulin, who took the lead. Beatrix had two standing penalties as well to drop from 10 seconds behind to 48 seconds off the pace.

Germany’s Simon Schempp, who started eighth behind Fourcade in bib 6 and Shipulin in bib 7, held strong in second after two clean stages, 21.7 seconds behind Shipulin. Landertinger, who started behind him in bib 16 and Svendsen, who started 12th, and much later on, Russia’s Evegeniy Garanichev in bib 71, collectively bumped Schempp to fifth after two stages.

That’s where Fourcade kicked it in with one 3.3 k loop to go, rising from seventh to fourth at the finish. But Shipulin was even faster on the last loop, nearly catching Fourcade at the finish line after starting 30 seconds behind him.

Austria’s Dominik Landertinger celebrates his push for second in Friday’s 10 k sprint at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia.

At the finish, Shipulin posted the fastest time by nearly 30 seconds. Landertinger was charging, skiing up to second, 7.4 seconds back, after standing, and so was Svendsen, who clocked in second at the finish, 24 seconds behind.

Landertinger pushed hard through the final stretch, but came up 11.9 seconds short. The Austrian looked at the TV cameras and gave a thumbs up. He had done his best; Shipulin was simply faster.

“This is a special moment for me; my shape the early part of season was not so good,” Shipulin told the IBU after the race, which he won in 23:18.6. “I waited a long time for this win … this is a very important step for me. This was my first clean shooting and a confirmation of my good shape.”

Venues like Pokljuka and Antholz, Italy, suited him, he explained, “because I always feel good in these mountain places.”

Landertinger was as pleased as he looked on TV as well.

“I had good results last week in Hochfilzen, but just missed the podium, so today is a big step for me,” he told the IBU.

Svendsen finished 24.1 seconds back in third, ahead of Fourcade (+29.9) in fourth. Garanichev ultimately led a string of clean shooters in fifth (+34.1), with Schempp in sixth (+36.3), Norway’s Tarjei Bø in seventh (+38.1), France’s Quentin Fillon Maillet, who had a career-best eighth (+41.6), and Russia’s Maxim Tsvetkov, who scored his second-ever top 10 in ninth (+42.6).

Johannes Thingnes Bø was 10th with an two misses to break up the clean-shooters list, and Beatrix ended up 14th with the same amount of penalties.

Lowell Bailey (US Biathlon) placed 16th in the 10 k sprint on Friday at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: USBA/Manzoni/NordicFocus)

Then there was Italy’s Lukas Hofer in 15th, who cleaned and finished 53.9 second behind Shipulin. Bailey was another 0.4 seconds back in 16th. Beatrix, Hofer and Bailey will all start together, 54 seconds behind Shipulin in Saturday’s 12.5 k pursuit.

“That’ll be an exciting first lap,” Bailey anticipated. “It’s all about shooting tomorrow especially on this course. I think you can really get benefit from getting in a train of skiers because there’s a lot of fast, rolling sections so if you’re skiing behind that can be an advantage.”

On Friday, Bailey confirmed that he had made gains already this season, despite planning to build gradually throughout the next couple months. After initially finishing 12th, he recalled feeling satisfied with his race, but not ecstatic.

Bailey in bib 42 was quickly bounced by Hofer, who started a minute behind him, and Germany’s Daniel Boem, who started 30 seconds after Bailey and placed 13th. Two Russians —Tsvetkov and Garanichev — ultimately put Bailey in 16th.

“I’m happy with how the shooting’s gone,” Bailey said. “I’ve changed somethings around with my shooting in the training season and I’m happy that those seem to be working out already.”

Specifically, Bailey said he and his US Biathlon teammates incorporated more head-to-head shooting in their workouts. That helped mimic high-pressure scenarios with distractions, and while he acknowledged, “there’s no better training than a race,” that kind of exercise helped.

Bailey also worked on improving his efficiency and reducing the amount of time between stepping on that mat to taking his first shot. Prone felt a little delayed on Friday, “but standing felt good. I felt like that was a solid fast stage,” he said.

What he was most perplexed with was where he lost time — and why.

“I think the biggest, sort of confusing thing I could say today was that I actually had a decent ski time,” he said. “I probably had the best ski time I’ve had all year, but I lost a lot of time by the first 2.6 k split so I’m going to have to go back and see if theres anything I can change about that going forward into the next race. But the pursuit is about getting in a group and skiing strong.”

Tim Burke (US Biathlon) on his way to 26th in Friday’s IBU World Cup 10 k sprint in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: USBA/Manzoni/NordicFocus)

He’ll start ahead of teammate Tim Burke, who finished 26th (+1:20.7) with two standing misses.

“Popluka has been a great place for me in the past and I feel the course really suits my strengths,” Burke wrote in an email. Last year, he placed fourth in the sprint and third in the mass start at the same venue.

“I felt solid warming up, but right from the start of the race today I just felt a little flat,” he added. “After cleaning prone, I thought I could still manage a solid result but the two penalties in standing really set me back. I have struggled so far this season to put together consecutive good shooting stages and that was again the case today.”

Burke posted the 16th-fastest course time, 37 seconds back from Shipulin. His range time ranked 19th-fastest overall.

“I don’t plan on making any changes, I will continue to attack each race and sooner or later everything will come together,” he added.

Burke will start the pursuit 1:21 back with Switzerland’s Benjamin Weger, and five seconds behind Canada’s Nathan Smith, who placed 25th (+1:16.4) with a single prone penalty on Friday.

Smith Top Canadian in 25th

Canada’s Nathan Smith racing to ninth in the IBU World Cup 10 k sprint earlier this season in Östersund, Sweden. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)

Smith started second and initially fell off the pace with one miss. After his standing stage, his time trailed Shipulin’s by 55 seconds.

“The prone miss was a split. It didn’t feel bad but I may have not quite fully moved over to the next target,” Smith explained. “Standing was a battle today but I was diligent in not throwing away any shots and fighting for each one.”

As the first starter in the first race of the Olympics last winter, starting second didn’t bother him.

“My big goal this weekend is to make it into the mass start,” he wrote. “In order to do that I will have to bang out two solid races. That means at least 90% and good skiing.”

With the third-fastest range time overall, he had to have been pleased with his shooting, but Smith explained his skiing lacked aggressiveness.

“I’m satisfied with today’s race. It wasn’t amazing, but not terrible either,” he wrote. ‘It puts me in a good spot to fight in the pursuit tomorrow for a mass start spot.”

Smith’s Biathlon Canada teammate Brendan Green also qualified for the pursuit in 34th, and he’ll start 1:35 after Shipulin. On Friday, Green cleaned prone, missed one standing and skied the 10th-fastest last lap to finish in the top 40.

“Heading into today my goal was to finish in the top 30,” Green wrote in an email. “I was able to put together my best ski performance this season with my best Sprint shooting so far this season and the result was close to where I wanted to be today.”

Prone proved challenging: “I had to really work to hit my targets and even reset a couple of times,” he explained. “I was able to shoot clean prone but it was very slow and that cost me quite a bit of time at the end of the day. With better shooting speed today a top 30 was absolutely possible.”

He started off slower, sitting in 59th after prone and 54th after standing, but Green was pleased to pick up speed throughout the three-lap race, especially on the last loop.

“I’m hoping I’ll be able to take my form into tomorrow and chase a top 30 result or better in the Pursuit,” he added. “… Today was an improvement and I’m content with that for now, but there is still a lot of work to be done before I’ll be performing at my expectations. It’s good to know where my form is at the moment, and it will be beneficial to have time [at home] over Christmas to address and fine tune some aspects of my performances from my season thus far.”

American Leif Nordgren made the top-60 pursuit cutoff in 53rd with one standing miss, and will start 1:56 behind the leader on Saturday.

“My goal is always top 40, today was no different,” Nordgren explained. “I’m not super happy with my ski shape right now, so I know I have to shoot well to get into the top 40. Today that was a fine line.

“This is one of the tightest pursuits I think I’ve ever seen,” he added. Nordgren will start at the same time as France’s Florent Claude and Switzerland’s Serafin Wiestner.

“But it’s nice to know tomorrow that good shooting can make an even bigger difference than normal with everyone being so closely packed!”

Results

December 19, 2014
Wednesday Workout: Race-Ready with Rosanna Crawford

Rosanna Crawford celebrates her IBU World Cup best: fifth place in the women’s pursuit on Sunday in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: Andrei Ivanov/Facebook)

It’s a long grind on the World Cup circuit, especially for biathletes, who potentially race three times — three separate days — every week.

Rosanna Crawford during training on Wednesday in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Courtesy photo)

That leaves four days for recovery between the next stop, but in that time, an athlete has to fit in travel, rest, easy efforts and then race prep. That can leave them worn down at the end of what international biathletes call a trimester, but it also gets them into phenomenal shape.

As Biathlon Canada’s Rosanna Crawford — who notched a career-best fifth on Sunday in Hochfilzen, Austria — explained, as the season progresses, she doesn’t need to do as much to be race ready.

On that days that she and the rest of her team are revving up — this week Wednesday, the day before the women’s race in Pokljuka, Slovenia — Crawford does race prep.

“For me that involves skiing Z1 (easy) for about 20 minutes and then I’ll zero and confirm my rifle,” she wrote in an email. “Then I’ll do 1×2.5km our race loop in Z3 (just below race pace) and shoot 1x prone, ski around the fence, and 1x standing.”

After that, depending on the course, she usually tries to find a loop that takes about 2 to 2 1/2 minutes and finishes in the range. She does that four times in max-aerobic speed (MAS), just above race pace.

“If it’s too difficult to find a loop that’s hard enough that ends in the range then I’ll just do them other places on the course,” she added, “And then do 4×15-20 sprints with shooting, total workout is usually 1hr15.”

Rosanna Crawford’s race prep (takes approx. 1 hour, 15 minutes)

– Warmup: Ski Zone 1 (easy) for 20 minutes (then zero and confirm rifle if you’re a biathlete)

– Do one 2 1/2 k loop at Zone 3, just below race pace. (Shoot one prone, ski back to beginning of range, then shoot one standing.)

– Find a loop that takes 2 to 2 1/2 minutes to complete. Ski it four times at max-aerobic speed (MAS), just above race pace.

– Finish up with four 15 to 20 sprints (with shooting)

In the afternoon, she’ll typically go for a 20-minute run, followed by some mobility and stretching.

The lake in Slovenia with a castle in the background. (Photo: Rosanna Crawford)

What about the rest of the week? Mondays, they travel.

“This week that involved driving 3 hrs from Hochfilzen, Austria, to Bled, Slovenia. Much nicer than the 10 hr travel day from Ostersund, Sweden, to Hochfilzen,” she wrote.

Once in Slovenia, she and her boyfriend/teammate Brendan Green went for a “little walk” around the lake, then Crawford took a nap.

“The rest of the afternoon is pretty chill, stretching, maybe a massage and getting settled into our new location,” she explained.

Tuesday is typically their easy day, in which she likes to classic ski for 1 1/2 hours or less if she’s feeling tired. This week, she shot 60 bullets on Tuesday to get used to the range in Pokljuka. Height levels can vary between ranges, she explained.

That afternoon, she planned to take a nap and go for a 20-minute jog, followed by some mobility and physio exercises.

Thursday of this week is race day for the IBU World Cup women with a 7.5 k sprint. The men’s 10 k sprint is on Friday.

December 17, 2014