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  • IBU Announces Executive Board Nominees, Sanctions Handed Down by IOC

    IBU Announces Executive Board Nominees, Sanctions Handed Down by IOC

    The International Biathlon Union (IBU) had a busy week at its headquarters in Salzburg, Austria, as evidenced by a number of announcements made through press releases.

    First came the news of the IBU Congress’s executive board nominations. Notably, one man and one woman made the final cut for position of IBU president: Olle Dahlin, a current executive board member and chairman of the Swedish Biathlon Federation, and Baiba Broka, president of the Latvian Biathlon Federation.

    Anders Besseberg previously served as president of the IBU since its inception in 1993, but stepped down this past April as a result of a police investigation related to accepting Russian bribes in exchange for concealing Russian biathlon doping cases. Secretary General Nicole Resch was suspended as a result of the scandal as well, but both have denied any wrongdoing, according to Inside The Games.

    The IBU’s board and committee elections will be conducted Sept. 5-9 at the 13th Regular IBU Congress in Porec, Croatia. Two current North American board members, Dr. Jim Carrabre of Biathlon Canada (who ran for IBU president in 2014) and Max Cobb of US Biathlon, are running for re-election. (Scroll down for complete list of candidates.)

    The current IBU vice president for development, Dahlin is considered the favorite for the IBU presidency.

    “I have chosen to stand for election because I believe I can make a great contribution to the IBU’s vital development work and, because I have been a member of the IBU board recently,” Dahlin said in late May, according to a press release. “I have a clear image of what needs to be done. This means the start-up phase will be short. I have led different types of change processes throughout my career as a business leader, so I feel certain that I can provide good leadership in this. We will produce and get support for an operating/strategic plan in the IBU’s fields of activity and develop and adapt the organisation to ensure it is implemented.

    “Many of the member nations have great confidence in Sweden, and we are represented at different levels within the IBU,” he continued. “The work we have carried out in the Swedish Biathlon Federation over the last few years is also experience that will be beneficial when producing an operating plan for the IBU. I can also see that there is potential to increase the level of transparency and democracy in the IBU’s activities.”

    In addition to serving as president of the Latvian Biathlon Federation for the last four years, Broka is a politician and jurist who was Latvia’s minister of justice in 2014. She is also a member of the IBU legal committee.

    “At the moment, there is a need for change,” Broka told SportaCentrs.com, according to a loose translation. “I have been working in the Legal Committee of the IBU for four years, I have seen a lot of problems between Sochi and PyeongChang. I have seen a lot of things to do, many of my suggestions to change in the statutes have already been taken into account, the situation with doping scandals, in terms of good governance of the organization. To a great deal, the IBU has so far not paid attention and now it is apparent that it is missing. My legal experience would be useful.

    “We have done a lot and there is still a lot to do,” she continued. “The environment must be created around the athlete so that he entrusts the federation, and the Member States want to see what the structure is and how decisions are made about the finances.”

    On Wednesday, the IBU publicized that it had been cut off financially by the International Olympic Committee (as a result of the Besseberg/Resch scandal) and was onboard with steps toward reform, including an external audit of its anti-doping program.

    “The International Biathlon Union (IBU) was informed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that it will not receive any direct financial payments from the IOC until certain requirements concerning IBU’s governance are fulfilled,” a June 13 press release stated. “The IBU regards the decision by the IOC as an encouragement to implement the governance reform steps it has already agreed on in its IBU Executive Board Meetings. These include an external audit of the IBU anti-doping program conducted by the Institute of National Anti-doping Organizations (iNADO)  and the establishment of an IBU Ethics Commission (see press release here). The IBU is confident that the requested reports about IBU’s anti-doping programme, its governance reforms and the summary of actions taken by the IBU Independent Working Group, regarding the Moscow LIMS and related data disclosed by WADA, will be to the satisfaction of the IOC.”

    Candidates for 2021 and 2023 IBU World Championships were also announced. Only Pokljuka, Slovenia, bid for 2021 World Championships, as opposed to two cities bidding for 2023: Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, and Oberhof, Germany.

    Candidates for IBU President (all in alphabetical order):

    BROKA, Baiba (LAT), Latvian Biathlon Federation

    DAHLIN, Olle (SWE), Swedish Biathlon Federation, current EB Member

    Candidates for IBU First Vice-President:

    BOYGARD, Tore (NOR), Norwegian Biathlon Association

    HAMZA, Jiri (CZE), Czech Biathlon Union

    MAYGUROV, Victor (BLR), Biathlon Federation of Belarus, incumbent

    LEHOTAN, Ivor (SVK), Slovak Biathlon Association, current EB Member

    Dr STEINLE, Franz (GER), German Ski Federation (DSV)

    Candidates for IBU Vice-President Finances:

    LÄHDESMAKI, Kalle (FIN), Finnish Biathlon Association

    Dr LEISTNER, Klaus (AUT), Austrian Ski Federation (ÖSV), incumbent

    Candidates for IBU Executive Board (6 seats):

    BOYGARD, Tore (NOR), Norwegian Biathlon Association

    BROKA, Baiba (LAT), Latvian Biathlon Federation

    BUDZISHVILI, Nikoloz (GEO), National Biathlon Federation of Georgia

    Dr CARRABRE, James (CAN), Biathlon Canada, current EB member

    COBB, Max (USA), United States Biathlon Association, current EB member

    FARCNIK, Tim (SLO), Ski Association of Slovenia

    Dr FLANAGAN, Grant (AUS), Australian Biathlon Association

    GERASIMUK, Dagmara (POL), Polish Biathlon Association

    HAMZA, Jiri (CZE), Czech Biathlon Union

    Dr KASASHI, Kumiko (JAP), Japan Biathlon Federation

    KIM, Nami (KOR), Korea Biathlon Union, current EB Member

    LÄHDESMAKI, Kalle (FIN), Finnish Biathlon Association

    LEHOTAN, Ivor (SVK), Slovak Biathlon Association, current EB Member

    MAYGUROV, Victor (BLR), Biathlon Federation of Belarus, incumbent First Vice-President

    PALLHUBER, Erika (ITA), Italian Winter Sport Federation (FISI)

    Dr STEINLE, Franz (GER), German Ski Federation (DSV)

    VOLODYMYR, Brynzak (UKR), Biathlon Federation of Ukraine

    Bid venues for the 2021 IBU World Championships:

    POKLJUKA, Slovenia

    Bid venues for the 2023 IBU World Championships:

    NOVE MESTO, Czech Republic

    OBERHOF, Germany

    Candidates for the IBU Technical Committee (10 seats):

    BERGER, Franz (AUT), current TC Member

    BERNAT, Tomas (POL)

    HÖNIG, Gerald (GER)

    ILIEV, Ventzeslav (BUL)

    KORDEZ, Matej (SLO), current TC Member

    KORPELA, Kari (SWE), current TC Member

    LEE, Keunno (KOR)

    LEITGEB, Lorenz (ITA), current TC Member

    NAZAROVA, Olga (BLR)

    RICARDAS, Griaznovas (LTU)

    RIIHIVUORI, Tomi-Pekka (FIN)

    SAENGER, Max (USA)

    SIMOCKO, Radovan (SVK)

    VASSALLO, Christophe (FRA), current TC Chairman

    VLASTIMIL, Jakes (CZE), current TC Member

    ZAHKNA, Hillar (EST)

    Daniel Böhm (GER) has already been confirmed as the athletes’ representative in the IBU Technical Committee.

    Bids to host the 14th Regular IBU Congress 2020:

    Czech Biathlon Union, Prague

    Biathlon Union of Serbia, Zlatibor

    The two incumbent elected auditors, Ray Kokkonen (CAN) and Juha Viertola (FIN), are the only two nominations for the 2018-2022 term for this position.

  • Annual Training Trip to Germany Well Worth the Travel for American Biathletes

    Jay Hakkinen, Leif Nordgren, and Lowell Bailey shooting at the Chiemgau Arena in Ruhpolding, Germany on Monday. The Americans are in their second week of a training camp before heading to Oberhof.

    RUHPOLDING, Germany – At the Chiemgau Arena on Monday, the U.S. biathlon team was surrounded by something it doesn’t always experience in training: a cacophony of shots that didn’t belong to them.

    With the German women’s team, the Ukrainian national team, and juniors from France and Germany on the range, as well as a group of German men doing a non-shooting sprint workout, training was quite a bit busier than your typical biathlon practice in America – and actually had more attendees than many domestic races.

    Despite all that, it is actually a quieter experience than the same camp last year.

    “Last year the Italians were here, and the Estonians as well, which is always neat, but there’s just nobody here this year,” said World Cup racer Sara Studebaker. “I do know that Andrea Henkel [of Germany] is going to join us for this coming week, but we’ve pretty much been on our own. It would have been nice if there were other teams here.”

    And actually, said shooting coach Armin Auchentaller, that was the plan. It just didn’t work out.

    Russell Currier attacking his speedwork in the stadium.

    “Last year it was much more busy on the range and we had an international competition with the other teams, which this year was not possible,” he explained as the other coaches watched the last few Americans finish their rounds. “Initially we wanted to take these athletes to the German championships, but they got postponed when we had already planned this trip. So this year we did the time trial just between us.”

    Still, both athlete and coach agreed: the atmosphere here is a lot different than in the U.S., and that’s one of the main reasons to come over here.

    “Lake Placid is a great place to train, but you can’t compare it to having a World Cup venue with a roller loop on it,” Studebaker laughed. “You can rollerski on the trails that you race on in the winter, and just do the same stuff, pretty much… to be able to have that, it just feels a lot more similar to winter. And the pavement is so smooth!”

    Auchentaller thought that it was productive for the athletes to get out of their usual shooting range and into a new one (the World Cup visits Ruhpolding every year, so it’s not exactly unfamiliar). Even at a basic level, shooting here requires adjustments: Lake Placid has an uphill approach to the range, whereas the Chiemgau Arena features a slight downhill.

    While Auchentaller is considered the shooting expert, he still resides in his native Italy and sees the athletes for about five camps outside of the competition season, this session falling right in the middle. The rest of the time, the Americans work mainly with women’s coach Jonne Kahkonen, who does live in Lake Placid and supervises the entire training group stateside.

    Head coach Per Nilsson also lives in his home country, in this case Sweden, meaning that Kahkonen usually supervises a large group in Lake Placid with the help of Patrick Coffey. Only the “A” team athletes, however, were invited to Germany this summer, and Nilsson, Kahkonen, Auchentaller, and High Performance Director Bernd Eisenbichler have all been present for most of the camp, giving the athletes more direct interaction with coaches than they usually receive.

    Annelies Cook during her speedwork.

    Up and down the range, the space behind the firing line was filled with coaches scoping out their athletes’ shots, then holding up magnetic boards with a diagram of a target and five small markers showing the position of each of the athlete’s bullets. A healthy proportion of those scopes were trained on the Americans.

    “It’s always good to have fresh eyes on you, and to have a couple of people on the range, and a few out on the trails,” Studebaker said, before adding that the team has actually grown in one way. “This year it’s bigger for the women, we’re three instead of two over here, which is really nice!”

    After a warmup, the team did speedplay: skiing an easy loop of six to ten minutes without a rifle, then skiing through the range to grab their guns before gradually ramping up to full speed over the course of a 25-second stretch in front of the stands. The athletes would hold their top gear for about five seconds before easing back and skiing into the range to shoot. The workout consisted of ten sprints for both the men and women; Auchentaller pointed out that doing level-one shooting combinations, while skiing easy, was pretty pedestrian for biathletes who have been training as long as the national team members, so adding speed into the equation was important in order to gain consistency in races.

    One thing Auchentaller was particularly excited about was the annual trip to Salzburg, Austria, that the team had made the previous week. In a state-of-the-art shooting lab at the university there, the athletes tested their shooting using force plates and measures of trigger pressure. Today, the team will receive the results of the tests and Auchentaller can gain a few new ideas for what to tell his athletes to work on.

    U.S. coach Armin Auchentaller adjusts Susan Dunklee’s stance as she readies for a standing shooting stage.

    “From these tests we get out little, little, little things like the pressure on the back plate, or how they work on the trigger and how their balance is,” he explained. “It’s not so much for the elite athletes right now – it’s little tiny things, and usually the last details are the most difficult to work on. But we are pretty happy to have the opportunity to go to Salzburg.”

    That’s not to say that the biathletes aren’t trying bigger changes, too. On Monday a few were testing out new eye shields to keep the sun from affecting their vision on the range, or adjusting and exchanging parts on their rifle sights.

    Besides the trip to Salzburg, the team has a few more things to look forward to. In this, their second of two weeks in Ruhpolding, they’ll contest an annual uphill time trial: “We’re looking forward to that, to see the progress there,” Auchentaller said. Then the biathletes will spend a week in Oberhof, Germany – a center of sport in Germany’s east compared to Ruhpolding’s role in the west – and train and test skis in the ski tunnel there.

    All in all, the camp offers athletes like Studebaker plenty to look forward to as they work their way through the summer at home.

    “I was definitely ready to get out of Lake Placid,” she said. “It’s always nice to have a little bit of a change; you get into a little bit of a rut with training if you’re out running on the same roads and skiing on the same roads. It’s really nice to come and do something different, especially since it’s so beautiful over here in the summer. We get to be here in the winter all the time, but to see another side of it is really cool.

    “We’re staying in a little different place this year, over in Inzell, which has some different trails to explore,” she added. “So it’s a similar feeling but it’s a bit different. It’s definitely a fun camp though – you work hard, but you enjoy it.”

    Jay Hakkinen (standing), Susan Dunklee, and Tim Burke shoot on Monday.