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Tag: Soleftea

  • Doherty Claims Second Title at Swedish Championships

    Doherty Claims Second Title at Swedish Championships

    Sean Doherty out front in the Swedish national championship youth men's pursuit. Photo courtesy of Per Nilsson.

    The biathlon season may have ended in North America a few weeks ago, but that hasn’t stopped a group of U.S. juniors from racing their way from to the top. Sean Doherty (Saratoga Biathlon), Tara Geraghty-Moats (Craftsbury Nordic Ski Club/Ethan Allen Biathlon Club), and Casey Smith (Methow Valley Biathlon) flew to Solefteå, Sweden as part of an exchange organized by U.S. Head Coach Per Nilsson.

    While the main focus on the stay was more to train and familiarize the young athletes with the structure of the sport in European programs, the trio also competed in Swedish national championships while they were there.

    Doherty had the most success. After winning the opening youth men’s sprint by 38 seconds, he extended his lead to almost three and a half minutes in the pursuit and picked up his second win of the series, sweeping the individual races in the 27-man field.

    “Sean made a big impression here on everybody,” Nilsson wrote in an e-mail after the Sunday pursuit. “Two victories: today he won the pursuit by 3:24!”

    Doherty’s closest competitors from the sprint, Victor Olsson and Martin Ponsiluoma, each struggled mightily in the pursuit, racking up ten penalties apiece in the 20-shot race and slipping to fourth and fifth, roughly five and six minutes back. Instead, Fredrik Ögren and Robert Sjöström stepped up to fill the podium. But after starting in fourth and sixth position, more than a minute behind Doherty, they couldn’t come close to the win.

    Part of their difficulty came on the range, where they were unable to best the New Hampshire native: Doherty and second-place Ögren each missed four shots and Sjöström five.

    But more than that, Doherty outpaced them on the trails, putting another two minutes into Ögren despite having identical shooting scores. Nilsson wasn’t surprised given the American’s speed earlier in the series.

    “Yesterday Sean had fifth-fastest leg time in the relay for seniors,” Nilsson explained.

    U.S. Biathlon Association staff were universally pleased to see Doherty’s success.

    “Not too shabby,” Athlete Development Director Piotr Bednarski said of the relay effort. “And Sean kicked some butt again in the pursuit.”

    In the youth women’s pursuit, Geraghty-Moats moved from fifth up to fourth thanks mostly to strong skiing; that race was filled with shooting errors. The sprint victor, Hanna Öberg, missed nine shots, and ended up third; Geraghty-Moats matched that performance but gained 20 seconds on Öberg. Anna Magnussen moved from fourth up to the top with just three penalties, followed by Emma Nilsson, who maintained her second-place position with four. The sprint bronze medalist, Sofia Henriksson, slipped to seventh with a devastating 14 misses.

    “Tara was one of the strongest women on the course all day,” Nilsson said of Geraghty-Moats’ skiing after the race.

    In the junior men’s race, Smith moved from eighth up to sixth with only six penalties, the second-best shooting in the race.

    Nilsson said that the high point of the championships for the lone junior came in the relay, when he used just a single spare round over two stages to clean his ten targets – and that helped the Americans make an even bigger impression than they had from Doherty’s wins alone.

    “After two legs, Sean and Casey were the second team in the senior relay,” he wrote.

    After sightseeing in Stockholm, the juniors are returning to the States on Wednesday.

    “I think and hope that they learned and enjoyed the exchange here,” Nilsson concluded.

    Results

  • New Hampshire’s Doherty Wins Youth Sprint at Swedish Nationals

    Sean Doherty (center) shooting during a prone stage of tthe Youth Olympic Games pursuit earlier this season.

    Conditions for the first race of Swedish Biathlon National Championships weren’t exactly wonderful in Solefteå, Sweden on Friday.

    “The weather has been really bad with warm temps and wind,” U.S. National Team Head Coach Per Nilsson told FasterSkier. “It was on the edge to hold the races… today was deep slush, gusty wind and challenging conditions for everybody.”

    It showed: in the senior division, Helena Ekholm and Carl Johan Bergman took the sprint titles with three and two penalties, respectively. Ekholm has been one of the World Cup’s most accurate shooters for years, and the two ended up ranked fifth and sixth in the World Cup total score this season. If they struggled on the range, then who wouldn’t?

    Luckily, the three U.S. juniors who were competing in Solefteå as part of an exchange program arranged by Nilsson, who is Swedish, had a secret weapon.

    “It seems to be the same on your side of the pond,” Nilsson said.

    That was true, said Tara Geraghty-Moats of the Craftsbury Nordic Ski Club, who is the lone girl on the trip.

    Geraghty-Moates competing at this year's World Junior Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland. Photo: Judy Geer.

    “Conditions were a bit windy but not bad,” she explained.  “The course was basically in the same condition that Casey, Sean and I have been racing in for three weeks now, at [cross-country] junior nationals and biathlon nationals, super soft and warm. I think it might have given us a little edge over the home teams because we are just used to the slow conditions.”

    Sean Doherty, a New Hampshire native who races for the Saratoga Biathlon Club and trains with Algis Shalna in Jericho, Vermont, led the pack by posting a 38-second win in the youth (17- to 19-year-old) sprint. That came despite having four penalties in the two shooting stages – and the fact that he won’t turn 17 until June.

    “Sean did a really good race,” Nilsson said. “He was strong and had good technique in these conditions.”

    Success isn’t new for Doherty, who represented the U.S. at the Youth Olympic Games in January, where he turned in a pivotal leg in the bronze-medal mixed relay. He has competed in two World Junior Championships, and at junior nationals for cross country he placed fourth in the mass start skate and skied a leg on New England’s silver-medal J1 relay team.

    Doherty relied on that ski speed on Friday; he left the field in the dust even though the next three finishers had fewer penalties than he did.

    Geraghty-Moats, racing in the same age division, finished fifth in the women’s race, 41 seconds behind Hanna Öberg. With five penalties, the Vermonter told FasterSkier that she was not satisfied with her performance.

    “I wasn’t very happy with my shooting – the range approach here is the hardest I’ve skied all year,” she said. “You come off a long hard hill and go straight into shooting. I think I might have taken the last hill a little too hard, and paid for it with 50% misses.”

    Nilsson agreed that the range approach was tricky, saying the “approach here is tough.”

    But despite Geraghty-Moats’ struggles on the range, he was impressed.

    “Tara was one of the fastest females out there today,” he said.

    The last U.S. racer, Casey Smith of Methow Valley Biathlon, raced in the 20- to 21-year-old junior division, where he placed eighth with four penalties.

    In Saturday’s relays, Geraghty-Moats teamed up with Swedish national team member Anna-Karin Strömstedt and Estonia’s Regina Oja to place sixth in the senior women’s division. Smith and Doherty joined Erik Ögren to place fifth in the senior men’s relay.

    Racing continues on Sunday with a pursuit based off of Friday’s sprint.

    “Hopefully I’ll be able to move up in the results a little more, but I’m pretty happy with my fith place,” Geraghty-Moats said.

    Results: sprints / relays