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.
Tim Burke of US Biathlon (left) and Rosanna Crawford of Biathlon Canada (right) are FasterSkier’s 2018 Biathletes of the Year. (Photos: USBA/NordicFocus; Salomon/NordicFocus)
With the 2017/2018 season officially in the rearview, FasterSkier is excited to unveil its annual award winners for this past winter. Votes stem from the FS staff, scattered across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and while not scientific, they are intended to reflect a broader sense of the season in review. This set of honors goes to outstanding North American biathletes on the international circuit.
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Rosanna Crawford, Biathlon Canada
Rosanna Crawford had been close to the podium before, coming into this season. Fourth place. Fifth place.
But then she had a disastrous 2017 season that left her in tears after World Championships, wondering what had gone wrong. After that, she lost her brother, as the Crawford family endured heart-rending tragedy.
Rosanna Crawford celebrates with her Biathlon Canada teammates Emma Lunder (l) and Julia Ransom (r) after placing third for her first-career IBU World Cup podium on Thursday in the women’s 15 k individual in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
All of that might have stopped some people, but not Crawford. In Ruhpolding, Germany, she finally scored that podium – in a race so tough it’s only held a few times a season, the 15 k individual. She shot a perfect 20-for-20 to take third place, 21.2 seconds behind Dorothea Wierer of Italy.
“There’s just so many lessons you learn over the years, and trying to bring it all together and to have it pay off on one day is exactly what we’re all hunting for out there,” Crawford said after her podium.
Later that weekend she again shot 20-for-20, this time in the mass start. She left the range the final time in first place, but was passed by three other women on the final loop and had to settle for fourth.
“I was really surprised to leave the range in 1st, these are the 30 best women in the world,” Crawford wrote in an email after the mass start. “I would have love to hold onto a podium, but was pretty dead on my last loop… I was pretty disappointed when I crossed the line in fourth, but as time went by I got more and more happy. To have hit another 20/20 is fantastic, especially in the high pressure situation of a Mass Start. With that race I went 50/50 in Ruhpolding!”
It was an up-and-down season for Crawford, who finished no better than 39th in the first period of World Cup racing and was sent down to the second-tier IBU Cup. But she excelled there, and then came the races in Ruhpolding.
From there she headed to the Olympics – her third – and had a poor sprint race, finishing 53rd with three penalties. It was devastating, but she came back and climbed all the way up to 19th in the pursuit, the biggest improvement in the whole field.
“I had some really good chats with my sister Chandra,” Crawford said after the Olympic pursuit. “She’s a huge motivator for me and my biggest cheerleader now. She really just talked some sense into me to not be so down on myself after the sprint, so that was really helpful.”
Immediately after the Olympics, Crawford finished 12th in the sprint and 11th in the mass start in Kontiolahti, Finland, before finishing the season off in Oslo. She has still not announced whether she will continue competing next year, or retire.
But crossing the finish line in third in Ruhpolding was an unforgettable highlight, either way.
“[Teammates] Julia [Ransom], Emma [Lunder] and Sarah [Beaudry], they kind of pushed past the IBU guys, which I don’t think they were allowed to do, but Canada’s not on the podium every day so they let them sneak by to give me a hug so that was really special,” Crawford told FasterSkier. “I’ve been with these girls the past couple years now and so to be able to celebrate with them is amazing. Their results have been so inspiring for me … [My coach Roddy Ward] also jumped the fence, which I don’t think was allowed, so that was nice to be able to see him as well.”
Tim Burke, US Biathlon
While Crawford was finally hitting that career mark, U.S. Biathlon’s Tim Burke was getting his mojo back. After a frustrating few seasons, Burke rallied for the 2018 Olympics, his fourth.
Tim Burke (US Biathlon) racing to 14th in the men’s 12.5 k pursuit at the IBU World Cup in Oberhof, Germany. (Photo: US Biathlon/NordicFocus)
Along the way, he amassed some strong results: tenth in the sprint in Annecy, fourth in the sprint in Oberhof. The Oberhof sprint was his best result since 2013.
It came on a course with a personal connection, as his wife, Andrea (Henkel) Burke, had her home training base in Oberhof.
“I have spent a lot of time training here over the last eight years,” Burke laughed. “It’s Andrea’s home town and I feel like the fans out there today were really behind me from the start, because of Andrea. So be able to have the best performance of my season and my best performance in a long time here was for sure special.”
Burke didn’t set a best-ever U.S. mark for himself at the Olympics, with a top finish of 17th in the pursuit. Like Crawford, he made the best of things after a disappointing Olympic sprint, in his case having finished 47th in the opening competition.
“I was disappointed in the result not the performance,” he said of the sprint, after improving in the pursuit. “I felt like I executed well. I felt like I hit my cues on the course and on the range, and it just didn’t happen yesterday. The game plan going into today, there was nothing new. Stick to the things that have been working well for me in the World Cup, and that’s what I did.”
In PyeongChang, he contributed to a U.S. men’s relay team which finished sixth, tying the best ever team result at an Olympic Games.
A few weeks later, in his final race before retiring, he went out and did some solid biathlon, helping the team to seventh in the World Cup relay in Oslo.
Burke’s career has had many individual highs – six podiums including a World Championships silver medal in 2013, and a brief stint in the overall World Cup leader’s bib – but this season, it was his team efforts that were some of the best.
“The Olympic relay, we were very happy with,” he said in Oslo. “The sixth place there [in PyeongChang, South Korea], we were right there. That was a great race for us, but this is solid as well… I’ve been here a long, long time, and an top eight today is very different than a top eight when I came on the World Cup 14 years ago. It’s so close now. There’s so many good teams. So it’s a solid result.”
Honorable Mention: Susan Dunklee, US Biathlon
Burke’s teammate Susan Dunklee saved the best for last this season, hitting the podium for the first time since winning silver in the mass start at last year’s World Championships.
Susan Dunklee racing to 20th in the mass start in Annecy, France. (Photo: Glen Crawford)
It was a tough start to the season for Dunklee, who tried to implement a new shooting strategy and saw it backfire, as she had a string of results no better than 53rd in the opening two weekends of racing.
But then she had a solid weekend in Annecy, France, finishing tenth in the sprint and sixth in the pursuit. A lifeline.
“After Thursday, I was just feeling relief, to be honest,” she said after the Annecy pursuit. “It’s so huge to get a top ten and then get a flower ceremony today.”
Two months later, Dunklee had an athlete’s worst nightmare and got sick at the beginning of the Olympics, racing the opening sprint anyway but then finishing 66th and missing the pursuit. In the 15 k individual she placed 19th, and she led the women’s relay at one point.
“I often start feeling stronger and stronger as the season goes on, and this season it took a little longer,” Dunklee explained. “I had a lot of sickness, and some frustrating shooting days early in the season that made it hard for me to keep going.”
After the Games, she finished 36th in the sprint in Kontiolahti despite still getting over (another) illness, then came to Oslo and placed fourth in the sprint and third in the pursuit, in a podium that only appeared thanks to clean shooting in the final stage where others faltered.
“It doesn’t really matter what everybody else is doing, you just have to try to put the best race you can,” she said of landing on the podium despite two penalties. “Sometimes you have a perfect race and five other people do too, and then you are sixth. But some days you don’t have a perfect race and you end up third.”
Like Crawford, Dunklee hasn’t announced whether she will keep racing next season. If not, her last World Cup memory will be sharing the podium with Anastasiya Kuzmina and Darya Domracheva. Not bad.
Honorable Mention: Scott Gow, Biathlon Canada
Canada’s Scott Gow just keeps improving, and this season was no exception. Early on he had two career-best performances: 16th in the sprints in both Östersund and Annecy.
Scott Gow (Biathlon Canada) after placing 16th in the IBU World Cup men’s sprint on Friday in Annecy, France. (Photo: Glen Crawford)
But the biggest career-best also came on the biggest stage. At the Olympics, Gow shot 19-for-20 in the 20 k individual to finish 14th, the best performance by any North American in PyeongChang.
He had started the Games with 61st in the sprint – maybe the worst place to finish, just one spot (in his case one tenth of a second) out of the pursuit.
Gow re-tooled and started focusing on the 20 k.
“When it’s this calm, relatively as calm, everyone can shoot well,” he said after that race. “So that puts a little extra pressure and emphasis on myself to shoot well. So going into today I knew that would be have to the focus, to hit targets, because even if my skiing is a little off I can make up for it with a really good shooting. And that was what was going through my head the last few days preparing for this.”
Plan achieved, mission accomplished. Except that one shot.
“I was very happy with it,” Gow said, noting that even a career-best at the Olympics wasn’t perfect. “A little disappointed to miss that one standing shot, especially when everything was going quite well in the range. Skiing was pretty good, and so overall I am very happy.”
Biathlon Canada’s Rosanna Crawford (26) waves to some 20,000 spectators in the stands during the flower ceremony of the women’s 12.5 k mass start at the 2018 IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany, after finishing in fourth place. (Screenshot: ZDF broadcast)
Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Rosanna Crawford.
For a few minutes, it looked like Biathlon Canada’s Rosanna Crawford could clutch her second podium in her second-straight individual race in Ruhpolding, Germany, in the women’s 12.5-kilometer mass start on Sunday. Maybe it could even be the first World Cup victory of her career.
After cleaning also the 20th of 20 targets — as the only competitor to achieve that on Sunday in the elite mass start field of just 30 athletes — Crawford headed out on the final loop 16 seconds ahead of Czech Republic’s Veronika Vitkova, with Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen and Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier a few additional seconds behind, all of them former World Cup winners and world champions.
“I was really surprised to leave the range in 1st, these are the 30 best women in the world,” Crawford wrote in an email.
On the prior loop, Crawford had lost just about ten seconds to those three and Darya Domracheva of Belarus, before passing them on the range with her flawless shooting. Mäkäräinen and Dahlmeier each incurred a penalty, having to ski 150 extra meters before they could return to the course to chase after her, while Vitkova had also remained clean in that stage.
But would the Canadian’s lead be large enough to reach the finish first, keeping some of the strongest skiers of the field at bay?
Anxiously looking behind several times, Crawford was overtaken by Dahlmeier and Mäkäräinen, but kept Vitkova behind her to stay in podium contention. Yet her lead was dwindling.
Kaisa Makarainen of Finland celebrates winning the women’s 12.5 k mass start in Ruhpolding, Germany, as Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier (r) takes second, Veronica Vitkova of the Czech Republic (far left) races to third, and Canada’s Rosanna Crawford (c) fourth. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
Out of the final downhill in a meandering section of turns, Mäkäräinen moved in front of Dahlmeier and held that ski-length lead into the finish. She crossed the line in a time of 34:05.6 minutes (with two penalties), with Dahlmeier just 0.8 seconds behind (also with two penalties) before collapsing to catch her breath.
Cheered on from the side of the track by coaches and teammates, Crawford remained in front right until the little tree branches marking the finishing lanes, but Vitkova was already on her tails.
“I really thought if I made it to the stadium in front of Vitkova I’d be able to hold her off, but she had the slip stream and I my legs just felt like concrete,” Crawford wrote.
Choosing the lane to her right, Vitkova pushed hard and managed to outsprint Crawford to the line for third (+4.6, with two penalties) while Crawford finished 0.6 seconds back in fourth (+5.2, with no penalties). For Crawford, the result was her career best in a mass start, and she received many congratulations from her peers and the ovations from thousands of spectators during the flower ceremony following the race.
“I would have love to hold onto a podium but was pretty dead on my last loop,” she continued, adding that she had woken up to a sore throat and congestion on Saturday, which persisted on Sunday. “In hindsight it was a mistake to be looking over my shoulder to see how close they were, I really should have just kept pushing, but this being a position I’ve never been in before I was pretty overwhelmed! Next time I will just keep fighting till I cross that red line in the snow! But having the two of the strongest women chasing me down was a bit scary! Kaisa is so fast and Laura I’m sure wanted to give the fans what they came for, a German podium!
“I was pretty disappointed when I crossed the line in 4th, but as time went by I got more and more happy,” she added. “To have hit another 20/20 is fantastic, especially in the high pressure situation of a Mass Start. With that race I went 50/50 in Ruhpolding!”
Germany’s Denise Herrmann followed in fifth (+16.7), almost making up for a penalty lap in each of the four stages by also skiing the fastest course time on each loop. Domracheva finished sixth (+23.7) after she had missed two more targets in the final standing stage (0+0+1+2).
For Vitkova it was the second podium of the season, after another third place in the sprint in Oberhof, Germany.
“I knew that Kaisa and Laura are behind me,“ Vitkova said of the exciting last loop in the post-race press conference. “My feeling on the skis was very good, and I believed that I can catch Rosanna. … It was very nice, now we have Olympic season and my results are better and better, so I am very happy.”
For Mäkäräinen, it was her first victory of the season and 22nd overall in her career. She also moved into the lead in the overall World Cup Total Score, 19 points ahead of Slovakia’s Anastasia Kuzmina in second.
“I appreciate silver and bronze a lot, too, since all podium places mean you had a good race, but victory is victory,” Mäkäräinen said in the press conference. “We were skiing quite fast all the last loop, I was on my limit all the time. … Happy that it ended this way.”
Dahlmeier, coming off a cold that forced her to forego the previous week of races in Oberhof, Germany, was satisfied with her result as well, despite narrowly missing out on another victory in front of her fans after anchoring her relay team to a win on Saturday.
“It was a lot of fun today, a really great race that had everything, suspense at the shooting range, a fight on the loop … and incredibly exciting with that finish sprint,” Dahlmeier told German broadcaster ZDF after the flower ceremony, according to a translation. “For me this was the perfect race to close out the week in Ruhpolding.”
“It was like Kaisa said, a really fast loop for us,” Dahlmeier later explained in the press conference. “We had really good equipment today, so for me it was a little bit easier on the downhill parts. We [caught] Rosanna Crawford, and I was in front on the last hill up the [shooting range climb]. Then we had the final sprint, and Kaisa was a little bit faster than me today. But I am very happy about this second place, and I think it is a really good sign that I am in good shape.”
As Crawford had told FasterSkier following her podium in the individual race, she considers Ruhpolding a “special place”, after she raced her first Junior World Championships there in 2008, her first World Cup in there in 2010, and on Thursday, her first World Cup podium (when she was third in the 15 k individual). She has followed that up with another one of her best results of her career.
“The crowd was amazing in Ruhpolding this whole week! I loved having my first podium at one of the most popular World Cup venues,” she wrote. “We had incredible skis all week and our techs worked so hard, a big shout out to them! I think none of them have voices this morning from cheering so hard in yesterday’s race!!”
And regardless of whether or not Crawford reached the podium on Sunday, multiple-time World Champion Dahlmeier pointed out, “There is no big difference even between a place in the 40s or a victory,” she said of the ups and downs of her weekend and the sport in general during the press conference. “With the shooting, you can have one or two [misses] more and you are somewhere out of the best 30. Then the next day you can win a race or be on the podium … That’s the difference between cross-country and biathlon, and that’s why we love it.”
J.T. Bø Wins Men’s Mass Start Ahead of Fourcade; Burke 21st
US Biathlon’s Tim Burke racing to 21st in the men’s 15-kilometer mass start at the 2018 IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: US Biathlon/NordicFocus)
Earlier on Sunday, US Biathlon’s Tim Burke successfully cleaned the first two stages in the men’s 15 k mass start to stay in contention for a top position. He left the range in 11th position and just 8 seconds behind the pace set by World Cup leader Martin Fourcade of France in first and his Norwegian rival Johannes Thingnes Bø in second.
“The atmosphere was great out on the course today with 25,000 fans,” Burke wrote in and email to FasterSkier. “No matter how many times I have done this, racing in that environment is always exciting.”
Then Burke missed the last shot in his first standing bout and had to ski a penalty lap. He came back on the course in 13th, just ahead of Fourcade who had incurred two penalties in that stage. Then Burke skied the fifth-fastest course time on the next loop, trying to again close a gap to the group ahead.
“I felt decent throughout the race but am definitely looking forward to racing on some different courses that better suit my strengths,” Burke wrote. “Ruhpolding is filled with short, steep climbs that are almost always followed by some type of recovery. Because of that, it ends up being an endless cycle of sprint then recover, which is definitely not my forte.”
After he missed two more targets in the final standing stage, Burke lost 10 positions and another 50 seconds to the leaders, leaving the range in 23rd. On the final loop he made up two places, passing Norway’s Lars Helge Birkeland and Bulgaria’s Krasimir Anev, to finish 21st (+1:30.2, with three penalties).
“Overall, I am happy with where I am at right now,” wrote Burke, who placed fourth in a 10 k sprint at the previous World Cup in Oberhof. “I just have to work on a few small details and then a top result should be possible.”
Ahead of Burke, the mass start was decided when Johannes Bø extended his lead on the fourth loop before the final shooting to almost 20 seconds, then returned to the course in first place despite a penalty in the last standing.
On the last loop he defended his lead ahead of three French athletes with Antonin Guigonnnat, Quentin Fillon Maillet and Fourcade chasing after him. Though Bø skied the second-fastest course time overall, he lost 14 seconds to Fourcade on the last loop and crossed the finish line 4.5 seconds ahead of Fourcade in 37:11.2 minutes (with one penalty).
Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø (2) racing to a win in the men’s 15-kilometer mass start at the 2018 IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany, with France’s Martin Fourcade behind him. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
At the press conference, Bø acknowledged that he was worried Fourcade would catch him.
“I was thinking about it when I saw him out on the tracks there, but I tried to just stay in my own lane for the tracks, and it was very good practice to stay on the lead on the last lap,” Bø said. “It’s very tough, mentally, and you just have to think forward and not so much about the people behind.
“When you fight for the win, you don’t want to be weak, you know?” Bø added when asked what gave him strength on that last loop. “So it’s just to be happy with the pain in the legs and ski as fast as you can.”
Fourcade — who temporarily dropped to 15th following two misses in the third stage — could not quite catch Bø and settled for second (+4.5), with two penalties (0+0+2+0).
“It was a really good fight at the front of the competition,” Fourcade said inatthe press conference. “I didn’t take enough time to be stable on my [first standing stage] and I missed two, but I think I could [have missed] three on that; it was a really bad one. … I knew that with two mistakes advantage, it would be really hard to come back on Johannes, and when I saw that he missed only one on the last shooting, I knew that it was already over for me.”
So he focused on at least catching his teammates Guigonnat and Fillon Maillet on the final loop, who had left the range in second and third, respectively.
“It was really special to fight with them because we know each other — our strong points and our weaknesses,” Fourcade said. “I knew that I had to be really faster than Antonin before the last finish [stretch], because he’s a really good sprinter.”
Fourcade’s 26-year-old teammate Guigonnat, who had been called up to the French World Cup team for the last three races, finished third place (+8.4, with no penalty). It was the second World Cup podium of his career, following up on another third place in the sprint in Annecy, France, earlier this season.
“I didn’t feel much pressure because I’m clearly an outsider, so nobody’s cheering for me, I think,” Guigonnat modestly said in the press conference. “And the other guys, they are fighting each other for maybe the yellow bib [of the World Cup leader] or things like this, and then I just do my job and that’s it.”
Fillon Maillet finished fourth (+12.6, with one penalty), and Bø’s older brother Tarjei Bø placed fifth (+14.2, with one penalty) after he made up by five positions on the final loop.
Burke learned Saturday that he could race the 30-man mass start, after being listed as the third alternate based on his current World Cup Total Score. After Sunday’s race, he’s up to 26th in the overall standings.
“A few athletes in front of me were sick so they decided to sit out,” Burke explained in his email. “This is very normal for a mass start, you can usually count on 1 to 3 athletes sitting out. I ended up doing that earlier this season [for the World Cup in Annecy] when I sat out the Mass Start because of a cold.“
Aside from Crawford and Burke, no other North Americans qualified for Sunday’s mass starts via the top-25 positions in the World Cup Total Scores, respectively the five best results of those outside those ranks in the individual race.
The IBU World Cup continues in Antholz, Italy, with sprints on Thursday, Jan. 18 for the women and Friday, Jan. 19 for the men.
“My fiancée will come down, so I’m looking forward to have her on her first World Cup outside Norway, so that will be fun,” Bø revealed when asked about Antholz at the press conference.
“That’s good news for me, because he will be really tired for competitions,” Fourcade quipped, as both laughed.
Fourcade continues to lead Bø in the Total Score standings, now just 44 points ahead with 666 points.
The women’s freestyle sprint podium on Saturday at the World Cup in Dresden, Germany, with Sweden’s Hanna Falk (c) and Maja Dahlqvist (l) in first and second, and American Sophie Caldwell (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
FIS Cross Country World Cup (Dresden, Germany): Freestyle sprints
For her second-straight World Cup sprint, Sophie Caldwell of the U.S. Ski Team reached the podium in the women’s 1.2-kilometer freestyle sprint on Saturday in Dresden, Germany.
Caldwell placed third in the final behind Sweden’s Hanna Falk, who won it in 2:11.02 minutes, and Maja Dahlqvist, also of Sweden, who placed second (+0.23). Caldwell and Dahlqvist both lunged in a photo finish for second, which Dahlqvist took by 0.07 seconds.
Also in the final, which included four Swedes, Switzerland’s Laurien van der Graaff finished fourth (+0.58), and Sweden’s Anna Dyvik followed in fifth (+0.68) and Stina Nilsson sixth (+7.56) after tripping.
Falk started the day by winning the women’s qualifier in 2:06.34, by just 0.02 seconds over Nilsson in second. Caldwell qualified 11th (+2.02). and another American Ida Sargent made it into the heats in 14th (+2.44). Kikkan Randall missed the top 30 by 0.6 seconds in 34th (+6.57), Julia Kern placed 38th (+7.78), and Caitlin Patterson, of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP), was 40th (+8.56) out of 49 women in the qualifying round.
Sargent finished fourth in her quarterfinal, 043 seconds behind Sweden’s Ida Ingemarsdotter in first, to finish the day in 17th overall.
For Caldwell, who went on to advance in second in her quarterfinal and third in her semifinal, the podium came after she finished second in the last World Cup skate sprint (the first stage of the Tour de Ski) on Dec. 31 in Lenzerheide, Switzerland.
Her boyfriend and fellow U.S. Ski Team member Simi Hamilton came close to reaching the men’s 1.2 k sprint final on Saturday after qualifying in 15th then placing second in his quarterfinal and fifth in the second semifinal, 0.38 seconds behind Sweden’s Emil Jönsson in first.
France’s Lucas Chanavat won the qualifier in 1:50.42, 0.15 seconds ahead of Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo in second. Hamilton was 4.32 seconds back in the qualifier, and his U.S. teammate Andy Newell also qualified in 18th (+4.91). Erik Bjornsen missed qualifying by 0.23 seconds in 32nd (+6.15) and Ben Lustgarten (CGRP) finished 49th (+8.64) out of 67 men.
The women’s freestyle sprint podium on Saturday at the World Cup in Dresden, Germany, with Italy’s Federico Pellegrino (c) in first, Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (l) in second, and France’s Lucas Chanavat (r) in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
While Hamilton’s day ended in the semifinals, putting him 10th overall (and Newell finished sixth in his quarterfinal to place 27th overall), Italy’s Federico Pellegrino timed his attack perfectly in the final, challenging Klæbo for the win down the finishing stretch. The Italian took it by 0.18 seconds in 1:52.77, Klæbo placed second and Chanavat third (+0.98).
France and Norway had two men in the final, with France’s Richard Jouve placing fourth (+1.23), Sweden’s Jönsson taking fifth (+2.36) for his best individual World Cup result since December 2016. Norway’s Even Northug finished sixth (+12.04) after breaking his pole out of the start.
Canada’s Julien Locke of the National U25 Team and Black Jack Ski Club had a career-best day, finishing 15th overall. He qualified 16th (+4.61) then placed third in his quarterfinal, crossing the line just 1 second behind Norway’s Fredrik Riseth, who won that heat. Hamilton was second in that quarterfinal, 0.67 seconds back.
Also for Canada, Bob Thompson (NTDC Thunder Bay) finished 50th in the qualifier (+8.67), Dominique Moncion-Groulx (Alberta World Cup Academy) was 59th (+9.99) and Antoine Briand (Pierre-Harvey National Training Centre) 60th (+10.12).
Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier, Franziska Preuss, Denise Herrmann and Franziska Hildebrand (left to right) celebrating their win in the women’s 4×6-kilometer relay at the 2018 IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
IBU World Cup (Ruhpolding, Germany): Women’s relay
The teams from Germany and Italy dueled for the top position all race in Saturday’s 4 x 6-kilometer women’s relay at the IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany. Cheered on by some 20,000 home-crowd fans, Germany’s anchor Laura Dahlmeier stayed on the ski tails of Italy’s Federica Sanfilippo after the last shooting stage, then passed her before the last major climb and held a narrow lead around the rest of the course to cross the finish line first in a time of 1:08:47.0 hours, with Italy 2.9 seconds behind. German had a team total of zero penalties and nine spares.
“It’s incredibly fun to win in front of this audience here today,” Dahlmeier told German broadcaster ZDF in an interview right after the race, according to a translation. “I think this will boost our whole team morale. We showed today that we are a team to be reckoned with in relays. It was just a nice race.”
Germany with Franziska Preuss, Denise Herrmann, Franziska Hildebrand, and Dahlmeier was never more than 30 seconds behind the pace, even though Hildebrand temporarily fell back from leading the field to tagging off to Dahlmeier in fourth position.
“My race held all kinds of surprises today,” Hildebrand told ZDF with a laugh. “It started with a fall on an icy patch 100 meters after it began… Then I dropped my pole, also had to exchange the replacement one, and then three spares [in prone] to avoid the penalty. Today everything conspired in my race.”
Italy with Lisa Vittozzi, Dorothea Wierer (coming off a victory in the individual race on Thursday), Nicole Gontier and Sanfilippo had the best shooting performance of the day, with no penalty and just three spares.
“That last loop with Laura was really tough,” Sanfilippo said in the press conference. “I gave my best, I tried all for my team. I knew that I can be strong on the last loop. I tried to attack, but Laura was a little bit stronger. But I am also really happy that we finished in second place, I think that was really important for our team.”
Sweden with Linn Persson, Mona Brorsson, Anna Magnusson and anchor Jenny Öberg was third, 17.2 seconds back, with no penalty and five spares. Brorsson and Öberg managed to move the team up to the podium positions, for the second one in a row following a third place from Oberhof, Germany, a week ago. Before that, the Swedish women’s team had been on a six-year hiatus from those lofty positions.
“It’s cool to be on the podium again,” Persson said in the press conference.
“This is like our second home and there were a lot of Swedes here, so we had big support during the race on the tracks,” Brorsson added.” That was an advantage for us.”
Just a few seconds off the podium, Norway with Synnøve Solemdal, Tiril Eckhoff, Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold and Marte Olsbu was fourth (+23.1, with no penalty and nine spares), with Olsbu outsprinting Poland’s anchor Weronika Nowakowska on the finish stretch (+24.5, with no penalty and five spares). For both teams it was their best relay result of the season so far.
Switzerland with the three sisters Elisa, Selina and Aita Gasparin reinforced by Lena Häcki surprisingly led the race at the third exchange after Selina had moved them in front, but her youngest sister Aita could not hold that position, falling back with a penalty lap in the last standing stage to finish eighth (+1:37.1, with one penalty and 11 spares).
Biathlon Canada’s team of Emma Lunder, Julia Ransom, Sarah Beaudry, and Rosanna Crawford started the race with a setback after Lunder incurred a penalty in her prone stage, leaving the range in 23rd position at the end of the field and already almost a minute behind the leader. She managed to limit the gap with a clean standing stage to exchange still in 23rd position and 1:47 back.
Taking over Ransom then remained clean in both stages to move the team up to 17th, tagging off 2:14 behind. Beaudry only required one spare in her prone stage (0+1, 0+0) to improve to the 12th position even making up 3 seconds to the leaders.
Then Crawford, fresh off her first career podium in the individual race on Thursday, managed to also shoot clean in both stages and overtook the teams from Slovakia and Ukraine while further decreasing the gap to finish the race in 10th position, 1:56.7 back, with one penalty and just four spares.
“Things were a bit softer and slushy today compared to the individual, but nothing too bad,” Crawford commented on the conditions in an email to FasterSkier. “There was quite a bit of wind on the range, which I think was tricking people, the wind flags weren’t showing much but I had to make 6 left correction during zero [target practice].”
“Today was a solid showing from our team,” she added regarding their result. “Everyone cleaned standing, I think we can be really happy of this race, and take some real confidence going into the Olympic relay.”
Previously this season Canada had finished the relay in Oberhof, also Germany, in 14th position, and the first one in Hochfilzen, Austria, in ninth.
For US Biathlon with Susan Dunklee, Clare Egan, Emily Dreissigacker, and Joanne Reid, it was the first women’s relay of the year after missing out on the first two races of the season in this discipline.
Thus starting at the very end of the field, veteran Dunklee moved up through the pack and got through the prone stage with one spare. But then she had to fight against a penalty lap in her standing stage requiring all three spare rounds, leaving the range in 12th position. With the fastest course time on the opening leg, she managed to slightly decrease the gap to 21.6 seconds and made up three positions to exchange in ninth place.
Egan missed the first two shots in her prone stage, but hit the targets with her spares leaving the range over a minute back. She followed that up by cleaning her standing stage and left the range 1:29.5 back, then only lost five more seconds on the last loop to exchange in 14th.
Dreissigacker also needed just one spare in her prone shooting, but then incurred two penalties in her standing stage, doubling the gap and falling back to 19th position at the exchange and 3:51 back.
Anchor Reid needed three spares on her leg (0+2, 0+1) and managed to still overtake the teams from China and Finland to finish 17th, 4:57.7 behind Germany, with two penalties and 13 spares overall.
“Finally we had a full team and raced a relay!” Dunklee wrote on Instagram. “Competing on a foreign continent has its challenges.”
Ski Classics (Seefeld, Austria): 60 k Kaiser Maximilian Lauf
The men’s podium at the Kaiser Maximilian Lauf 60 k Ski Classics marathon in Seefeld, Austria, with Norway’s Tord Asle Gjerdalen (c) in first, Sweden’s Andreas Holmberg (l) second, and Russia’s Ilya Chernousov (r) third. (Photo: Visma Ski Classics)
At the third Ski Classics event of the 2017/2018 season, the 60-kilometer Kaiser Maximilian Lauf on Saturday in Seefeld, Sweden’s Britta Johansson Norgren (Lager 157 Ski Team) and Norway’s Tord Asle Gjerdalen (Team Santander) took the women’s and men’s victories, respectively.
Johansson Norgren and Japan’s Masako Ishida (Team Koteng) broke away shortly after the start. The two went back and forth for a while until Johannson Norgren gapped Ishida in the Leutasch valley. While Ishida was caught by a chase pack with Sara Lindborg (Team Serneke), Kari Vikhagen Gjeitnes (Santander) and Lina Korsgren (Åre Ski Team), she reined Johansson Norgren back in on the long climbs after the valley. Ultimately, Johansson Norgren took the win in 2:49:16.0 hours, while Lindborg claimed second, 37.5 seconds back. Ishida finished third (+58.9), Gjeitnes placed fourth (+1:40.7) after injuring her ankle about 2 k before the finish, and Korsgren fifth (+2:05.1).
The women’s podium at the Kaiser Maximilian Lauf 60 k Ski Classics marathon in Seefeld, Austria, with Sweden’s Britta Johansson Norgren (c) in first, Sweden’s Sara Lindborg (l) second, and Japan’s Masako Ishida (r) third. (Photo: Visma Ski Classics)
“It was my plan to go full speed from the beginning,” Johansson Norgren said, according to a Ski Classics press release. “I knew Ishida will go fast in the climbs, but I felt strong from the beginning. It was really hard skiing alone in the valley, and when Ishida caught me up, I wasn’t sure if I could win the race. But the last part of the course was perfect for me and I had no problems securing the victory today.”
The Leutasch valley was the turning point of the men’s race as well, where Vinjar Skogsholm (Team Parkettpartner) and Andreas Holmberg (Team Serneke) broke away from the pack and had built a 90-second gap on the chase group as they left the valley. There on the first climb out of the valley, Holmberg pushed the pace and dropped Skogsholm, while Gjerdalen and Ilya Chernousov (Bauer Ski Team) worked to catch Holmberg up front. They caught him 3 k before the finish and Gjerdalen was first across the finish line in 2:27:49 hours, 14.8 seconds ahead of Holmberg in second.
Chernousov finished third (+32.0), Ermil Vokuev (Russian Marathon Team) was fourth (+1:07.6), and Anton Karlsson (Lager 157) fifth (+1:08.2).
“I didn’t like the fact that we gave too much leeway for Holmberg and Skogsholm,” Gjerdalen said, according to the press release. “I’m happy that Ilya helped me in our attempt to catch up with Holmberg, but I wasn’t really sure if we were going to make it. You never know how the other person is feeling in the front, what kind of skis he has and what goes on in his mind. But I managed to win today and it feels great to be back on the top.”
In the overall “Champion” standings, Nordgren leads with 450 points, 110 ahead of Lindborg in second. Gjerdalen is first in the men’s champion standings with 330 points, 50 points ahead of Morten Eide Pedersen in second.
The Ski Classics tour moves to Zuoz, Switzerland, next weekend for the 65 k La Diagonela.
The Norwegian men’s relay after winning the 4 x 7.5 k on Friday at the IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany, with Lars Helge Birkeland (l), Tarjei Bø (far r), Emil Hegle Svendsen (second from r), and Johannes Thingnes Bø (second from l). It was their second win of the season (after winning with Ole Einar Bjørndalen, Henrik L’Abée-Lund, and Erlend Bjøntegaard, and Birkeland in the first men’s relay of the 2017/2018 season in Hochfilzen, Austria. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
IBU World Cup (Ruhpolding, Germany): Men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay
Less than a week after Sweden won the men’s 4 x 7.5-kilometer relay in Oberhof, Germany, with an up-and-coming group, Norway posted its second win (in three relays) this season, with an all-star lineup on Friday in Ruhpolding, Germany.
Lars Helge Birkeland, Tarjei Bø, Emil Hegle Svendsen, and Johannes Thingnes Bø took the lead during Johannes Bø’s anchor leg and ultimately the win in 1:13:11.1 hours, 24.9 seconds ahead of France in second and 53.4 seconds ahead of Russia in third.
On a bluebird day with no wind in the range, according to an International Biathlon Union (IBU) press release, the Norwegians avoided the penalty lap and used seven spares to clean. First-leg skier Birkeland put them in second with near-perfect shooting (0+0, 0+1), just 0.4 seconds behind Germany’s Erik Lesser, who cleaned without any spares, in first. (Birkeland was also on the Norwegian team that won the first relay of the season in Hochfilzen, Austria.)
Norway remained in second during Tarjei Bø’s second leg, in which he had to use three spares to clean prone (0+3, 0+0). He tagged Svendsen in second, 0.6 seconds behind Italy, which had risen to first thanks to Lukas Hofer’s fast skiing and solid shooting (0+0, 0+2).
Svendsen slipped slightly to third place by the final exchange despite only needing one spare to clean (0+0, 0+1), but was still just a second out of first at the tag. France had moved into first place with a predictably strong third leg from Martin Fourcade (0+0, 0+0), in which he brought the team from seventh to first place, just ahead of Italy’s Dominik Windisch and Norway’s Svendsen.
Johannes Bø skied the third-fastest anchor leg and cleaned prone and used two spares in standing (0+0, 0+2) to overtake France’s Antonin Guigonnat and Italy’s Thierry Chenal, who slipped to second and seventh, respectively, by the finish.
Guigonnat shot well, requiring just one spare (0+1, 0+0), but finished nearly 25 seconds after Bø for second place. Russia reached the podium with Anton Shipulin picking off two places, after being tagged in fifth.
In all, France had zero penalties and six spares, with Simon Desthieux, Quentin Fillon Maillet, Fourcade, and Guigonnat, and Russia used a total of just four spares and had no penalties with Alexey Volkov, Maxim Tsvetkov, Anton Babikov, and Shipulin.
Germany finished fourth (+1:26.5) with zero penalties and 10 spares, with Lesser, Benedikt Doll, Arnd Peiffer and Simon Schempp. After Doll dropped to fifth on the second leg, they skied in fourth on the last two legs.
Austria took fifth (+1:39.8) with zero penalties and six spares, with David Komatz, Simon Eder, Daniel Mesotitsch, and Dominik Landertinger. Sweden followed in sixth (+1:50.6) with zero penalties, six spares and three of the same men who won last Sunday’s relay (Sebastian Samuelsson, Martin Ponsiluoma and Fredrik Lindström) with new member Torstein Stenersen. Italy finished seventh (+1:58.5) with one penalty and 11 spares.
Of 26 teams in the relay, Canada placed 14th (+3:22.3) with one penalty and 10 spares, and the U.S. finished 24th (+16:21.6) with eight penalties (four of which stemmed from cross-firing) and 13 spares.
Notably, the U.S. had been fourth and just 3 seconds out of first after Lowell Bailey’s first leg, which he cleaned without any spares (0+0, 0+0). Leif Nordgren then dropped to 22nd with a penalty in each of his shooting stages (1+3, 1+3) and the 25th-ranked second-leg time. Tim Burke as the team’s third leg had to ski two penalty laps as well (0+2, 2+3), and anchor Sean Doherty was penalized for cross-firing in his last standing stage (0+1, 4+1), according to a US Biathlon press release, and the team was hit with four additional penalties.
“We have a solid team and I know we didn’t show our true potential today,” Bailey said, according to the release. “But the most important relay is still to come. We’ll just have to wait until then.”
“I was happy to put together a good race on the track and in the range,” he said. “The first lap was a bit of a roller derby with no easy way to get to the front. I was fortunate to clean without extra rounds because this allowed me to leapfrog up to the lead pack exiting the range. I tried to keep an even pace for loop two and I thought I would be able to hang in second or third, but no one wanted to pass so I had to lead for most of the loop.
“I had struggled in standing in the previous race so I wanted to get back to taking good shots in standing,” he added. “Although I didn’t shoot as quickly as some of the other guys, I felt good about the stage and the fact that I didn’t have to use extras. It was a fight to catch the lead group on the last loop, but fortunately I had some help from [Italy’s Thomas] Bormolini (of Italy) and we worked together to get back in contact with the lead group.”
Canada finished 14th with Christian Gow, Scott Gow, Macx Davies, and Brendan Green. On the opening leg, Christian Gow put them in 11th with clean prone shooting and just one spare needed to clean standing (0+0, 0+1), but they slipped one spot to 12th with a penalty on Scott Gow’s second leg (0+0, 1+3). Davies then dropped two more places to 14th despite avoiding the penalty lap (0+3, 0+1), and Green held that position to the finish (0+1, 0+1).
The women’s 4 x 6 k relay will be held Saturday in Ruhpolding, with Canada starting Emma Lunder, Julia Ransom, Sarah Beaudry, and Rosanna Crawford. For the U.S., it will be Susan Dunklee, Clare Egan, Emily Dreissigacker, and Joanne Reid. Watch it live on the Olympic Channel at 8:30 a.m. EST.
Rosanna Crawford celebrates with her Biathlon Canada teammates Emma Lunder (l) and Julia Ransom (r) after placing third for her first-career IBU World Cup podium on Thursday in the women’s 15 k individual in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
For a while it looked as if the podium in the women’s 15-kilometer individual at the Thursday’s IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany, had been all but decided with only a few more athletes circling the course. But then the favorites who had already finished had someone to worry about.
Along with some 13,000 spectators in the stands, they paid close attention to the video walls in the arena, as one late-starting Canadian — Rosanna Crawford — had just set the best split time after the third shooting by hitting every target for the third time in a row. She was even 1.8 seconds ahead of race leader Dorothea Wierer of Italy.
“I actually didn’t know I was fighting for a podium until the fourth loop,” Crawford told FasterSkier on the phone after the race. That’s where Czech wax technician, Tom Zidek, a former Biathlon Canada wax tech, told her she was is in first place.
Canada’s Rosanna Crawford (standing) celebrates her first IBU World Cup podium on Thursday after placing third in the women’s 15 k individual in Ruhpolding, Germany, while Sweden’s Emma Nilsson (who placed 36th) unclips. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
“I was like, Oh God!” she recalled with a laugh. “But I think that kind of helped as well because then I knew to expect the crowd for the last standing.”
Could this be Crawford’s big day? Coming into the range for the final standing shooting, the 29-yaer-old Canmore native knew she likely would get a season-best result if she did not totally implode, but needed to shoot clean again to stay in podium contention and not get hit with the individual race’s merciless one-minute penalty per miss.
“I made sure just to set up properly, and then I took an extra breath before my last shot and was pretty pumped to see it turn to white,” Crawford recalled of her last shooting stage. “I am a person who really likes cue words and I have a few sentences that I repeat over in my head. … I knew the only way I was going to hit the targets is if I only thought about the present moment.”
After she had cleaned all five targets for the fourth time, bringing her shooting percentage to a perfect 20-for-20 (the first time she had ever done so in a race), Crawford skated off the shooting mat with a smile on her face. She left the range now 7.8 seconds behind Wierer’s time (after the Italian had also hit all 20 targets), but was still more than 20 seconds ahead of Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen (who had incurred one penalty in her first prone shooting but shot clean after that) and Ukraine’s also clean-shooting Yuliia Dhzima.
“Being one of the last competitors with bib 96 I had a lot of time to wait,” Crawford said at the IBU’s post-race press conference. “I knew all the eyes were on me probably for my last two shootings. That is something I have never experienced before, going from the third loop onwards where everyone was cheering for me around the loop. … It’s a feeling I have never had before to hit all 20, so I was really excited to ski out of the range.”
With her team staff, including head coach Matthias Ahrens running next to the track cheering her on, Crawford chased around the loop up the steep “Wall of Ruhpolding” climb. Overall she skied the 26th-fastest course time of the day, and on the final loop in softening conditions, her loop time ranked 48th. But she still hung onto the podium.
“The course had broken down a little bit, with a hundred-and-something starters, so by the time I went around I was really searching for the best line, which I think paid off as well,” Crawford said.
The women’s 15 k individual podium at the IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany, on Thursday, with Italy’s Dorothea Wierer (c) in first, Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen (l) in second, and Canada’s Rosanna Crawford (r) in third. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
Coming out of the downhill and onto the finishing stretch with the thousands of spectators cheering her on, Crawford fought the clock. She was out of reach of Wierer, but still within striking distance of Mäkäräinen in second. At the finish, Crawford was third, 21.2 seconds behind Wierer and 8.5 seconds behind Mäkäräinen in second place (+12.7). The Canadian was comfortably ahead of Dhzima in fourth (+45.9), while another clean-shooting Ukrainian, Valj Semerenko, placed fifth (+52.6).
“I am so excited today, it was really special, my first time hitting 20-for-20 as well,” Crawford said at the press conference. “I really love Ruhpolding! It was my first World Juniors, my first World Cup, and my first podium, so it’s a very special place for me.”
As Crawford skied into the finish she looked up to the nearest video monitor to check if she indeed had managed to hold her position on the podium for the first time. But she didn’t have to wait long for confirmation as her teammates and coaches already rushed out into the finish to hug and congratulate her.
“Julia [Ransom], Emma [Lunder] and Sarah [Beaudry], they kind of pushed past the IBU guys, which I don’t think they were allowed to do, but Canada’s not on the podium every day so they let them sneak by to give me a hug so that was really special,” Crawford told FasterSkier. “I’ve been with these girls the past couple years now and so to be able to celebrate with them is amazing. Their results have been so inspiring for me … [My coach Roddy Ward] also jumped the fence, which I don’t think was allowed, so that was nice to be able to see him as well.
Biathlon Canada celebrates Rosanna Crawford’s podium on Thursday in the IBU World Cup 15 k individual in Ruhpolding, Germany, with (from left to right) coach Roddy Ward, Crawford, Emma Lunder, Julia Ransom, and Sarah Beaudry. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
“It’s just such a team effort to get to the podium,” she continued. “I’m the one out there skiing and shooting, but I couldn’t have done it without the amazing skis on my feet or my coaches behind the scope, so Matthias and Roddy were really important there, and I couldn’t have done it without the girls who I train with all summer. I’m just so grateful for this team that I’m on.”
“So proud!!!” her longtime boyfriend and teammate Brendan Green wrote on Instagram with a screenshot of Crawford finishing.
“Brendan is amazing,” Crawford said. “I’m sure he was pretty nervous. He was the first text messages and tweets and Instagrams that I had on my phone. Right now I’m having dinner with him and then we’ll go to the awards ceremony tonight. It’s really special.”
“It’s incredible for me, not something that I was really expecting this season,” she told German broadcaster ZDF in an interview immediately after the race. “I didn’t have the best summer of training so to be on the podium is really special for me.”
That was an understatement. Last spring, Crawford and her family dealt with a severe personal tragedy with the loss of her brother Jordan.
“It was such a hard summer for me, losing my brother in April,” she told FasterSkier. “I really wish he was here today so I could celebrate with him, too. I miss him a lot. Jordan was a huge cheerleader for me. He always believed in me. Whenever I was home, he was always cooking me food and helping me take care of the dogs, and he was always so concerned that he was causing me stress. … Jordan loved the outdoors so whenever I was out in a valley or skiing or mountain biking, he was always in my thoughts, and wishing I could share these things with him. It was really hard on the whole family, but it brought us closer together as well in some ways, to support each other.”
Asked if she had caught up with her family members yet, including her sister Chandra Crawford, a 2006 Olympic gold medalist in cross-country skiing, she said she had spoken to all of them.
“Training was always a little bit on the back burner for the first couple months while we were all grieving and then once finally the motivation came around again to start training, it felt right and proper,” she said of her offseason and transition to another race season. “But then again, the results just were not paying off through the first trimester [of the World Cup] and I didn’t know what I was doing wrong and I was really starting to lose hope.”
Crawford’s previous best non-relay result this season was 39th in the 10 k pursuit in Hochfilzen, Austria. And her last time in the top 10 outside a relay race was back in December 2014, where she placed fourth in a sprint and seventh in a pursuit in Pokljuka, Slovenia.
Coincidentally, Germany’s ZDF network featured the Canadian women’s team in a preview to the individual race, filming them and coach Ahrens while they attended a one-hour cooking class in Ruhpolding. But they certainly had not intended it as a segment on a likely podium finisher for the very next race.
“Yes, of course the Bavarian food fueled me around the course,” Crawford said with a laugh when ZDF asked about that.
“Just thank you so much to the fans. There is no way I would have been able to ski around that last loop without them,” she added.
“This really describes the biathlon family,” Crawford later explained in the press conference. “That it doesn’t matter which country you are from, people will be cheering for you. And not only the fans but also the techs. Jarko, Kaisa’s head wax tech, who used to wax for Canada, he was giving me splits off of Kaisa telling me, ‘You are ahead of Kaisa, go get her!’ So they might have to have a serious conversation tonight! It was really incredible.”
Rosanna Crawford (Biathlon Canada) finishing third in the IBU World Cup women’s 15 k individual in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: Salomon/NordicFocus)
In her interview with FasterSkier, Crawford also spoke of a Ukrainian coach who cheered her on for the final loop. “I think this really describes what the biathlon family actually is,” she said. “It’s not the IBU. It’s the coaches and the athletes and the wax techs and the fans, that is actually the biathlon family.”
Despite all the support she had felt throughout the year, Crawford had a season she was not satisfied with so far, with two 39th places as her best results (excluding relays). Going into this race, she ranked 79th in the overall World Cup standings. Last weekend, instead of starting at the World Cup in Oberhof, Germany, she raced two sprints on the IBU Cup in Brezno-Osrblie, Slovakia, where she placed 15th and 22nd. More so than a demotion, that was a move Biathlon Canada made to give other women on the team a chance to qualify for the upcoming Olympics.
“This season has definitively not started out very good for me, and then getting sent to the IBU Cup was really frustrating,” Crawford said on the phone. “But I did really like the course in Osrblie, and it was the best skiing I’d felt all year so I really tried to carry that momentum into today’s race. … I think staying in Europe over Christmas was incredibly beneficial for us.”
Crawford’s previous career bests in non-relay races have come in sprints, with her fourth place in Pokljuka and a fifth place in Hochfilzen, both during the 2014/2015 season. She’s been on the podium before, placing second with teammate Nathan Smith in the single mixed relay in Östersund, Sweden, to open the 2015/2016 season.
“There’s just so many lessons you learn over the years, and trying to bring it all together and to have it pay off on one day is exactly what we’re all hunting for out there,” Crawford concluded.
Fourth Career Victory for Wierer
Italy’s Wierer, who frequently performs very well in this competition format and also won the individual in Ruhpolding in 2016 (Crawford placed 18th back then as the best North American) set the best time on Thursday, crossing the line after 41:29.0 minutes.
“I am really happy about this,” Wierer said at the press conference. “I knew that it’s all about the shooting. In the last individual competition I shot really bad, but the last weeks I feel really confident about my shooting. I think the track was really good, and hard conditions are much better for my skiing. The shooting range wasn’t difficult today, there was nearly no wind.”
Asked about having to wait if her time would ultimately be good enough for first place, she added with a laugh: “I was looking [at] Rosanna, and I was afraid of her. But finally I saw that she was some seconds behind me. I wasn’t sure because on the last round I lost a lot, I was really tired, but at the end she didn’t get me!”
On her 35th birthday, Mäkäräinen finished second (+12.7). She was the only finisher in the top five with a penalty, incurred during her first prone shooting.
“It’s a good present,” she said at the press conference when asked about her second place. “I have actually managed to do many good races on my birthday, so this is nice. … 19 out of 20 is really good for me, probably my best shooting this winter, so I am really happy about that and not thinking too much about that one penalty.”
“It’s an amazing place,” she added when asked about her tendency to do well in Ruhpolding. “I like it a lot here because the crowd is really close to us, and there were a lot of people from Finland here, also my parents and their friends. So it was a nice atmosphere today.”
She added that she did not intend to extensively celebrate her birthday with her family.
“I will celebrate by having a massage and good dinner,” Mäkäräinen said. “Just basic things, the athlete’s life goes on, we have more races to come.”
Dunklee 27th, Ransom 34th
For US Biathlon, Susan Dunklee finished 27th with three penalties (1+1+1+0), staying ahead of a number of competitors who performed better on the range thanks to her 14th-ranked ski time.
“Certainly the highlight for me today was watching Rosanna crush it,” Dunklee wrote in an email. “Her whole team, athletes and staff, were overjoyed. It’s inspiring to see and lends positive energy to all the North Americans going forward.”
“This was the first race that felt normal for me and not an extreme high or low,” she wrote of her own race. “It’s a relief. The skiing felt great today and I have no doubts in it going forward. Shooting is finally rounding into form; 85% is a solid result. My goals going forward are to stay healthy and happy and I believe that’s what I need most to perform well in February.”
US Biathlon’s Clare Egan in front of the stands in the finish of the women’s individual 15-kilometer race at the IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany. Initially she was ranked 35th, and ultimately ended the race in 57th. (Screenshot: ZDF broadcast)
Starting about in the middle of the field in bib 43, her teammate Clare Egan was initially 35th as she came into the finish, waving to the cheering crowd as she was shown on the video wall. As more athletes ended their races ahead of her, she ultimately finished 57th (+4:26.3) with three one-minute penalties (0+1+0+2).
“Finally a race I can be proud of!” Egan commented in an Instagram post.
“We will field our first women’s relay this weekend,” Dunklee wrote of their team, which will be joined by athletes who competed at the IBU Cup in Arber, Germany, on Thursday. “It has been a challenging season so far living and traveling with such a small crew, trying to stay upbeat and carry the team with a skeleton group.”
Starting the race early in bib 5 and thus completing her race before Crawford’s had even begun, Biathlon Canada’s Julia Ransom placed 34th (+3:35.0) with two penalties (1+1+0+0). Sarah Beaudry finished 53rd (+4:18.6) with two penalties (0+1+1+0), and Emma Lunder was 67th (+5:21.7) with four penalties (1+0+2+1).
After their own races had concluded, they could only wait for Crawford after learning about the great day she was having and excitedly ran out into the finish to greet her.
“It’s really amazing for our country and for our sport,” Crawford said in the press conference. “Hopefully there will be a few more eyes on biathlon during the Olympics. The last person to get a podium was Zina Kocher in the individual as well [a third place in Östersund during the 2006/2007 season]. So this is becoming a special race for Canada. Julia Ransom had a personal best with a ninth place in Östersund, so we seem to be individual specialists.”
Skardino Earns Individual Discipline World Cup
Since the IBU does not count the races at the upcoming Olympics for World Cup points and standings, this second individual race was also the last one on the competition calendar this season.
Thus Nadezda Skardino of Belarus, who won the first individual race of the season in Östersund, managed to claim the “crystal globe” award in that discipline by finishing seventh in Ruhpolding on Thursday (+1:04.8, with no penalty). It was Skardino’s first World Cup discipline title.
Despite finishing ahead of her in fourth on Thursday and another third place from the race in Östersund, Ukraine’s Dzhima could not make up enough points and placed second in the standings just five points back, while Mäkäräinen was third. Even without Crawford still finishing ahead of Skardino and Dhzima the outcome would have been the same.
“It was my dream, and now I’m minus one dream in my life,” a smiling Skardino told the IBU. “I am very happy, because I thought about it after my win in Östersund. … And now I did it! Today I was not very fast on the tracks, I only thought about my clean shooting. I understood that I can win [the discipline title] if I shoot clean. I knew if some more people stay between Yuliia and me I could lose more points and still lose this, but after all people finished I was very happy I did it!”
Crawford placed 12th in that ranking as the best North American, scoring 2 points for her 39th place in Östersund and 48 for the third place in Ruhpolding.
The women’s World Cup Total Score leader Anastasia Kuzmina of Slovakia, coming off two victories last weekend in Oberhof, placed eighth on Thursday (+1:32.3, with three penalties) to retain her lead there.
Races in Ruhpolding continue with a men’s relay on Friday and women’s relay on Saturday, before concluding with mass starts on Sunday. Crawford is now qualified for that race as one of the five best athletes this week not currently in the top 25 of the overall World Cup; she is now ranked 48th in the Total Score standings.
Rosanna Crawford (Biathlon Canada) celebrates her first-career IBU World Cup podium on Thursday in the women’s 15 k individual in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: Salomon/Nordic Focus)
IBU World Cup (Ruhpolding, Germany): Women’s 15 k individual
It’s been a long time coming, but on Thursday, Rosanna Crawford, 29, achieved her first podium on the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup circuit.
It came in Ruhpolding, Germany, in the longest-format race for the World Cup women: the 15-kilometer individual. In the four-stage race, which adds a minute penalty to a competitor’s time for each missed shot, Crawford of Canmore, Alberta, shot a perfect 20-for-20. She said she had never done that before in a World Cup race.
“I really like the Ruhpolding range,” Crawford said in a post-race phone interview, after finishing third behind Italy’s Dorothea Wierer and Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen, respectively. “This was my first World Juniors, my first World Cup and now my first podium, so it’s a pretty special place for me.”
Wierer won the race with 20-for-20 shooting as well, starting 24th and finishing with the fastest time of 41:29.0 minutes. Mäkäräinen as the 12th starter missed out on first place due to a single miss in the first prone (1+0+0+0) and ended up 12.7 seconds back in second place.
Crawford, one of the last starters in bib 97, turned heads throughout the race with each passing clean bout. With one extra breath before her last shot, she successfully hit her last target and left the range with a huge smile.
“I think I almost started crying,” she recalled.
She finished 21.7 seconds out of first, and almost 25 seconds clear of fourth-place finisher Yulia Dzhima of Ukraine. Even a Ukrainian coach was cheering for Crawford on her last loop.
“That last lap was so cool,” Crawford said. “Right past the penalty loop, the Ukrainian coach was like, ‘You’re one second, — or whatever time I was — from first,’ and it was amazing. I think this really describes what the biathlon family actually is. It’s not the IBU. It’s the coaches and the athletes and the wax techs and the fans.”
Her teammates and coach, Roddy Ward, awaited her arrival in the finish pen.
“Canada’s not on the podium every day so they let them sneak by to give me a hug so that was really special,” Crawford said.
Her result is her first non-relay top 10 since a pursuit in December 2014, where she placed seventh in Pokljuka, Slovenia. The race before that, she placed fourth in the Pokljuka 7.5 k sprint, which was had been career best — until Thursday.
“Who knew that I would get my first podium in an individual?” Crawford mused. “I was laughing at that myself.”
The U.S. was led by Susan Dunklee in 27th (+3:02.7), who had one penalty in each of the first three stages (1+1+1+0).
Canada’s Julia Ransom placed 34th (+3:35.0) with two penalties (1+1+0+0), Sarah Beaudry was 53rd (+4:18.6) with two misses as well (0+1+1+0), and Emma Lunder finished 67th (+5:21.7) with four penalties (1+0+2+1).
Two Americans raced, with Clare Egan finishing 57th (+4:26.3) with three penalties (0+1+0+2).
“Certainly the highlight for me today was watching Rosanna crush it,” Dunklee wrote in an email. “Her whole team, athletes and staff, were overjoyed. It’s inspiring to see and lends positive energy to all the North Americans going forward.”
She also pointed out that her U.S. teammates Emily Dreissigacker and Maddie Phaneuf placed fifth and 11th, respectively, with clean shooting in the IBU Cup women’s 15 k individual, also on Thursday.
“That spark is exactly what our team needs right now and the timing is spot on,” Dunklee continued. “We will field our first women’s relay this weekend. It has been a challenging season so far living and traveling with such a small crew, trying to stay upbeat and carry the team with a skeleton group.”
The World Cup men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay is scheduled for Friday at 8:30 a.m. EST, with both Canada and the U.S. entering teams. (Men’s relay start list)
The women’s 4 x 6 k relay is on Saturday at 8:30 a.m. EST, with the men’s and women’s mass starts following on Sunday in Ruhpolding.
France’s Martin Fourcade after winning the men’s 20 k individual at the IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany, by more than a minute on Wednesday. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
IBU World Cup (Ruhpolding, Germany): Men’s 20 k individual
For France’s Martin Fourcade, the difference between a miss on the last shooting stage of the men’s 20-kilometer individual International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup on Wednesday versus perfect shooting wouldn’t have ultimately changed his result in Ruhpolding.
Despite the one-minute penalty, which was tagged onto his total time after his lone miss of the day, Fourcade still won by a minute. The Czech Republic’s Ondřej Moravec, who started 2 1/2 minutes ahead of him in bib 18 (while Fourcade wore bib 23), had successfully cleaned every stage, shooting 20-for-20, and initially crossed the finish line first — about a minute and 23 seconds ahead of former race leader Simon Eder of Austria.
But Moravec’s moment in first was fleeting as Fourcade burst into the stadium, not yet letting off the gas, seconds after Moravec finished. Fourcade took the win in 44:27.9, 1:01 ahead of Moravec in second. To indicate how fast Fourcade’s last loop was, it’s worth noting that he was 30 seconds ahead of Moravec with 4 k to go. On that final 4 k loop, he doubled his time ahead of second place.
Fourcade’s win came four days after his last race in Oberhof, Germany, the 12.5 k pursuit, which he also won.
“We are in a biathlon routine now,” he said, according to an IBU press release. “It was hard to find strong motivation with not much recovery or training this week. … Today I wanted to beat my record of podiums in a row. Today was my 14th [individual podium, including last season] in a row and I am really proud of this. I am very happy with my competition as well. Ruhpolding is place that I really love and I am happy that I continued my success here.”
Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø achieved his eighth-straight podium in third, 1:06.3 behind Fourcade with a single miss on the last stage as well (0+0+0+1).
“I heard the speaker, so I knew Martin had missed,” recalled Bø, who started behind Fourcade in bib 29. “I knew if I could shoot clean, there was a small chance I could beat him. I tried and missed. That was my tactic: to go for the win, not save the podium.”
He left the range for the last time 48.3 seconds back from Fourcade in first.
Michal Krcmar (l) and Ondřej Moravec (r) after reaching the flower ceremony in fifth and second, respectively, on Wednesday at the IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
Germany’s Roman Rees shot clean and placed fourth (+1:19.1) for his first-career World Cup top 10, and the Czech Republic had two in the top five with Michal Krcmar in fifth (+1:36.6) for his best result of this season.
For Moravec, second place marked his season best as well, after finishing outside the top 10 in previous races this season.
“This podium is really important for me,” he told the IBU. “My first trimester was really bad; my shape was not good especially for the shooting. I also missed a lot of the summer training so did not have the best preparation … I am very please at how I was able to focus and have success in this race.”
Austria’s Dominik Landertinger followed in sixth (+2:21.9) with one penalty and Eder ended up seventh (+2:23.8) with one miss as well.
While the one-minute penalty per miss did not faze Fourcade, it led several North Americans to drop out of top-20 contention, particularly Tim Burke (US Biathlon), who had been in 16th after cleaning the third shooting stage. Burke had cleaned his first stage then missed one on the first standing, but was back in the top 20 with a clean third stage. On the final standing, he missed his first two shots, causing him to look up for a moment to refocus. He cleaned the last three, but still ended up with two additional minutes of penalties that put him 36th at the finish, 4:35.0 out of first (0+1+0+2).
Sean Doherty (US Biathlon) racing to 31st to lead his team in the men’s 20 k individual on Wednesday at the IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: US Biathlon/NordicFocus)
Sean Doherty led the U.S. men in 31st after missing two targets between the first prone and first standing stages. Ranked 76th after the second stage, he recovered to 53rd after a clean third stage and then 32nd after hitting all five targets on his last stage (1+1+0+0). With two penalties, Doherty finished the race 4:13.6 back in 31st.
“I am happy with the race today,” Doherty said, according to a US Biathlon press release. “I left some room for improvement on the range. It was a big step in the right direction from last week. We had very fast conditions on the course today and our waxing staff did a great job as usual.”
All three U.S. starters finished in the top 40, with Lowell Bailey in 37th (+4:36.4) with three misses (0+2+0+1).
Biathlon Canada was led by Christian Gow in 34th (+4:30.7), for his career-best in a 20 k individual race. After starting in bib 2, he cleaned his first and third stages to put himself in 32nd with one stage to go, within 28 seconds of the top 20. But a miss on his last standing put Gow in 39th leaving the range for the last time, and he ended up 34th at the finish (0+1+0+1).
“My shooting was just OK today,” Gow wrote in an email. “I would have liked to hit one more for sure and then I would have been completely satisfied with the race. I felt more nervous than normal in the range, and my two misses were a direct result of being a bit hesitant on the shooting mat.
“I am pretty happy with today overall,” he added. “I think this is the best skiing I’ve had in an Individual race and my best placing as well. I do wish I could have one or two shots back, but overall I am happy.”
Also for Canada, his older brother Scott Gow finished 55th (+5:13.2) with three penalties (0+1+1+1), Brendan Green placed 78th (+6:53.7) with four misses (1+0+2+1), and Macx Davies was 91st (+8:02.4) with five penalties (1+1+3+0), out of 107 finishers.
The Gow brothers and Green raced Sunday in the men’s 4 x 7.5 k in Oberhof, where they placed 10th.
“Honestly, I have been feeling pretty tired after the 3 days of racing in a row last weekend,” Christian wrote. “Our travel wasn’t too bad, but it still didn’t feel like much of a rest day.”
The Ruhpolding World Cup continues Thursday with the women’s 15 k individual (starting at 8:30 a.m. EST on the Olympic Channel). Another men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay will follow on Friday, then the women’s 4 x 6 k relay on Saturday, and the men’s and women’s mass starts on Sunday.
The women’s 10 k classic podium on Wednesday at the NorAm trials in Mont Sainte-Anne, Quebec, with Cendrine Browne (1) in first, Katherine Stewart-Jones (2) in second, and Anne-Marie Comeau (3) in third. Dahria Beatty (l) placed fourth. (Photo: Cross Country Canada/Instagram)
The NorAm trials at Mont Sainte-Anne (MSA), Québec, concluded Wednesday with the 10- and 15-kilometer classic interval starts. On the line were NorAm points, U23 and World Championships invitations, and for the women, what may well be the last Olympic spot on the Canadian team.
The action started with the men’s 15 k classic, which Ricardo Izquierdo-Bernier of the Pierre-Harvey National Training Centre (CNEPH) won in 39.07.8 minutes to punch his ticket to U23 World Championships later this month in Goms, Switzerland. He won the race ahead of Scott Hill of Barrie Cross Country (BXC) in second, who skied a fast final lap to come within 6.9 seconds of first.
Canadian Para-Nordic teammates Graham Nishikawa and Brian McKeever finished third (+30.0) and fourth (+37.4), respectively, with Nishikawa as McKeever’s guide in Paralympic events having the edge in the interval-start race the two skied on their own (Nishikawa started 64th and McKeever 55th).
According to Nishikawa, the two have been entering NorAm events that fit into their preparation for the PyeongChang Paralympics. Nishikawa wrote a quick email on his way to the airport on Wednesday.
“Happy with my week overall in MSA. Shape is good. Skis were good. Will keep improving into Korea for Paralympics,” he wrote after his second distance podium of the week.
In the women’s 10 k classic, Cendrine Browne (Canadian National U25 Team/CNEPH) continued her strong showing at trials with her second victory and fourth top-four result, taking the win in 29:47.0.
Katherine Stewart-Jones, of the U25 Team and National Team Development Centre (NTDC) Thunder Bay, and Anne-Marie Comeau (Université Laval) were virtually tied for second after the first lap, but Stewart-Jones held the speed to take second, 39.2 seconds behind Browne and 24.3 seconds ahead of Comeau in third.
About 16 seconds later, Maya MacIsaac-Jones, of the U25 Team and Rocky Mountain Racers (RMR), finished fourth (+1:21.0) ahead of Dahria Beatty, of the Canadian World Cup Team and Alberta World Cup Academy, in fifth (+1:26.6).
The selection criteria are complex, but a quick calculation suggests that Comeau, who placed second to Browne in Monday’s skiathlon, gets the provisional women’s distance spot for the PyeongChang Olympics (since Browne already established herself as the sprint leader), and Stewart-Jones, who was fifth in the skiathlon, gets the U23 Worlds berth. Stay tuned for updates and official selections.
The junior men’s 10 k classic podium on Wednesday at the NorAm trials in Mont Sainte-Anne, Quebec, with Antoine Cyr (c) in first, Félix Longpré (2) in second and Étienne Hébert (3) in third. (Photo: Cross Country Canada/Instagram)
CNEPH’s Antoine Cyr took his third win of the week in the junior men’s 10 k, finishing in 25:57.3, well ahead of local Félix Longpré (MSA) in second (+48.2) and Étienne Hébert (AWCA) in third (+55.6).
In the junior women’s 5 k, Hannah Mehain (Sovereign Lake Nordic/National Junior Team) took the win in 15:22.7, just 2.7 seconds ahead of skiathlon winner Natalie Hynes (Whitehorse Ski Club/National Junior Team) and 15.0 seconds ahead of Tuesday’s skate sprint winner Annika Richardson (NTDC Thunder Bay/National Junior Team) in third.
France’s Martin Fourcade (c) celebrates his 10th victory of the 2016/2017 IBU World Cup season in the men’s 12.5 k pursuit in Ruhpolding, Germany. Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen (l) placed second, and the Czech Republic’s Michal Krcmar (r) was third for the first podium of his career. (Photo: IBU)
Even Martin Fourcade himself seems surprised with his season so far in the record books.
“I know what I did this season is incredible,” the French biathlon star said in Sunday’s press conference in Ruhpolding, Germany. “Even in my best dreams I could never imagine that.”
Fourcade continued his series of stellar performances in the men’s 12.5-kilometer pursuit at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany. But he cut it close this time on his way to his 10th victory of the season.
In heavy snowfall on the course in the Bavarian Alps, Norway’s clean-shooting Emil Hegle Svendsen took the lead for a short time when Fourcade missed two targets in his second prone stage and added another penalty in the first standing stage, returning to the course 0.5 seconds behind the Norwegian.
But after initially letting Svendsen set the pace on the loop before the final shooting, Fourcade pushed the tempo up the “Wall of Ruhpolding” climb to create a small gap on a group of five others still fighting for the podium within ten seconds of each other. He managed to reach the range first, and had already hit his first targets before his opponents set up in their lanes. Fourcade took his time with his last shot before finally hitting that one, too. While Svendsen also avoided the penalty lap, he left the range 14.3 seconds behind Fourcade.
On the last loop the two athletes were satisfied to just defend their positions, with Fourcade crossing the line in 33:47.5 minutes, with three penalties (0+2+1+0), and Svendsen 18.3 seconds back with no penalties.
“On the fourth and the last lap I was really, really tired,” Svendsen said at the press conference. “And [with] the slow conditions, when you feel tired it gets even worse, you know. The snow was coming down, and it was a tough battle with my own inner demons and my legs … To be second with this kind of fatigue at the end of the race, I am happy I came to the finish before the other guys.”
Just behind Svendsen, the third place on the podium was decided in a three-way race between Russia’s Anton Shipulin, Czech Republic’s Michal Krcmar and Germany’s Arnd Peiffer. At first it looked like Shipulin would prevail when he built a small gap on the last loop, but in the finishing stretch, Krcmar pushed up to him and outsprinted the Russian to achieve his first-career World Cup podium in third (+19.5 with no penalties), moving up all the way from starting in 29th. His previous best results had been two fifth places last season, one of those also in Ruhpolding in a mass start.
“First time for me and a little bit nervous,” Krcmar said with a laugh in his opening remark at the press conference. “On the last shooting I was clean, and on the track I concentrated on the fight with Arnd Peiffer. But on the last downhill, I see Anton so close and I try it and done. A very amazing day for me, I am so happy. ”
Shipulin finished in fourth (+21.3 with one penalty) and Peiffer in fifth (+24.1 with one penalty).
A knowledgeable student of the history of biathlon, who frequently cites certain races or career achievements of his youth idols (including his countryman Raphaël Poirée), Fourcade acknowledged that he is keenly aware he already tied the best World Cup season of his career, and is motivated by the chance he may soon break Norwegian Ole Einar Bjørndalen’s record of 12 wins in one season.
“I know I already won so much this season,” Fourcade said at the press conference. “There is a big gap [already] in the overall rankings. So if I had not these kinds of statistics, I don’t like the word record, but if I were not fighting for these statistics, I will not stay as focused as I am now and have less victories.”
Germany’s Simon Schempp (l) and Arnd Peiffer (r) after tangling in the men’s 12.5 k pursuit on Sunday at the 2017 IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: ARD broadcast screenshot)
Peiffer’s race got off to a bad start when, on the first loop, he tangled and crashed with his teammate Simon Schempp. Peiffer broke a pole, but both fell flat on their bellies and at least their rifles remained undamaged.
“I can’t really explain what happened yet,” Peiffer told German broadcaster ARD after the race. “Simon was behind me on the downhill. And I believe the root cause was that my ski bumped to the side. In that moment Simon pushed into me, and then it all went so fast that I got an imbalance. Then I lay there, and oh, this was so annoying. I stood up, my pole was broken in three pieces. Simon had crashed with me, and a whole group skied past us. Then it took a while for me to get a spare. I may have to talk to our support staff about that because they stood there like stuffed dummies while I was yelling. Then I got a pole with a strap that was like glove size 5 [i.e. much too small]. Then I had to collect myself for the shooting range, and at least that worked kind of well.”
Schempp ended his race in seventh (+39.7) with two penalties (0+0+0+2).
US Biathlon’s Tim Burke on course in heavy snowfall during the men’s 12.5 k pursuit at the 2017 IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
Americans Tim Burke and Lowell Bailey skied close together throughout the race, initially moving up several positions with two clean prone shooting performances after starting 12th and 18th, respectively. Burke left the range in 11th and Bailey in 13th place, both just a few seconds out of the top 10. But in the first standing shooting, Burke fell back to 28th with two penalties, and added another penalty in the final stage to finish 24th (+1:31.6).
“Today was another solid race for me,” Burke said, according to a US Biathlon press release. “I felt solid on the course but have not quite found my timing on the shooting range. I feel like things are headed in the right direction for me and I am looking forward to competing in Antholz next week, which has always been one of my favorite courses.”
With a penalty in each of the standing stages (0+0+1+1), Bailey finished 26th (+1:33.8), two seconds behind Burke.
“I struggled a bit on the skis today,” Bailey told US Biathlon. “No explanation, but I’m still happy with a solid top-30 going into Antholz. It was difficult conditions with falling snow, so I was satisfied with the shooting. Of course, I wish I could have those two misses back, but I’ll have to wait until Antholz.”
In his second World Cup week of the season, their teammate Sean Doherty finished 43rd (+3:22.1) with four penalties (1+0+2+1) after starting out in 40th position.
For Biathlon Canada, only Scott Gow qualified for the pursuit with his sprint result. He started 42nd and finished just ahead of Doherty in 41st place (+3:09.3) with three penalties (0+1+1+1).
“It wasn’t a huge move up today, but I still managed to gain one spot at the finish,” Gow wrote on Facebook. “Tricky conditions and heavy snow made for a challenging race! Lots of fun and looking forward to Italy.”
The IBU World Cup continues next week in Antholz with the women’s 15 k individual on Thursday, Jan. 19, and the men’s 20 k individual on Friday, Jan. 20.
Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen on her way to a win in Saturday’s IBU World Cup women’s 7.5 k sprint in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: IBU)
Kaisa Mäkäräinen skied in a league of her own on Saturday.
The five biathletes currently leading the International Biathlon Union (IBU) women’s overall standings also occupied the top five of Saturday’s 7.5-kilometer sprint in Ruhpolding, Germany. But when Mäkäräinen shoots clean in a race, even those fast skiers cannot keep up with “the Finnish flash,” as an announcer for German TV broadcaster ARD dubbed her, as she finished in 20:51.8 minutes for her first World Cup win of the season and 20th victory of her career.
The Czech Republic’s Gabriela Koukalová came closest (+22.0, with no penalties), knocking the German home-crowd favorite Laura Dahlmeier to third (+30.1 with no penalties).
“It was almost a perfect race,” Mäkäräinen told ARD after. “I didn’t feel super, super strong today, even though I had good skis and ski times, but it was quite the slow snow and really deep and tricky.“
“I was really tired in the finish because there are no places where you can rest, you have to work all the time here,” she added during the press conference.
While the course conditions weren’t exactly easy for Mäkäräinen, they were at least as difficult for her competitors, who might not have caught the Finn even if she had incurred a penalty.
In light snowfall and wind, the competitors nevertheless had to shoot near-flawlessly to be at the top on Saturday, which eight of the top 10, including all of the podium finishers, achieved. Mäkäräinen hit all of her targets for the first time in an individual race since almost a year ago at the same venue, also in a World Cup sprint in Ruhpolding.
“Quite slow, I took it like one shot at a time,” she said of her approach to ARD. “But in standing I feel better, especially after shooting clean there in the relay [on Thursday].“
Asked what was more important to her, winning the “yellow bib” of the overall World Cup (Total Score) leader or a medal at the upcoming IBU World Championships, she had to laugh.
“Both!” Mäkäräinen exclaimed. “Both! I would be happy with both, or one of them. It’s really hard competitions right now compared to last year, so every day has to be a good day.”
For now, Koukalová defended the yellow bib against her closest rivals, but explained in the press conference that this was not exactly her main goal for the year.
“Everybody asks me about the yellow bib all the time,” Koukalová said. “But I have to say again, this year it is not the main goal of the season to be the first one in Total Score. I try to focus for the World Championship in Hochfilzen [next month].”
She added that it was a good decision to start in a later start group as “conditions were getting better and better. It was very nice to ski on faster snow than for the first athletes.”
“It’s fun to race in front of this audience, to fully attack,” Dahlmeier told ARD. “You could see that Kaisa is in a bit of a different league in terms of ski speed. I couldn’t touch that today, but I still tried to give it my best. So I am super happy about another position on the podium.”
Starting late in the race with bib 75, France’s Marie Dorin Habert challenged for the podium, but with a miss in her standing stage (0+1) while the top three stayed clean, she came up 15.5 seconds short (no thanks to the 20-30 seconds it takes to ski through the 150-meter penalty lap) in fourth place (+48.6).
Also slated to start Sunday’s pursuit within a minute behind Mäkäräinen will be Italy’s Dorothea Wierer, who took fifth (+57.7) on Saturday with clean shooting, as well as Germany’s Franziska Hildebrand, who also cleaned for sixth place (+59.8).
“Of course it’s good, [shooting] zero-zero,” Wierer told IBU TV in a post-race interview. “But on the track I’m really not in a good shape at the moment. I don’t know what happened. I feel like I would be sick, but I’m not … [For the pursuit on Sunday] we have to shoot four times zero, if not Kaisa is really really fast at the moment. We have to hope that she has some mistakes and we [don’t], but that’s biathlon.”
Four North Americans onto the Pursuit
US Biathlon’s Susan Dunklee shooting prone in the women’s 7.5 k sprint of the 2017 IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
Susan Dunklee once again led the North American woman in the sprint in 33rd (+2:13.5), despite a penalty in each of her shooting stages (1+1). She had the 29th-fastest time on the range, and skied the 20th-ranked overall course time, including a very fast first loop where she skied right behind Koukalová, who was entering her second loop and ultimately posted the third-fastest course time of the day.
“I put myself in the race right from the start, taking advantage of a great ride behind Gabi for a loop,” Dunklee said, according to a US Biathlon press release. “Unfortunately, my pace fell off in the loops after that and my range performance was mediocre.
“I will have a great pack of athletes within two seconds ahead of me to chase tomorrow,” she added, referencing experienced competitors such as Germany’s Franziska Preuss (who placed 31st on Saturday, +2:12.8) and Ukraine’s Valj Semerenko (30th, +2:11.8).
Biathlon Canada’s Rosanna Crawford at the start of the women’s 7.5 k sprint at the 2017 IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: ARD broadcast screenshot)
Canada’s Rosanna Crawford finished 55th (+2:54.0) with one standing penalty (0+1), also shooting fast with the 19th-ranked range time, but still searching for her ski speed from last season with the 78th-ranked course time.
Her Biathlon Canada teammate Megan Tandy, who lives and trains near Ruhpolding for part of the season, finished her race just one position and 0.3 seconds behind in 56th (0+1, +2:54.3).
Returning to the World Cup after a training block at home in Canmore, Alberta, skipping the races in Oberhof last week, the third Canadian Julia Ransom finished 60th (+3:07.2), also with one standing penalty (0+1) to make the top-60 cutoff for the pursuit.
Teammate Emma Lunder missed qualifying for the pursuit in 89th (3+0, +4:21.7).
Also missing the top 60 was Americans Joanne Reid in 71st place (0+2, +3:25.2), Clare Egan who was 77th (2+1, +3:51.0), and Maddie Phaneuf who finished in 94th place (0+2, +4:36.5).
US Biathlon’s Maddie Phaneuf at the start of the women’s 7.5 k sprint at the 2017 IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: ARD broadcast screenshot)
“Well…feeling like garbage on the skis doesn’t help with racing fast haha!” Phaneuf commented on her race on Facebook. “Not super happy with my shooting, 0,2 and ended up 94th. No Pursuit for me tomorrow. But on the bright side, I have clean laundry, currently drinking a glass of wine, and my standing shooting was the 8th fastest of the day! Next stop…Antholz, Italy on Monday.”
It was the first World Cup week of the season for Phaneuf, who also raced the second leg of the U.S. women’s relay, which finished 17th on Thursday. She was called up after posting 10th- and 12th-place IBU Cup finishes earlier this month. She saw her first World Cup start last season on U.S. soil in Presque Isle, Maine, finishing 65th in the sprint.
Tim Burke (US Biathlon) leads Switzerland’s Serafin Wiestner in the IBU World Cup men’s 10 k sprint on Friday in Ruhpolding, Germany. Burke finished 12th for a season best, and Wiestner was 41st. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
This week, Tim Burke reached a serious tipping point. A US Biathlon veteran with six International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup podiums to his name (including a silver medal at 2013 World Championships), Burke stated this past fall that he was going for the one medal that eluded him: an Olympic medal. That meant racing through 2018.
His last World Cup podium came four seasons ago when he placed third in a sprint in Östersund, Sweden. So far this season, Burke, less than a month out from his 35th birthday, had failed to crack the top 20. His season-best result was 26th in the pursuit last week in Oberhof, Germany.
Then, on Wednesday, he skied the second leg of the men’s 4 x 7.5-kilometer relay in Ruhpolding, Germany, using all three spares on his standing stage and ending up in the penalty lap. The team placed 12th, and Burke wasn’t happy with his performance.
“This year has been such a roller coaster for my ski form,” Burke wrote in an email on Friday. “After the relay on Wednesday, I really considered skipping the rest of the World Cups until World Championships.”
2017 IBU World Championships are set for Feb. 9-19 in Hochfilzen, Austria. Skipping “the rest of the World Cups” until then would have meant missing the Ruhpolding sprint and pursuit, as well as potentially three races in Antholz, Italy, Jan. 19-22.
Burke decided to give it one more shot — or 10 more, to be exact — and suited up for another race day in Ruhpolding: the men’s 10 k sprint on Friday.
After more than 100 racers had finished, Burke was glad he joined them as he ultimately placed 12th for his best individual result of 2016/2017.
“I decided to give it one more try today and was thrilled to finally feel better,” Burke wrote. “Because of my recent struggles, I was very careful not to push too hard early on in the race. I kept the pace just below ‘red line’ and then really went for it about 1.5k from the finish.”
Starting relatively early in bib 21, Burke cleaned the first prone stage and clocked the 13th-fastest course time on the first loop. His second loop was slightly slower yet still competitive as the 19th-ranked time, and he sped up considerably on the last loop after missing a standing target and having to ski a penalty lap. His last loop was seventh fastest in the field, and overall, Burke’s course time was ninth fastest.
“Considering the season so far, I am very satisfied with my course time today,” he explained. “I had probably the best training season of my career, so despite some poor results, I have tried to just stay positive and confident that things would eventually turn around.”
While Burke described his lone penalty (0+1) as “not ideal”, he expected more penalties from others, given the breezy conditions and light snow falling later in Friday’s race.
“It’s always tough to say, but without that miss, I probably would have been close to the podium,” he wrote. “Of course there are many others who can say that as well!”
Burke ended up 1:11.6 minutes out of first and about 32 seconds off the podium in 12th, after eight of the 11 finishers ahead of him hit every target.
Overall IBU World Cup leader Martin Fourcade of France racing to his ninth individual win of the 2016/2017 IBU World Cup season on Friday during the men’s 10 k sprint in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: IBU)
France’s Martin Fourcade put together the fastest skiing and best shooting performance of the day, starting 60th and cleaning both stages to finish 18 seconds faster than anyone else with a winning time of 22:34.2 minutes. He posted the fastest course time by more than 20 seconds to achieve his ninth victory of the season, and for the runner-up, Austria’s Julian Eberhard (who also shot clean and posted the third-fastest course time), it was his second podium of the season and third of his career.
“That was a perfect race from the first to the last meter,” Eberhard told Austrian broadcaster ORF. ” I wouldn’t know where I could have gained additional time [on Fourcade].”
Eberhard started 27th, just behind Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen in bib 25, who also hit all 10 targets and took the lead briefly at the finish. Eberhard bested Svendsen’s time by 21.7 seconds to become the new race leader until Fourcade crossed the line, and all three remained on the podium.
“Already in the prone shooting I felt super,” Eberhard said. “In standing, I noticed a little pressure because I knew it could become a great result, but I worked through the sequence calmly, and then marched full throttle until the end.”
“During my [warmup], I was watching the screen, and I saw that Julian and Emil Hegle were shooting clean, and I wanted to match them,” Fourcade said, according to an IBU press release.
About 12 seconds off the podium, Germany’s Arnd Peiffer started 81st (directly behind American Lowell Bailey) and proved to be a threat with clean shooting, but his 15th-ranked course time didn’t quite stack up to the top three. Racing in front of a sold-out, home crowd at Ruhpolding’s Chiemgau Arena, Peiffer settled for fourth (+51.8), ahead of another German, Simon Schempp, who was the only man in the top five to miss a target (0+1) for fifth place (+52.8).
Lowell Bailey (US Biathlon) leading Slovenia’s Rok Trsan during the IBU World Cup men’s 10 k sprint on Friday in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
“I would say it was a decent final loop,” Peiffer said of skiing with two Americans, Bailey and Sean Doherty, to German broadcaster ARD. “I noticed I wouldn’t be able to catch up to Emil [Hegle Svendsen]. That was too far away, and I couldn’t add any speed anymore. So I rather tried to keep the fourth place, and luckily had the advantage of knowing all the split times. I just managed to rescue myself into the finish, but I suffered quite a bit today.”
Bailey turned out to be the second U.S. man in the top 20 on Friday in 18th (+1:24.3). He started late in bib 80 and cleaned prone to put himself in the hunt for a top 10. In standing, however, Bailey missed his final shot to drop to 17th and he ended up 18th at the finish with a single penalty (0+1).
Doherty in bib 79 was the third American to qualify for Sunday’s pursuit, racing to 40th (+1:52.3) in his second individual World Cup race of the season (last week in Oberhof, the 21 year old placed 80th in the sprint).
“Today’s race was great,” Doherty said, according to a US Biathlon press release, after missing just one prone target (1+0). “I am continuing to feel better and better on the skis. It was very exciting to be in the mix and finish the last lap with the crowds yelling full force.”
Missing out on the top 60 necessary for the pursuit were Americans Leif Nordgren, who finished 71st (+2:41.2) with two misses (1+1) in his first individual race of the season (following toe surgery), and Russell Currier, who started in bib 1 and ended up 75th (+2:52.7) with four penalties (2+2).
Scott Gow was the lone Canadian to qualify for the pursuit in 42nd (+1:55.6) with one miss (1+0). Brendan Green missed the top 60 by 5.8 seconds in 64th (+2:27.1) with two penalties (1+1), Macx Davies was 82nd (+3:08.4) with three misses (2+1), and Christian Gow 88th (+3:19.8), also with three penalties (2+1).
On Sunday, Burke will start the pursuit 20 seconds after Peiffer in fourth place. Bailey will head out just 12 seconds after Burke.
“As always in Ruhpolding, the times stayed very close today so everything is still possible in Sunday’s pursuit,” Burke told US Biathlon.
The women’s 7.5 k sprint is scheduled for Saturday at 8:30 a.m. EST. Watch it live: eurovisionsports.tv.
France’s Martin Fourcade celebrating his ninth individual win of the 2016/2017 IBU World Cup season on Friday at the finish of the men’s 10 k sprint in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: IBU)
Another impeccable outing for France’s Martin Fourcade, another incredibly memorable one for Austria’s Julian Eberhard. Both shot clean in both stages of the men’s 10-kilometer sprint on Friday at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany, with Fourcade racking up his ninth individual victory of the season in 22:34.2 and Eberhard notching his second podium of the season and third of his career, 18 seconds back.
Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen finished third (+39.7) with clean shooting, and Germany’s Arnd Peiffer also hit all 10 of his targets for fourth place (+51.8).
Out of the top seven, just one man had to ski a penalty lap: Germany’s Simon Schempp, who had one standing miss and ended up fifth (+52.8).
Tim Burke led the U.S. in 12th (+1:11.6) with one standing penalty as well (0+1) for his first individual top 20 of the season. His US Biathlon teammate Lowell Bailey was also in the hunt for a top 10 before he missed his final standing shot (0+1) and ended up 18th overall (+1:24.3).
Fourcade started 60th and posted the fastest course time en route to the victory, 20.6 seconds faster than Germany’s Benedikt Doll, who placed 20th with three penalties (0+3). Eberhard in bib 27 had the third-fastest course time, 22.2 seconds slower than Fourcade, and third-fastest range time.
Burke started 21st and his overall course time ranked ninth (+37.3), while Bailey in bib 18 posted the 36th-ranked course time and 14th-fastest shooting time.
Also for the U.S., Sean Doherty finished 40th (+1:52.3) with one miss (1+0) to qualify for Sunday’s pursuit. In his first individual World Cup race of the season, American Leif Nordgren finished 71st (+2:41.2) with two misses (1+1). Russell Currier — the first starter of the day in bib 1 — placed 75th (+2:52.7) with four penalties (2+2).
Leading Canada as the lone man to qualify for Sunday’s pursuit, Scott Gow finished 42nd (+1:55.6) with one penalty (1+0), while Brendan Green missed the top 60 in 64th (+2:27.1) with two penalties (1+1). Macx Davies was 82nd (+3:08.4) with three misses (2+1), Christian Gow 88th (+3:19.8) with three penalties as well (2+1).
The women’s freestyle-sprint prologue podium on Thursday, the final day of 2017 U.S. Cross Country Championships at Soldier Hollow in Midway, Utah. Canada’s Dahria Beatty (AWCA/NST U25 Team) took first, Hannah Halvorsen (Sugar Bowl Academy/USST) second, and Caitlin Gregg (Team Gregg) third.
U.S. Cross Country Championships (Soldier Hollow): Freestyle-sprint prologue
[UPDATED] One and done. That was the case Thursday for the U.S. Cross Country Championship’s freestyle sprint at Soldier Hollow (SoHo) where only a qualifier was held to determine the final standings — no heats were contested. With just-under-freezing temps and a light snow falling, the men set off at 15-second intervals.
The men’s podium was an all-Canadian affair as they swept the top-three positions. Jess Cockney of the Canadian World Cup B-team placed first in 3:15.20. Julien Locke of the Alberta World Cup Academy (AWCA) and Canadian National U25 Team skied to second (+2.69), his AWCA/U25 Team teammate Knute Johnsgaard was third (+2.72).
The top American skier was Alaska Pacific University’s Logan Hanneman in fourth (+3.37). The second-fastest U.S. skier was Sun Valley Ski Education Education Foundation (SVSEF) Gold Team skier Cole Morgan (+5.03). Morgan was the sixth-fastest athlete overall. The third American and seventh overall was John Hegman (+5.71) also of the SVSEF Gold Team.
The women’s skate sprint also featured a preliminary with no heats. Canada’s Dahria Beatty (AWCA/NST U25 Team) placed first in 3:13.60. Sugar Bowl Academy and U.S. Ski Team Development Team member Hannah Halvorsen was second (+3.15), and Team Gregg’s Caitlin Gregg third (+4.80). The third-fastest American was APU’s Chelsea Holmes (+7.24) who finished sixth overall.
The national championship week at Soldier Hollow has concluded.
IBU World Cup (Ruhpolding, Germany): 4 x 6 k women’s relay
[UPDATED: includes quotes from Canada’s Rosanna Crawford and Americans Susan Dunklee and Maddie Phaneuf]
The women’s 4 x 6-kilometer relay in Ruhpolding, Germany, came down to the very end, with Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier holding off France’s Celia Aymonier and Norway’s Marte Olsbu to the finish. Dahlmeier secured the win in the first women’s relay of 2017, crossing the line in 1:09:53, just 3.5 seconds ahead of Aymonier and 4.5 ahead of Olsbu.
The Germans used six spare rounds and avoided the penalty lap for the victory, with Dahlmeier lifting them from fifth at the final exchange to first at the finish.
While both Aymonier and Olsbu cleaned both shooting stages without any spares, Dahlmeier had to use one on the final standing stage. She had to pass Olsbu twice to secure the victory.
“I wanted to slowly pull myself up to her, not over-pace, and have enough energy left for the next climb,” Dahlmeier recalled in a post-race interview with Germany’s ARD. “At some point I knew we had the top equipment today. If I’m ahead for the last downhill then I will bring the win home.”
The German women’s 4 x 6 k relay team, with (from left to right) Vanessa Hinz, Maren Hammerschmidt, Franziska Preuss, and Laura Dahlmeier after winning Thursday’s IBU World Cup at home in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: IBU)
She teamed up with Vanessa Hinz, Maren Hammerschmidt and Franziska Preuss for the win. It was Preuss’s first race back after a long break due to illness. While she said she was “very nervous”, Preuss cleaned her prone stage and used two spares to clean standing.
On the second leg, Hammerschmidt and Fenne tangled on a downhill turn. The came through the exchange in second and fourth, respectively, behind Ukraine’s Anastasiya Merkushyna (who brought her team from 10th to first by the race’s halfway point).
“Thankfully, it still worked out fine in the end,” Hammerschmidt told ARD.
France took second, using a total of seven spares and no penalties, with Anais Chevalier, Justine Braisaz, Anais Bescond, and Aymonier, respectively.
Norway had near-flawless shooting all around with just one spare, used by third-leg skier Tiril Eckhoff, who teamed up with Kaia Wøien Nicolaisen, Hilde Fenne and Olsbu for third place.
The Norwegians held off Ukraine by 4.3 seconds for the final spot on the podium.
Canada placed 10th (+3:00.6), using just three spares and no penalties, with Megan Tandy, Rosanna Crawford, Emma Lunder, and Julia Ransom. Crawford elevated the team to eighth after the second leg, but they slipped two spots over the third and fourth legs.
“We had a great shooting day today, and some really fast skis,” Crawford said, according to a Biathlon Canada press release. “I think with just three spares for the whole team, our expectations should be quite a bit higher, but this year the ski speed seems to be below where we usually are.”
The U.S. women finished 17th (+5:08.2), with 11 spare rounds and no penalties, with Susan Dunklee, Maddy Phaneuf, Clare Egan, and Joanne Reid. Dunklee started the team off and raced to 11th at the first exchange, then they slipped back to 16th and finally 17th at the finish out of 23 teams.
“I enjoy the extra challenge of starting at the back of a mass start,” Dunklee said, according to a US Biathlon press release. “I’m good at weaving through crowds and it’s incredibly satisfying to pass lots of people.”
“Shooting on Point 2 is exactly where I wanted to be at that point in the race, and I felt comfortable there,” she added.
Dunklee tagged to Phaneuf, who, in her first World Cup race of the season, used two spare rounds to clean 10 targets.
“I’m happy to have the opportunity to be racing on the World Cup again,” Phaneuf told US Biathlon. “Today’s race went OK, the shooting was average for me and the skiing was tough. The atmosphere here in Ruhpolding is so amazing, so that made the racing very exciting. I’m looking forward to race the sprint on Saturday. Huge shoutout to the wax techs and staff for some fast skis and support.”
“It was wonderful to finally put together a full women’s team and we look forward to improving upon today’s performance in the coming weeks,” Dunklee added.
IBU World Cup (Ruhpolding, Germany): 4 x 7.5 k men’s relay
Norway earned a come-from-behind victory in the first relay of 2017, with Emil Hegle Svendsen anchoring the team and shooting past Russia’s Anton Babikov in the final kilometer. Norway won by 5.1 seconds.
Norway had been in just fifth position halfway through the race. But Henrik L’Abee-Lund brought the team to second and then Svendsen used perfect shooting to take the team to the top. Along with Ole Einar Bjørndalen and Vetle Sjåstad Christiansen, the team had five spare rounds on the day.
Russia had dominated through the middle of the race, with Alexey Volkov leading off in sixth place and then Anton Shipulin and Matvey Eliseev each tagging off in first place after using a remarkable single spare round between the three of them. Babikov used a one spare round and left standing with a 14.8-second lead over Svendsen, but could not hold the Norwegian off.
The German team of Erik Lesser, Benedikt Doll, Arnd Peiffer, and Simon Schempp finished third for the home crowd, +23.5. The team had nine spare rounds and one penalty loop.
In the end it was a battle between the two North American teams for 11th place. The Canadian squad of Christian Gow, Scott Gow, Macx Davies, and Brendan Green beat out the American team of Lowell Bailey, Tim Burke, Leif Nordgren, and Sean Doherty by 0.2 seconds to finish +2:04.4. The Canadians had seven spare rounds; the Americans, seven spares plus a penalty loop.
“It was a decent result for the team today, but we were definitely hoping for more,” Green said, according to a Biathlon Canada press release. “As a whole, we were consistent and steady with some definite strong points, but to get the result we all want will require a really solid day of shooting and skiing for each of us.
“Personally it’s been a bit of a tough season so far for me and I’m hoping things will turn around soon,” he added. “Historically my speed and performances start to pick up after Christmas so I’m looking forward to a couple of more good weekends of racing before the World Championships where we all hope to have our best results.”
Megan Tandy rollerskiing in Germany in August. (Courtesy photo)
Last season started solidly enough for Canadian biathlete Megan Tandy: in the opening World Cup race in Östersund, Sweden, the two-time Olympian finished 25th in the pursuit. In the points, and something to build on.
By the end of the season, things looked very different. Tandy fractured a bone in her wrist just before she was set to compete in the World Cups in Canmore, Alberta. That knocked her out of the rest of the season — and because she had not yet met the criteria for athlete funding (“carding”) through Sport Canada, threw her future as a biathlete into doubt.
But come spring, her medical exception was granted and Tandy was back to being funded.
“The carding doesn’t nearly cover the costs of being a full time athlete but it definitely helps pay the rent, and without it I would have likely retired,” she explained in an interview last week.
By the time she regained her carding, she was also able to train again. Life was back on track.
“I had a hard cast for almost 9 weeks so my arm looked was a bit on the pale skinny side for awhile, but I recovered well and have had no pain or other problems with my wrist since May,” Tandy wrote in an email. “The recovery process mostly just involved a lot of patience and playing with my hand strengthening rubber web or squeeze ball a few times a day. I had to ease into rollerskiing with my left pole slowly, but after a few weeks everything felt perfect!”
Based in Germany for the last several years, Tandy also has a new living situation. She is splitting her time between Klingenthal, where her ex-husband and son alive, and Siegsdorf, where she trains at the major German biathlon base in Ruhpolding with other international athletes constantly coming and going.
The previous summer she had been primarily in Klingenthal, which has few biathlon facilities. Between the ability to do more specific training and setting up house with her boyfriend, U.S. Biathlon wax tech Federico Fontana, Tandy sees herself having a much-improved situation.
Megan Tandy and her son kayaking near her family home in Prince George, British Columbia, this summer. (Courtesy photo)
“When I have my son then my #1 priority is being Mom,” she explained. “And when my son is with his father I can train at the world-class facility alongside many international athletes in Ruhpolding. It has truly taken some time to build a life for myself again and put things back together after the separation and custody battle more than 2 years ago – but right now this is the happiest, healthiest version of me since at least 8 years! … Siegsdorf reminds me little bit of [British Columbia] with the Bavarian alps and Chiemsee Lake right here. I can actually go for a 40km rollerski loop right from my driveway!”
She also trained with the Canadian National Team during the off-season for the first time in years.
“I was able to train in Canmore at our home training center for 3 weeks this July and have been following the national team training program since then,” she wrote. “Between Dropbox, Sprongo and Skype, long-distance coaching can offer a lot and I think this has been something really positive for me.”
Tandy doing some of her favorite cross-training, biking in Germany’s Chiemgau region. (Courtesy photo)
The national team is also happy with the arrangement. Tandy has primarily been working with National Team Coach Roddy Ward.
“Our hope was to provide Megan some guidance as we believe she has the potential for top results (which she began to show 2 seasons ago) and even more importantly, to be a contributing member of a medal winning relay team- that is the big goal for the women’s program,” Ward wrote in an email.
In the 2014-2015 season, Tandy had a breakthrough and notched four top-15 finishes on the World Cup.
“I have tried to help her with a training structure and some training ideas,” Ward continued. “Ultimately, given the distance and unique training environment/opportunities, she still drives her own day to day training. We have also setup some monitoring and have made some positive interventions. From what I can tell it’s been going well for Megan. She has stayed healthier than normal and has actually set up some great training opportunities so she is not alone. These include 2 camps with us, a camp with the US team, a stint back home in Prince George and some training with German and British athletes in Ruhpolding.”
Megan Heinicke (Biathlon Canada) racing to 59th in the 2014 Olympics sprint in Sochi, Russia.
Tandy joined the U.S. team for their summer training camp in Oberhof, where she was able to get in some on-snow time in the ski tunnel. She also joined the women for a relay effort at German National Championships.
“I had just packed my bags to leave when the women’s coach, Jonne [Kahkonen] asked me to race because one of the U.S. girls was sick,” Tandy wrote. “It was super fun to race, great to shoot under pressure again, but I was pretty tired and was not happy with the ski performance. All in all I actually feel like I am in better shape this fall than I have been for 3 years – I am feeling good, but I haven’t had a lot of opportunity for race pace comparison up until now.”
That will change. Tandy is in Canada for Frozen Thunder, to get some training time with her team and coaches as well as to compete in selection races for the World Cup. She is pre-selected to start the season on the second-tier IBU Cup circuit, but wants to grab one of the free spots to race on sport’s bigger stage.
A photo posted by Susan Dunklee (@susan.dunklee) on
Thinking back on her injury at the end of the season, it seems like Tandy has come a long way.
“I can honestly say there where some sad moments home alone in March with no snow while all the teams were racing!” she admitted. “I used the down-time to finish up some school work, which was good, and I also think I was lucky that the recovery period was in the spring so I was healthy and training normally for the whole summer.”
Eventually, Tandy sees herself helping and managing other athletes.
“I am have completed 3 out of 4 semesters of an MBA in Sport Management,” she wrote. “So right now I have achieved a Sport Management Certificate from the University of Bayreuth and am planning on completing my masters post season. Slowly but surely seems to be my approach to education!”
But for now, the focus is all on her own performance.
“Training has been much better and much more consistent this year,” she wrote.
And her coach, Ward, agreed.
“Megan has been very motivated and working hard on those areas she wanted to improve this year,” Ward wrote. “I’m looking forward to seeing her in a week.”
***
We asked Tandy to give our ’17 Questions for 2017′ a go. Here are his responses:
1. Biggest change in your life in the last five or so months since the ski season ended?
Setting up a second ‘’home-away-from-home’’ in Siegsdorf, GER – best decision ever!
2. Biggest change in your training?
A lot more rollerski hours….and less time on my beloved road bike.
3. Major areas of improvement you’ve seen so far?
Ski technique, I still have a lot of work to do but good changes are happening!
4. Whom you’ve been working closest with this offseason (coaches or training partners)?
Roddy Ward and the Canadian National Team (for the first time in 8 years!)
5. Best trip in the last five months (and why)?
Home to Prince George, BC with my son this August – there is nothing better than family (and getting to be the little princess again…at least for the first 5 days or so…)
6. Favorite cross-training?
Road biking, although I didn’t ride as much as usual this year.
7. Favorite non-athletic activity or pastime this summer?
BBQing….seriously, there were so many relaxed BBQ evenings with the kids playing on the trampoline or on the garden this summer!
8. Song that was your jam this summer?
I really started enjoying some German music! Bavaria by Voxxclub or Hulapalu by Andreas Gabalier
9. All-time favorite race moment?
World Cup 3 in Pokljuka, Slovenia 2014….my first ever world cup 20/20 shooting and moving from 41st to 14th.
10. First thing you pack in your bag when you leave for Europe?
Well, I basically live in Europe, but still….haha, I always pack my boots & shoes first.
11. Venue/event you’re most excited to visit this season?
I think Hochfilzen WCH will be amazing but I am pretty excited for the pre-Olympic World Cup in PyeongChang too.
12. Who will win the men’s and women’s World Cup titles this year?
Maybe Franziska Hildebrand! – I really enjoyed training a bit with her this fall, I think she is in good shape.
13. Biggest sacrifice you feel you’ve made choosing this career path?
Tricky….I think I need a whole page to answer this one 🙂
14. If you could change one thing about your sport, what would it be?
The sprint is too short for me…haha – I want a 12km sprint!!
15. What did you have for breakfast this morning?
It was a rest day so I had the epic traditional Barvarian breakfast at the Schuhbeck bakery in Ruhpolding with Federico: weisswurst (white sausage), sweet mustard and a pretzel. Although I had a coffee instead of the traditional wheat beer at 10am!!
16. In 5 years, I’ll be ____?
Retired from biathlon and working in sport – supporting athletes and healthy people one way or another!
US Biathlon A-teamers Leif Nordgren (l) and Sean Doherty hiking in Antholz, Italy, last month. “When the self timer works to perfection,” Nordgren captioned the photo on Instagram. (Photo: Leif Nordgren)
Revving the engine to the US Biathlon team van past Italian road signs and the distant Dolomite peaks of northeastern Italy. Swimming and fishing off Slovenia’s southwestern shores. Rollerskiing the streets of Östersund, Sweden, while under the watchful eye of your coach. Competing in Norway’s famed Blink rollerski festival against local favorites like Ole Einar Bjørndalen and the backdrop of an exuberant crowd.
With six weeks in Europe behind them and one more to go, these are only a few of the adventures US Biathlon teammates Leif Nordgren and Sean Doherty have accomplished this summer during their seven week, self-made training camp they’ve hashtagged: “#theadventuresofskidandpants.”
“On the team we all have little nicknames that we call each other; one of Sean’s nicknames is skid, and one of mine is pants,” Nordgren explained in an email, adding that he and Doherty have been good friends for a few years now. “There’s stories behind both names but they’re both quite long. It had a funny ring to it, and all of our teammates thought it was pretty funny as a hashtag, so we kept it going.”
Sean Doherty looks out at a breathtaking view in Italy’s Dolomites. “… Just a small skid in a big world,” US Biathlon teammate Leif Nordgren captioned the photo on Instagram. (Photo: Leif Nordgren/Instagram)
The spark for global travel and training ignited after Nordgren and Doherty spent most of last summer training at their home base in Lake Placid, N.Y. Desiring something different this offseason — and knowing that the US Biathlon’s European training camp would once again take place in Ruhpolding and Oberhof, Germany, from Aug. 21 to Sept. 11 — the duo decided to pack their bags early and begin their adventures abroad five weeks before the start of camp. The greatest gain they expected by leaving the U.S. was the opportunity to training with other teams.
“Last summer, we were kind of stuck training in Lake Placid a lot,” Nordgren said on the phone from Ruhpolding. “So with all that time in Lake Placid last year, we wanted to expand our boundaries a little bit, to get out of Lake Placid, come to Europe, see what other teams are doing for training, jump in with them when we could, but mostly just get out and experience new stimuli and train in other cool places with new people.”
The two other US Biathlon national team members, Tim Burke and Lowell Bailey, opted to stay in the states for most of the summer.
“Tim is in the process of building a house right now, Lowell just had a baby girl back in June,” , Nordgren wrote in an email. “So both of those guys had things to do back at home that kept them from wanting to be gone in Europe for half the summer.”
Nordgren and Doherty’s seven-week training block began with Blink, three days of various cross-country and biathlon rollerski competitions, from July 27-30 in Sandnes, Norway. This year’s events included an elite biathlon mass start and an elite biathlon sprint, as well as an uphill climb. Both Nordgren and Doherty competed in all three elite events. In a lighthearted, pre-race “shooting duels” competition before the mass start, Nordgren reached the final and ranked 11th overall. In the sprint the next day, both Nordgren and Doherty made it to the quarterfinals.
“The first week we were up in Norway at the Blink rollerski festival, which was a good opportunity to get some high-level races in with a lot of Norwegians, a couple Swedes, a couple Germans, and a lot of the French national team too,” Nordgren said. “Unfortunately neither of us had very good races there, but the experience was good all the same.”
US Biathlon’s Sean Doherty (l) and Leif Nordgren training at a shooting range in Sandnes, Norway, in July. (Photo: Leif Nordgren)
The next destination for Nordgren and Doherty was Östersund, where they spent two weeks training with US Biathlon Men’s Coach Jonas Johansson in his hometown, as well as a few former and current Swedish Biathlon national-team members.
“There is a team called Team Östersund and it’s made up of a lot of national-team athletes and former national-team athletes that have kind of declined their spot on the national team to train more on their own,” Nordgren explained. “So we did a couple of training sessions with them.”
Saying goodbye to Scandinavia, the two flew to Munich, Germany, hopped in a team van and drove down to Antholz, Italy, for another week of training.
“The team has a van here that stays in Germany where most of our staff are from and our manager let us take that for the weeks we were [in Italy],” Nordgren said.
“One of our goals [in Antholz] was to train a little bit with the Italian team,” he added. “Unfortunately, I think they had just gotten back from a training camp and so a lot of them were a little tired, so none of the intensity training sessions really aligned like we thought they were going to. Those workouts we went ahead and did by ourselves. That was kind of a bummer, but again it was nice to get a change of scenery, and Antholz is a beautiful place to train in the summer.”
After Antholz, they took a three-day break before meeting back up with the rest of their teammates for two final weeks with the US Biathlon national team in Germany.
“We went down to the coast in [Piran] Slovenia, which is about a three-hour drive from Antholz,” Nordgren said. “We met a couple friends down there who hooked us up with one of their friends one day to do a little fishing and swimming … After that we came up here to Ruhpolding and met up with the team, and it’s been kind of normal training back with the team since then.”
Leif Nordgren (r) captures a photo of himself and US Biathlon teammate Sean Doherty during a road ride in Antholz, Italy, last month. “When training doesn’t suck,” Nordgren captioned the photo on Instagram.
Back in Germany, Nordgren acknowledged that much of his and Doherty’s ease in travel and accommodation along the way derived from their team budget.
“The team was able to set aside a little bit of a budget for us,” he said. “At Blink, the organizers put us up at one of the hotels. In Östersund, we actually stayed right at the venue at Camp Södergren. They have a couple of apartments there that they normally rent out to university students during the school year and they rented us one for two weeks … and then when we were down in Italy, we had a hotel.”
With about a week left of their adventure abroad, Nordgren is satisfied with the training he’s logged, but is also looking forward to returning back to Lake Placid. The final camp on the national team’s schedule before race season will take place in Canmore, Alberta at the end of October.
“I’m not sure I would do seven weeks away again, but it’s been a good time,” Nordgren said. “Sean were talking about if we were to do it again, I think we would probably go like one less place. So maybe [go] from Norway straight down to Italy, or something like that, just to be a little more stationary and get a feel for one place a little more because there has been quite a lot of travel. But both of us, I know, have had a great time even though it has been a long time away.”
Doherty could not be reached for comment.
During a three-day recovery period in Piran, Slovenia, in August. (Photo: Leif Nordgren)
During a three-day recovery period in Piran, Slovenia, in August. (Photo: Leif Nordgren)
Ukraine’s Olena Pidhrushna (l) boxing out Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier (r) in the final meters of the women’s 4 x 6 k relay in front of a packed Chiemgau Arena at the IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: IBU/Ernst Wukits)
It’s not often that you can hear catcalls and booing in a ski stadium. A football, basketball or soccer game maybe, but biathlon? On Sunday, 20,000 spectators packed the Chiemgau Arena in Ruhpolding, Germany, and many were not pleased with how the IBU World Cup women’s 4 x 6-kilometer relay played out. Just before the finish, Ukraine’s anchor Olena Pidhrushna, skiing in first, cut off local fan-favorite Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier to claim the ideal left lane in the final stretch. That ended Dahlmeier’s furious chase on the last loop to finish, and Ukraine took the win by 1.2 seconds in 1:16:14.2.
Ukraine, with Iryna Varvynets, Yuliia Dzhyma, Valj Semerenko, and Pidhrushna, incurred one penalty lap and only needed four spare rounds (three prone and one standing), while Germany, with Karolin Horchler, Miriam Gössner, Maren Hammerschmidt and Dahlmeier, had two penalties and required eleven spares (six prone, five standing), but the latter three athletes all skied the fastest course times on their legs to make up the deficit.
Behind them, Dorothea Wierer anchored Italy — which had no penalties and used 10 spares — to third (+43.8), about a second of Russia’s Olga Podchufarova, after the Russians had two penalties and required seven spares. Thus the same teams that had already been on the podium after the first relay of the season December in Hochfilzen, Austria, made it again, except Italy and Ukraine swapped positions.
Teams from 22 countries started on Sunday and 17 finished without being lapped.
Canada, with Julia Ransom, Rosanna Crawford, Megan Tandy, and Zina Kocher, placed ninth (+1:59.5) with no penalties and seven spare rounds, while the U.S., with Annelies Cook, Susan Dunklee, Clare Egan, and Joanne Reid, finished 16th(+5:39.8) with three penalties and eleven spare rounds.
‘Of course you are angry in the moment’
At first, Dahlmeier was visibly annoyed about the end of the race, after she erased a 27.7-second gap on the last leg (and was still 9.2 seconds behind heading into the last loop). After getting blocked she switched back to the middle lane, but once she realized she couldn’t beat Pidhrushna, Dahlmeier stopped pushing and slammed her right pole into the snow across the finish.
“The final loop was really hard. Of course you are angry in that moment, after going at full throttle for 6 kilometers, and then it fails on the last few meters,” said Dahlmeier, who anchored Germany to a relay gold at 2015 World Championships, told TV broadcaster ZDF. “But we can be very, very happy about the second place, especially with the penalty laps that were shot, and with this lineup. I think that’s really nice, and a beautiful finish for the days in Ruhpolding.”
“It was a hard last loop,” Pidhrushna said at the post-race press conference through a translator. “I know Laura is a really good skier, and I knew that I would have to fight for every meter. I am really happy that the team won. I just held the shortest line to the finish. I really wanted to win; it was a big battle but it is sport.”
After seeing a replay again, Dahlmeier agreed in a later interview with ZDF: “That was all correct, you can’t say anything against that. For me, it’s too bad; it didn’t help to switch lanes, and then it was already all over. Maybe I have to train a little bit with the cross-country skiers, pick up some things on how they solve sprints in order to become better.”
“That’s biathlon, that’s the race,” her teammate Hammerschmidt said at the press conference. “It was the same in Hochfilzen [where Germany lost a finishing sprint to Italy], maybe in the next relay we are first. But I think it was OK, and the girls [from Ukraine] make a good job, congratulations to the first place.”
The German athletes did not complain for long, knowing their day could have ended much worse after second leg Gössner incurred two penalty laps earlier in the race, at that time falling back to 15th position with the podium seemingly out of reach.
(Story continues below)
The women’s 4 x 6 k relay podium at the IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany; with Ukraine (c) in first, Germany (l) in second, and Italy (r) in third. (Photo: IBU/Ernst Wukits)
Race Day
Several teams had opted to rest good athletes for Sunday’s relay at the end of a long block of races, including Germany. Franziska Hildebrand, who already won two World Cups this season, had asked her coaches for a break, and then Vanessa Hinz also had to defer her relay start due to a cold, while teammate Franziska Preuss missed the entire Ruhpolding weekend with a hairline fracture in her tailbone.
That prompted the coaches to change their second-place relay from Hochfilzen on three positions, and make a call to Karolin Horchler, 26, who originally had other plans for Sunday:
“[Saturday] afternoon I had been on my way to Ridnaun, South Tyrol [Italy], because I was supposed to compete there in an IBU Cup mixed relay today,” Horchler told ZDF. “And shortly before the arrival Gerald [Hönig, women’s head coach] called me and said I should please turn around. All in all, it was on the road for five hours… To start here in my second home in Ruhpolding, that’s what I always dreamed of.”
“It’s surely not a very common lineup,” coach Hönig told ZDF before the race. “But in general our expectation is that any relay team we start contends for a spot on the podium.”
Similar to Germany, the Czech Republic chose to rest overall World Cup leader Gabriela Soukalová, France rested Marie Dorin-Habert, currently second place in the World Cup standings, Italy’s Federica Sanfilippo sat out the relay, and Austria’s top skier Lisa Theresa Hauser missed it as well. Finland didn’t enter a team, missing their best athletes Kaisa Mäkäräinen and Marie Laukanen.
The newly called-up Horchler began the race well for her team, skiing at a pace that allowed her to stay in contact with the best and requiring only one spare each in prone and standing. She tagged off in fifth place, 22 seconds behind Norway’s Marte Olsbu in the lead, with Ukraine’s Varvynets in second after shooting clean.
“It was a really crazy day, in the morning I heard that I can start here. The second place is very good for the team. It’s wonderful,” Horchler said in the press conference after the race.
“It’s surely not a very common lineup, but in general our expectation is that any relay team we start contends for a spot on the podium.” — German Women’s Head Coach Gerald Hönig
Germany’s second skier,Gössner skied out fast on her first loop making up positions, but struggled in prone, missing two of her targets and quickly running out of spare rounds.
“Trying to do everything especially well because it’s a relay is a fitting description,” Gössner told ZDF while the race was still going on, with tears welling up in her eyes. “I really can’t explain myself how I can shoot two penalty laps in prone. I didn’t have the feeling that conditions were difficult or that I was shaking… Then I was completely flustered, I didn’t know if that shot went left or right, just didn’t know where to aim.”
After another fast loop, at least she was able to avoid the penalty lap in the standing position after requiring two spare rounds, usually her more shaky discipline, moving up to 13th place.
“Without my two penalty laps a lot more would have been possible today,” a still-disappointed Gössner later told ZDF after the race. “Our luck was that the other nations also shot penalty laps, so the other two [teammates] could make up some time, and that saved us. But my race was absolutely not good.”
“Yeah, she is very annoyed, but that’s relay,” said Hammerschmidt, who lifted Germany from 11th to second on the third leg. “That happens to everyone, but it’s all the better for her that we still got the second place. And I just told her she is allowed to say two more sentences about her shooting, and then we’ll call it a day.”
“I just told her she is allowed to say two more sentences about her shooting, and then we’ll call it a day.” — Germany’s Maren Hammerschmidt, about her teammate Miriam Gössner
While Gössner had been struggling on the range, Ukraine’s Dzhyma shot clean at the top of the field, and while not quite as fast as the German behind her, also skied the sixth-fastest time on her leg.
“Our skis were really good today, thanks to the service team,” she said in the press conference. “I like the new [additional] snow better.”
Hammerschmidt received the tag 1:48.8 minutes behind Ukraine in 11th place, then began a furious chase to get closer to the top again (“one of the best relay performances I can remember in quite a while” ZDF color-commentator Herbert Fritzenwenger commented).
She missed two shots in her prone shooting stage, and then needed one more spare round in standing.
“I have to say, I was a little too cautious there,” Hammerschmidt told ZDF. “I should have turned [on the sights] immediately but thought ‘maybe it will work,’ and when you think that it usually doesn’t. So I should have reacted earlier, I got pretty nervous there after the two misses. In standing I went with full risk, and thankfully only had to reload once.”
Like Gössner, she skied the fastest course time of all athletes on her leg, and handed off to Dahlmeier in second place, 27.7 seconds behind.
“Of course I would have liked to have a better starting position,” Hammerschmidt told ZDF during the race. “But maybe the pressure was off a little. I just wanted to do my own race, and see that I can catch a good pack. I had really good skis today, and felt good on the course. On the last loop I could catch one after another, that was such a great feeling. And then I was really surprised to be second in the finish.”
Ukraine’s Semerenko skied the third leg, and at this point could have secured a large gap over the rest of the field. She narrowly missed her last shot in prone, but then the usually solid shooter was not able to clean the remaining target with her three spares, and had to ski a penalty lap. That opened the race back up as Belarus’ Nadzeya Pisareva overtook her and some other teams moving back within striking distance of the lead.
“I had nothing left but to run faster,” Semerenko joked in the press conference, according to a translator.
How quickly the fortune of a team in a relay can change was demonstrated once again after the next shooting. Pisareva and Semerenko each needed one spare in standing, with Semerenko still trailing by 9.8 seconds as she left the range. Then suddenly Pisareva completely ran out of energy, and could be seen trying to herringbone up the next hill without any glide.
Semerenko quickly passed her, along with several other teams as well. At the bottom of the next climb, Pisareva stopped next to one of her coaches to exchange a few words, seemingly ready to quit the race, before continuing to ski again.
The Belarusian tagged her teammate Darya Yurkevich 1:28.2 minutes behind in 11th place. Yurkevich would end up losing two more positions, finishing 13th (+2:40), despite Belarus posting one of the best shooting performances of the field for Belarus (no penalties, five spares).
With Belarus now out of the picture, the race for the podium on the final leg came down to Ukraine, Germany (+27.7), Norway (+28.6), Italy (+42.4), Sweden (+43.0), Slovakia (+45.3), and Russia (+45.7), with more teams looming shortly behind.
Dahlmeier set out at a fast pace to close the gap to Pidhrushna, and after both shot clean in prone, the lead had been reduced to 18 seconds. On the next loop, Dahlmeier stormed up the climbs and managed to catch Pidhrushna, overtaking her just before the shooting range. But while the Ukrainian stayed clean in the final standing stage, Dahlmeier required one spare, again falling behind by 9.2 seconds as they left the range.
On the final loop, Dahlmeier had more problems catching up to Pidhrushna again, who managed to preserve her lead through the last flat section and descent into the stadium. Then the most talked-about scene of the race happened, and Ukraine prevailed in that final sprint.
“I was pretty down on my strength, but too bad, at the end it went a little poorly,” Dahlmeier told ZDF. “Maybe I should have stayed behind her and then pick the middle lane. A little unfortunate. But still, considering how it looked initially, we are mega-happy about the second place. That was a grandiose success, and you really see what is all possible in a relay race.”
After a number of changes between several countries vying for third place, Italy,
with Lisa Vittozzi, Karin Oberhofer, Alexia Rungaldier and Wierer, beat out Russia’s Ekaterina Shumilova, Daria Virolaynen, Ekaterina Yurlova and Podchufarova in a second exciting finishing sprint by 1.1 seconds.
“I think the relay is the work of the whole team, everybody has to do their best, it’s not only one man or one woman,” Wierer said in the press conference. “I was in the fourth position when I started, and I was a little bit worried because [there were] also Tiril [Eckhoff] and Laura. I hoped that I would shoot well. I was a little too fast in the standing so I missed the first one. But I was lucky that Tiril shot more misses than me. And then behind me was the Russian, and I was really nervous. I was sure that she will pass me on the finish line, but I gave everything and it was the third place, finally.”
Norway was fifth (+1:11.5) with Marte Olsbu, Fanny Horn Birkeland, Synnøve Solemdal and Eckhoff combining for one penalty and 13 spares. Olsbu tagged the team in first after the first leg, and after Birkeland’s penalty on the second leg, Norway still remained in podium contention, picking off the places with Germany, until Eckhoff required all her spares on the last leg — three in prone, three in standing.
Ahead of the upcoming World Championships at home in Oslo, the Norwegian women have not reached the podium since taking bronze at the 2014 Olympics, though they remain hopeful.
“It may not look like we’re there yet, but we are good enough. It’s about getting the final touches in place,” Eckhoff told Norwegian broadcaster NRK.
Canada in Top 10
Canada’s 22-year-old Julia Ransom (116) during the 2014 IBU Junior World Championships pursuit. (Photo: Katrina Howe)
For Canada, Ransom’s day began with tangle out of the start and a resulting broken pole, but she quickly received a replacement.
“It caught me a little by surprise but I quickly realized that I needed to signal to someone for a spare,” Ransom wrote in an email to FasterSkier. “I was on the opposite side of the trail as all of the coaches, but one of our wax techs was somehow able to get a pole to me despite having a few girls between us. Unfortunately that little mishap put me to the back of the pack, but I was able to sneak my way back in there before the first shooting.”
After the field had stayed closely together on the first loop, Ransom shot fast and accurately in the first prone, cleaning all five targets and leaving the range in fifth place. By the next timing point, she even had moved up to third.
“I was stoked to be skiing with the top 3 girls! I felt strong and controlled on skis,” she wrote. “Unfortunately, I struggled with my [standing] spares and lost those leaders. I’m not letting that happen again next relay! “
In her standing stage, Ransom initially missed just one shot, but then required all three spares to clean it and avoid the penalty lap. She fell back a few positions, and tagged off to Crawford in 11th place, 50.7 seconds behind Norway up front.
Crawford shot flawlessly, cleaning both her prone and standing positions, something only 10 other athletes achieved on Sunday. When she left the range after the last stage she had moved her team back up to fifth place (+1:01.5), then only lost only a few more seconds on the final loop tagging Tandy still in fifth (+1:07.7), behind Slovakia and ahead of Norway.
In the prone stage, Tandy missed two targets, then needed all three spares to clean them, leaving the range in 10th place (+1:17.1) with Germany still behind in 12th. In standing, Tandy was able to stay clean, though she could not make up another position. But she also barely lost any more time, tagging off in 10th and 1:17.6 back.
Kocher winning an IBU Cup sprint in Canmore, Alberta, last season. (Photo: Pam Doyle)
Team veteran Kocher anchored the relay, and like her teammates, displayed a strong shooting performance. She cleaned prone, and then had only one miss in the final standing, leaving the range in the vicinity of a number of other teams fighting for position.
“Last laps are usually my strength so I attacked leaving standing,” Kocher wrote in an email. “Unfortunately, just before the uphills the French competitor [Celia Aymonier] stepped on my pole and it broke, costing me metres of time. I got a pole fairly soon from Norway, but it was very short, and then for the last sprint to the finish switched it for my own pole from our coach Matthias [Ahrens]. But that cost us a potential top 6. Two broken poles for our team, crazy!”
In the end, she finished the ninth for Canada, 1:59.5 minutes back, with no penalties and only seven spares. “Excellent momentum for going forward to next week’s relay for our team,” Kocher concluded.
“Our team had a goal of collectively using 8 spares and stay in the top 10… We also wanted to beat Sweden to maintain our current Nation’s Cup position,” Ransom wrote.
They achieved both those goals. The Nations Cup is its own end-of-season award by the IBU, but also determines the number of starting spots a country gets awarded for the next year. Germany is still in the lead after the races of this weekend, with Canada in 10th position and the U.S. in 15th.
“I was proud of our women’s team today. We all had fairly solid races and had the potential for top 6; unfortunately Zina broke a pole on her last lap, which caused a fall and a few positions. I think we are all fired up for another exciting race next weekend,” Ransom added. “The crowds here in Ruhpolding were fantastic. They brought a lot of energy to the races and were devoted fans in even the worst conditions.”
U.S. 16th with three penalties
For the U.S. the relay got off to a difficult start, when Cook incurred a penalty lap in her first prone shooting, leaving the range in 20th position, 58.6 seconds back behind the leaders.
“I was disappointed in myself today because I had a penalty in the first prone shooting that put me in the back of the pack,” Cook said in a US Biathlon press release. “I was unable to get the girls into a good starting position, although I had a lot of confidence in what could happen after that. It was a crazy day with lots of penalty loops happening to great teams and the standings changed a lot through the race.”
After a better standing stage shooting where she only required one spare, Cook about kept her position but lost a few more seconds to the top (despite skiing the 14th best course time on her leg), tagging Dunklee in 21st (+1:38.4).
Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) skied the second leg for the U.S. women’s relay on Sunday, picking off three places to bring them from 21st for 18th. They ultimately placed 16th. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
Dunklee, who had been the starter for several years, again moved to the second leg, the same order the team had experimented with in the relay in Hochfilzen. After needing one spare in the prone, she had moved up one position, but had lost additional time to the leaders (+1:58.8) despite skiing the fastest first loop.
In standing, she again had to use one spare and left the range in 19th (+2:26.3). Dunklee barely lost more time on the final loop, and tagged Egan in 18th, having made up three positions on her leg, but almost losing another minute to the top, now 2:29.9 behind.
On Sunday, Egan had one of her best recent shooting performances, cleaning prone and only requiring one spare round in standing.
“I made a breakthrough in my standing shooting at the beginning of the winter, and I’m taking advantage of that newfound confidence. I have bad stages now and then but I am learning from each one and improving all the time,” Egan wrote in an email. “For example I missed 1,3 in the first two stages of Thursday’s Individual, but then pulled myself together and finished the race with 0,0 on the last two stages. Today I missed my last (10th) shot, which is a letdown, but I was able to hit it with my first spare round.”
Clare Egan (US Biathlon) skiing the third leg of the 4 x 6 k relay on Sunday, bringing her team from 18th to 16th with just one spare round. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
Out on the loop, Egan skied the 14th-fastest time of her leg, and was able to move her team up two positions, tagging off 2:45.4 minutes behind in 16th.
“The conditions were relatively fast today,” she added. “It snowed a ton last night but we were lucky and it stopped during our race. Our wax staff gave me excellent skis this morning, but unfortunately I was not able to put them to very good use, as my body was not responding well at all.”
In her first week with the World Cup team, Joanne Reid anchored the relay (in place of Hannah Dreissigacker, who skied that leg during the first relay of the season).
“I think the reason the coaches put me last is because I don’t have the consistency or the experience of the rest of the team, and therefore any mistakes I made would be after they had already raced,” Reid wrote in an email.
Reid emerged from prone having used just one spare, but then struggled in the final standing, running out of spare rounds and ultimately having to ski two penalty laps (0+1, 2+3).
“Today I made what I assume is a classic error for a new biathlete coming in from pure skiing, and came into the range too hard in standing,” Reid explained. “I was intensely focused on catching the two teams in front of me, which was going well until I got to the range. It’s always hard to remember in the heat of the moment that your shooting is just as important as your skiing.”
In her first IBU World Cup relay, Joanne Reid anchored the U.S. women’s team to 16th with the 11th-fastest course time on that leg. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
“The pacing on that lap was certainly my mistake, and not just pacing, but the fact that I don’t have the shooting skill to handle as high of a heart rate or shoot at the same speed as the rest of the girls, not to mention I hand load spares much slower.”
Overall, Reid skied the 11th-fastest course time.
“It was definitely a fast course out there, but still very difficult. I can only imagine how tired the athletes are who have raced the entire world cup period, and also qualified for and raced the mass start this weekend,” she wrote. “For Susan to go out there and ski the fastest leg after all those races (and long ones besides) is incredibly inspiring to me, and I wish I could have given her a better performance on my end.”
“I really enjoyed the course out there today — we were much luckier than everyone in the mass start to have such hard-packed conditions,” Reid added. “I think that’s the only 6 km I’ve ever skied in my life, so I wish I could compare it to something, but until I do a few more biathlons I have no reference point.”
Reid finished in 16th for the U.S., ahead of Romania, with the other five teams behind them lapped.
“We wanted to do better than last time (15th) but unfortunately we fell just short of that today,” Egan concluded in her email.
“This team has so much potential and I really believe in that,” Cook said in a US Biathlon press release. “So many of the pieces are there and are also showing, but not quite enough of them to do what we are capable of. It is frustrating but it is also making us hungry to do better and we have another relay coming up next week.”
“I think a team always goes into a relay with the hope that they can improve on their start position,” Reid wrote. “Obviously for us today, that didn’t happen, but I think we have a lot of the pieces right, and I’m certain this team (whether or not in the future it includes me), can have an incredible day.”
The IBU World Cup now moves on to Antholz-Anterselva, Italy, where there will be another relay for the women and men on Sunday.
Germany’s Erik Lesser celebrates his first victory of the season in the men’s 15 k mass start at the IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: IBU/Ernst Wukits)
In recent weeks, Germany’s Erik Lesser had become annoyed with questions on a single topic: whether he was concerned about not having fulfilled the “World Championships norm” yet.
German biathletes are required to post at least one top eight or two top 15’s in an IBU World Cup within a season to qualify for major championships. And Lesser, a gold medalist in the pursuit and relay at 2015 World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland, was the only senior team member — male or female — who had yet to achieve that mark ahead of 2016 World Championships.
On Saturday evening, in front of a home crowd of more than 20,000 spectators in the biathlon arena and around the course in Ruhpolding, Germany, Lesser put all doubts to rest, winning the men’s 15-kilometer mass start in 40:29.3 minutes with perfect 20-for-20 shooting. Despite heavy snowfall, Lesser cleaned all four shooting stages, and on the final loop, he held his own ahead of France’s World Cup leader Martin Fourcade, beating him by 9.8 seconds.
Fourcade had a single penalty on the last stage to place second, and Russia’s Evgeniy Garanichev missed one on the last shooting to finished third (+13.1). Fourcade and Garanichev had come into the final stage just ahead of Lesser, but then had to complete the 150-meter penalty lap after each missing a target.
The two North Americans in the mass start, Canada’s Nathan Smith placed 15th (+1:20.8) and American Lowell Bailey finished 21st (+2:08.4), both with one penalty.
After the race, Lesser was highly satisfied, and claimed he never had any doubt about his ability to qualify for the upcoming IBU World Championships in Oslo, Norway.
“Now you have to shut up about that, huh. Now I don’t want to hear about that again after giving you what you wanted,” Lesser said with dry wit when he got interviewed by German TV broadcaster ZDF. “I couldn’t care less about the norm. I knew I had that in me; I just couldn’t put it together. Today thankfully everything worked out.”
Questioned again if his coaches were also as convinced, and whether he had been anxious to achieve that kind of result, Lesser added:
“Yeah, the next time I’m waiting for my World Championships norm, I’m taking you guys with me into the [athletes’] container, then you can watch us while you analyze our races, and there really was everything but a bad mood after my races. Everything was good, also between the coaches and me. Everyone was understanding,” he said.
Outside the top 25 in the overall World Cup standing, Lesser had to qualify for the mass start as one of five additional athletes with the best performances of the race week. He narrowly managed to do that by placing 17th in the 20 k individual competition on Wednesday, earning the final start in bib 30.
Since he thus had to start at the back of the field in the mass start, Lesser decided to set out at a steady pace allowing a little gap to form, in order to avoid what he called the “accordion effect” of constantly having to slow down and accelerate again as the field bunches up before climbs and then extends again like pearls on a string.
“The bib number at the start really doesn’t matter. But I always heard the public announcer in the arena bellowing, ‘Oh Erik Lesser runs behind the field on the first loop.’ But it was planned exactly like that,” Lesser told ZDF. “I could ski behind others for four loops, and then only had to lead on the last one; that suits me well. The [wax] technicians really put together great equipment again, like the whole time here in Ruhpolding, and that makes it a little easier.”
In the first prone shooting, 16 starters shot clean, including all of the eventual podium finishers, and US Biathlon’s Bailey. That put Smith, of Biathlon Canada, who had missed one target, at an early disadvantage, leaving the penalty lap and range in 23rd place and about 30 seconds behind the leaders.
“Since my miss came in the first prone, I ended up a little back heading out onto the second loop,” Smith explained in a Biathlon Canada press release. “With the next three cleans, I moved up a little each time, but the field as a whole was shooting so well today, it was tough to make any big moves.”
“I was aiming for a top 10 finish and knew that would take [hitting] 18 or 19 [targets] with strong skiing,” Smith wrote in an email to FasterSkier. “13 of the top 30 athletes shot 19 or better, even with snowy conditions. That’s some cut throat competition!”
After the second prone, a large group still remained in contention. However, this stage did set back a few favorites, such as Norway’s Tarjei Bø, who had entered the range in first and left in 20th after two misses. He would eventually finish in 11th (+1:07) with three penalties.
France’s Martin Fourcade leads the snowy men’s 15 k mass start on Saturday at the IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany. He went on to place second after a penalty on the last shooting. (Photo: IBU/Ernst Wukits)
On the third 3 k loop, Fourcade, Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø and Garanichev emerged as the top three, with five athletes not far behind them: Lesser, Russia’s Maxim Tsvetkov, Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen, as well as the Czech Republic’s Ondrej Moravec and Michal Krcmar.
At this point, slugging through the heavy snowfall was visibly hard, and several athletes took feeds to keep up their energy.
Lesser was able to separate himself from that chase group, slowly closing the gap. “Super equipment, super speed,” one of his coaches yelled from the side of the course.
Before the third shooting stage, Lesser had closed the gap, and while Johannes Thingnes Bø missed two of his targets to fall out of contention (he ended up 12th with three penalties), the other three leaders stayed clean, leaving the range together again, all within two seconds.
On the penultimate loop, Fourcade tried to force an early decision, jumping up the longest climb with great speed, and created a gap of a few seconds to Lesser. Garanichev followed in Lesser’s draft, and Moravec trailed the group by about 25 seconds in fourth.
“Martin did a really good fourth lap, and I had some problems in the uphills,” Lesser said during the post-race press conference.
In the final shooting, Lesser entered the range in third, but shot clean while his two opponents each missed their first and only target of the day.
Lesser headed out on the final loop just 12.3 seconds ahead of Fourcade with Garanichev 0.6 seconds behind as the two stormed out of the penalty lap eager to catch the German. On the first long climb it looked like his lead was starting to shrink, but at the next timing point, Fourcade was 12.6 seconds behind in second.
Then Garanichev started his final attack and overtook Fourcade, but was not able to create a significant gap, coming through the next split still 10.9 seconds behind Lesser.
“Nine seconds ahead, go Erik, go!” cheered a German assistant coach while running next to him on the side of the track.
The last loop took Lesser a little longer than most of his previous times around the track, but he was able to stay ahead over a flat section and downhill leading into the arena, finally coming into the finish with the welcoming roar from the sold-out arena, while Fourcade managed to take second back from Garanichev in the final sprint.
Asked to describe his feelings on the final loop, Lesser said at the press conference: “From happy, to exhausted, to really happy.”
“The relay yesterday was hard for me, I was really exhausted after the race” Lesser added in a video interview with the IBU’s Jerry Kokesh. “But I’m really happy that I had the right power for today’s last lap. After all the sh*tty races this season, yup, really happy to be on the podium again.”
“I did the grooming machine all the competition,” Fourcade said at the press conference of skiing at the front of the pack. “So I felt a bit exhausted on the last lap. In the beginning I thought I could catch Erik, but then I also wanted to keep my second place … So I focused on the Evgeniy fight, and am happy about my second place today.”
“I am really happy about my two weeks in Ruhpolding. I created a good gap for the overall ranking and am really satisfied, that was my main goal for January,” he added. “I must say that when I see the crowd today, and the atmosphere, it was something crazy, so I am a bit sad to move because it was better every day. Great competitions, great organization, and I think all the athletes really enjoyed their stay these two weeks.”
“Starting from the first stage in the World Cup season [in Östersund, Sweden] I have been good in speed, and just performing on the same high level,” Garanichev said at the press conference through a translator. “I am glad to be on the podium again, but I have to be careful about saying this is my best race so far because it was a really tough race, the sixth in ten days. So I would say it was a good race,”
“Martin is not the type of guy who will easily let someone go,” he said of passing Fourcade on the final loop, not really expecting to create a gap. “So I just focused on fighting with Erik, and tried to do my best.”
With a significant distance to the three podium finishers, Garanichev’s teammate Anton Shipulin placed fourth (+42.5) with one penalty, Krcmar was fifth for the best World Cup result of his career so far (+47.2 with one penalty), and Germany’s Simon Schempp finished sixth (+48.0, two penalties).
This was Schempp’s first race this year after returning from the lengthy aftereffects of a respiratory infection, which caused him to drop from third in the World Cup standings (after the races in Pokljuka, Slovenia, just before the holiday break) to seventh.
“I was really satisfied with my race,” Schempp told the IBU. “I was not so aggressive in the beginning, but I feel okay, and happy with sixth place…. It’s so much fun, especially because I’m at home here, training the whole year in this stadium. Really happy to see so many spectators, and the atmosphere is great.”
Lowell Bailey (US Biathlon) racing to 21st in the men’s 15 k mass start at the IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany. He shot 19-for-20 amid heavily falling snow. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
“It’s always a great atmosphere here in Ruhpolding. I love the German fans!” Bailey wrote in an email.
Sweden’s Torstein Stenersen was the only athlete in the field besides Lesser who cleaned all four stage, but skied considerably slower to finish 20th (+1.54.4).
Smith skied the 23rd-best overall course time in the difficult conditions, but was able to move up a bit on each loop thanks to three clean stages after his early miss (1+0+0+0) to place 15th.
“The ski course was extremely slow going with the fresh snow falling. The 15 kilometre time was close to what the winning time was for the 20 kilometre individual race,” Smith told Biathlon Canada. “I had been feeling kind of fatigued the last few races, but I am happy that I was able to overcome that by performing well on the shooting range and end up with a very respectful final result.”
Bailey cleaned three out of four stages, missing one on his first standing (0+0+1+0) for 21st.
“I had the goal of staying with my shooting focus and not getting distracted by the excitement of the competition,” Bailey wrote. “I accomplished this, and overall I’m happy with the way shooting is going at the moment.”
Asked if his solid shooting throughout back-to-back World Cup weeks in Ruhpolding was a result of the range (which most athletes generally considered to be easy due to the downhill approach and good wind protection, though in heavy snowfall, that might be drastically different) or any newfound adjustments, he wrote:
“You work your whole career on the small little details that comprise a solid shooting approach, but at the end of the day, sticking to simple key cues has been what I’ve been using throughout the season. The fundamentals have to be developed, but then the key is getting your mind and body in a place where they can execute the things you’ve trained to do.”
After posting the 20th-fastest time on the first loop out of the start, Bailey’s skiing became a bit slower on the subsequent rounds, and he ended the day with the 28th course time.
“It was one of the more challenging races of my career. I just felt tired from the start,” Bailey wrote. “We’ve had six races in the last eight days, most of which occurred in slow conditions … I just think I reached my limit and didn’t quite have the energy required to ski with the best today”.
Bailey and Smith were certainly not alone feeling their energy run low after a hard block of races. Norwegian biathlon legend Ole Einar Bjørndalen finished last in 30th (+5:42.6), with 10 penalties and the third-slowest course time.
After two weeks in Ruhpolding, the World Cup tour now moves to Antholz-Anterselva, Italy, with sprints on Thursday and Friday, followed by pursuits on Saturday, and another relay on Sunday.
“Antholz is always really good competitions, good snow, good for fights, and most of all the weather is often good,” Fourcade said. “I am also really happy to move to Antholz, and to have some Italian food, too, that’s something I like.”
The U.S. men’s team (l-r) Lowell Bailey, Leif Nordgren, Tim Burke, and Sean Doherty enjoy the flower ceremony after finishing sixth in the World Cup relay in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: Max Cobb)
The U.S. men’s biathlon team notched a sixth-place finish in the 4 x 7.5 kilometer World Cup relay in Ruhpolding, Germany, on Friday, one of just a handful of top-six finishes over the last decade of international competition for the Americans.
And that was, said team member Tim Burke, despite the fact that “it wasn’t a really spectacular day for any of us.”
Sixth is the team’s best finish in three years, since the Oberhof World Cup in January 2013 where they finished fifth.
“I think the key for us today was to stay out of the penalty loop,” Burke said. “You look at a lot of teams and they had at least one penalty.”
The team’s eight spare rounds were far from perfect shooting, but on a windy day that was one of the better tallies in the field. After all, to do well a race in tough conditions, you don’t have to be perfect. You only have to be better than everyone else.
Tarjei Bø tags to Emil Hegle Svendsen; the Norwegian team had a minute lead over the field with one leg to go, and Svendsen finished with a 15-second gap to second place. (Photo: IBU/Ernst Wukits)
Just ask the Norwegian men. They won the relay by 14.6 seconds over Russia, and finished 2:31.1 ahead of the Americans – despite 12 spare rounds, or double their average for the last four relays.
“We won the relay, but we had a lot going on,” veteran Ole Einar Bjørndalen told Norwegian broadcaster NRK. “We’ll bet that the next relay gets even better. Johannes [Bø] had a fantastic stage. Tarjei gave a huge effort even though I’m below par.”
Bjørndalen suffered from five spare rounds and tagged off in tenth, almost 30 seconds behind leader Andrejs Rastorgujevs of Latvia. It was Johannes Bø, the second-leg skier, who shot perfectly and pulled the team into second. His older brother Tarjei had four spare rounds but was able to ski to a minute-plus lead over France.
Then, habitual Norwegian anchor racer Emil Hegle Svendsen faced some struggles on the range, using three spares across the two stages. But he still had a comfortable lead leaving the range the last time and took the team home for the win.
For both the Norwegians and the Americans, the key was staying out of the penalty loop. Only the second-place Russians had anything resembling a normal relay score, with just six spare rounds. Yet they were unable to climb into the lead, as hard as anchor leg Anton Shipulin might try.
The third-place Austrians? Seven spare rounds, including one costly penalty loop by Julian Eberhard on the second leg.
France, in fourth place, had one penalty and nine spare rounds, finishing +55.9. Fifth-place Germany had a painful three penalty loops, all by Johannes Kuehn in his standing stage.
Tim Burke on the range in the Ruhpolding relay. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus.com)
And then there were the Americans, solid in sixth.
“It was snowing and breezy, kind of off and on,” said anchor skier Sean Doherty. “Never gale force winds, but definitely wind where you had to read it and work with it a little bit.”
The team got off to a solid start with Lowell Bailey cleaning both prone and standing with no spare rounds. Besides being a sharpshooter in the windy conditions, Bailey also had the sixth-fastest course time of the field, and laid down the second-fastest closing loop to tag off in a strong third place, just four seconds behind Rastorgujevs.
“The pace was pretty quick right out of the gate so I tried to stay focused on staying in control and hitting my targets and trying to manage my energy to have something left for the last lap,” Bailey said in a U.S. Biathlon Association press release. “I lost a little bit in the beginning of the final loop, but I was able to gain most of it back by the tag. For some reason I just seem to do better on the second half of this Ruhpolding loop.”
Leif Nordgren used four spare rounds in the second leg, and the team moved to tenth. Burke was the next to take over.
“For me it was a solid race,” he said. “I got tagged around 10th or something. I felt solid on the ski course, and able to get through prone with no extras. Standing I used three extras, but stayed right in it. I kept in a position where Sean was able to make up a few spots.”
Doherty cleaned prone “from the clip”, then used a single spare in standing. That enabled him to move from eighth, where he got the tag from Burke, into sixth.
“I had a really solid anchor leg,” Doherty said. “That was just good shooting that allowed me to move up. I was kind of hanging in there on the skis not feeling like I’m in the sharpest shape right at the moment, but it was a great effort for the whole team. We really just had solid shooting and skiing for every one of us. Lowell opened up great and that set the momentum.”
While Nordgren said in the USBA press release that he was a “little disappointed” with his race, the other team members were pleased.
For Doherty, it was an improvement from the 20 k individual on Wednesday, where he placed 72nd and struggled with ski speed.
“I only got back to Europe on Sunday, so I wasn’t really feeling my sharpest for the individual, but it was important for my training overall and to get ready for this race and the other racing to come,” he explained.
Burke feels in shape and is waiting for his best races still to come.
“Ruhpolding has always been a struggle for me- I’ve never really done well here,” he said. “Antholz next week, that’s my favorite course on the World Cup. So I have been really targeting that one. Then from there I’m going straight to Canmore. I’ll spend a week there before the start of the World Cup to try to maintain the altitude from Antholz. I’m really excited about the end of the season- it’s all venues I really like to compete at. I feel like I’ve made it through the toughest part of the season for me, and now I’m ready to go.”
The Canadian team finished tenth (+3:12.4) after anchor leg Brendan Green moved them up and won a four-way sprint for the finish.
The team was in 17th after both leadoff racer Christian Gow and second-leg skier Macx Davies did their work. Scott Gow moved the Canadians up to 14th before Green closed the gap.
It was a different relay roster than usual, with Nathan Smith sitting out to rest for Saturday’s mass start. He is the only Canadian who qualified for the 30-man race.
“This season we have been able to take advantage of all five of our start quota, which gives us a few more options,” Green wrote in an email. “In this scenario it allows an athlete a bit more rest if they feel it’s needed.”
Green skipped the first weekend of World Cup racing in 2016 due to lingering back problems, but then placed 18th in the 20k individual and had another good performance on Friday.
“I think I managed my shooting well, and I was able to execute solid skiing with a strong last lap with just enough energy to take the sprint at the finish,” Green wrote in an email. “I’m feeling good at the moment and hopefully things can continue in this direction. My back is requiring constant attention (some days more than others), but I hope that I can carry on the season without any more problems and soon find a more long term solution to the pain. It’s frustrating and certainly not a good situation to be in, but I try and not let it get the best of me.”
Like the Americans, the team avoided the penalty loop, in their case using 11 spare rounds.
Italy’s Dorothea Wierer racing to the second IBU World Cup win of her career in the women’s 15 k individual in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: IBU/Ernst Wukits)
The next time the women’s 15-kilometer individual race is scheduled on the IBU’s World Cup competition calendar will be at the 2016 World Championships in March in Oslo, Norway.
Italy’s Dorothea Wierer will be one of the favorites there after winning Thursday’s 15 k individual World Cup race in Ruhpolding, Germany, in 40:19.9 minutes, and thereby repeating her success in the same discipline from earlier this season in Östersund, Sweden. The 25 year old shot with both speed and accuracy to clean all 20 targets, securing the second World Cup victory of her career.
All biathlon races are heavily influenced by shooting, but in the somewhat old-fashioned individual discipline, misses are that much worse. Each missed target tags one minute onto the competitor’s time, in place of them skiing a penalty lap or being allowed to use spare rounds. This steep penalty leads many athletes to shoot more deliberately than in a sprint, for example. Not so for Wierer.
Italy’s Dorothea Wierer after notching the second IBU World Cup win of her career in the women’s 15 k individual in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: IBU/Ernst Wukits)
“I usually shoot zero [misses] when I shoot faster, I don’t know why,” Wierer told Germany’s ZDF, with a laugh. “Maybe because I don’t think about it, it just works all by itself.”
“I don’t even like [individual] that much,” she added in the IBU’s post-race press conference. “It is too long, and I have so much time to think about it during the race.”
Wierer won by nearly a minute, finishing 54.9 seconds faster than Finnish runner-up Kaisa Mäkäräinen, who had one penalty in her first shooting and posted the second-fastest overall course time.
“It is my first time ever in Ruhpolding that I’m better than third place, so I am happy about that,” Mäkäräinen said at the press conference. “I am not thinking about the mistake today, one miss in four shootings is a good result. … I was not skiing that fast in the first four loops, so I had some energy left.”
Third place went to Gabriela Soukalová of the Czech Republic, 1:09.9 minutes back with one penalty. Soukalová posted the best initial times starting early with bib 7, before Mäkäräinen and later Wierer improved on them. She retained the “yellow bib” of the overall World Cup leader.
“I think I am getting older. I know what I want to do many times better than a couple years ago,” Soukalova said of her race and season so far at the press conference. “And I think I was training harder than the last seasons, so maybe that’s the reason. … I am very happy that I can race like this.”
Canada’s Rosanna Crawford recorded the best North American result in 18th (+2:52.6), with two penalties (0+1+1+0).
Almost 10,000 fans packed the stands in the arena in Ruhpolding on Thursday, with several thousand more out on the course.
“I love racing in Ruhpolding, the fans are great and cheer for everyone from every country,” Crawford wrote in an email. “They take the effort to learn our names and wherever you go there are people cheering GO CANADA! It’s really a fun atmosphere!”
Gabriela Soukalová on her way to third in the IBU World Cup women’s 15 k individual in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: IBU/Ernst Wukits)
Before the holiday break, the the IBU polled athletes on their “favorite biathlete (not yourself)”. Norwegian legend Ole Einar Bjørndalen and perennial World Cup leader Martin Fourcade of France received several mentions, but Norwegian Tarjei Bø had someone else in mind, even above his brother Johannes:
“My favorite biathlete would be Dorothea Wierer,” Bø said. “She’s a funny woman, she’s a good biathlete, and I love to watch her race because she is one of the few girls who are really attacking on the shooting range. She’s a fast shooter, and a great shooter, and also she likes to have fun. So yeah, I like her.”
Thursday’s race was a good exhibit for that assessment. Wierer recorded the fastest shooting and range times, faster than many athletes are able to do in a sprint or pursuit, despite the one-minute penalty for each miss.
“I don’t know why, that sometimes happens,” Wierer said in her interview with ZDF. “When I think too much, the mistakes come.”
By winning both individual races this season, the Italian retains the “red bib” of the discipline leader.
“Honestly, I was expecting to wear it today for the last time,” Wierer said. “But four times zero [misses], that’s as good as it gets today.”
Last summer, Wierer supported an Italian charity providing disaster relief to victims of the earthquake in Nepal earlier that year, asking for donations for a chance to win her wedding dress. She had worn it in May, walking through an “archway of skis,” held by family and friends, including her teammates, after the ceremony.
Race conditions on Thursday were sunny (though much of the course is in the continual shadow of a mountain range) with fairly calm winds, unlike the snowstorm that plagued the men’s race on Wednesday.
“Thankfully it wasn’t as bad as the men had it yesterday, we were really lucky for that. I’m still feeling the effects of my illness [over the Christmas break], but it’s improving from week to week,” Wierer said of her skiing to ZDF, after recording the 11th-fastest course time on Thursday. “In the second and third loop today, I thought to myself, ‘Oh, I’m really tired, will I be able to make it?’ But yeah, then I fought through it, and am really happy.”
“I like these conditions very much, because there was no deep snow, so this is very comfortable to race,” Soukalová said. “Even though I felt like I was getting slower and slower.”
Rosanna Crawford (Biathlon Canada) during an IBU World Cup relay last season in Oslo, Norway. (Photo: Biathlon Canada/NordicFocus.com)
“Today we were a lot luckier than the men, it was hard packed and fair conditions for the whole race,” Crawford agreed in her email. “I didn’t get to race the Ruhpolding World Cup last year due to sickness, so it was a new track to me. I liked it, but the downhills are a bit easier than 2 years ago, which is too bad, because I for sure excel at downhills compared to most women!”
Fourth place and 0.9 seconds off the podium, Germany’s Franziska Hildebrand missed a shot in her first prone, but was still in contention for a spot on the podium in the final shooting. There she could be seen struggling before the final shot, having to get out of and back into her stance.
“For my last shot, so from four to five, somehow my breathing didn’t quite work out,” Hildebrand told ZDF. “Then I had the opportunity, I could have pulled the trigger two or three times already. I did not pull it, and instead decided to breathe deeply again, in order to really make the shot.”
Asked if that decision was a result of her increased experience instead of just firing a likely miss more quickly, she added: “Probably. In the last days it really dawned on me again how important a flawless shooting on the range has become. Especially in the individual, how much a [penalty] minute hurts, so it was really worth it to wait a bit.”
Selina Gasparin, 31, a Swiss biathlete and mom, in a video interview with the IBU following Thursday’s 15 k individual, where she placed fifth for her nation’s best result of the season. (Photo: IBU/Ernst Wukits)
Behind her in fifth place and 1:23.8 minutes out of first, Switzerland’s Selina Gasparin shot clean, something she last achieved at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, where she took silver in the individual competition. It was the best result for a Swiss athlete so far this season, which she achieved despite a crash on the first loop.
“In the fall in the downhill, the barrel of my rifle hit against my head,” Gasparin said in Swiss Ski Federation press release. “Probably that sorted out my brain cells.
“My shape is quite good, but the shooting is my problem,” Gasparin told the IBU. “Only in Sochi I shot clean, so it’s the second time in my life, and I’m really happy because I worked so hard for this.”
On being both a mom and a professional biathlete, Gasparin, 31, added, “It’s quite hard. I have not so much time for other things. I have, like, two full-time jobs, but for me it’s really nice and fun to do both.”
She is competing in the World Cup with her two younger sisters Elisa, 24, and Aita, 21.
Along with Wierer and Gasparin, three other women also shot clean: Russia’s Olga Podchufarova in 10th, Norway’s Synnøve Solemdal in 13th, and Kazakhstan’s Galina Vishnevskaya in 15th.
France’s Marie Dorin Habert placed sixth (+1:25.6) with the fastest course time, but two penalties, and remains in second in the overall World Cup standings behind Soukalová.
Starting just a few positions behind Wierer, Norway’s Tiril Eckhoff had the best chance to challenge the Italian, shooting clean and skiing fast to chase down on Wierer’s split times after each of the first three loops and stages. But three penalties in the final shooting ended Eckhoff’s hopes at a podium, and she ended up 21st (+2:55.1).
Crawford in Top 20; Reid’s World Cup Debut
While Crawford finished 18th to lead the North Americans on Thursday, she said her goals going in had been related to the process rather than results.
“My races before Christmas weren’t that great so my expectations were low,” she said in a Biathlon Canada press release.
A cold kept her from racing last week in Ruhpolding; instead she continued to train at home in Canmore, Alberta, before flying to Germany.
“It felt better than it has this year, I felt like I could start strong and keep that going better than the first 3 World Cups,” she explained of her race on Thursday. Her ski time ranked 31st overall. “Our skis were also good today, the techs did a good job!”
Like Wierer, Crawford explained that she generally doesn’t go into individual races any differently than into a sprint or pursuit race despite the harsh penalty for a miss:
“I approach individuals the same as any other race, you don’t want to change your mentality just because misses add one minute, you need to shoot just like you do in training, just like you do in any other race. This is also one of the easiest ranges on the World Cup, no wind almost ever, so I knew that 90% would be the very lowest I could shoot if I wanted a chance at the mass start, and even with that I am on the edge of making it!“
Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) skied the seventh-fastest overall course time but missed five targets for five minutes of penalties to end up 50th in the women’s 15 k individual at the IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
Coming off a career-best mass-start result of sixth last Sunday, American Susan Dunklee was the top U.S. women in 50th place (+5:13.9). Her course time ranked seventh-fastest overall, but five penalties kept her out of contention (1+1+2+1).
“This sport sure knows how to keep a person humble,” Dunklee said in a US Biathlon press release. “A mediocre range performance held me back today.”
In her very first World Cup, Joanne Reid started very late in bib 93 out of 96 starters, after first qualifying for and then being called up from the IBU Cup within the last few weeks. In fact, it was also her first race in the individual format ever, so she had to remind herself of some important details.
“Was I chanting prone, standing, prone, standing to myself (to remember the order) before the start? Yes, indeed!!” Reid, 23, wrote in an email.
She opted for a steady approach, though the former cross-country NCAA champion did ski the 47th-best time overall and a fast last loop: “I just wanted to try really hard not to miss. … And to do that I wanted to moderate my ski speed both coming into the range and a little bit on the standing loops, since standing is generally my weakest, and definitely slowest (slowest range time on the entire World Cup, thank you very much) section of a race. This is something I’ve been working on since [the US Biathlon tryouts in] Canmore, where I came flying into the range for a standing bout and hit only one target.”
She had one miss in the first prone shooting stage, then cleaned her first standing stage, before incurring two more penalties in the second prone shooting, and one more in the final standing stage (1+0+2+1).
“I’m just learning to deal with wind and corrections to the sights during racing, so any time there’s wind in the range it throws me off. But, I’m working on it,” she explained.
In the days before the race, Reid had a minor technical issue with her rifle, but she was able to get that fixed in time once she had the right tools available.
“Because of the way it’s assembled, it’s very hard to understand, my dad built and drilled all these pieces himself, and someone tried to put it back together incorrectly.”
2013 NCAA champion (in the 15 k freestyle mass start) Joanne Reid racing at last year’s U.S. Cross Country Championships in the women’s 10 k freestyle in Houghton, Michigan
During the race, Reid tried not to get too influenced by the many spectators watching the race, who often audibly react to every shot — especially those of local biathletes — with cheers or sighs which can be distracting for other athletes on the range at the same time.
“The Colorado biathlon club cheers just as loud per bullet as Ruhpolding, actually, so I’d say I’m pretty used to it. KIDDING. ;)” she wrote.
Reid finished her first World Cup in 72nd place (+7:20.5), but ahead of a number of more experienced athletes.
“I’m just really excited to be here with all these amazing athletes, and thrilled to be in the sport of biathlon. It’s an amazing sport, with amazing people, that I find twice as fun and twice as difficult as just pure skiing,” she concluded in her email.
“Our rookie, Joanne Reid, who recently switched over from cross-country skiing, put together a great World Cup debut and has been impressive in training all week,” Dunklee commented. ”I am excited to see what more she will accomplish!”
Teammate Clare Egan was 74th, incurring a penalty in her first prone shooting and three in the first standing stage, before being able to adapt to the conditions and cleaning the next two (1+3+0+0).
The fourth American, Annelies Cook opened the race in bib 1 to a huge cheer by the audience, excited that the competition was about to begin. After incurring two penalties in her first prone shooting, she skied most of her race outside the focus of the TV cameras, finishing 88th with eight penalties (2+1+2+3).
Canada’s Megan Tandy, who skipped the first weekend in Ruhpolding, finished 73rd with four penalties, 0.4 seconds behind Reid and 2.1 seconds ahead of Egan. Also for Canada, Julia Ransom finished in 78th with five penalties, and Zina Kocher was 94th with nine penalties.
The second-straight IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding continues with the men’s relay on Friday (at 9:30 a.m. EST, streamed live at www.eurovisionsports.tv/ibu), followed by mass starts on Saturday (for which Dunklee is qualified via her World Cup standing, and Crawford is on a reserve standby list), and concluding with the women’s relay on Sunday.
Lowell Bailey (US Biathlon) shooting through the snowstorm in Ruhpolding, Germany, on his way to 14th place in the 20 k individual. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
What was the value of perfect shooting in Ruhpolding today?
In the 20 k individual, only Ondrej Moravec of the Czech Republic and Maxim Tsvetkov of Russia shot clean over all four stages. But it got them only fourth and fifth place, respectively – a wooden medal for Moravec.
He was happy to clean the fourth four-stage race of his career, podium or no.
For French star Martin Fourcade, it was the opposite: one penalty, coming in the third stage, but he took home the win by 17.5 seconds over Simon Eder of Austria. By not shooting clean, he missed another prize.
“I said if I shot clean, I would shave my beard,” Fourcade said in an IBU video interview after the press conference. “I’m sad because today it wasn’t so far off. Like in the mass start, it was just one. Maybe I have to say that if I shoot more than 90% I can shave.”
Joking aside, it was a big day for Fourcade, who won his fifth World Cup this season to extend his Total Score lead. It was also the 44th win of his career (including Olympic Games), tying him with French legend Raphael Poirée.
France’s Martin Fourcade celebrates across the line as he won the men’s 15 k mass start on Sunday in Ruhpolding, Germany. (Photo: IBU/Eberhard Thonfeld)
(That still leaves him 50 wins behind Ole Einar Bjørndlen of Norway, who placed 44th today with an uncharacteristic four penalties.)
The weather played a large role in the race, with snow falling heavily for the early starters and creating near-whiteout conditions. It also softened up the trails, making it difficult to overtake slower competitors in some sections.
“It was snowing really hard for the early starters, and then it tapered off towards the middle of the race,” said U.S. biathlete Lowell Bailey, who started in bib 25. “I think you saw in the results that the higher bib numbers generally had better conditions… It was challenging. You always hope to be on the good side of the luck curve, but that’s what we sign up for.”
And Fourcade had one of those higher bibs – 42. Anton Shipulin of Russia was the early leader, but was bumped down first by Eder and then by Fourcade. He ended up third (+28.9).
“Anton didn’t have luck,” Fourcade told French newspaper L’Equipe. “If he had gone out with my bib, we would have had a much tighter race…. on the first two loops, I had the same conditions as other athletes who had started before me. On the third loop I could tell the track was getting faster, and I knew that behind me there were athletes like Johannes Bø [of Norway] who would benefit.”
Bø was a threat until the last shooting stage, where he missed three shots. He eventually finished 16th.
That left Eder in second place. He could have taken the win – as he did in the pursuit last weekend – but missed one shot in the final stage.
“The last shooting was a test for my nerves, because I got information about my position on the loop, so I knew what was at stake,” Eder told Austrian broadcaster ORD. “Of course I’m annoyed by the miss, but the wind [situation] was not so easy. I am super happy about the podium.”
Bailey 14th, Masters the Fourth Stage
Bailey had finished last weekend’s stage in Ruhpolding on a sour note, missing two shots in the final stage of the mass start to drop from the top ten down to 16th.
“I was pretty bummed with the last stage of the mass start on Sunday,” he said. “I felt like it wasn’t what I had trained to do. It wasn’t the level of shooting that I’ve worked in the training season to get to. So I was bummed, especially since in the last two mass starts I’d had those chances and kind of let them get away.”
Lowell Bailey trying to make sense of the snowstorm in Ruhpolding. (Photo: U.S. Biathlon/NordicFocus)
Today, he was determine to get that final stage back.
“One of the biggest problems – it’s a very common problem in any shooting sport or any sport where you can get distracted easily – is just that,” he said. “It’s getting distracted and getting away from your game plan.”
Bailey had one missed shot in his first prone stage, but he didn’t let it get to him. At that point the snow was blowing hard, and he knew that few other men would have a perfect day.
As the race went on, he cleaned the second stage, then the third.
And on the fourth? He cleaned that one too.
“When I left the range, I definitely felt like ‘okay, that was more like it’,” he said.
That left him in 14th overall, two minutes and 47 seconds behind Fourcade.
Bailey is shooting for his best performances in the North American period of Worl Cups, in Fort Kent, Maine, and Canmore, Alberta – and of course at World Championships in Oslo in March.
But he’s also working on process goals and to have as many “quality races” as he can. The fourth stage was an example of that.
“That was my main focus, and to be honest it’s something I’ve been working on for years,” he explained. “I think every biathlete finds the final stage of a race to be the most difficult. So it’s not like I just took a couple of days and worked on it. But I really made a conscious effort to analyze what happened and try to really focus today on the internal things rather than the external feedback. In shooting your external feedback is what’s going on on the target, if you’re hitting, if you’re missing. A lot of times that can affect and distract you versus if you just think about executing the actual actions that go into good shooting.”
He also knows not to rest on his laurels: there are plenty more long races where he is going to have to focus and fight.
“I’ve been around long enough to know that there’s pretty much nothing in biathlon that gets nailed down and you can say, okay, that’s taken care of,” Bailey laughed. “It’s constantly changing, and you have good days and bad days, and you definitely – the second you turn around and say ‘okay, I’ve got this handled’, usually that means you don’t have it handled.”
Teammate Leif Nordgren, recently moved back up to the World Cup after a brief stint on the IBU Cup, was a late starter and was skiing in the top 15. But the fourth stage got the better of him. The U.S. Biathlon twitter feed reported that both were split bullets, making it even more frustrating.
Along with his two other teammates, Nordgren finished the day with three penalties. He landed 27th (+3:32.8), closely followed by Tim Burke in 30th (+3:45.2). Sean Doherty rounded out the U.S. finishers in 75th (+7:03.4).
Green Leads Canada in 18th
Brendan Green led the Canadian team in 18th place (+3:11.0) with two penalties. It was his first race back after the holiday break, and the best result of his season so far.
“It definitely feels good to be back into the top 20,” Green wrote in an email. “Hopefully this is a turning point in my season and more good results will follow. It was a challenging race today with difficult ski conditions, but I was able to just put my head down so to speak and tough it out. I am happy with my performance on the range, especially with how I was able to focus and execute on my last bout of shooting.”
He was laid low by injuries over the break, but seems to be back to full power.
“Initially it was planned that I would race last week as well, but some ongoing back problems forced me to cancel my flight last minute and spend the following week in Canmore focusing on rehab,” he explained. “It was a disappointing way for me to start the New Year, but considering that at this time last week I couldn’t bend over to touch my knees, I’m happy with today. I’m optimistic to see what the next weeks bring and I’m looking forward to the rest of the season.”
Christian Gow was the next Canadian in 46th (+4:32.0, one penalty), followed by Nathan Smith in 51st (+4:44.5) and Macx Davies in 52nd (+4:46.3) with three and two penalties, respectively. Scott Gow finished 100th with eight penalties (+11:27.0).
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