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.
Racing in bib 4 for the U.S., Julia Kern keeps pace in the women’s team sprint during the Dresden, Germany World Cup on Sunday. (Photo: Garrott Kuzzy).
FIS World Cup Dresden, Germany 6 x 1.6 k Freestyle Team Sprint
The first World Cup team sprint of the season was run amidst drizzle and the Dresden, Germany city-scape as the women raced a total of six 1.6-kilometer laps.
Round and round on the looping course, the pace was a mix of tactically subdued speeds with sustained bursts of energy to break the pack.
After all the speed changes and exchanges with one athlete tagging off to the next, it came down to a 1.11 second difference between first place Sweden I and the three closet teams chasing from behind that ended in a photo finish.
Sweden I’s Stina Nilsson and Maja Dahlqvist won in a time of 24:02.5 minutes. Sweden II’s Ida Ingemarsdotter and Jonna Sundling placed second (+1.11), and Norway I, with Eide Mari and Maiken Caspersen Falla in third (+1.11).
U.S. I, featuring Julia Kern and Sophie Caldwell placed fourth (+1.11) after the photo finish was reviewed.
The U.S. entered a second team, consisting of Ida Sargent and Hannah Halvorsen. That duo contested the first semi-final, the same semi as U.S. I, but did not advance after placing fourth (+5.44). The top-three teams from each semi advance to the final, along with the next four fastest teams which are the combined “lucky losers”. Today, the second semi was the faster of the two. The four lucky loser team advancing to the final all originated from the second semi.
In the men’s 6 x 1.6 k skate team sprint race, Norway I and Norway II took the top two podium spots.
In a lunge at the line, Norway I’s Erik Valnes and Sindre Bjørnestad Skar won the final in 22:38.72 minutes. Pål Golberg and Eirik Brandsdal of Norway II placed second (+0.75) and Russia I’s Artem Maltsev and Gleb Retivykh third (+0.80).
Canada’s Bob Thompson and Len Valjas placed seventh (+2.46) in the first semi-final and did not advance to the final. It was the same fate for the only U.S. team entered in the men’s team sprint. Andy Newell and Erik Bjornsen placed 10th (+3.66) in the second semi, and failed to make the finals.
Canada placed 15th in the final standings, the U.S. 19th.
IBU World Cup Oberhof, Germany 4 x 6 k / 4 x 7.5 k Relay
In the women’s 4 x 6 k relay, Russia placed first in a time of 1:18:46.4 hours. Evgeniya Pavlova, Margarita Vasileva, Larisa Kuklina, and Ekaterina Yurlova-Percht made up the team that used eight spares on their way to the win.
Germany placed second (+33.5) with two penalty loops and 10 spare rounds. Karolin Horchler, Franziska Hildebrand, Franziska Preuss, and Denise Hermann comprised Germany’s second place team that had two penalties while using 10 spares. The Czech Republic’s Lucie Charvatova, Veronika Vitkova, Marketa Davidova, and Eva Puskarcikova placed third (+36.7) with 1 penalty loop and six spares.
The top spot for the podium came down to the final leg, when Yurlova-Percht pulled out the win when Hermann skied two penalty loops. The Russian used three spares but escaped with no penalties to take the lead out of the shooting range on the final ski loop.
Susan Dunklee, Clare Egan, Joanne Reid, and Emily Dreissigacker all represented the U.S. and placed 12th (+5:35.8) while skiing five penalty loops and using 16 spares.
Canada’s Sarah Beaudry, Emma Lunder, Megan Bankes, and Rosanna Crawford finished in 13th (+5:58.8) with four penalty loops and 15 spares.
Russian also claimed the men’s relay, winning in a time of 1:20:54.3 hours. The winning team of Maxim Tsvetkov, Evgeniy Garanichev, Dmitry Malyshko, and Alexander Loginov skied no penalty laps and used six spares on their way to victory.
Antonin Guigonnat, Simon Desthieux, Quentin Fillon Maillet, and Martin Fourcade raced for France. The French team placed second (+1:01.1) while skiing a single penalty lap and using eight spares.
Austria’s Tobias Eberhard, Simon Eder, Dominik Landertinger and Julian Eberhard placed third (+2:18.6) with one penalty lap and using seven spares.
Canada’s Scott Gow, Christian Gow, Jules Burnotte, and Brendan Green and the U.S. team of Leif Nordgren, Sean Doherty, Travis Cooper, and Max Durtschi were eventually lapped. Neither team was given an official finishing time.
Canada was ranked 18th in the final standings, the U.S. 19th.
For both relays today, the snowy weather and tough course conditions made for a strenuous day of shooting and skiing.
Clare Egan (US Biathlon) racing to a career-best 13th in the women’s 7.5 k sprint at Friday’s IBU World Cup in Kontiolahti, Finland. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
IBU World Cup (Kontiolahti, Finland): Women’s 7.5 k sprint
Darya Domracheva of Belarus raced to her third World Cup victory of the season on Friday, and American Clare Egan tallied a career best in 13th, just behind Canada’s Rosanna Crawford in 12th in the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup women’s 7.5 k sprint in Kontiolahti.
The women’s 7.5 k sprint podium at the IBU World Cup in Kontiolahti, Finland, with Belarus’s Darya Domracheva (c) in first, Germany’s Franziska Hildebrand (l) in second, and Italy’s Lisa Vittozzi (r) in third. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
Domracheva started 16th and shot a perfect 5-for-5 in prone, then missed one in her standing bout, but skied to first with the fastest overall course time. Her position in the leader’s chair looked secure until Germany’s Franziska Hildebrand, who started 49th, shot clean in both stages and headed out on her last loop with a 17.6-second lead on Domracheva’s time. But Hildebrand couldn’t match Domracheva’s pace and finished 0.5 seconds short of the winning time of 20:56.8 at the finish.
“I really like to compete here in Kontiolahti,” Domracheva said, according to an IBU press release. She won two gold medals there at 2005 Youth/Junior World Championships and went on to win her first two World Cup races there in 2010.
“This is a tough track, always very difficult but it always a good chance to take some seconds if you are in good shape,” she said. “I have some good memories from here…”
“I am very proud of myself,” Hildebrand said of her race, according to the IBU. “Dasha made a really strong last loop and I tried to do it as well. It was very close but I am happy to be second … I had to concentrate and have the confidence that I could shoot clean today.”
Italy’s Lisa Vittozzi started 24th and came within 5.5 seconds of Domracheva’s time, after missing one standing target (0+1), to place third, 5 seconds behind Hildebrand.
Vittozzi achieved her first career podium in Kontiolahti last year.
“This is an amazing place for me,” she told the IBU. “I like this track so much and feel in good shape. I tried to do my best in the shooting range and finally I did it.”
Ukraine’s Yuliia Dzhima shot clean but was 11.7 seconds short of the podium in fourth place (+17.2), Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier followed in fifth (+19.4; one penalty), Veronika Vitkova of the Czech Republic placed sixth (+21.0; no penalties), Ukraine’s Vita Semerenko was seventh (+21.0; no penalties), France’s Marie Dorin Habert eighth (+32.0; no penalties), Germany’s Maren Hammerschmidt ninth (+33.9; one penalty), Finland’s Kaisa Makarainen 10th (+34.4; two penalties), and Belarus’s second woman in the top 11, Nadezhda Skardino 11th (+35.3; no penalties).
Rosanna Crawford (Biathlon Canada) leaving the range during the women’s IBU World Cup sprint earlier this season in Annecy, France. . (Photo: Glen Crawford)
Crawford led Canada in 12th (+46.5) with a single prone penalty (1+0) for her best sprint result since the 2014/2015 season. Also this season, Crawford raced to a career-best third place in a 15 k individual and fourth in a 12.5 k mass start.
“It was a little bit windy and some fresh snow made for a soft track, but I had amazing skis from our techs and was feeling good skiing,” Crawford wrote in an email. “I’m really happy with how I executed my race today, I really tried to channel my inner Jessie Diggins and never stop fighting! The hills are steep and long here, something I usually struggle with, but I tried to push them mentally aside and focus on what I am good at, there are a lot of flat sections where my two skate one skate is really strong, and on the big up hills I just tried to stick with whoever was around me.
“I had a lot of fun out there tonight, something I didn’t think I would ever say about this race course!” she continued. “… I am really happy to have some good ski speed in a spring finally!”
Egan, of the U.S., achieved her best World Cup result in 13th (+46.9) with a single standing miss (0+1) and the 14th-fastest overall course time. Her previous best was 16th in a sprint four year ago.
After the Olympics, Egan explained in an email that she rented an apartment in Helsinki and spent the first part of the off-week spending some alone time and doing “some serious R&R. I don’t think I realized how chaotic the Olympics were until I had peace and quiet for the first time in 3 weeks,” she wrote.
“After a week of mostly easy skiing on my own I was really antsy to race today,” Egan added. “I also felt motivated coming off my season-best performance in the women’s relay in Pyeongchang. My individual results have been really mediocre this year so I was looking to take the momentum and confidence from the relay and carry that into today’s race.”
Clare Egan (US Biathlon) during her standing shooting of the IBU World Cup women’s 7.5 k sprint in Kontiolahti, Finland. (Screenshot: ZDF broadcast)
During Friday’s sprint, she noticed her skis were running really well.
“I can say without any doubt that we had the fastest skis today and that played a big role in my ski time,” Egan wrote. “I had a personal best ski time (rank) by at least 10 places today.”
After starting one bib and 30 seconds behind Domracheva, Egan knew she was having a good race when she could see the eventual winner for most of the first loop.
“Our skis were so fast that I honestly had to adjust my technique to account for the extra glide– exceptional!” she added. “On my last loop, I realized I was still ahead of Laura Dahlmeier, who started :30 seconds behind me, and I fought super hard to hold her off all the way to the finish line!
“I was shocked to have a career best with one miss,” Egan concluded. “But I had a major PR on my ski time rank, and this is biathlon! I’m very, very happy to have a great result, but happier about the performance behind the result.”
With their results on Friday, both Egan and Crawford earned starts in Sunday’s 12.5 k mass start, according to a provisional start list.
“I’ll have another opportunity tomorrow in the mixed relay and Sunday in the mass start, which is only the second of my career,” Egan wrote.
“I was pretty disappointed to not qualify for the mass start at the Olympics,” Crawford wrote. “My bad sprint had many far-reaching consequences. So I am glad I get another chance to go out there and fight with the best!”
Also for the U.S., Susan Dunklee finished 36th (+1:27.0) with three penalties (1+2), Emily Dreissigacker was 62nd (+2:15.7) with two misses (2+0), and Joanne Reid was 74th (+2:38.7) with two misses (0+2) as well.
Canada’s Emma Lunder finished 43rd (+1:48.0) with one miss (1+0), Julia Ransom was 58th (+2:07.9) with two penalties (1+1), and Sarah Beaudry finished 66th (+2:20.3) with two misses (1+1) as well.
This year’s Kontiolahti World Cup does not include a pursuit race. The single mixed relay and mixed relay are set for Saturday, followed by men’s and women’s mass starts on Sunday.
Martin Fourcade waves the tricolore down the finishing straight as France claims gold in the biathlon mixed relay on Tuesday at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — In its four-card-deep deck, the French biathlon team had an ace. Anchoring France’s 2 x 6 + 2 x 7.5-kilometer mixed relay was Martin Fourcade. The 29 year old had already taken two individual gold medals at these Winter Games. The final leg of Tuesday’s race presented the opportunity for another.
Coming through the last exchange, it was Germany’s Erik Lesser tagging off to Arnd Peiffer. Without Fourcade chasing them, Germany’s chances of a medal would have seemed certain.
Peiffer, who learned around 1 p.m. that afternoon that he would start the relay in place of Simon Schempp, who reportedly was feeling under the weather, was first into the range after one loop for his round of prone shooting. There, Peiffer missed two shots, but using two spares, hit the remaining two targets and stayed out of the penalty lap.
Then came Fourcade. The Frenchman shot clean. Skiing into the range with France was Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen and Italy’s Dominik Windisch. Svendsen and Windisch both used one spare each to clean and steer clear of the penalty lap as well.
Out on course, Peiffer had a 6.1-second buffer between himself and Fourcade. Windisch was the third racer to depart the range, 16.3 seconds out of first, and just 0.1 seconds behind him was Svendssen.
The 6.1 seconds separating the two frontrunners was soon down to zero. Fourcade attacked on the first uphill, passing the German and was the first into the range for the standing shooting — exactly the type of stage Fourcade craves.
Five days ago, Fourcade was in a similar situation. During the men’s 20 k individual race, he skied into the range for the final round of shooting with a comfortable lead. The almost-always clutch Frenchman missed the last two targets, losing the gold and finishing fifth on the day.
Martin Fourcade cleaning his final five targets of the day to secure gold for France in the mixed relay at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
During Tuesday’s mixed relay, Fourcade was on his A-game. Five pings heard throughout the stadium and five targets down. With his remaining 2.5 k to go, another medal for France and Fourcade was certain. Not long after, it became clear that medal would be gold.
Back in the range, Peiffer struggled, using three spares and having to ski a penalty loop. Meanwhile, Svendsen used one spare to clean and Windisch two. Svendsen slid into second place, 34.3 seconds behind an already long-gone Fourcade.
Windisch left about 15 seconds after the Svendsen. After emerging from the penalty lap, Peiffer skied up behind Windisch. In a moment of déjà vu, Fourcade carrying France’s fluttering flag crossed the finish line first in a time of 1:08:34.3 for the gold medal. Svendsen held his own with the third-fastest anchor lap to secure silver for Norway, 20.9 seconds behind Fourcade.
For Fourcade, it was his fifth gold medal in two Olympics and his first in a team event. France last won the mixed relay at the world-championships level at 2016 World Championships in Oslo, Norway.
Asked what it was like capturing his fifth Olympic gold, Fourcade responded at the press conference, “Tonight it’s not about numbers, it’s not about personal, it’s a team adventure that began in 2009 in the world champs in [PyeongChang] Korea, and tonight it’s a really big emotion for the team and all the crew because we are individual athletes and the emotion of an individual Olympic gold medal is amazing, but when you can share it with your teammates it’s something really much more incredible.”
“I think for the Norwegian team, we have a big priority on this relay,” Svendsen said at the press conference. “We really like it a lot, great to race both women and men together. You can see the best biathlon nations … so great event, it was very exciting.”
Italy’s Dominik Windisch (r) celebrates bronze for his team in the mixed relay, which he took by 0.3 seconds over Germany’s Arnd Peiffer (l) at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
The battle for third and fourth came down to a contentious last 100 meters.
As they rounded into the finishing straight, Peiffer was skiing in the left lane and Windisch in the right. In one final push to the line, Windisch crossed over into the Peiffer’s lane and took third place and bronze medal by 0.3 seconds ahead of him, 26.9 seconds after Fourcade.
Peiffer crossed in fourth place (+27.2) and Germany subsequently filed a protest that Windisch obstructed Peiffer. Ultimately, the protest was denied and the results stood.
Speaking to German broadcaster ARD after the race, Peiffer initially said Windisch’s move was within the rules. However, after viewing the replay, he changed his mind.
“I believe he [Windisch] would have beaten me if he’d just remained straight ahead in his corridor and not skied such a curve,” Peiffer later told ARD, according to a translation. “That’s what I also told him. I told him I congratulate him because I believe he was better today. I just did a poor job today, that’s how it even came to this situation…
Germany’s mixed relay anchor Arnd Peiffer during his last shooting stage on Tuesday, where he incurred a penalty and slipped out of gold-medal contention and ultimately finished fourth in the event at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
“I took another look at it now, and to me it’s a rule violation,” Peiffer added. “But from experience I know that the jury never makes any decision or generally denies appeals. Just because they don’t have the courage, I believe. I am sorry for the other three, because they did a great job. I don’t believe I would have deserved a medal today, but it’s always sad if rules get broken.”
During a post-race press conference, the issue of Italy’s move was raised again. One reporter directed a question at Windisch, asking about his thoughts on the filed complaint.
“It happened realy really fast because it come down from the downhill and I was convinced to do the right thing because I was in front of Peiffer,” Windisch said.“The jury had a long, long meeting to take this decision and they decided for us. I am really happy about this, so I think they had their reasons and I am happy for Italy.”
The same reporter posed the question to Fourcade, stating that the move seemed like one the Frenchman has done in the past.
“As Dominik Windisch told you it happened really fast in a situation we are not fully able to decide really quickly because we already have 7.5 kilometers in the legs,” Fourcade said. “When you are looking a the picture you can see it’s probably not the best decision Dominik took, but in the end it changes nothing because Dominik is stronger than Arnd in the sprint and he didn’t change anything with the final results. I think and I’m sure if it happened again he would choose another line.”
Italy’s Strong Start
Italy’s Lisa Vittozzi (2), alongside Germany’s Vanessa Heinz, leads the first leg of the 2 x 6 + 2 x 7.5 k mixed relay on Tuesday at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. She went on to hand off in first, and Italy ultimately earned bronze in the event. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
In the first leg of the race, Italy’s Lisa Vittozzi and Germany’s Vanessa Heinz tagged off in first and second, respectively, with Germany 2.2 seconds back at the exchange after both skiers shot clean without any spares. Vittozzi hanged off to Dorothea Wierer, while Heinz tagged Germany’s strongest leg Laura Dahlmeier, who took gold in the sprint and pursuit to start the Games and placed third in the 15 k individual.
Dahlmeier shot clean in the first prone and used one spare to clean standing, tagging Lesser in first, 29.9 seconds ahead of Italy, at the second exchange.
Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø racing the third leg of the mixed relay at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. After being tagged in 10th, he skied up to fourth at the last exchange, and Norway ultimately finished second. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
Norway’s ascent to second place involved a strong third leg from Johannes Thingnes Bø. Using just a single spare to clean his two stages (0+0, 0+1), Bø overcame two less-than-stellar legs from teammates Marte Olsbu (0+2, 0+1) and Tiril Eckhoff, who had a penalty (0+2, 1+3). When Eckhoff tagged Bø, he was in 10th, 1:24.4 minutes behind Germany in first. With the fastest third-leg course time, Bø handed off to Svendsen in fourth place, 33.1 seconds behind the Germans and half a second behind Italy.
Canada 12th, U.S. 15th
Canada finished the relay in 12th (+2:36.7) after skiing three places up from their bib number.
Rosanna Crawford skiing the first leg of Canada’s mixed relay at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. She tagged off in 11th and Canada went on to finish 12th. (Photo:FlyingPointRoad)
Rosanna Crawford skied the opening leg, using two spares, one each in prone and standing, to avoid the penalty lap.
“I tried to be super focused in prone,” she told FasterSkier after. “I went on to have one miss, that was just a bad trigger pull on my part. Skiing wasn’t great, but I just tried my best to stick with the women around me and give Julia the best chance I could.”
Crawford tagged teammate Julia Ransom in 11th, 34.7 seconds out of first. Ransom shot without a miss in prone and used two spares to clean standing. She maintained 11th while tagging Brendan Green 1:44.7 minutes behind the leaders.
After what Ransom considered a less-than-ideal personal start to the Olympics, she was pleased with how she felt racing on Tuesday.
“Today I felt like I could actually push a little harder and have fun racing,” she said.
Canada’s Brendan Green racing the third leg of the mixed relay at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
Green used three spares in total (0+1, 0+2) but remained clear of the penalty lap. He came through the last exchange in 14th, 2:27.9 out of first.
“I thought the wind would make it a little bit challenging today,” Green said after finishing his leg, with Canada’s fourth-leg skier, Christian Gow, still on course. “It was up a bit from the other days, [but] thankfully it was fairly consistent. This won’t be the result we are hoping for but it’s a good primer for the men’s and women’s relays later this week and so looking forward to that.”
In his first mixed relay and first time anchoring a championship relay, Christian Gow headed out on the final leg to pick off some places.
Canada’s Christian Gow racing to 26th in the men’s 20 k individual for his best non-relay result at his first Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
“I knew there would be a bit more pressure depending on the position that we were in when I got tagged because all the teams were putting their strongest guys last,” Gow said after. “It’s some pretty big names when you’re looking at the list. You’re like, ‘OK, there are some of my idols,’ so there’s a bit more pressure there, but I have been feeling pretty good.”
The 24-year-old Gow shot clean and then used two spares in standing, racing the ninth-fastest last leg to put Canada in 12th at the finish (+2:36.7).
“I think Nathan [Smith] one time told me you can’t idolize your competition, which is very true,” Gow said of his teammate and fellow Olympian. “I think I get a little better at that every year, believing in myself a little more and not looking at the big names I’m racing as untouchable or anything like that. I am especially happy with how I have been doing that this year. You try to handle it just like any other race and it doesn’t matter who the guy is next to you, it’s what you do in the race to beat them.”
Julia Ransom racing the second leg for Canada in the mixed relay at the 2018 Olympics. She kept the team in 11th and they went on to place 12th. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
Four years ago at the Olympics in Sochi, Russia, the Canadian mixed relay finished 11th. As the race was still going on Tuesday, Crawford said a top eight would be a good result and top six would be “the dream result.”
Despite their goals, Ransom, a first-time Olympian, said they hadn’t felt any added pressure coming into the mixed relay.
“… Everybody on the team knows that we’re all trying our best and are gonna bring our best to the day,” Ransom, 25, said of the team’s effort on any given relay day. “It’s an unsaid sort of encouragement, I guess.”
For the U.S., Susan Dunklee skied a strong first leg, putting the team in fifth at the first exchange, 23.8 seconds out of first. She used two spares to clean prone and hit every target in standing (0+2, 0+0).
Susan Dunklee (center, in all blue) leading out for the U.S team in the first leg of mixed relay at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. She handed off in fifth and the team ultimately finished 15th. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
“I definitely felt better today than I did in the individual,” Dunklee said, referring to the 15 k race where she placed 19th. “I was closing on the lead group for the first kilometer or so and then by the top of the big hill, I kind of ran out of steam a little bit and was just trying to get into the finish.”
After being tagged in fifth, right behind the Czech Republic* in fourth, Joanne Reid hung in contention in sixth after cleaning prone without any spares. But in standing, she missed all five targets and used all three spares, ultimately having to ski three penalty laps. She went on to tag Tim Burke in 18th, 3:10 minutes back.
“It went poorly,” Ransom said after. “… The best I could do was just try and stick on and hand over with something they could work with, and that didn’t really work out for me today.”
“I guess the strategy was once I got tagged try to make some time, try to get in contact with at least one other team so that Lowell could have someone to chase,” Burke said.
Tim Burke racing the third leg of the U.S. mixed relay at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. After being tagged in 18th, he moved the team into 16th and they ultimately finished 15th. (Photo: FlyignPointRoad)
Burke in fact caught two other teams, shooting without a miss in prone and using three spares to clean standing (0+0, 0+3), and tagging teammate Lowell Bailey in 16th (+3:24.4).
The U.S. anchor leg, Bailey used one spare in prone and none in standing (0+1, 0+0). He skied the seventh-fastest anchor leg and finished the race in 15th (+3:31.1) out of 20 teams.
“We actually had decent performances, it was really just one bad stage,” Bailey said. “Joanne had a good race otherwise and Susan had a great start, Tim had a solid race, I feel good about my race, so unfortunately, it’s eight stages not seven, but I think everyone gave everything they had and that’s the way biathlon goes. Some days go your way and some days don’t.”
Olympic biathlon racing continues Thursday with the women’s 4 x 6 k relay.
*Note: After her race, Dunklee told reporters about her collision with the Czech Republic’s Veronika Vítková as the two first-leg skiers came through the exchange with several others. The crash broke Vítková’s rifle right after she tagged off in fourth, just ahead of Dunklee.
“I feel really bad,” Dunklee said. “I tangled with [Vítková] in the tag-off zone and she tripped and broke her rifle and that just puts a real damper on everything. So that’s sad. … It doesn’t affect her race today, but it certainly affects her races going forward. Stocks are highly customized pieces of equipment and you can spend months tinkering with them to get them to fit you just right, so it’s not easy to fix them when they break.”
The Czech team went on to finish eighth (+1:39.3).
Gold medalist Laura Dahlmeier of Germany celebrates waiving a national flag as she crosses the line first in the women’s 10-kilometer pursuit at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
It was almost another start-to-finish victory at the Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang for the current golden girl of biathlon, Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier. But it came with a painful price to pay.
After starting the women’s 10-kilometer pursuit on Monday evening local time in freezing temperatures and with a 24-second lead following her sprint victory, Dahlmeier began the race intensely focused, again cleaning the first prone stage.
But this time she was not uncontested.
After starting in 13th position and almost a minute back to begin the pursuit, Slovakia’s Anastasiya Kuzmina, who’s currently second in the World Cup Total Score standings, caught up to Dahlmeier after both had incurred one penalty in the second prone shooting and avoided more by performing multiple adjustments on their rifle sights to deal with gusts of wind.
After closing a nine-second gap, Kuzmina passed her rival on the next loop. But Dahlmeier did not seem to mind someone else helping her to set the pace in once again difficult conditions on the course and range (the race jury reportedly debated a potential postponement), and tucked behind Kuzmina to wait for her next chance in the standing shooting. There Dahlmeier cleaned again, leaving the range with a 38-second lead after Kuzmina had to twice ski through the penalty lap, but still retained second place as the closest pursuer.
“On the third loop we raced together, and on the uphill part Anastasiya was really strong and I just wanted to follow her and we had a good speed together,” Dahlmeier later recounted at the post-race press conference. “And at the shooting range, I felt really comfortable. I know about my good standing shooting, and I just looked to my targets and wanted to hit the middle and it worked … During the last years I could improve my shooting in wind situations, but I didn’t especially train wind situations [for PyeongChang].”
“Laura is a very hard opponent to beat,” Kuzmina said at the press conference, via a translator. “She is able to fully focus on the shooting and she is able to shoot very good also in the strong wind, so you can fight with her on the skis of course, but you need to shoot very good to beat her.”
In her final shooting stage, Dahlmeier again cleaned all targets and left the range with a 55-second lead on Kuzmina, with France’s Anaïs Bescond right behind the Slovakian.
“If I would already think that I might miss a target when approaching the range for the fourth time, I believe that would be the wrong mindset. I just tried to concentrate on myself, on my own targets,” Dahlmeier told German broadcaster ZDF when questioned about the final shooting, when she probably could have afforded to compensate for one penalty lap. “I have proven often enough that I can hit [when it matters], in training we simulate that every day. And I just firmly believed that it will work out again today. And it did, so I am very grateful for that.”
With such a comfortable lead, nobody could challenge her anymore on the final loop. On the finishing stretch Dahlmeier had enough time to reach for a German flag handed to her from the stands, before crossing the line in a time of 30:35.3 minutes, with one penalty (0+1+0+0).
Anastasiya Kuzmina of Slovakia celebrates after crossing the finish line in second place in the women’s 10-kilometer pursuit at the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: IBU/ Biathlonworld)
Fighting for the positions on the podium behind her, Kuzmina crossed the line 29.4 seconds back to claim the silver medal, winning the finishing sprint against Bescond, who had to settle for bronze (+29.6).
Bescond moved up from a 19th starting position largely thanks to her 19-for-20 shooting with just one penalty lap (0+0+1+0), though she also skied the fifth-best overall course time, while Kuzmina overcame four misses (0+1+2+1) with the fastest course time of the day, just as she had done in the sprint.
Almost another minute back, fourth place went to sprint silver medalist Marte Olsbu of Norway (+1:07.3, four penalties), fifth to Hanna Öberg of Sweden (+1:08.9, three penalties), and sixth to Dahlmeier’s teammate Denise Herrmann (+1:19.4, two penalties), who improved from starting in 21st position. Sprint bronze medalist Veronika Vitková of the Czech Republic fell back to seventh (+1:37.3, three penalties).
Going to the stands a few minutes after reaching the finish, Kuzmina hugged her friends and relatives, including her husband and a teary eyed woman (presumably her mother) who was wearing a sports jacket embroidered with Russian emblems. Herself a mother of two, Kuzmina is the older sister of Russian star biathlete Anton Shipulin, who was not invited by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to compete as part of the neutral Olympic Athletes from Russia team in PyeongChang. An appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) was denied just hours before the Opening Ceremony. Kuzmina has been racing for Slovakia since 2008, only competing for Russia at two Junior World Championships and never at senior-level championships.
“I am missing my brother. I hoped to the last moment that he will be able to compete here,” Kuzmina said about the topic when asked about it in the press conference, via a translator. “I don’t want to talk a lot about this issue. I am really sorry about what happened and that my brother is not here. I am here to fight for medals for my entire family. I won the one medal, and I want to win another medal for my brother.”
Kuzmina, 33, is an Olympic gold medalist in the sprint and silver medalist in the pursuit at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, and sprint gold medalist from 2014 in Sochi, Russia.
“This is a very special feeling to have the third medal from the third Olympics in a row,” Kuzmina explained. “Almost everybody who talked to me was [expecting] that I could win the sprint here, because I won the sprint in Vancouver and Sochi as well. That didn’t happen, but I am very glad that I managed to defend the silver medal in this event like in Vancouver eight years ago.”
For the 30-year-old Bescond it was her first medal at Olympic Winter Games, after she narrowly missed out four years ago in Sochi with two fifth places in the sprint and individual.
At 2016 World Championships she had taken silver in the 15 k individual in Oslo, Norway, and she’s also earned six medals with French relay teams. But last season was a down year where she started just one race at 2017 World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria, and finished outside the top 50 before she rebounded with a third place in the pursuit at the World Cup test event last year in PyeongChang.
“Of course it was never granted that I make the podium,” Bescond said in the press conference, via a translation. “It was very difficult for me not being able to do the World Championships [in Hochfilzen]. This year I really wanted to perform very well, and the Olympic Games is the best thing you could think of, the Holy Grail. So I did think about last year this time, and I was very happy to have a very good race.”
“Laura really dominates our sport, but there a lot of good athletes out there,” Bescond stated when asked how her opponent could be beaten at these Olympics. “They are strong, they got lots of qualities, what you need to do is be faster on the skis and shoot better and faster, that’s it.”
Sounds easy enough.
But if her opponents couldn’t quite yet do it in the pursuit on Monday, the weather conditions and all the increased attention on Dahlmeier, who usually guards her private life closely, pushed her to her limits.
“I am extremely happy that everything worked out so well again today,” Dahlmeier told German broadcaster ZDF right after the race. “I tried to be fully focused on the shootings, on the course I didn’t feel quite as relaxed. On the one hand the conditions were very demanding, and the past two days have taken a toll on me with a lot of media appointments, a lot of additional stuff. At the moment I am feeling quite well, but of course it is cold and when the fingers thaw up, maybe some viewers know it, that hurts quite a bit.”
Soon after, Dahlmeier was no longer in the mood to celebrate, as she had fully exhausted herself for the victory. And her frozen fingers exposed to the cold in thin race gloves now seemingly really hurt, even though in the press conference before she had claimed that “I always spend a lot of time in the mountains and there it’s normal to have wind and cold temperatures, so perhaps I am a little bit used to it.”
“Primarily it was the cold. She is in extreme pain,” Stefan Schwarzbach, a manager and speaker for the German Ski Federation, later told ZDF after she had to cancel a planned studio appearance. “So when [her hands] thawed up she really had tears in her eyes, it was painful to watch. After the doping control she put herself to rest, she is just completely finished.”
At last year’s World Championships in Hochfilzen, where she won five medals, she physically collapsed after two races to the point that the German team doctor did not want her to start the mass start. In the end her stubbornness prevailed, and she also won that race overtaking American Susan Dunklee on the final lap.
“We already know that from last year, we just have to be careful with the sum of the exertions in competition,” Schwarzbach said. “And I believe the spectators will be accepting if she reduces the media work a little bit, and then hopefully can stand at the start line for the individual with full strength. … She will be all right, but we will reduce her program to what is necessary, even if it would have been nice to celebrate the second gold medal.”
North Americans Moving On Up
Canada’s Rosanna Crawford finished 19th in the pursuit as the best North American, moving up from 53rd at the start, based on her sprint result, to finish 19th (+2:27.7) for her best individual result at her third Olympics.
Canada’s Rosanna Crawford (22) during the women’s 7.5 k sprint on Saturday, Feb. 10 at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. She finished 53rd then went on to place 19th in the pursuit on Monday. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
On the range, Crawford managed to cope well with the windy conditions, shooting 18-for-20 with one miss in each of her standing stages (0+0+1+1). In an interview with FasterSkier after, she said she would have liked to avoid one mistake she made in the final shooting.
“[The wind] seems to have been more consistent,” Crawford said. “My zeroing went really well, I had my sights, I knew exactly where they were and what corrections I would need to make. So prone I was really confident. … In my last standing I didn’t mean to pull the trigger on my first shot, so that was a bit of a disappointment.”
She enjoyed her race despite the harsh weather and demanding tracks, skiing the 19th-ranked overall course time.
“For sure I love the 2k [pursuit loop] here,” Crawford said. “I [also] was 19th with 18-for-20 last year at the World Cup here. Yeah, the 2 k is so much fun. You just have to grit your teeth up that hill and then just rip along the top and back down to the range, and I love it so much. My skis were amazing. Our techs did such a good job. So I just had some fun out there today.”
Asked how she got into a better mindset following the sprint, Crawford said she called her older sister, a 2006 Olympic gold medalist in cross-country skiing.
“I had some really good chats with my sister Chandra,” Crawford said. “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.”
Julia Ransom (Biathlon Canada) during the women’s 7.5 k sprint at her Olympic debut in PyeongChang, South Korea. She finished 40th then went on to place 28th in the pursuit on Monday. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
Teammate Julia Ransom also improved from her sprint position, moving up by 12 places to finish in 28th place (+3:03.0) with one miss in her last standing stage. She was one of just six women on Monday who shot 19-for-20, with no one shooting clean.
“I had some really solid shooting today hitting my first 15, missing my 18th or 17th shot,” Ransom recounted after the race. “I am a confident shooter in the wind, I know corrections fairly well, and I think you just have to make good shots and that’s all you can hope for”
On the course she skied the 44th-best course time after a faster first loop.
“My legs were not feeling as good as I was hoping they’d be, so I was really happy to keep it together in the range and just slowly work my way up and ski with the other girls,” Ransom concluded.
American Emily Dreissigacker racing to 47th in the women’s 10 k pursuit at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: Ross Burton/US Biathlon)
Emily Dreissigacker, the lone American to qualify for the women’s pursuit, improved by four positions after starting in 51st to finish 47th (+5:01.4) with four penalties (0+1+1+2).
That was another improvement on her personal best at the World Cup-level, which she achieved in Saturday’s sprint. Before these Olympics, Dreissigacker’s best result on the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup had been 56th place in a pursuit in Antholz, Italy, last month.
On the course she recorded the 54th course time, steadily holding her position on the three loops between the shooting stages.
“I think the skiing felt a little better than the sprint two days ago,” Dreissigacker said after. “Getting to ski with people is always really fun, and my skis were amazingly fast.”
Just like Crawford, she also preferred the loop the pursuit was raced on over other courses in PyeongChang.
“I really like the 2 k course,” Dreissigacker said. “You climb up and then you come back down, which is something that I really like. I think mentally especially, I’m like ‘All right, gotta get to the top of this hill and then I have time to recover,’ which is nice.”
“I really just like to try to keep things simple,” she said of her shooting performance and approach to the wind-exposed range. “Just relax, if the wind comes up just wait for it to pass or if it’s not going to pass take some clicks. I really think the simpler you can keep it the better.”
“The wind can be a little tricky,” she told US Biathlon, according to a press release. “In my first standing stage, actually, I had to wait out a pretty big gust of wind. All the people around me were waiting, too, and we’re all just standing there waiting for it to die. That’s kind of just how it is. You have to be able to deal with that … be able to wait and not freak out.”
Canada’s Emma Lunder finished 53rd (+6:16.8) after starting 54th then shooting four penalties (0+1+1+2).
“It was not great,” Lunder reflected. “Started out with shooting OK, unfortunately missed two in my last standing and just did not have it in the legs today, so the skiing was a big struggle.”
While not completely satisfied with her race performance, the 26-year-old Lunder said she was making the most out of her first Olympic experience.
“The whole time I was just trying to remind myself, I am at the Olympics, racing my first Olympics. It’s such a cool atmosphere, so even if the race isn’t going as well as I would like I am still pretty happy to be here,” Lunder explained. “The racing doesn’t feel different from a World Cup. It’s being at the Athlete’s Village with athletes from every sport all over the world, the best in the world, that’s been pretty special. I have [met] quite a few people who I never thought I would meet, so I have just been trying to take it all in and also try to perform as well as I can.”
Asked how she is dealing with the cold conditions and prepares for her upcoming races, Lunder added, “I would say a lot of it is energy management. When it’s this cold out I find I am a lot more tired, burning more calories just from shivering. So we have a therapist here with us. I will see her for some treatment, just take a bit of time to lay in bed and watch some movies, do whatever I can to rest up a little bit.”
The fourth Canadian, Megan Tandy, did not start,as she’s working to kick a cold in time for the next race on Wednesday.
“Disappointing news, but it is for the best,” Tandy wrote in an Instagram post before the race. “I have decided not to start the 10km Pursuit tonight in order to get healthy for our upcoming Individual Race. I will be cheering on my girls from bed, I know they can rock this stadium tonight.”
Estonia’s Johanna Talihärm, who skis collegiately for Montana State University and last year split her training time between Bozeman, Montana, and Estonia, finished 26th (+2:59.4) with another strong performance after a career-best 22nd place in the sprint. She incurred four penalties (0+1+2+1), and skied the 27th-ranked course time.
The biathlon competitions in PyeongChang continue on Wednesday with the women’s 15-kilometer individual and Thursday with the men’s 20-kilometer individual race.
Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier racing to her first Olympic gold (and first Olympic medal) on Saturday in the women’s 7.5 k sprint, the first biathlon race of the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
(Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Canada’s Julia Ransom.)
“Perfectionist” is a term the coaches of Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier often use to describe her.
On Saturday, this quality helped Dahlmeier to brave difficult wind conditions on her way to winning the gold medal in the women’s 7.5-kilometer sprint that opened the biathlon competitions at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, ahead of Norway’s Marte Olsbu in second and the Czech Republic’s Veronika Vítková in third place.
“A childhood dream is coming true,” Dahlmeier told German broadcaster ZDF after the race, according to a translation. “I have always imagined this, that some day I would stand at the very top at the Olympics, that I could win a gold medal. And somehow exactly that happened to work out today. I am incredibly grateful and proud. It’s an amazing feeling, and I don’t think I have fully realized it yet.”
On the shooting range, Dahlmeier twice adjusted her rifle’s sights in the prone stage to successfully cope with changing winds. Coming into the standing stage, she hit three targets in rhythm, then waited for what seemed like excruciating seconds for a gust to pass, before triggering her fourth and fifth shots. Both targets flipped over to white.
She had taken so long that she only recorded the 76th-ranked shooting time in this stage in the field of 87 athletes, 22 seconds off the pace and almost as long as the time it takes to ski a penalty lap. But that she had hit all shots mattered the most. Only two other athletes managed to clean all 10 targets on Saturday.
Dahlmeier followed that up by skiing the fastest course time on the final loop, and fourth-best overall. She crossed the finish line in a time of 21:06.2 minutes, lunging to not squander even a tenth of a second more, before pounding her chest and raising her arms in jubilation, knowing the time she had set would be hard to beat. Indeed her mark could not be improved again by any athlete starting later.
“I believe if you want to win a race like this one, that doesn’t happen by chance,” Dahlmeier told ZDF. “A lot goes into that. It’s true, I really had to work for it in the race today. But also the team around me, what they had to work during the last days, weeks, months, years, that is embodied by today’s result. It’s just beautiful that I was allowed to fulfill that dream today.”
Olsbu claimed the silver medal, 24.2 seconds back with one penalty in her prone shooting stage and just 1.6 seconds ahead of Vítková on the bronze podium spot, who had missed one target in the standing stage.
France’s Marie Dorin Habert placed fourth (+33.1) with one penalty in prone, while Dahlmeier’s teammate Vanessa Hinz was fifth (+40.3), losing out on a potential medal when she missed the last shot of her competition. Several other favorites struggled with the wind conditions and incurred a number of penalties.
For the two runner-ups, winning a medal at the Olympics was also a dream come true.
“Of course I am happy, it was my best race ever,” first-time Olympian Olsbu, 27, said when asked in the press conference if she was satisfied with the silver medal. “It was difficult on the shooting range today because it was so windy, but I just stuck to my plan. And I was so happy when I crossed the finish line. … That was a dream from when I started in biathlon. Of course [compatriot] Ole Einar Bjørndalen was my hero when I was a child, and I was hoping that one day I will do the same. I don’t know what to say, it is just amazing and today I am sitting here with an Olympic medal.”
“Yeah, it was my dream too, like for Marte, and I am happy that my dream is here,” Vítková, 29, said of her first individual Olympic medal in her third Winter Games.
Starting early in bib 12, Vítková initially appeared dissatisfied when she crossed the finish line and saw that she had not managed to beat Olsbu’s time, after the Norwegian had finished the race just one bib ahead. The Czech feared more athletes would finish ahead of her and still push her several positions down, but aside from Dahlmeier starting in bib 23, no one managed to do that.
So at the “flower ceremony” in the arena, where the podium finishers each received a stuffed animal as their prize (a snow-white tiger called Soohorang that is the official mascot of the 2018 Winter Olympics), Vítková was beaming just like her two peers. The Olympic medals will be awarded in an separate ceremony later.
“I am very happy, because this medal is my first ‘big’ medal in an individual race,” Vítková explained at the press conference. “I had a [silver] medal from the Olympic Games in Sochi, but it was a mixed relay medal. And now I have MY medal!”
Last season, Dahlmeier set a record by winning five events at a single International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Championships, taking gold in every race but the sprint (where she placed second) in Hochfilzen, Austria. But winning the gold medal in PyeongChang was indeed the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. As an elementary school student, Dahlmeier reportedly had written two career goals into a class book: Olympic champion in biathlon and becoming the manager of an Alpine Club hut, since mountaineering continues to be her other big passion. One down, one to go.
“Today was a victory Laura had to work very hard for, that wasn’t automatic,” German women’s national team coach Gerald Hönig told ZDF, according to a translation. “My highest respect for how she withstood the conditions today. How she repeatedly had to make the right decisions by herself on the course and on the range in order to be successful. She did that great, and she is outshining a great overall team result.”
In 2014 at her first Olympics in Sochi, Russia, the biathlon competitions for Dahlmeier, who was 20 at the time, and the rest of the German women’s team had started off as disappointing with no individual medals, and then descended into turmoil when on the eve of the women’s relay, the doping case of Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle due to a tainted food supplement came to light (her suspension later was reduced to six months) and the team again failed to reach the podium.
“For our team this medal is particularly important,” Hönig said. “We still have the defeats of Sochi somewhere in the back of our minds. Well, I particularly do, so for me this is a gigantic moment. I believe having a medal in the very first race here makes the tasks that lie ahead much easier … It’s the prerogative of young athletes like Laura to chalk that off faster, but I have repeatedly thought about these days in Sochi … Laura showed coolness today, but also executed everything she had worked for in training.”
Dahlmeier, now 24, became the second German athlete to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics in the women’s sprint, after Kati Wilhelm claimed the title at the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Mixed Day for North American Starters
Canada’s Julia Ransom was the best North American in the sprint, finishing in 40th place (+2:08.8) after she shot fast and accurately, incurring just one penalty in her standing stage.
Julia Ransom (Biathlon Canada) racing to 40th in the women’s 7.5 k sprint at her Olympic debut in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
On the course she skied the 68th-ranked time of the day, consistently losing about 45 seconds on each loop to the blazing pace set by Slovakia’s defending Olympic sprint champion and current World Cup Sprint standings leader Anastasiya Kuzmina, who ended up 13th place with three penalties (2+1).
For Ransom it was her first start in an Olympic race, building on three appearances at Biathlon World Championships.
“It was amazing to start the race today,” Ransom wrote in an email to FasterSkier. “Some of my family were in the stands and the others had woken up early in Canada to catch it. Definitely feeling the love!”
She described the conditions as “windy with some extremely strong gusts,” Ransom wrote. “I noticed it more out on course than in the range. I was quite happy with my shooting today, but unfortunately my legs were just cooked (for whatever reason)! However, I think this was a good leg blowout, and after some rest, I’ll be ready for the pursuit!”
All four Canadian women that contested Saturday’s sprint finished in the top 60 to qualify for Monday’s pursuit, with Rosanna Crawford next in line in 53rd (+2:23.0) after shooting three penalties (1+2).
Canada’s Rosanna Crawford (22) racing to 53rd in the women’s 7.5 k sprint on Saturday at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
“It was really tough,” Crawford told FasterSkier in the mixed zone after the race when asked about the conditions. “The wind made it hard for shooting and on the course, all of a sudden these gusts would come and blow your poles right out from underneath you. In prone, I made a correction and missed my first shot which shouldn’t have happened, and in standing I overheld [the rifle] for my second miss so I’m pretty disappointed.”
Starting fairly early in bib 22, the race was still going on at the time of her interview, so Crawford feared she might miss the cutoff for the pursuit. At least that did not happen.
“The sprint sets you up for the rest of the week, for two weeks, so I’m pretty bummed,” she continued. “I’m still looking forward to the relays, so that’s definitely positive. It’s just so unfortunate that the sprint dictates the other individual races, other than the 15-kilometer [individual race]. Hopefully I’ll qualify for the pursuit and can go out there and fight again. I love the 2 k course here, so I’m really looking forward to it.”
In her third Olympics, Crawford skied the 44th-ranked course time of the day.
Canada’s Emma Lunder racing to 54th in her Olympic debut on Saturday in the women’s 7.5 k sprint in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
Just behind her, Emma Lunder in her Olympic debut placed 54th (+2:24.2) with two misses in the standing stage (0+2). Her course time ranked 65th.
Megan Tandy, in her third Olympics, finished 57th (+2:36.6) with a penalty in each stage (1+1). She skied the 69th-ranked course time.
“Although I am somewhat disappointed with today’s result (57th with 2 misses and heavy legs) I am thinking positive,” Tandy wrote on Instagram on Saturday. “8 years ago I was the only woman to qualify for the pursuit, this Olympics all 4 of us will be putting up a fight.”
(Note: FS missed interviewing Ransom, Lunder and Tandy in the mixed zone, and with the race in the evening local time they could not be reached for comments at press time.)
In her first Olympic race and on her first year with the senior women’s team, Team USA’s Emily Dreissigacker was the top American 51st place (+2:21.0) after shooting 9-for-10.
American Emily Dreissigacker racing to 51st in the women’s 7..5 k sprint on Saturday at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. It was her career-best result at the World Cup level. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
“I did I shot zero plus one [0+1], so I’m pretty happy with that,” Dreissigacker told FasterSkier after the race. “The wind was a little tricky out there. I was just trying to stay calm and think about what I could control…. Happy to make the pursuit!
“It was kind of gusty and changing a lot,” she commented on the conditions. “Like on prone, I got a little lucky, the wind was pretty much what I had zeroed in [target practice], which was still pretty windy, but at least was consistent. Then in standing, I mean, it definitely wasn’t terrible, but I could feel the wind pushing my barrel around a little bit.”
Dreissigacker’s course time ranked 74th overall and she slipped 10 places on the final loop.
“I definitely died a little bit on the last lap,” she said. “I think the hills are hard. … You’re not really recovering [anywhere] before you climb back up to come back down into the stadium.”
Previously Dreissigacker’s best result on the IBU World Cup in a sprint had been a 59th place at last month’s race in Antholz, Italy, followed by a 56th place in the pursuit.
For the rest of the US Biathlon women, things did not work out as well as they had hoped on Saturday.
Clare Egan (US Biathlon) racing to 61st in the women’s 7.5 k sprint at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
Also starting in her first Olympic race, Clare Egan just missed the cutoff for the pursuit race in 61st place (+2:45.4) with three penalties (1+2), only two seconds behind Emilia Yordanova of Bulgaria.
“Honestly as I was warming today it felt like I was warming up today for any other race, which I think is a good thing,” Egan told FasterSkier after. “I knew I was ready to go today and I was excited to do what I’ve been training to do and become an Olympian.”
But then her race began with a mishap on the course.
“I fell on the first loop at the bottom of the big hill, which is kind of a nightmare. I haven’t fallen in a couple years probably, but I don’t know, it just happened,” Egan said. “Weird things happen in big races I guess, but besides that I am really pleased with my skiing considering I was really sick in our pre-Olympic training camp.”
Skiing only the 71st course time on the first loop due to the fall, her pace improved from there, capped by the 30th-ranked time on the final loop (57th overall).
“I’m really happy with the prone,” she said of her shooting performance. “It was really tricky shooting today, windy, missed one but I am very satisfied with that. Standing I started out really solid, had three good hits and felt good about what I was doing and then I misfired actually. My bullet didn’t eject and I wish I had refocused better after that. I had to kind of pick the bullet out and I didn’t reset adequately. So then I missed my last two shots and I am not happy about that, but it was sort of a mediocre race overall.”
Team veteran Susan Dunklee incurred an uncharacteristic five penalties (1+4) to finish in 66th position (+3:06.9).
Starting early in the race in bib 6, she could be seen on the broadcast making a wind adaptation in the prone stage after missing her fourth shot, then went on to hit the last one having to ski once around the 150-meter penalty lap.
She came back on the course with what would later be the 28th-ranked split time, but in the standing stage, things then turned south and with four additional penalty laps, she could not make up the deficit.
“I’ve had better days,” the 2017 World Championships silver medalist told FasterSkier after the race. “I missed five shots. You can’t be anywhere close to where you need to be with 50-percent shooting. It’s very frustrating. You work for four years and you have big dreams, you see what’s possible, and it all comes down to one of these races like this and the sprint is so important for the rest of the races here. You really have to have a good sprint to qualify for the pursuit, to qualify for the mass start, so I’m really bummed about that, that’s for sure.”
Unlike her teammates, Dunklee skipped Friday’s Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics while “fighting off a small cold,” according to a US Biathlon Instagram post.
She skied the 42nd course time of the day and didn’t want to blame her misses all on the weather conditions.
“The conditions are actually really nice,” she said. “It’s a little bit cold but not so cold as it was when we first got here. You can feel your fingers, which is really nice. Seems like it’s fair. You’ve got really hard-packed good tracks.
“I think I’m going to have to figure out how to allow myself to be disappointed for another hour or so, get it out of the system a little bit and then put it behind me and move on,” Dunklee concluded.
Joanne Reid (US Biathlon) racing to 86th in the women’s 7.5 k sprint at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
Also in her first Olympic race, the fourth U.S. starter Joanne Reid finished 86th (+5:12.6) with seven penalties (4+3), though she explained it wasn’t due to any race jitters already having competed in front of far bigger crowds on the World Cup before.
“I try and approach every race the same,” Reid told FasterSkier. “Same warm up. Same mentality. Just go out there and hope you hit your targets which didn’t really work out for me today.”
She skied the 67th-ranked race time of the day overall.
“It’s much worse on the cross-country side,” she said of the biathlon course and range conditions. “Everything is real open [to wind] over there. We have only the stadium area and the range [that] gets all the wind, but on the backside it’s pretty good, it’s sheltered. It’s actually really fun, it’s really ripping, it’s up and down with some swoopy corners.”
Reid explained that for her standing shooting she had planned to use the wind cover from a hill on the far left side of the range, as many athletes like Dahlmeier had also done, but that was not possible when she came in to her shooting stage as all those lane positions were occupied.
“Definitely in standing the farther lanes have less wind and when I came there was no farther lane,” Reid said. “It was 30, 29, 28, 27, 26 were all full and then big gusts coming in and that was pretty brutal. Then the longer you stand the more your muscles shake, so you know, that’s life.”
Career Best for Johanna Talihärm
Unlike for most of the North Americans except Dreissigacker, for Estonia’s Johanna Talihärm it was a career-best race in her second Olympics, finishing 22nd (+1:20.8) with one penalty (0+1).
The resident of Bozeman, Montana, is well known on the U.S. collegiate cross-country skiing circuit as a Montana State University junior and a second-team All-American at last year’s NCAA Skiing Championships.
This January leading up to the Olympics, she competed in cross-country races at the U.S. Cross Country Championships in Anchorage, Alaska, and in West Yellowstone, Montana.
Her previous best result on the IBU World Cup was a 29th place in a pursuit race in Hochfilzen earlier this season.
In the PyeongChang women’s sprint, she was the lone racers for Estonia. In Sochi, she finished 48th in the sprint for her best individual result and placed 16th in the women’s relay.
The biathlon competitions in PyeongChang continue on Sunday with the the men’s 10-kilometer sprint, followed by the women’s and men’s pursuit on Monday.
The start of the women’s 15 k skiathlon on Saturday, Day 1 of the 2018 Winter Olympics, with (front row, from left to right) Austria’s Teresa Stadlober, Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg, Norway’s Heidi Weng, American Jessie Diggins, and Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla leading out of the stadium in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
The 2018 Winter Games kicked off Saturday with the women’s 15-kilometer skiathlon, which saw Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla take her second-career individual Olympic gold (third including relays) and first individual gold in eight years. Not far behind her, American Jessie Diggins achieved the best Olympic result for an American woman in cross-country skiing.
After Kalla established herself as a leader early in the opening 7.5 k classic leg, the Swede spent much of the race working with her teammate Ebba Andersson to counter any type of attack from the Norwegians, specifically Marit Bjørgen.
On rock-solid classic conditions in PyeongChang, Bjørgen led the second half of the classic leg up until the ski exchange, where she entered the “pit stop” first, just ahead of Kalla in second. Norway’s Heidi Weng was in third at the time and swapped into her skate gear fastest, leaving the exchange about 28 seconds later in first. Her Norwegian teammate Ingvild Flugstad Østberg followed her in second and Bjørgen emerged in third, just ahead of Kalla in fourth.
Meanwhile, Diggins skied consistently in the top 10 and within about four seconds of the lead throughout the classic leg, entering the exchange in 13th and leaving in ninth, 5.4 seconds after Weng.
While Kalla took the lead early in that first skate lap, Switzerland’s Nathalie von Siebenthal made a move into first on a climb just before 9.75 k, while Bjørgen kept her close. Andersson continued to keep herself in the mix, skiing in third, just ahead of Kalla in fourth and Finland’s Krista Pärmäkoski in fifth. Diggins slotted behind two Norwegians, Østberg and Weng, while Austria’s Teresa Stadlober followed. At 9.75 k, 11 women were within 6 seconds of first.
Bjørgen reclaimed the lead shortly thereafter, but Kalla made her game-changing move on a climb about 34 minutes into the race, just before the 12.5 k checkpoint. There, the Swede had begun to gap the pack and was 5.5 seconds ahead of Bjørgen in second. Andersson remained in third, 5.9 seconds back, just ahead of von Siebenthal, Pärmäkoski, and Stadlober. Diggins in seventh pushed to keep herself in the chase group and was able to with about 2.5 to go.
One kilometer later, Kalla was nearly 10 seconds clear of Bjørgen, as well as Andersson and Pärmäkoski. The Finn moved ahead of Andersson on one of the last climbs to put herself in third as they headed down and back toward the stadium.
Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla celebrates her victory in the women’s 15 k skiathlon on Saturday at the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, and her first individual Olympic gold medal in eight years. She beat Norway’s Marit Bjørgen (behind) by nearly eight seconds. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
All alone, Kalla skied to the win in 40:44.9 minutes, what Bjørgen distanced herself from third place and claimed second, 7.8 seconds later. Pärmäkoski took the bronze medal in third (+10.1), less than a second ahead of Andersson in fourth (+10.9). Kalla’s previous Olympic gold medals came individually in the 10 k freestyle at the 2010 Games in Whistler, British Columbia, and with her team in 2014 in the women’s 4 x 5 k relay in Sochi, Russia.
Diggins finished fifth (+14.7) for a new all-time best for a female American cross-country skier at the Olympics (after Sophie Caldwell placed sixth in the sprint at the 2014 Games), about three seconds ahead of von Siebenthal in sixth (+17.6). Stadlober placed seventh (+26.6), Russia’s Natalia Nepryaeva was eighth (+33.0), Weng was ninth (+40.7), Sweden’s Stina Nilsson 10th (+48.9), and Østberg 11th (+58.3).
In her first Olympics, Canada’s Cendrine Browne (Canadian U25 Team) led her team in 33rd (+3:17.0), ahead of American Caitlin Patterson (also in her first Olympics) in 34th (+3:30.0).
U.S. Ski Team member Kikkan Randall placed 40th (+4:02.3), Canadian World Cup Team member Emily Nishikawa finished 44th (
+4:31.7), Canada’s Anne-Marie Comeau was 48th (+4:57.9), Australia’s Jessica Yeaton (who trains with Alaska Pacific University) was 50th (+4:59.9), Canada’s Dahria Beatty 52nd (+5:32.4), and American Rosie Brennan 58th (+6:51.1).
The men’s 30 k skiathlon is the next cross-country event on the schedule in PyeongChang, set for Sunday at 1:15 a.m. Eastern Standard Time.
Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier racing to her first Olympic gold (and first Olympic medal) on Saturday in the women’s 7.5 k sprint, the first biathlon race of the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
2018 Winter Olympics (PyeongChang, South Korea): Biathlon women’s 7.5 k sprint
While most others struggled on the range in the first biathlon race of the 2018 Olympics, Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier held steady and shot clean, then posted the winning time in the women’s 7.5 k sprint on a windy Saturday evening in PyeongChang.
The 23rd starter (out of 87 finishers), Dahlmeier had to wait a long time for her gold medal to be confirmed, but she had done it, winning with a time of 21:06.2 minutes for her first Olympic medal. She has seven gold medals from World Championships but this was her first at her second Olympics. And on Saturday, she was one of just two women in the top 20 to hit all 10 targets in the two-stage race. Russia’s Tatiana Akimova was the other and she finished 20th.
The 24-year-old Dahlmeier bested the time of Norway’s Marte Olsbu, who started 11th and had a single miss in prone (1+0), by 24.2 seconds. Olsbu’s time was good enough for second, just ahead of the Czech Republic’s Veronika Vítková, who started right behind her in bib 12, in third place (+25.8). Vítková also had to ski one penalty lap after a standing miss (0+1). For Olsbu, 27, this is her first Olympics. For Vítková, 29, it was her first individual medal in three Olympic Games.
France’s Marie Dorin Habert missed the podium by 7.3 seconds in fourth (+33.1), after one prone penalty (1+0). Germany had two in the top five with Vanessa Hinz in fifth (+40.3) with one miss, Italy’s Lisa Vittozzi was sixth (+40.5) with one miss, Sweden’s Hanna Öberg seventh (+40.8) with one miss, Switzerland’s Irene Cadurisch eighth (+45.5) with one miss, Belarus’s Darya Domracheva ninth (+46.2) with two penalties, and France’s Justine Braisaz 10th (+47.9) with two penalties as well.
Julia Ransom (Biathlon Canada) racing to 40th in the women’s 7.5 k sprint at her Olympic debut in PyeongChang, South Korea. (Photo: FlyingPointRoad)
Canada’s Julia Ransom was the top North American in 40th (+2:08.8) with one standing penalty (0+1). Canada had all four women finish in the top 60 (thus qualifying for Monday’s pursuit) with Rosanna Crawford in 53rd (+2:23.0) with three misses (1+2), Emma Lunder in 54th (+2:24.2) with two standing misses (0+2), and Megan Tandy in 57th (+2:36.6) with a penalty in each stage (1+1).
One American finished in the top 60 to qualify for the pursuit: Emily Dreissigacker, in her first Olympics, in 51st (+2:21.0), after shooting 9-for-10 (0+1). Clare Egan just missed the cutoff in 61st (+2:45.4) with three misses (1+2), Susan Dunklee fell out of contention with five misses (1+4) to finish 66th (+3:06.9), and Joanne Reid finished 86th (+5:12.6) with seven penalties (+3:06.9).
Estonia’s Johanna Talihärm, a Montana State University student who lives in Bozeman, finished 22nd (+1:20.8) with one miss (0+1) for her best individual result at her second Olympics.
The men’s 10 k sprint takes place Sunday in PyeongChang at 6:15 a.m. EST.
Norway’s Tiril Eckhoff celebrates her first World Cup win (and first top 20) of the 2017/2018 season on Thursday after winning the IBU World Cup women’s 7.5 k sprint in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
IBU World Cup (Antholz, Italy): Women’s 7.5 k sprint
So far this season, Norway’s Tiril Eckhoff had yet to crack the top 20 outside a relay in the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup. That all changed Thursday when she won the women’s 7.5-kilometer sprint in Antholz, Italy.
She did so by hitting all 10 targets and besting the time of Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier by 12 seconds at the finish.
“I was very nervous for today,” Eckhoff, 27, told German broadcaster ARD in English after the race. “My shooting has been really bad, and I wasn’t qualified for the sprint at the Olympics, and that has been my plan the whole season for the Olympics. So I am very happy to manage to do a good race and a clean shooting today.”
Eckhoff started 71st out of 103 women, then went on to clean prone and standing and ski the second-fastest overall course time in the process. In doing so, she not only topped Dahlmeier, who started ahead of her in bib 22, but also the Czech Republic’s Veronika Vitkova, who started 21st and posted the second-fastest finishing time after Dahlmeier — until Eckhoff crossed the line. Both Dahlmeier and Vitkova also shot clean.
“I only got positive feedback so I was really happy,” Eckhoff said of trying to beat the times of both Dahlmeier and Vitkova. “I was thinking against Dahlmeier I had to ski really really fast. Now I was very happy to manage that.”
Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier racing to second in the women’s 7.5 k sprint at the IBU World Cup in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
While Eckhoff finished in 21:05.3, Dahlmeier placed second (+12.0) and Vitkova ended up third (+20.6).
“I am very happy about my second place,” Dahlmeier told ARD. “That was a really good race today. I tried to shoot well, because in general the tendency in Antholz is to shoot a few too many misses, so I just tried to start out calm on the course and focus on the shooting.”
Asked specifically about Eckhoff, who’s previous best sprint result this season was 50th (and season best was 22nd in a 15 k individual race), Dahlmeier said, “You probably always have to account for a Tiril Eckhoff. She is a bit of a mixed bag on the shooting range, maybe I wouldn’t quite have expected her to twice get through clean, but when she manages to do that she is right at the top. And she proved that again today.”
Darya Domracheva of Belarus skied the fastest overall course time but had one standing penalty (0+1) that kept her from the podium as she finished fourth (+23.0), and France’s Anais Bescond shot clean to place fifth (+26.6).
Russia’s Ekaterina Yurlova-Percht placed a season-best sixth (+39.4) with clean shooting, Italy’s Dorothea Wierer was seventh (+40.0, one penalty), Switzerland’s Elisa Gasparin eighth (+52.6; no penalties), and Germany’s Franziska Hildebrand and Denise Herrmann ninth (+54.2, no penalties) and 10th (+56.2, one penalty), respectively.
US Biathlon started four of the five women on its Olympic team in Antholz, with Susan Dunklee leading all North Americans in 35th (+1:49.5) after a prone miss and another in standing (1+1). Clare Egan finished 56th (+2:17.0) with three penalties (2+1), Emily Dreissigacker shot clean and finished 59th (+2:26.8), thus qualifying for Saturday’s pursuit (which will be her first at the World Cup level) in the sprint top 60. Joanne Reid was the only American to miss the top 60 in 72nd (+2:43.6) with two prone misses (2+0).
Emily Dreissigacker was the last starter in the IBU World Cup women’s 7.5 k sprint on Thursday in Antholz, Italy. She went on to place 59th to qualify for her first World Cup pursuit. (Photo: US Biathlon/NordicFocus)
“I didn’t feel sharp on the skis and I struggled adjusting to the thin air of high altitude,” Dunklee said of the Antholz venue’s elevation around 1,600 meters (or 5,200 feet) above sea level, according to a US Biathlon press release. “I’m grateful to get another opportunity Saturday. I want to make the most of each race start as preparation for Korea. Three women in the pursuit – that’s a big step forward and a great place to see the team heading into the Games.”
“I definitely struggled with the altitude in the skiing, but I was really happy with my shooting and, of course, am very excited to have qualified for my first World Cup pursuit,” Dreissigacker said, according to the release.
“My shooting continues to be extremely disappointing,” Egan said. “But on the bright side I skied fast enough to give myself another chance on Saturday in the pursuit.”
Canada was led by Nadia Moser in 85th (+3:23.4) with two misses (1+1). Sarah Beaudry, who was recently named to Biathlon Canada’s Olympic team, followed in 87th (+3:30.4) with three penalties (2+1), and Megan Bankes finished 90th (+3:46.5) with four misses (1+3).
The Antholz World Cup men’s 10 k sprint takes place Friday at 8:15 a.m. EST.
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.
Slovakia’s Anastasia Kuzmina celebrates her second-straight IBU World Cup win in Oberhof, Germany, on Saturday with a 1:04-minute victory in the women’s 10 k pursuit. It marked her fourth win of the 2017/2018 season. (Photo: IBU/Biathlonworld)
IBU World Cup (Oberhof): Women’s and men’s pursuits
So far in 2018, Slovakia’s Anastasiya Kuzmina is undefeated after winning her second-straight race on Saturday at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Oberhof, Germany — this time by 1:04.4 minutes in the women’s 10-kilometer pursuit.
After winning Thursday’s sprint, Kuzmina started 35 seconds clear of anyone else on Saturday, while Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen headed out of the gate after her in second.
Veronika Vitkova of the Czech Republic started another 5 seconds back in third, and Germany’s Franziska Hildebrand set out in fourth, 47 seconds after Kuzmina.
Three Canadians finished in the top 60 of Thursday’s sprint to qualify for the pursuit, with Julia Ransom heading out ninth (+1:14), Sarah Beaudry starting 23rd (+1:39), and Megan Tandy starting 59th (+2:38).
Throughout the four-stage race, it became more and more evident that no one was going to touch Kuzmina. She cleaned the first prone stage to leave the range 55.8 seconds clear of Hildebrand, who also cleaned to move into second. Makarainen dropped to fourth with a miss and Vitkova left the range in third (+1:08.5) after skiing a penalty lap as well.
On the second prone stage, Kuzmina missed one target, but the penalty lap only cost her about 10 seconds; Hildebrand cleaned to keep herself in second place with three loops remaining.
The first standing stage that followed saw Kuzmina miss another target and Hildebrand clean, yet 34.6 seconds still separated them. Kuzmina finally cleaned the last standing to extender her lead back up to a minute, while Hildebrand missed one to lose sight of the podium, slipping to fifth and 1:22.4 back at the start of the final loop.
Italy’s Dorothea Wierer as the 16th starter steadily worked her way up to podium contention, cleaning all four stages with the third-fastest overall shooting time to put herself in second after the final standing, 1:00.2 behind Kuzmina. Ukraine’s Vita Semerenko raced up from 22nd to third with perfect 20-for-20 shooting as well, leaving the range 11 seconds after Wierer with one loop to go.
On the final loop, Kuzmina skied the 22nd-fastest time on that loop (compared to Wierer’s 28th-fastest last-loop time) to put a few more seconds into Wierer as the eventual runner-up, winning in 30:49.5. On the day, Kuzmina’s overall course time was eighth fastest.
“It was a very interesting race for me today,” Kuzmina told the IBU after. “My shape is very good now but I was worried if I could concentrate on the shooting … After the first shooting, I was relaxed and realized it was OK. I just gave the other girls two chances … I must apologize for my emotion [on the shooting range], but I was so happy and enjoyed the last loop.”
Wierer finished 1:04.4 minutes later for second place, and Semerenko crossed the line in third, 1:10.2 out of first. Poland’s Weronika Nowakowska finished fourth (+1:17.1) after starting sixth, with clean shooting, and Mäkäräinen ended up fifth (+1:23.4) with three penalties (1+0+1+1) and the fourth-fastest overall course time. Belarusian Darya Domracheva followed in sixth (+1:28.8) after starting seventh and shooting 18-for-20 (0+0+1+1), and Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier finished seventh (+1:28.8), up from 13th with one late penalty (0+0+0+1).
South Korea’s Anna Frolina placed eighth (+1:36.0, two penalties) for her best result since December 2012, France’s Justine Braisaz finished ninth (+1:37.0; three penalties), and another French skier Anais Bescond 10th (+1:37.1; one penalty). Hildebrand lost six places on the final loop to end up 11th (+1:38.7; one penalty).
Overall, France’s Celia Aymonier skied the fastest course time of the day to rise from 28th to 15th (+2:08.7; three penalties).
Ransom finished the day in 37th (+3:54.4) with three misses (1+0+0+2). She had been in 16th after her early miss in the first prone stage then hovered around the top 20 as she entered her final standing stage. There, she missed two to drop to 36th and she ultimately lost one more place to Finland’s Mari Laukkanen (who started the loop in 37th and passed Ransom, as well as four others, to finish 32nd).
In her first World Cup pursuit of the season, Tandy improved to 43rd (+4:31.8) with a single miss (0+0+1+0). Overall, her range time was the 18th fastest and shooting time was 23rd fastest.
Beaudry finished 51st (+5:36.6) with three misses (1+2+0+0), recovering one place from skiing in 52nd after the second shooting.
In the men’s 12.5 k pursuit that followed, France’s Martin Fourcade held the lead from start to finish and held off Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø by 6.3 seconds for his second-straight win in Oberhof. Both of the Bø brothers reached the podium with older brother Tarjei Bø placing third, 30.9 seconds back.
Fourcade as starter No. 1 had a single penalty on the first prone to keep himself ahead (1+0+0+0) and finish first in 32:23.6. Johannes Bø had three penalties (1+1+1+0) but still managed to rise from third at the start to second at the finish. Tarjei started fifth and shot clean to reach the podium.
The fourth starter, American Tim Burke had three penalties (0+2+0+1) and ended up 14th (+1:43.7).
Meanwhile, Canada’s Christian Gow rose from 36th to 21st (+2:19.2) to tie his career best (which also came in a pursuit this season) with 19-for-20 shooting (0+0+0+1). Scott Gow finished 50th (+4:45.0; six penalties), and Brendan Green placed 54th (+5:26.1; three penalties).
The Oberhof IBU World Cup concludes Sunday with the men’s and women’s relays. Canada has entered Beaudry, Ransom, Tandy, and Emma Lunder in the women’s 4 x 6 k, and Christian Gow, Scott Gow, Brendan Green, and Carsen Campbell in the men’s 4 x 7.5 k. The U.S. does not have enough athletes at the Oberhof World Cup to field a team in either race.
Alexey Poltoranin (l), Dario Cologna (c), and Alex Harvey (4) charge up the last climb of Saturday’s 15 k mass start in Val di Fiemme, Italy. Poltoranin took the win, with Andrey Larkov (behind Harvey) placing second and Harvey third at Stage 6 of the 2018 Tour de Ski. (Screenshot: ARD broadcast)
After a soggy and windy stay in Oberstdorf, Germany where the Stage 4 sprint was canceled and the Stage 5 freestyle mass stats were a cluster, the Tour de Ski (TdS) got back to a sense of normalcy in Val di Fiemme.
Or did they? After dominating the first part of the men’s 15 k classic mass start and picking up valuable Tour bonus seconds, Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov faded, eventually finishing 14th, 42.8 seconds out of the win.
Instead, Alexey Poltoranin of Kazakhstan made a big push to try to break for it about halfway through the race. Dario Cologna of Switzerland, the Tour de Ski leader coming into the day, followed, as did Canada’s Alex Harvey. The trio had a small gap of a few seconds consistently for several kilometers, before Russia’s Andrey Larkov caught up to them. Behind them, the field continued to fracture into chaos, claiming what would in past years have seemed unlikely victims like Norway’s Martin Johnsrud Sundby.
After much posturing and pushing in the final kilometer, the lead pack of four came shooting into the downhill finish with Poltoranin claiming the win by 0.4 seconds over Larkov. Harvey finished third, +0.9, and Cologna fourth, +2.3. There was a bigger gap before Russia’s Alexander Bolshunov crossed the line in fifth, +15.0.
That means that Poltoranin takes over second place in the Tour, while Ustiugov lost ground.
The only American starter, Paddy Caldwell, finished 48th out of 52 finishers, +3:38.6.
The women’s 10 k classic mass start podium at Stage 6 of the 2018 Tour de Ski on Saturday in Val di Fiemme, Italy, with Norway’s Heidi Weng (c) in first, Finland’s Krista Parmakoski (l) in second and Austria’s Teresa Stadlober in third. (Photo: FIS Cross Country/Twitter)
The women’s race went off as planned: no snafus, only burning lungs and muscles. At the start of Stage 6, Jessie Diggins was ranked third overall in the Tour (+1:56.7). Norway’s Ingvild Flugstad Østberg wore the red bib as the TdS leader, while teammate Heidi Weng was second overall (+57.0).
As Saturday’s race transpired, Weng proved dominant. She won in 29:07.9. Finland’s Krista Parmakoski placed second (+7.6), and Austria’s Teresa Stadlober third (+8.6).
Diggins skied a gutsy race to finish fourth (+23.6). Østberg, who at times looked like she could dominate the pace, faded to fifth (+35.2).
U.S. skiers Sadie Bjornsen finished in 10th place (+1:11.3), Liz Stephen 24th (+2:18), and Rosie Brennan 30th (+2:47.2).
Heading into tomorrow’s final stage, the formidable climb up the Alpe Cermis, Østberg leads the Tour with a tiny 1.8-second gap on Weng. Parmakoski is third overall (+1:33.5), Diggins fourth (+1:43.1), and Bjornsen eighth (+3:33.1).
Slovakia’s double Olympic gold medalist Anastasiya Kuzmina en route to a huge win in her favorite race, the sprint, in Oberhof, Germany, on Thursday. (Photo: IBU biathlonworld)
For athletes who finished 2017 on a high note, the first race of 2018 can be a couple of two things. One is a continuation of the good competitions right like they left off. Another is a downgrade leaving them wondering if they’ve lost their mojo.
For some women in Thursday’s 7.5 k World Cup sprint in Oberhof, Germany, it was the former. Anastasiya Kuzmina of Slovakia started in the yellow bib denoting the leader of the overall biathlon World Cup, and she wore it all the way to the top of the podium after a 35.4-second victory over Kaisa Makarainen of Finland.
Despite being a double Olympic champion – she won gold in the sprints in 2010 and 2014 – Kuzmina had never worn the yellow jersey until this season. But she’s continuing to show why she deserves it.
“It’s my first win here in Oberhof, and it’s always a really good feeling,” she said in a post-race press conference. “I’m really happy that I had fast and good skiing, and I just enjoyed the race.”
Both Kuzmina and Makarainen was well as third-place Veronika Vitkova of the Czech Republic (+40.1 seconds) had one penalty, as storms lingered over Germany after having caused the cancelation of World Cup ski races the previous day. The women dealt with large gusts on the shooting range, as well as slow ski trails from the rain that continued falling.
The podium from the Oberhof sprint, with (l-r) Kaisa Makarainen, Anastasiya Kuzmina, and Veronika Vitkova. (Photo: IBU/biathlonworld)
“I was lucky at the shooting range,” said fourth-place Franziska Hildebrand of Germany (+47.0 seconds), who also had one penalty. “If you were lucky enough to catch a calm phase then you could have a good race.”
“It was not easy weather conditions, I think for everyone,” Kuzmina said. “Today in zeroing I saw that it was not easy to shoot clean. I understood that I needed to be really concentrated on the shooting range. After one mistake in the prone position I was just thinking, ‘okay, it’s still good, it’s still good.’ For everyone the conditions on the shooting range were changing. So I knew that with one you still have a chance.”
Only three women managed to shoot a perfect 10-for-10, and two of them were Canadian. Julia Ransom rode that shooting to ninth place (+1:13.6), and Sarah Beaudry to 23rd (+1:39.0) in her first World Cup start of the season.
“I didn’t have any crazy expectations going into this week, but I am happy to see that the level of performance is still there,” Ransom wrote in an email. “Today definitely felt like a bit of a blow out for the legs, so I am excited to see what the pursuit will bring!”
For Ransom, a winter break spent in Europe – unusually, as the Canadian “A” team usually returns home for Christmas and even skips the Oberhof weekend to get in more home-turf training – was the perfect thing keep up her level of performance. Ransom had started out the season with a ninth-place finish in the 15 k individual in Östersund, Sweden.
Julia Ransom (Biathlon Canada) racing to 39th in the women’s IBU World Cup sprint in Annecy, France, earlier this season. (Photo: Glen Crawford)
“My winter break was exactly what I needed,” she wrote. “My brother and nephew had come out to Le Grand-Bornand [for the last World Cup weekend] and then later spent a week with me in Annecy [France]. We went into full tourist mode, eating lots of cheese and drinking lots of wine. Even got some beautiful powder turns in Chamonix. I then went to Zurich for the Christmas weekend to visit one of my childhood best friends before joining the team again in Obertilliach for a week of training. Safe to say, a week completely free of biathlon followed by a week of training paradise made for some good race prep.”
Shooting was the key to good results for Ransom and Beaudry; their ski splits ranked 44th and 63rd, respectively. But Canadian women’s coach and High Performance Director Roddy Ward downplayed the conditions in discussing his team’s excellent shooting.
“Overall the shooting conditions were tricky but not too bad actually,” he wrote in an email. “I’d even say quite good for Oberhof! It was actually quite fair for everyone, which is nice. No big gusts then calm, wind was always present and a bit swirly. I’m actually not surprised they cleaned but more surprised there were so few in total that cleaned.”
That’s quite a difference from the assessment of some of the other athletes. For instance: “I’m really really happy that I had only one penalty today, because it was difficult conditions and changing all the time,” said second-place Makarainen. “In standing I really felt the wind. It was not easy. But shot by shot I managed with only one [penalty], and I was really, really satisfied with that.”
But Beaudry agreed with her coach’s assessment.
“Personally I didn’t find the wind to affect my shooting much today,” she wrote in an email. “Both times when I came in it wasn’t too windy, and I just tried to shoot confidently and have solid hits. I did for sure give my last shot an extra second because that one can be a little stressful, but I hit it and that’s what matters.”
Sarah Beaudry with friend Caroline Seip in the Oberhof stadium after notching a personal-best 23rd-place World Cup finish in the 7.5 k sprint. (Photo courtesy of Caroline Seip)
As for Ransom, she simply approached the day’s shooting with intention, and it brought her success.
“I was mentally prepared for hellish race conditions, so when I got to the site and didn’t see v-boards flying away or five inches of slush, I was pleasantly surprised,” she wrote. “It was a little blustery in both prone and standing, so all I could do was focus on making good shots. In the standing, I aimed to shoot in lanes 28-30 because it is a little bit more sheltered, but other than that, there wasn’t any special trick! After a break from racing, I was glad to come back with solid shooting.”
Beaudry was coming off of IBU Cup finishes of 23rd in Sjujøen, Norway; 36th in Lenzerheide, Switzerland; and tenth and 24th in Obertilliach, Austria. Along with Megan Tandy, she got pulled up to the World Cup with just two weeks of Olympic qualifying possibilities to go.
“Megan and Sarah both performed well on the IBU Cup in trimester 1,” Ward explained. “Therefore, they were given a chance at [Oberhof]. I didn’t really have any expectations, but felt if we gave them a chance we could see a good performance. Sarah produced a great performance.”
In fact, it was the best result of her career. Her previous top World Cup finish was 38th in the sprint in Canmore, Alberta, in 2016, with a somewhat reduced depth of field. Before that, she had finished 54th in a pursuit in Ruhpolding, Germany.
But since her sprint qualifies her for the pursuit on Saturday, where she is guaranteed to be in the top 60 if she finishes, she is fast-tracked to meeting one of Biathlon Canada’s Olympic criteria and could be either the fourth or fifth member of the team.
That’s not what she’s thinking about, though.
The Americans didn’t master the Oberhof shooting range as well as their Canadian counterparts, with both Susan Dunklee (above) and Clare Egan picking up four penalties. They finished 62nd and 86th, respectively. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
“Like I have said before, this season I just really wanted to race well and show what I never was really able to show last season,” she wrote. “I was hoping for a solid result, but definitely not expecting the result I got today. The Olympic qualification definitely adds extra pressure but I know I race best when I am having fun. So I was trying to blast the dance tunes and just smile.”
The pressure came off in an unexpected way, too.
“In my warm-up I was trying out the big corner, as they had changed it from yesterday,” Beaudry explained. “I went a little hard and crashed and broke my ski — which weirdly had me laughing my entire warm-up.”
Joining the pair in the pursuit will be Tandy, who finished 59th (+2:37.5) with two penalties. Emma Lunder did not start for Canada, as she is recovering from a stomach illness that earned her a trip to the hospital, but Ward said that she should be ready to race in Sunday’s relay.
For the U.S., Susan Dunklee finished 62nd (+2:46.6) and Clare Egan 86th (+4:23.0), each with four penalties.
Although quite a number of competitors shot the same score or worse, it was nearly impossible to qualify for the 60-woman pursuit doing so: the only women to make it with four penalties were Germany’s Denise Herrmann (45th, +2:13.3), Switzerland’s Selina Gasparin (47th, +2:16.0), and Norway’s Hilde Fenne (56th, +2:29.0).
Biathletes Veronika Vítková, Jitka Landová, Gabriela Koukalová, and Eva Puskarčíková after a 2015 relay in Oslo, Norway. The Czech women learned that they would receive an Olympic bronze medal after the Russian team has been disqualified for doping. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
(Editor’s note: This article contains explicit language.)
The U.S. women finished seventh in the Sochi relay, and some athletes spoke out about how much it would have meant to be sixth not three years later, but the day they competed.
“It only took us 4 years, but now our historic 7th place is actually 6th…tying the best ever Olympic relay result for US Biathlon – men or women!” team member Sara Studebaker wrote on Facebook. “It’s unfortunate it took 4 years for this to happen. Because we were 7th instead of 6th, some teammates missed out on being pre-qualified for events and getting monetary support… Doping affects all athletes at some level. There is no excuse.”
“The ripple effect from athletes doping feels even more personal now,” she wrote. “It’s wild to think about what would have been different for us with a 6th place relay at the Olympics instead of 7th. Thanks Russia for the flower ceremony at the Olympics that we didn’t get to have, A-team status and funding for 2015, and pre-qualification for the World Cup.”
Canada finished eighth in the relay and will now move up to seventh.
Vilukhina earned a silver medal in the 7.5-kilometer sprint; that means that Vita Semerenko of Ukraine will be upgraded from bronze to silver, and Karin Oberhofer of Italy will earn bronze, the first individual Olympic medal of her career.
Then there is the relay, where both Vilukhina and Romanova represented Russia. They took silver with teammates Olga Zaitseva and Ekaterina Shumilova. The Norwegian team will now move from bronze to silver, and the Czech team will now earn bronze.
Gabriela Koukalová posted on her Facebook page about how frustrated she was with the scandal. A translated version reads,
“I know that you all know… I mean about our Olympic medal from Sochi for the women’s relay, which we are going to receive with almost four years of delay. On one side it’s great that justice was achieved, but on the other side I am truly sorry for Eva Puskarčíková and mostly for my lifelong friend Jitka Landová, who had to end her biathlon career due to medical reasons. She spent almost her entire career with hard work and without any memories of success. I am not sure about you, but I want to turn doping into a crime and not allow Russian Federation to start at the Winter Olympics, like it already happened at the Summer Games! I also would like to stress one more goal, and that is more important than victories. Their names are HONESTY AND FAIRNESS, not only in sport but overall in the life! Too bad that they [Russians] hadn’t figured that one yet! And now I would like to move on from this topic…”
Meanwhile, Landová isn’t sure that a medal would have changed the trajectory of her career, saying that she doesn’t look back. But she does wish she’d had the medal earlier, she said in a Czech radio interview.
“Last night I received a message from Eva Puskarčíková that we really had the Sochi medal,” Landová said, according to a translation. “I looked at it first with disbelief, because as long as I have no tangible evidence, I just don’t believe it. From the very beginning, we knew the Russians were not clean.”
“I do not know whether to be glad or cry,” Puskarčíková told the same radio broadcaster.
The pushback against the women on social media has been swift and severe.
The number of comments below Koukalová’s Facebook post calling her stupid and a disgrace are too many to count, as are those telling her to stick to sport and “worry about your performance,” a comment that sometimes had a foreboding connotation. Other comments call her a “b*tch” or a “f*cking b*tch.” Still others compare her to Nazis or fascists.
Then there are the threats.
“Russia will be wait you on World Cup in Tyumen 2017… you want to get negative before the Olympic Games? ok, you will get it!,” wrote one poster, following this with an emoji of a punching fist.
“you have found enemies in the face of 300 million people… be careful,” one commenter wrote.
“Can be you sure that your test-tube Ok or someone scratch it and you will be deprived of all medals,” another threatened.
Instagram was, if anything, worse – even though that’s not the platform where the athletes had made any of their comments.
On the account “jitka_official_landova”, which it is not clear is actually maintained by Landová, received hate on nearly all of the posts, even though the last post was only from 2015 and the account has no recent activity. Under a picture of Landová posted in February, 2015, one comment reads, “prostitutky,” which translates from to “prostitutes”.
There are several Instagram pages attributed to Koukalová, some of which are clearly fan pages and two which are verified by Instagram (calling into question the efficacy of the verification system, but that’s another story.) It’s unclear if either of the two verified accounts are operated by Koukalová; there is no link to Instagram from her website.
But regardless of whether comments left there are actually reaching her, a lot are being posted regardless. Many are filled with emojis of livestock like pigs and sheep, and feces. The pigs and excrement were often accompanied by a lipstick emoji; Koukalová has a contract to appear in makeup ads.
On a page seeming to really belong to Koukalová, she was repeatedly called “scum.”
“you’re a lying b*tch!” one commenter wrote in English. “You are fascist,” wrote another. “You are one disgraceful sh*tty slut,” another commenter added.
Then there were those written in Russian, which translated to, if anything, worse comments:
“Go in a hole and don’t come back”
“prostitute”
“burn in hell”
“F*ck you, f*cking b*tch, no one will remember you and the medal”
“You b*tch”
“you don’t take medals, you only take it in the mouth”
“piece of sh*t”
“The end”
After one Russian fan writes a supportive message, another replies, “burn at the stake with her, sheep.”
Comments also riddled posts on an account which appeared to be maintained by fans.
“Such animals must be hung!” one comment translated from Russian read. Some others:
“Better not come to Tyumen!”
“Whore”
“Her brains are only enough to paint her face”
“Wash it, it’s a man”
“Lose weight, you’re so fat”
Many mention the phrase “life is a boomerang”. “Remember everything comes back, it’s the rule of life and your joy for getting not yours medal will turn into tears soon,” one comment written in English says.
Koukalová is not competing in the opening World Cup weekend in Östersund, Sweden, as she is still recovering from a calf injury. Many comments stated that they hoped she would never return to competition, or if she did, that she would lose every race. See this link for a good example. Take a look.
In the 15 k individual today, the first individual race of the World Cup season, Puskarčíková finished seventh with perfect 20-for-20 shooting; Vítková finished 12th with two penalties.
France’s Martin Fourcade (c) in first, Latvia’s Andrejs Rastorgujevs (l) in second and Austria’s Simon Eder (r) in third on the podium following the men’s 15 k mass start at the season-finale 2017 IBU World Cup in Oslo, Norway. (Photo: IBU)
Between breaking historic biathlon records and waiting for the imminent birth of his second child, France’s IBU World Cup dominator Martin Fourcade forgot one crucial detail of Biathlon 101 before Sunday’s final race of the season in the men’s 15-kilometer mass start: loading his ammunition clips.
Fourcade only realized he had started with four empty clips when he crouched down on the shooting mat for the first prone shooting, then signaled for help. His coach standing at the range reacted the fastest and threw him a full clip. Fourcade inserted it into his rifle and went on to hit all five shots, leaving the range in 18th position and 21 seconds behind the leaders, almost the time it takes to ski a penalty lap.
But what he and his coach had done strictly was not allowed: Fourcade would have had to wait and receive the spare clip from a race official, because the range is a “no-coaching zone”. While the race went on, Fourcade’s name was marked with an asterisk on the timing screens, and the race jury and technical delegate started discussing if Fourcade maybe should be disqualified or hit with a time penalty.
Fourcade later said he was aware the violation was under review, but decided to keep racing like normal. Before the second shooting he had compensated the gap passing the whole field to take the lead again, and received additional spare magazines this time from an official kneeling next to the first-lane shooting mat.
Seemingly undeterred by the problems, Fourcade went on to clean not only the second stage, but also the two standing stages to create a lead of almost 25 seconds, already celebrating as he left the famous Holmenkollen arena for the final loop. He was the only athlete in the field to shoot clean in all four stages, crossing the line in a time of 37:32.2 minutes under the huge applause of thousands of fans in the stands who had just witnessed a demonstration of his abilities. But would his victory stand?
“I am simply an idiot, because I forgot to reload my magazines before the start,” Fourcade explained during a press conference later. “Today I had a really good day in spite of this huge mistake. I succeeded getting back the time I lost, and then shot clean. I am really happy and proud of my competition. It was probably one of the best days in my career, but it was a competition full of stupidness.”
Behind him, Austria’s Simon Eder and Latvia’s Andrejs Rastorgujevs – usually known as a fast skier but shaky shooter – manged to also clean the final standing stage and went out on the last loop together. Rastorgujevs was faster there, overtaking and then distancing Eder to achieve the first World Cup podium of his career with two penalties in the race (0+1+1+0), 17.4 seconds behind Fourcade. Eder finished third (+32.4) with one penalty (0+0+1+0) to claim his third individual podium of the season (plus two in single mixed relays and two in men’s relays).
In his long career, Rastorgujevs, 28, had been on the podium at IBU European Championships, winning gold in 2014 and at Summer Biathlon World Championships on rollerskis, but never in a World Cup where he only had four fourth-place finishes to his name.
“The first podium in I think more than five years for me, after a lot of fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eigth, ninth, tenth places,” Rastorgujevs said during the press conference. “I am really happy, and I want to say a big thanks to my team and my service guys, who have worked very hard for this second place … I think today is a special day, and it’s also a big party for my team … Now I think this is opening the door for more podiums. We will see what happens next season.”
“Yesterday I joked about a podium [in an interview], I don’t know why I did that, but I am really happy I got this podium today,” Eder explained. “The third race in a row is always a problem for my body, I already know this. I prefer to have a rest day, so I knew it was gonna be hard today. I am happy I got the third place. I saw Andrejs behind me which made me happy, and tried to keep up with him as long as possible hoping for the third or maybe second place but he was too strong for me.”
Lowell Bailey (US Biathlon) shooting during a standing stage in the men’s 15 k mass start, the last race of the 2016/2017 IBU World Cup season, on Sunday in Oslo, Norway. He went on to finish 15th. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
Halfway through the race, US Biathlon’s Lowell Bailey had been in the lead after two clean prone shooting performances, taking the first lane in the standing shooting. But he missed two targets in that stage and had to ski a penalty lap, and then missed another one in the final shooting.
“I think this was one of my best races of the season in terms of ski speed. I felt composed and focused in prone, and was happy with two cleans,” Bailey wrote in an email to FasterSkier. “In the first standing, I didn’t necessarily plan on shooting on point 1, but [Russia’s Anton] Shipulin did not want to lead in and I thought, if anything, it would be a bit of an advantage to be on point 1 if the wind came up. Those two misses set me back a fair amount, but I’m happy I stayed in the race mentally, only had one miss in the last standing, and was able to ski my way back into a top-fifteen.”
Bailey finished the race in 15th place with three penalties (0+0+2+1), 1:10.4 behind Fourcade. But had Fourcade actually won, or would he be disqualified or relegated back?
After the race, the competition jury could be seen on the TV broadcast deliberating the case for several minutes, and ultimately they decided to not take any actions against Fourcade.
“I knew after the first shooting I was under disqualification [review], because the way I got back my full magazine is not the way exactly to do it,” Fourcade said. “It was a possibility to be disqualified, so I wanted to show to everyone, to all the other athletes, to the audience, to the jury also, that it was my day. And if they decided to not give me the victory, I knew in my heart that I had it.”
“I think the jury was right,” Bailey wrote in his email. “I’ve been there. I know what it’s like to make a simple, costly mistake, and I think he definitely didn’t gain any advantage by NOT loading his clips.”
Aside from Rastorgujevs and Norway’s fourth-place finisher Emil Hegle Svendsen (+42.2 with two penalties), the athlete who would have stood to benefit the most from a punishment for Fourcade was Germany’s Simon Schempp, who had been in the lead in the mass-start score World Cup standings before the race. But just coming back from a lengthy illness after last month’s World Championships where he won the men’s mass start, Schempp only finished with a 20th place (+1:28.5 with three penalties) in the same discipline on Sunday, and thereby still lost that title to Fourcade.
“The hope was there, but with my current form it is very tough,” Schempp told ARD after the race. “I gave it everything I had. I am disappointed, but something like that can’t be fixed when you come here basically without any training. I lost a lot of points in the standings the last weeks, and I can still feel the illness in my bones. I can’t help it, it happens.”
But Schempp also did not want to get the award back “off the course” by a disqualification.
“I wanted to thank and to give all my respect to the team of Germany and to Simon Schempp, who decided to not ask for a protest,” Fourcade said in the press conference, unprompted. “That’s a big gesture. I really take my hat off to Simon Schempp. I must say how impressed I am by their class, they deserve much more than a crystal globe today.”
Bailey finished the season in eighth in the World Cup Total Score standings, a career best all the more impressive considering he skipped an entire week of races in Oberhof, Germany, for a longer rest and training break after Christmas. That paid off, with a gold medal in the men’s 20 k individual at World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria, a second place in the sprint at the World Cup in PyeongChang, South Korea, and another second place in Kontiolahti, Finland, in the single mixed relay together with his teammate Susan Dunklee.
“This is, by far, the best season of my life,” Bailey wrote reflecting on his season. “At 35 years old, I can say that I’ve waited a long time for this season. I have so many people to thank, first among them, my wife Erika for believing in me through it all, and being by side every step of the way. It’s been so great to have her and my daughter on the tour for the majority of the season.”
Eckhoff Wins Final Mass Start at Home Despite ‘Squirrel Drama’
Norway’s Tiril Eckhoff crossing the finish line with the Norwegian flag to celebrate her victory in the women’s 12.5 k mass start at the 2017 IBU World Cup on Sunday in Oslo, Norway. (Photo: IBU)
“I hope I didn’t kill it,” was the first comment by Tiril Eckhoff after Sunday’s race to broadcaster NRK.
What the Norwegian was referring to was the only small thing that disturbed her victory in the women’s 12.5-kilometer mass start at her home venue in Oslo: a streaking squirrel crossed the course in a ditch before the longest climb seven kilometers into the race, right in front of a six-person lead group that included Eckhoff, France’s Justine Braisaz and American Susan Dunklee.
The little animal seemingly was confused which way it should try to escape, then jumped up when Braisaz tried to break, with Eckhoff almost running over it as well.
“That squirrel was my favorite part of the race,” Dunklee wrote in an email to FasterSkier. “It ran in front of me then I saw it collide with Justine. I couldn’t help but laugh!”
“Braisaz drove over the squirrel, so I just had to take my ski up and hope it goes well,” Eckhoff told NRK. “It’s good to see some wildlife in the forests of Norway.”
After the race she could have a good laugh about the incident, which her home country’s TV broadcaster dubbed “Eckhoff vs. ekhorn” and “ekhorndrama” by the Norwegian word for squirrel.
Reportedly the squirrel got away alive. And luckily it had not been Eckhoff vs. moose, another common dweller of the Norwegian forests.
Shooting 19-for-20 after she earlier in the season had never hit more than 16 shots in a four-stage race (0+0+1+0), Eckhoff took the lead after the final shooting ahead of Czech Republic’s Gabriela Koukalová, and pushed hard throughout the last loop to create a gap that allowed her to grab a Norwegian flag before the last ski bridge in the Holmenkollen arena, waving to the fans as she skied down the homestretch before crossing the line in a time of 34:23.1.
“I was very fed up with [always] going to the penalty loop,” Eckhoff said at the press conference. “So I just said to myself, ‘Now I’m gonna take those targets down,’ and I managed that, so now I’m really happy … because that has been my main issue.”
Eckhoff had won gold medals in the sprint and the women’s relay at last year’s World Championships at home in Oslo, where she grew up and still lives. But partly due to illnesses she struggled with this season, she didn’t return to form until after this year’s Hochfilzen World Championships. She went on to notch a second place in the sprint in PyeongChang, South Korea, and then a sprint win in Kontiolahti, Finland.
Behind Eckhoff, Koukalová finished Sunday’s race in second place (+22.6) with one penalty (0+1+0+0), thereby securing the World Cup title in the mass start discipline ahead of Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier, who finished ninth after shooting three misses (+54.2), not able to defend the small lead she held before the final but winning the overall World Cup Total Score title for the first time.
After the race, Sweden’s Hanna Öberg also received the IBU award for the “Rookie of the Year”.
“I was not under pressure today,” Koukalová said with a big smile at the press conference. “I had no expectations. I tried to imagine that I’m already somewhere else, at the athletes’ party this evening for example … It’s one of the best seasons of my life.”
“I am totally exhausted, and happy that there is no more race tomorrow,“ her rival Dahlmeier told German broadcaster ARD after the race. “The miss at the end ruined a better result today, and on the course it was also really tough for me. I have reached my limit now … I hope some energy comes back to celebrate the season tonight.”
Before the final shooting Dahlmeier’s teammate Franziska Hildebrand had been in the lead by almost 20 seconds thanks to three clean shooting performances, with her first individual podium of the season within her grasp. But she missed her very last shot, causing her coach to let out an audible swear, and she had to ski a penalty lap, which allowed the clean-shooting Eckhoff and Koukalová to pass her.
Coming back on the loop still in third place, Hildebrand was chased down by Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen and Czech Republic’s Veronika Vitkova, who passed her shortly before the finish skiing down into the Holmenkollen arena. Mäkäräinen claimed the third place on the podium (+34.5) with two penalties (0+0+1+1), while Vitkova finished fourth (+36.1) and Hildebrand fifth (+39.0). Mäkäräinen’s teammate Mari Laukkanen, the winner of the preceding sprint and pursuit races in Oslo, finished sixth (+40.0) to round out the most successful weekend of her biathlon career.
“It has been some hard time the last two weeks,” Mäkäräinen said in the press conference, referring to the passing of Finnish shooting coach Asko Nuutinen. “I’m sure that has somehow affected my results in a negative way, and now yesterday and today I managed to get the power and do some better races. So I am happy with the result today. I just tried to focus on what I do, not thinking about the result that much.”
“It’s been a very special week with what happened to the Finnish girls, and I am very impressed with Kaisa and Mari,” Eckhoff said at the press conference.
Halfway through the women’s mass start, Dunklee had been in the lead after shooting clean in both of her prone stages, then held on with the top group on the course, mostly letting Eckhoff dictate the tempo.
But after also struggling on the range in Saturday’s pursuit race with ten penalties, Dunklee, who recently exhibited remarkably consistent shooting performances, started to miss and incurred three penalties in the first standing stage and another two in the last one (0+0+3+2).
“I am not entirely sure what has been off in standing this weekend,” Dunklee wrote in her email. “It’s frustrating. Maybe the biathlon gods thought it was time for a dose of humility. My ski form is the best it has been all year.“
In the end she came to the finish in 20th place, 1:43.8 behind the winner Eckhoff.
Still, Dunklee managed to retain the 10th position in the World Cup Total Score standings, another career best to end a season that included a silver medal in the mass start at the World Championships and another podium at the World Cup in Kontiolahti in the single mixed relay with Bailey.
“This is the sort of history making team that every athlete dreams of being part of during their lifetime,” Dunklee reflected on the season. “We have staff who have worked for decades believing this level is possible. Now the door has been opened. I don’t think they will have to wait decades for the next relay medals or World Championships podiums.”
Sweden’s Stina Nilsson celebrates her second-straight World Cup sprint victory on Saturday after winning the 1.4 k freestyle sprint at home in Falun, Sweden.
FIS Cross-Country World Cup (Falun, Sweden): Men’s & women’s freestyle sprints
[UPDATED] Kikkan Randall reached the final for the first time since March 2015 on Saturday in the women’s 1.4-kilometer freestyle sprint at the World Cup in Falun, Sweden. The American qualified 26th and went on to advance in second out of her quarterfinal and semifinal to reach the six-woman final, where she ended up fifth.
Sweden’s Stina Nilsson won the final by one-hundredth of a second over Norway’s Maiken Caspersen Falla, finishing in 3:00.24 minutes. Nilsson had started the day by qualifying in sixth, 2.52 seconds behind Norway’s Marit Bjørgen, who won the qualifier in 3:00.64. This is Nilsson’s second-straight World Cup sprint win after skipping the freestyle sprint in Toblach, Italy, following the Tour de Ski.
While Bjørgen went on to win her quarterfinal, she finished fifth in her semifinal to end up ninth on the day.
Norway had two on the women’s podium with Heidi Weng in third, 1.88 seconds behind Nilsson. Finland’s Krista Parmakoski placed fourth (+1.99), and Randall was fifth (+2.56) for her best result in two years (she took last season off to have a baby). Sweden’s Jonna Sundling reached the final as well and finished sixth (+8.02).
Five U.S. women qualified for the heats, with Jessie Diggins qualifying fifth and ultimately crashing in her semifinal, where she finished fifth. That put her 10th overall on the day. Sophie Caldwell qualified third and finished fourth in her quarterfinal for 16th on the day, Sadie Bjornsen qualified 17th and also finished fourth in her quarterfinal for 19th overall, and Ida Sargent made the top-30 qualifying cutoff in 30th, then placed fifth in her quarterfinal for 25th overall.
Bjørgen topped the freestyle sprint qualifier on Saturday morning, clocking the fastest time around the 1.4 k course by just 0.08 seconds over Hanna Falk of Sweden.Caldwell qualified third (+1.23),Digginsqualified fifth (+2.39),Bjornsen17th (+5.04),Randall26th (+6.64), andSargent 30th (+8.28). Rosie Brennan (U.S. Ski Team) missed the cut in 37th (+10.90) and Liz Guiney finished 56th (+32.87). The lone Canadian woman racing on Saturday, Cendrine Browne placed 46th (+14.02).
In the men’s 1.4 k freestyle sprint final, Italy’s Federico Pellegrino held off three Norwegians and two Swedes to win in 2:45.77. The defending Sprint World Cup champion qualified second and went on to win his quarterfinal and semifinal before taking the final by six-hundredths of a second.
Norway took the remaining spots on the podium with Emil Iversen in second (+0.06) and Sindre Bjørnestad Skar in third (+0.47). Sweden’s Oskar Svensson was three-hundredths of a second off the podium in fourth (+0.50). The fastest qualifier in 2:34.49, Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo reached the final and ultimately took fifth (+1.32), and Sweden’s Teodor Peterson placed sixth (+2.08).
Canada’s Len Valjas was the top North American in 10th. He qualified 20th, advanced in second from his quarterfinal and finished fifth in his semifinal.
American Andy Newell was 16th after qualifying in 25th and finishing third in his quarterfinal. U.S. teammate Simi Hamilton followed in 18th, after qualifying 13th and finishing fourth in his quarterfinal.
In the men’s qualifier, Klæbo was 1.05 seconds faster thanPellegrinoand another 0.02 seconds faster than Russia’s Sergey Ustiugov in third.
For the U.S., Hamiltonqualified 13th (+4.52) andNewell qualified 25th (+6.74). Erik Bjornsen placed 43rd (+9.30) and Matt Gelso 59th (+13.12).
Valjaswas the lone Canadian man to make the heats, qualifying 20th (+6.22). The only other starter, Alex Harvey, placed 46th (+9.71).
IBU Open European Championships (Duszniki-Zdrój, Poland): Men’s & women’s pursuits
The men’s pursuit podium at 2017 IBU Open European Championships on Saturday in Duszniki-Zdrój, Poland, with Russia’s Alexander Loginov (c) in first, Evgeniy Garanichev (l) in second, and Latvia’s Andrejs Rastorgujevs (r) in third. (Photo: IBU)
Russia’s Alexander Loginov racked up his second win of the 2017 International Biathlon Union (IBU) Open European Championships on Saturday in the mens’ 12.5-kilometer pursuit in Duszniki-Zdrój, Poland.
After starting second, 5 seconds behind Bulgaria’s Vladimir Iliev, who won Friday’s sprint, Loginov proceeded to clean three straight stages before missing one on his final standing to cross the line first in 31:46.2 minutes.
“It was not as easy as it seemed, because from the first loop Vladimir set a really good speed,” Loginov said, according to an IBU press release. “Today we had great sunny and windless weather again, so I managed to shoot well. Probably that is why it [looked] so easy.”
Russia took first and second place with Evgeniy Garanichev following 27.8 seconds later, after starting 17th (56 seconds out of first) and shooting 19-for-20 (0+0+1+0).
“After yesterday’s sprint, I managed to work well and to show good result in pursuit, so I’m sure glad to win the silver medal,” Garanichev said, according to the IBU.
Latvia’s Andrejs Rastorgujevs improved on his fourth place in the sprint to reach the pursuit podium in third (+59.5) despite four penalties (0+1+1+2).
“On the last loop I had the information about the guys who were behind me and in front of me,” Rastorgujevs said, according to the IBU. “I was just fighting and did all I could do to get to the podium.”
Bulgaria’s Krasimir Anev, who started third, slipped to fifth (+1:28.6) with two penalties (0+1+1+0), behind Russia’s third man in the top four, Alexey Volkov in fourth (+1:01.6). Iliev as the first starter ended up 11th (+1:41.7) with six penalties (2+2+0+2).
The two Americans who had qualified for the pursuit by placing in the top 60 of Friday’s sprint, Paul Schommer and Alex Howe improved to 48th (+5:07.1) and 51st (+5:42.3), respectively.
Schommer started 58th, just ahead of Howe in 59th, and missed five targets, all in his first two prone stages (3+2+0+0). Howe accumulated four penalties (1+2+1+0).
No Canadians qualified for the pursuit.
[UPDATED] In the women’s 10 k pursuit that followed, Russia’s Irina Starykh picked up her second win and third consecutive podium of the championships, with clean shooting en route to a 19.8-second victory in 30:04.4.
Starykh started third, 38 seconds behind Ukraine’s Juliya Dzhyma and 11 seconds after her Russian teammate Svetlana Sleptsova, respectively. Dzhima missed two on her last two standing stages (0+0+1+1) to slip to second, and Sleptsova dropped one place to third (+32.1) with one prone penalty (0+1+0+0).
Veronika Vítková of the Czech Republic improved from seventh to fourth (+47.8) with two penalties (0+1+1+0), and Russia’s Svetlana Mironova moved all the way up from 13th to fifth (+1:29.6) with three misses (0+1+1+1). Just 0.2 seconds behind her, Poland’s Monika Hojnisz improved from 16th at the start to sixth (+1:29.6) with one penalty (0+0+0+1).
No North Americans qualified for the pursuit.
Open European Championships conclude Sunday with the single mixed and mixed relay.
France’s Martin Fourcade crosses the finish first to meet his teammates after anchoring the mixed relay to gold to open the 2016 IBU World Championships in Oslo, Norway, Germany’s Simon Schempp secures second behind him, and Norway’s Tarjei Bø comes onto the final stretch to claim bronze. (Photo: IBU/Evgeny Tumashov)
Martin Fourcade versus Simon Schempp: Two perennial rivals who still greatly respect each other’s performances, duking it out on the final loop of Thursday’s mixed relay.
It was a fitting end to the first race of the 2016 International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Championships in Oslo, Norway, a finish sprint into the famous Holmenkollen ski arena with two athletes at the top of their game, in a repetition of a scene similar to what biathlon fans have witnessed repeatedly in recent seasons.
This time, France’s overall World Cup leader Fourcade prevailed against Germany’s anchor, skiing over the last bridge in the stadium and taking a little bow in the style of a telemark ski turn. He crossed the finish line in 1:14:01 and celebrated the gold medal with his excited teammates. Combined, the four-person French relay had no penalties and seven spare rounds.
Martin Fourcade celebrates with his teammates after anchoring France’s mixed relay to gold in the first race of 2016 IBU World Championships in Oslo, Norway. (Photo: IBU)
“Today was really emotional, because it was my first, our first victory in a team race in World Championships since 2009,” Fourcade said at the post-race press conference.
“Of course we were among the favorites so we were thinking about [the gold medal],” Fourcade added in an interview with the IBU. “But in biathlon you never know until the last shooting. We were fighting for gold as well as for the fourth place.”
Germany finished second, just 4.3 seconds back, and also with seven spares.
“I tried to bring out everything I had, but in the end I honestly was too exhausted,” Schempp told German TV broadcaster ARD. “We are totally happy about silver.”
“The way Fourcade threw himself into the snow afterwards, I think that shows Simon [Schempp] pushed him to his limits,” Germany’s third leg skier Arnd Peiffer told ARD. “Martin definitely didn’t have it easy on the final loop today … With that ‘telemark’ move he was just showing his excitement, that had nothing to do with arrogance.”
Another 10 seconds back, Norway’s anchor Tarjei Bø secured the bronze medal for the home team (+14.4), with ten spares, to the huge joy of the audience.
The U.S. finished 10th (+2:19.6), with five spares, falling back on the last three legs after starter Susan Dunklee rocketed through the first exchange in first place. Canada placed 11th (+2:30.8), with 11 spares, unable to quite keep up with the leaders throughout the race due to too many misses on the shooting range.
After a festive opening ceremony at a central square in Oslo on Wednesday night, the Biathlon World Championships opened with the mixed relay, including two women and two men per team, with all other rules just like in a traditional relay.
The two women begin, and each ski 6 kilometers with one prone and one standing shooting stage, while the men have to ski 7.5 k each. The athletes can use three spare rounds per stage, and if they fail to clean their targets with those spares, they have to ski a 150-meter penalty lap for every miss.
The IBU first experimented with mixed relays 11 years ago as a special event during the World Cup finale. Since 2007, the discipline has been part of the official program at World Championships.
Initially it was a bit of an afterthought, with a number of countries with large teams using it as an opportunity to give their lower-ranked biathletes a start at championships, and saving their best ones for the individual starts and the traditional women’s and men’s relays.
That has changed in recent years, since the event also became part of the program at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia. This year in Oslo, small and larger teams alike certainly pulled out all the stops, with almost every nation entering the its best athletes.
Low-hanging clouds and fog on the range had been predicted, but for Thursday’s competition, the view of the targets on the shooting range was actually clear despite a cloudy sky and a little fog shrouding the big ski jumps that tower over the Holmenkollen arena.
The French team, with Anaïs Bescond, Marie Dorin Habert, Quentin Fillon Maillet, and Fourcade, initially hit a snag when Bescond required all spares to hit her targets in her standing stage, narrowly avoiding the penalty lap and coming through the exchange in seventh place, 35 seconds behind Dunklee.
Then Dorin Habert crashed in a ski tunnel out on the course, in snow conditions some athletes described as “glazed” in certain sections.
“Nothing terrible, it was just a mistake by me,” Dorin Habert said of her fall at the press conference.
She quickly recovered and moved her team into third place at the next exchange, with Fillon Maillet and finally Fourcade able to close out successfully by pushing hard up the final small climb and U-shaped turn in the arena to create a little gap.
Similarly to France, Germany’s starter Franziska Preuss initially lost 20 seconds to the top due to two misses in her first prone stage, but moved back up to fourth place at the exchange. Then Franziska Hildebrand and Peiffer kept the team in contention for the podium, before Schempp was able to claim the silver medal.
Germany’s Simon Schempp after one of his shooting stages during Thursday’s mixed relay at IBU World Championships in Oslo, Norway. He anchored Germany to second, 4.3 seconds behind France. (Photo: IBU)
In his last shooting, Schempp thought he had hit all shots taking down his rifle to head back out on the course, before realizing he had missed one and — like Fourcade -– still had to use a spare. Schempp made his shot and left the range just 1.7 seconds behind Fourcade. While Schempp was able to catch up on the course, he did not have the energy left to beat his rival in the final sprint.
Ahead of World Championships, fans and the media put a lot of expectations on the home team from Norway with Marte Olsbu, Tiril Eckhoff, Johannes Thingnes Bø and his older brother Tarjei Bø.
At the 2014 Olympics, Norway had won the gold medal in the mixed relay, though only Eckhoff, who grew up just a stone’s throw away from the Holmenkollen arena, was a part of the lineup back then.
In front of thousands of spectators, including Norway’s King Harald V, the team did not disappoint, with Olsbu and Eckhoff delivering some of their best performances of the season to tag off in second and first place, respectively. From there, the Bø brothers kept the team in podium contention.
“I was very nervous,” Olsbu said at the press conference. “I am just so happy that I made a good race today.”
Johannes Bø tried to make a move on his last loop, yet the other teams just behind him closed the gap again before the exchange.
After needing all spares in his prone shooting on the anchor leg, his brother Tarjei fell back 18.4 seconds, but was able to reduce that again to 7.4 with fast skiing and a clean final shooting stage. While he tried everything in his power, he could not quite catch up to Fourcade and Schempp again.
“Of course we are happy to have a medal at the Championships [at] home,” Johannes said during the press conference. “But we are athletes who want to win. So we are 90 percent happy [with bronze], and we take the last 10 percent next week.”
“Simon and Martin were too strong for me,” anchor Tarjei Bø said.
When a French journalist asked his rivals if Fourcade maybe gained a psychological advantage for the remainder of the World Championships after a win on Thursday, Tarjei Bø laughed and exclaimed: “Yeah, he is unbeatable. He’s so unbeatable that I will not race any more at these World Champs!”
“That’s a good idea,” Fourcade replied with a big smile on his face.
For a long time, four teams had been in close contention for the medals, but after a strong race Ukraine, with Valj Semerenko, Olena Pidhrushna, Sergey Semenov and Dmytro Pidruchnyi, could not quite keep up on the anchor leg with two spares in the last shooting. Ukraine finished fourth (+29.8), with nine spares.
Fifth place (+1:07.1) went to Austria, with Dunja Zdouc, Lisa Theresa Hauser, Simon Eder and Dominik Landertinger, which combined for a team total of just three spares, the fewest of any nation. Meanwhile, the defending world champions in the mixed relay, the Czech Republic, with Veronika Vitková, Gabriela Soukalová, Michal Slesingr and Michal Krcmar finished sixth (+1:23.3), with five spares.
Dunklee in the Lead
Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) trails France’s Anais Bescond during the first leg of the mixed relay at 2016 IBU World Championships on Thursday in Oslo, Norway. Dunklee went on to tag off in first, 1.6 seconds ahead of Norway. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
For US Biathlon, Dunklee started out strong, shooting clean in the first prone stage to leave in second behind France’s Bescond. Then she again hit all of her targets in standing to leave the range 4.5 seconds behind Norway’s Olsbu and Italy’s starter Dorothea Wierer (an athlete with multiple World Cup victories this season. Italy went on to finish eighth).
This time, Dunklee was not satisfied just staying behind the athletes at the top, immediately attempting to overtake Wierer and move up to Olsbu.
“I love the thrill of starting relays,” Dunklee wrote in an email after the race. “I have been close behind the leader tagging off many times, but I have never tagged off in first. On the last loop I was hungry to finally win my leg today and I wanted to give Hannah [Dreissigacker] the experience of leaving in the lead in front of a packed Norwegian crowd.”
Of all the first-leg skiers, Dunklee’s course time was the fastest.
“I do love the Holmenkollen crowds and the hilly course,” she wrote. “I felt relaxed and focused on the shooting range and felt very strong skiing. Our staff put together incredible skis today.”
“I love the thrill of starting relays. I have been close behind the leader tagging off many times, but I have never tagged off in first. I was hungry to finally win my leg today…” — Susan Dunklee, who put the U.S. in first at the first exchange on Thursday
Dreissigacker initially was able to keep up on the course with France, Norway, Ukraine, and Germany at the top.
“It was a fun race and definitely a real thrill [to] get the tag in first place,” Dreissigacker wrote in an email. “Susan really did us all proud out there. I did my best to ski my own race, but it’s always hard when you have lots of adrenaline and find yourself in first place.”
After requiring a spare in prone, she was still in third place, only 1.7 seconds back. Then having more trouble maintaining the leaders’ pace on the next loop and with another missed shot in standing, she fell back 22.7 seconds to fifth place. On her final loop, Soukalová, the overall World Cup leader, passed her on the course, and Dreissigacker lost another half a minute to the leaders, tagging off in sixth, 51.3 seconds back.
“I felt like I was in control on the first and second laps, trying to keep in touch with the leaders as much as possible without overdoing it,” Dreissigacker explained. “But I definitely didn’t have too much gas left in the tank for the last lap, and it didn’t help that I had really lost all contact with the women ahead of me. But that was also a group of the very fastest women in the world, so I am not surprised that they put lots of time on me in the last lap.”
The U.S. team’s third leg, Lowell Bailey had a strong performance on the shooting range and stayed clean both times just like Dunklee, but continued to lose time on the course, and his course time ultimately ranked 19th of the third-leg skiers. He tagged off in eighth place, 1:35.5 minutes back.
“The course was tricky today,” Bailey wrote in an email. “The new snow packed down and glazed, making some of the downhills and especially the stadium fairly treacherous. It wasn’t my best day on skis, but hopefully I’ll feel better as the Championships roll forward.”
Anchoring the U.S. relay, 20-year-old Sean Doherty required a spare in both his prone and standing stages, and with the 16th-ranked course time on his leg, he slipped two positions to finish 10th (+2:19.6), one position ahead of Canada.
“Today’s race was an exceptionally high level,” Doherty said in a US Biathlon press release. “We showed that we can shoot with the best teams and be very competitive. I am really happy with my leg and feeling strong looking ahead to the sprint.”
“The mixed relay is a format we often think of as one of our best medal hopes, so from that perspective our result today is disappointing,” Dunklee wrote. “After our 4th place in Canmore I think we all went into today with high hopes… On the range we put together an excellent performance, one of our best I would say. Tenth is solid, but we know with that good of [a] shooting we can be capable of much more. The good news is that we have many races still to come.”
“It was just tough, tight competition out there and I think we had a really solid team performance,” Dreissigacker commented. “Using only 5 spares for the whole team is great shooting!”
As Bailey pointed out, a top 10 is a top 10.
“It is a tight field and we were close to the leaders for a significant part of the race,” he wrote.
The Canadian team with Julia Ransom, Rosanna Crawford, Nathan Smith, and Brendan Green was hoping to build on its ninth place in the mixed relay in Östersund, Sweden, and sixth place at home in Canmore.
On Thursday, Ransom started in bib 5, and had some trouble to keep up with the leaders. With one miss in both her prone and standing stages, she found herself 36.5 seconds behind going onto the final loop, and then lost more time to tag off in 11th place, 1:03.4 minutes back.
Crawford was able to maintain the pace with the seventh-best course time on her first loop, before dropping off a bit the third time around the Holmenkollen 2 k course.
“It was nice on those first two laps to be working with Sweden and trying to stay with Soukalová,” Crawford wrote in an email. “I had a tumble on the same hill as Dorin [Habert] in warm up and broke a pole, but the race was smooth and I didn’t have to deal with any sketchy people on the downhill.”
But she couldn’t make up positions or time with a miss in her prone shooting and two spares in the standing stage, where she had some additional issues.
“I had some trouble with standing where my shell got stuck, and I wasted some time getting that fixed, and then missed two targets on top on that,” Crawford wrote. “So I am quite disappointed with my shooting. Getting the jitters out before Saturday’s race though hopefully!”
She handed off in 14th place, 1:27.7 back.
Currently the highest-ranked Canadian on the World Cup, Smith skied fast on the course, posting the fifth course time on his leg.
“I’m very happy with my skiing today,” Smith wrote in an email. “I’ve been struggling over the last 7 weeks to feel good on the skis. I wouldn’t say I felt like a total beast skiing, but I knew my shape was good just because I was able to more or less maintain position with top guys like [Russia’s] Garanichev and [Austria’s] Eder… I don’t actually particularly like this arena. I find the gentle ramp through the stadium surprisingly challenging. The ski loops are interesting though, and obviously great views.”
But like his teammates, he could not quite stay clean on the range, requiring two spares in prone and another one in standing.
“Shooting conditions were perfect,” Smith stated. “Very little wind and no fog. Earlier in the day it looked nasty but everything cleared up for us.”
Smith moved up the team a few positions to tag off in 10th (+1:35.9).
“I wouldn’t say I felt like a total beast skiing, but I knew my shape was good.” — Nathan Smith, who skied the fifth-fastest course time on the third leg to bring Canada from 14th to 10th
Canada’s anchor, Green also did not have a perfect day on the range, needing one spare round in prone and two in the final standing stage. Combined with his skiing (13th ranked course time), he lost some additional time to the top, with Canada closing out the race behind the U.S. in 11th place, 2:30.8 behind the winners.
“In my portion of the race there wasn’t anything too out of the ordinary,” Green wrote in an email. “The track was really glazed in some sections and the skiing in general felt like a bit of a balancing act at times.
“There has been a bit of wind during the last few days [of] training, but it dropped a bit this afternoon which was nice,” he wrote of the shooting conditions. “A slight but manageable wind from the left. I was a bit worried about the fog that was lingering throughout the day but fortunately it moved off and the range was clear.”
Asked if their team result was within expectations, Crawford wrote, “11th is a disappointing result for our team, we are capable of a top 8 on an average shooting day and for sure top 6 if we all have a great day on the range. 11 spares is not a normal day for our team I’d say.”
“11th is nothing to write home about but still a decent result,” Smith stated. “We knew everyone would be putting in their best teams.”
“Overall, today wasn’t a true representation of what our team is capable of,” Green wrote. “It’s day one of the Championships and I know we’re all hungry for more.”
Races in Oslo continue on Saturday with the first individual races: the men’s and women’s sprints. All races as well as shorter recaps can be streamed live or time-shifted (most with English commentary) on Eurovision Sports.
“I just want to get one [individual] title, that’s my aim,” Fourcade said at the press conference.
“The atmosphere was great!” Bailey wrote. “Cheering along the track and extremely loud in the stadium. I think it will be even bigger on the weekend.”
“On Saturday we’ll come out fighting,” promised Green. “The atmosphere was pretty awesome today. The stands were full and the stadium was loud. It’s a good vibe and if today is any indication, we’re going to be in for a fun couple weeks of racing.”
The Czech Republic women’s team, which won the 4 x 6 k relay on Saturday at the IBU World Cup in Presque Isle, Maine, with (from left to right) Eva Puskarcikova, Gabriela Soukalova, Lucie Charvatova, and Veronika Vitkova. (Photo: IBU/NordicFocus)
“It’s good to try a romantic atmosphere,” World Cup leader Gabriela Soukalová of the Czech Republic joked about the dark and cold course conditions at the end of the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup women’s 4 x 6-kilometer relay in Presque Isle late Saturday afternoon, when the sun had long set behind the trees and hills of northern Maine for the final 6 k. “I appreciate it so much. I was thinking about my boyfriend,” she said in an post-race team interview with the IBU.
“Candles…” her teammate Eva Puskarcíková added.
The Czech women had every reason to be in a good mood. In the final race before the upcoming IBU World Championships in Oslo, Norway, their team had asserted its intention to be on the podium there in March, achieving the first relay victory of the season in a time of 1:07:11.0, with one penalty and 14 spare rounds.
After narrowly avoiding a penalty lap in the last shooting, anchor Veronika Vítková had a large enough lead to ski to the side of the track and look for a national flag for the final stretch, but none was immediately available from coaches or fans, so she celebrated across the line just by raising her arms, before her teammates hugged her at the finish.
The women’s relay was moved up from Sunday to Saturday due to extremely cold temperatures in the forecast, with a start time of 4:10 p.m. following the men’s relay, giving the athletes the rare experience of racing in the dark on the final loops, dimly lit by portable lights on a few sections of the course. (Evening Biathlon World Cup races are occasionally on the schedule, for example in Oberhof, Germany, but that course is equipped with large fixed floodlights.)
With the athletes emerging from the darkness into the slightly brighter Nordic Heritage Center stadium, the race for second and third place on the podium was decided in an exciting sprint finish between the relays from Germany, Ukraine, and Poland.
Germany’s exhausted anchor Karolin Horchler tried to rescue her once-comfortable lead after the final shooting that had diminished precariously into the finish, with a double-pole effort on the final meters before she collapsed across the line.
Ukraine’s Olena Pidhrushna passed her with quick skating steps to claim second place, 25.2 seconds behind the winners, with a team total of zero penalties and 12 spares. Pidhrushna edged Horchler by just 0.2 seconds as the Germans took third (+25.4), with one penalty and seven spares, after erasing a 30-second deficit on the final loop. Poland’s Krystyna Guzik came into the finish narrowly off the podium in fourth place (+26.0), with a team total of zero penalties and seven spares.
The U.S. with Susan Dunklee, Hannah Dreissigacker, Clare Egan and Annelies Cook finished the race in 10th (+2:12.4), with one penalty and 12 spare rounds. It was their best result in a women’s relay this season.
Czech Republic joins this season’s other podium finishers — Ukraine, Italy, France, Germany, and Russia — as the favorites for the women’s relay in Olso, with a few more “dark horses” also in the mix.
After the flower ceremony, several women fielded questions at the indoor post-race press conference, still wearing protective tape on their cheeks and noses.
“Today’s race was very hard because of the very big cold,” Czech Republic’s starter Puscarcíková said. “My fingers were frozen. But I am happy we are first again. Last year we won in Oslo this time of the year. It’s very fantastic and unbelievable for me.”
“I had trouble because I shot my third bullet under the target,” Lucie Charvatová explained at the press conference. She had a penalty on her second relay leg and fell back to 11th, before tagging off 47.7 seconds back in ninth place. “After that I was so, so nervous. I ran fast and tried to do the best I could. But I am also happy.”
“I don’t know what I can say,” World Cup leader Soukalová said at the press conference, trying to explain how she had moved her team back into first place on the third leg, following two straight individual wins in Presque Isle. “It was a really fantastic weekend. It’s amazing. I was feeling really good during the race. I don’t remember when I [last] have been in the same shape. It’s a perfect performance before the World Championship.”
“It was very hard because on the track it was dark,” Vítková recalled of the anchor leg and the final shooting. “I have seen nothing. On the shooting range, too. And I was a little bit nervous, because I needed three extra [rounds of] ammunition.”
Ukraine, winner of the relay in Ruhpolding, Germany, earlier this season, was in fourth place with its lineup of Iryna Varvynets, Natalya Burdyga, Juliya Dzhyma and Pidhrushna for most of the race, before Pidhrushna moved her team up with the fastest skiing on the last loop, and beat Germany at the line.
“It’s difficult to recall a relay that was so close and tough,” a smiling Dzhyma said during the press conference, through a translator. “Maybe the one in Hochfilzen [where Ukraine finished third, though with a much larger gap to second and fourth place]. It was really interesting and tough, not just because of the close results, but also because of the frost in this cold weather. In the end we are really happy to be in second, and to be on the podium.”
“At the beginning of my leg, I couldn’t see any uphills, any downhills,” anchor Pidhrushna explained, via a translator. “It was like racing blind. When I came to the shooting range, my only thought was to shoot clean and not go to the penalty loop.”
“It’s already a legend,” a happy Pidhrushna later added in an interview with the IBU when asked about her final loop. “It was again a funny situation after the last shooting. I had no idea which place I was in, going away from the shooting range. One of our staff members shouted so loud, then I realized I was somewhere close, because I couldn’t see the screen, I couldn’t see anything because it was already dark. I just had to think that I was close so I had to fight for it again.”
“Krystyna [Guzik] from Poland was behind me, and we were running so fast to chase the German girl,” she explained. “But I couldn’t even think of doing that, actually.”
“I didn’t know what was happening behind me, I just tried to race,” Germany’s Horchler told ARD, after she had advanced her team from fifth to second, requiring one spare in prone and staying clean in her final shooting. “But I had brutal pain in my shins, and was already pushing into the downhill. I am really annoyed by that two-tenth of a second [at the finish]. But I am just pleased about my 0-5 shooting in standing, because with that I settled a few things in this competition so the relay could still make the podium.”
“Hats off to the organizers,” she added. “They put up makeshift lanterns, and I am happy about my prescription lenses in my glasses, otherwise it would not have been possible for me to see anything.”
“I as very nervous, because it’s been a long time since I took the starting position,” Germany’s Franziska Preuss said at the press conference. “The last time was Sochi [2014 Olympics, where Preuss crashed and got snow into her rifle sights, falling back far, as German failed to medal for the first time in an Olympic women’s relay]. But now I am really happy that it was a good race for me… I think nobody expected Germany on the podium today.”
Germany started a lineup without Franziska Hildebrand and Laura Dahlmeier, their two highest-ranked athletes on the World Cup.
“Temperatures were better today than yesterday,” second leg Luise Kummer told ARD. “We feared it would become really cold by now, but today it was bearable. And the audience is really participating with the action, so it was definitely fun. You actually get warm during the race. One would not believe that, in training we were also worried. But in normal competition it is no problem at all.”
“I just could not handle the standing position on the range here, and unfortunately also not today,” Germany’s third leg Miriam Gössner, who had her team’s penalty, told ARD. “I don’t know why. I really tried to do my best. In the prone shooting and out on the course I felt really, really good. So I think I could compensate for that penalty lap fairly well.”
Poland, with Magdalena Gwizdon, Monika Hojnisz, Weronika Nowakwska, and Guzik (formerly Palka) finished just 0.4 seconds off the podium, after losing the sprint against Ukraine and Germany.
“We had to fight not only with our rivals, but mainly with low temperatures,” Hojnisz later posted on Facebook, according to a translation, after she had avoided a penalty in her first prone shooting but lost about 45 seconds to the top. “I was not the best link in today’s relay, so thank you girls for your faith and fight to the last meter.”
“I held her until the end of the climb and tried to overtake on the flats,” Guzik said of Pidhrushna on the last loop, as told to Polish sports website SportoweFakty, according to a translation. “Unfortunately, none of the three attempts worked. Olena took it well tactically. It is a pity that the course was not a little bit longer, because I could fight to the finish. … I am sad that I could not lead us to a medal. We need this podium in the relay. I still believe that soon we will succeed.”
A number of teams started different lineups than they will likely have at World Championships, including France, which won the previous relay in Antholz, Italy, but on Saturday gave its top athlete, Marie Dorin Habert, a break. France finished sixth (+48.2), with one penalty and 13 spares, after Anaïs Chevalier had tagged her teammate Justine Braisaz in second place at the last exchange.
U.S. Achieves Season-Best 10th
Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) racing the first leg of the women’s 4 x 6 k relay on Saturday at the IBU World Cup in Presque Isle, Maine. Her team went on to place 10th for a season best. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
Coming off a historic week for US Biathlon with Dunklee’s silver medal in the sprint and fifth place in the pursuit, the team’s leading woman was picked to start Sunday’s relay (after racing the second leg in the three prior relays this season), followed by Dreissigacker, Egan and Cook.
“We are still experimenting with the order,” Dunklee wrote in an email. “Last week’s mixed relay went well with myself leading and Han [Dreissigacker] going second so we tried that again.”
As for moving the race up to Saturday, Dunklee wrote, “I think most athletes would agree that moving the race to today was the right call in light of the cold forecast.”
But that made for a pretty hectic race day for the women, as they had very little time to prepare with the men’s relay only wrapping up about an hour before their own.
“Today was a great opportunity for dealing with unusual challenges on race day,” Dunklee explained. “We had some struggles getting to the venue on time, then I had a broken firing pin right before zero [target practice to adjust the rifle sights before the start], which is very tricky to replace, and finally 13 minutes before the start, I heard that the course got changed and didn’t get to preview it.”
“With the short turn around from the guys race, we only had 25 minutes to zero 4 people,” she continued. “I didn’t fit in more than 10-15 minutes of skiing warmup, a new record for me. Dealing with chaos is an extremely important skill for a biathlete to have and we all did well today in spite of the challenges.”
Dunklee’s performance didn’t seem to suffer much despite those unusual circumstances, she she used just one spare to clean the first prone stage, and another two in her standing bout. She also skied the fastest course time of all starters in 13:55.4, and second-best among every woman in the relay, behind France’s anchor, 19-year-old Braisaz.
Hannah Dreissigacker racing the second leg of the U.S. women’s 4 x 6 k relay on Saturday under darkening skies at the IBU World Cup in Presque Isle, Maine. Her team went on to place 10th for a season best. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
Dunklee tagged off to Dreissigacker in fourth, only back 11.1 seconds behind Switzerland’s Selina Gasparin, who was then leading the pack (Switzerland went on to finish 12th).
For Dreissigacker, a regular member of the U.S. relays last year including at 2015 World Championships, it was her second World Cup relay of the season after spending some time on the second-tier IBU Cup, before returning to the World Cup in Canmore, Alberta, and Presque Isle, where she most recently placed 27th in the sprint and 24th in the pursuit.
Like Dunklee, she didn’t let the stressful race preparation get to her.
“It was definitely a little bit rushed today before the race for everyone,” she wrote in an email. “We had to rearrange things and it got a bit hectic. But it was fine for me anyways… a good adrenal warm-up, as I like to call it!”
Dreissigacker needed one spare in prone and two in standing, just like Dunklee, and lost a little more time on the course, handing off in seventh, 43.7 seconds behind the leaders.
“I am a little disappointed that I didn’t hit my last standing shot, and then took two spares to hit it, but it could have been worse!” Dreissigacker wrote. “I had a good battle with Austria [Lisa Theresa Hauser] and France [Anaïs Bescond] at the end of my leg which was fun and made me go hard.”
Egan, who had started the prior relay for the U.S. in Antholz, moved back to the third leg, which she had also raced in Ruhpolding and Hochfilzen earlier this season.
Clare Egan (US Biathlon) during her standing stage of the women’s 4 x 6 k relay at the IBU World Cup in Presque Isle, Maine. Her team went on to place 10th for a season best. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
In Presque Isle, she had finished 32nd in the sprint and 23rd in the pursuit. She continued her solid recent shooting performances in Saturday’s prone stage, cleaning her targets to leave the range in seventh position (+41.4).
After moving up to sixth place on the next loop, Egan came into the standing stage fighting for position with France, Ukraine and Austria. There she was unable to hit her last target with her three spares, having to ski through the 150-meter penalty lap.
“The conditions for my standing shooting were fine, I am just not as solid in standing as I am in prone,” Egan wrote in an email. “I missed two from the clip and then fired the first spare accidentally before I was ready. Then I had two bullets for two targets and unfortunately I only hit the first one. I should have taken more time to make a perfect hit on my last shot.”
She left the range in 12th, and tagged off to Cook in that position, having lost an additional minute to the leaders by the exchange (+1:50.6).
Just like it was for her teammates, Cook’s race leadup was a bit hectic.
“The preparation was actually funny today,” Cook wrote in an email. “I did not get to ski the course before the race started, and the girls actually had to tell me that they took out a sketchy corner, so I had never even done our course before I was on it racing it.”
On the shooting range, she matched the performance of Dunklee and Dreissigacker, requiring one spare in her prone stage and two in standing, but had to overcome an additional challenge: the sun had set when the anchors were on their relay legs, and large sections of the course had fallen into darkness.
“I was glad that nothing crazy happened on the downhills because it was definitely a shadowy course, not like the huge floodlights that we are accustomed to,” Cook explained. “But I didn’t mind. It reminded me of how night races were growing up at my local ski area, with little light bulbs hanging over the course. The range was a bit dark and the big movie screen flashed really brightly while I was shooting prone, so the light changed drastically and suddenly and that was distracting. But it worked out okay.”
She was able to overtake two more relays, moving the U.S. up to 10th in the finish. The U.S. women were satisfied with their result, though believed there was still additional room for improvement.
“As a team, we all had okay shooting performances and it is exciting to see us move up so much already even without a great day,” Dunklee concluded. “Oslo will be exciting.”
“I think we are all happy with 10th since its our best relay of the year, but we also know we can do better and today was a good sign of that!” Dreissigacker wrote.
“Despite my penalty lap this was the best relay result we have had with this group of four athletes,” Egan explained. “Our previous best was 12th which we got twice last year (World Cup 6 Antholz, World Championships). It is also a season best. Of course we can still do better and intend to do so in Oslo.”
“I still know we can do better in the relay, but it is a hard, hard thing for everyone to have stellar races on the same day,” Cook concluded. “And luckily, we know that all we have to do is have a good normal day and we can be right up there.”
With Some New Faces, Canada 17th
Without Rosanna Crawford and Julia Ransom, Canada did not have two women in Presque Isle who will likely be part of the women’s relay at World Championships in Oslo. Crawford and Ransom started in all three other relays this season where the team finished 10th in Hochfilzen, and ninth in both Ruhpolding and Antholz.
Instead, with veteran Zina Kocher (in her third relay this season), Emma Lunder (who had one relay start before in Hochfilzen), Audrey Vaillancourt and Erin Yungblut struggled on Saturday, quickly falling to the back of the field, with Kocher having to ski a penalty loop in her first prone.
After leaving the range in 16th out of 17 teams (with Norway and Slovakia pulling their teams before the start due to illness), Canada was never able to catch back up to the top 10, losing time to the leaders as the race progressed.
Kocher tagged off to Lunder 2:14.3 back, who then incurred another penalty in her prone stage (1+3, 0+1) to exchange 4:28.1 back in 17th place.
Vaillancourt then put in a strong performance on the range with two clean shooting stages, but was slower on the course and passed on the penultimate loop by the leading teams. She handed off to anchor Yungblut 6:38.6 back.
After requiring three spares to hit her targets (0+1, 0+2), Yungblut then was taken out of the race and scored as lapped in 17th position before her final loop.
On to Oslo
The athletes will now have two weeks of additional training and preparation, before traveling to Norway for the World Championships, beginning on Thursday, March 3 with the mixed relay.
American Susan Dunklee (l) after achieving her best IBU World Cup finish in second place on Thursday and tying the best World Cup result by a U.S. biathlete. She finished second to Czech Gabriela Soukalova (c), and Poland’s Krystyna Guzik placed third (r) in the women’s 7.5 k sprint in Presque Isle, Maine. It was the first IBU World Cup held in the U.S. since 2011. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Gazing out at the crowd, standing on the second step of the podium on Thursday, Susan Dunklee recognized dozens of faces: family, friends, people from her home base in Craftsbury, Vt., US Biathlon board members, colleagues from the Lake Placid Olympic Training Center, not to mention her team and support staff.
It had all the makings of a local-race feel, except for the implications of a World Cup podium — and the flashing lights, silver medal and media attention that came with it.
Two days before her 30th birthday, Dunklee had the best race of her career. The 13th starter, she raced to second in the women’s 7.5-kilometer sprint on the first day of the IBU World Cup in Presque Isle, Maine, finishing 17.8 seconds behind Gabriela Soukalova of the Czech Republic, the winner in 20:02.2 and overall World Cup leader.
Nearly 400 miles and a seven-hour drive from her hometown of Barton, Vt., Presque Isle is less than a half an hour away from Canada. Yet in her first U.S. World Cup, and the first World Cup in the states since it was last held in Presque Isle in 2011, Dunklee felt somewhat at home.
“To be able to have a best result on home soil and we only have a North American World Cup every five years, I couldn’t ask for anything better,” Dunklee said on the phone after the race. “It’s just phenomenal.”
In order to achieve her best World Cup result by one place (she finished third in a sprint two seasons ago in Oslo, Norway), Dunklee rekindled her joy in both the sport and Presque Isle’s course specifically, putting herself in a happy place she had been struggling to find in the last week.
“Last week was a little tough for me,” Dunklee said of the last World Cup in Canmore, Alberta. “I felt like I was going through the motions but not really feeling hungry for it.”
That changed on the final day of racing there, when she skied the first leg of the U.S. mixed relay, which went on to place fourth for the team’s best-ever finish in the event. Being within two seconds of a podium recharged her and reminded her to stay the course.
“Coming here I was like, ‘OK, there’s going to be random things that happen that are going to throw me off, but I’m just going to take the positive things that I can and use those to my advantage,’” Dunklee said.
On the team’s first training day in Maine on Tuesday, she skied the Presque Isle World Cup course for the first time. Dunklee had previously raced a NorAm there in 2009, but missed out on the 2011 Presque Isle World Cup as the team’s fifth woman at the time, when it only took four.
That was frustrating, she said, but she moved on from it — taking advantage of an opportunity instead in Ruhpolding, Germany, where she raced and previewed the course a year out from 2012 Ruhpolding World Championships. There, a year later at her first World Championships, she broke through in fifth in the 15 k individual.
Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) racing to a career-best second on Thursday in the women’s 7.5 k sprint at the IBU World Cup in Presque Isle, Maine. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Memories aside, Dunklee was excited about what she saw in Presque Isle earlier this week.
“I skied the course and I’m like, wow … this is a John Morton course. This is what I grew up skiing on and this is what I’m good at,” she recalled. “This is what I’m going to thrive on. I love the ups and downs, the steep climbs, the roller-coaster flow, and that’s what really set the tone right away.”
On Thursday, it was cold in northern Maine, but busloads of schoolchildren came out for the first of four days of World Cup racing. Dunklee wasn’t in her home state, but with everyone speaking English and cheering “USA!” out on the course, it was the closest she had felt to being there.
“The community is extremely welcoming and they go out of their way to accommodate us and make us feel like home,” Dunklee explained.
She started behind Soukalova, an early leader with perfect shooting in both her prone and standing stages. No sooner had Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen in bib 6 finished and taken the lead from Czech Veronika Vitkova (the second starter) by 20 seconds, Soukalova in bib 8 charged across the finish line moments later, 24.5 seconds faster than Mäkäräinen to take hold of first place.
The day was young, but most of the top-ranked skiers were on course at the beginning of the 88-woman field. Dunklee followed Soukalova out, cleaning prone as well to take the lead by 0.8 seconds after the first shooting.
Her shooting didn’t feel automatic, Dunklee recalled. That wasn’t necessarily a good thing, but it wasn’t bad, either.
“I was very aware of each shot I was taking; it wasn’t flowing automatically like it usually does, and usually you want that automatic flow in a race,” she explained. “Instead I had all these thoughts going through my head, but what was great about today is I was able to take those thoughts and just say, ‘It’s OK that I’m distracted. I’m going to put that thought aside and go back to what I’m focused on right now in the present moment.’ ”
She had similar feelings earlier this year in Ruhpolding, where she placed sixth in the mass start. Recognizing this, she resolved to keep calm.
On the second shooting stage — standing — Dunklee cleaned again and left the range with 9.3 seconds to make up on Soukalova.
A US Biathlon staff member (l) cheers on Susan Dunklee (r) as she races to a career-best second place in the 7.5 k sprint on Thursday at the IBU World Cup in Presque Isle, Maine. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
What came to mind then? “You still need to fight like hell,” she recalled. “When you’re having that sort of race, you don’t want to lose a second anywhere … I’ve just got to fight for the next seven minutes or whatever it takes.”
With 1 k remaining, she was 17.6 seconds off Soukalova’s time. Half a kilometer later, Soukalova still held her ground, 17.4 seconds ahead. By the finish, Dunklee was 17.8 seconds back in second, and she wasn’t even sure she was second — but she smiled at the cameras anyway.
“I knew I probably had one of my best races in my life and I’d done it at home and my parents were there,” she said. “I just felt really good about my performance. I was really happy.”
US Biathlon Women’s Coach Jonne Kähkönen knew she was on track for a career best.
“I knew that if she would clean the race today, she would be fighting for the podium, even if there were a few fast athletes starting behind her,” he said on the phone. “Not nervous, but just wanted to wait and see what the later starters would do.”
France’s Marie Dorin Habert presented the most immediate threat. After starting 24th and cleaning prone, Dorin Habert left the range in first, 4 seconds ahead of Dunklee. However, during her second stage, she missed one standing shot. The penalty loop put her in fourth, 25.5 seconds behind Soukalova and 16.2 seconds behind Dunklee, with one loop to go.
Meanwhile, Poland’s Krystyna Guzik had started 20th and cleaned both stages to leave the range for the last time in third, trailing Dunklee by 4.4 seconds. She couldn’t catch the American on the final loop and finished 1.3 seconds behind her in third.
“Shooting is so hard; it is not sure that every day I will shoot well,” she said in a post-race press conference. “I thought that this was a new day and do my best to shoot well and run fast. I just could not catch Susan; she was too fast on the last loop. For me, the last loop today was really hard.”
Ultimately, the three podium finishers were the only ones in the top eight to shoot clean. Soukalova had the fifth-fastest overall course time, Dunklee’s course time ranked 12th and Guzik’s 15th.
Overall World Cup leader Gabriela Soukalova of the Czech Republic racing to a 17.8-second win (over American Susan Dunklee) in the women’s sprint on Thursday at the IBU World Cup in Presque Isle, Maine. (Phot: Fischer/NordicFocus)
“I have to say everything was perfect,” Soukalova said in the press conference. “I started to feel a little tired after the long trip from Canada, but I started to feel good after the start. … We had good service, good skis today so I am very satisfied with this result.”
Dorin Habert crossed the line in fourth, 20.5 seconds behind Soukalova and 1.4 behind Guzik, bumping Mäkäräinen, with a single standing miss, into fifth.
The top five would stand, and Dunklee would tie the best result by a U.S. biathlete (male or female) joining the ranks of Joan Smith (1994) and Anna Sonnerup (1991).
Current men’s team member, Tim Burke placed second in two World Cup races in 2009/2010 and earned silver at 2013 World Championships. Before him, Josh Thompson also took silver at 1987 World Championships.
“What a great day for @USBiathlon with 6 athletes in the top 30 and @SusanDunklee on the podium! #homecourseadvantage!”Burke tweeted on Thursday, after he, Sean Doherty and Lowell Bailey placed in the top 20 in the men’s sprint. Dunklee, Hannah Dreissigacker and Clare Egan finished in the top 32 of the women’s race.
“Today Susan cemented her place as a world class biathlete,” US Biathlon President and CEO Max Cobb wrote in an email. “It was a historic performance, matching the best World Cup finish by an American.”
“You spend years and years working on this, trying to perfect things,” Dunklee explained. “And at first progress is pretty good, you make big gains pretty fast, and then to get that last one percent or so of performance, it just takes so much more work.”
You need that 1 percent, she added.
“There’s times where you work your way at something for months and you just don’t make progress on it or you even go backwards because you’re trying so hard, she continued. “I don’t know, somehow things came together and I’m just amazed. It’s exciting.”
‘A Culmination of a Whole Lot of Effort’
What is it about progress, or maybe more specifically about biathlon, in which someone like Dunklee can turn a last-place finish in Canmore’s mass start, complete with a “dirty” stage (five missed targets), around less than a week later with a silver-medal performance?
“We’ve talked about this actually a couple of times over the season,” Kähkönen said of Dunklee’s ability to overcome adversity and less-than-desirable results. “It’s been a little up and down. We’ve been trying to track down in the training log if we can find some reasoning behind it and be able to narrow it down better in the future as well. But now it looks like everything is on track in terms of the physical training.”
Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) racing to a career-best and historic second place in the women’s sprint at the IBU World Cup in Presque Isle, Maine. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
In the last World Cup before World Championships in Oslo in early March, Dunklee said the timing of this result was “perfect.”
“I think Susan, ever since last week, she was able to put distractions on the side and focus on what matters,” Kähkönen said.
“In order to have my best performances in biathlon or anything in life, to be a person that takes joy out of life … I really have to find what I love about it,” Dunklee explained. “… I think that hunger is honestly my most valuable asset as an athlete.”
Looking ahead to the rest of the races in Presque Isle, Dunklee had fewer than 24 hours to absorb what she’d done on Thursday and prepare for Friday’s pursuit. At 1:10 p.m. Eastern time, Soukalova will start the 10 k pursuit first. Dunklee will head out 18 seconds later in second, and Guzik 1 second after Dunklee in third. Dorin Habert will follow, 3 seconds after Dunklee.
“I’ve got the best setup I’ve ever had before going into a pursuit,” Dunklee explained. “Starting pretty close behind the leader, and that’s another wonderful opportunity to have a great result. I’m going to enjoy tonight and celebrate a bit, but at the same time I’m going to try to wind down a bit, have a little Susan-time to myself and get some good sleep tonight because I really want to see what I can do tomorrow.”
Asked about the task of refocusing after a result like Thursday’s, Kähkönen said that’s the key to consistent top results.
“With this schedule, we just don’t have the luxury of getting stuck on the current or especially the past,” he said. “You just need to stay focused on what’s coming up next.”
But Thursday was a pretty incredible day to be part of US Biathlon, in the same state (albeit 270 miles away) as its headquarters in New Gloucester, Maine.
“It’s unbelievable,” Kähkönen said. “Just to be able to grab the podium on the home soil, home World Cup, even if it’s not the hometown, but there’s a lot of friends and family and fans that are great support. The local community is just awesome, so it means the world to us.”
“It’s not just my success,” Dunklee stated. “It’s a culmination of a whole lot of effort over lots of years by this whole group of people who care a lot about our team.”
Dreissigacker 27th, Egan 32nd, Kocher 42nd
Joining Dunklee in the pursuit will be two other U.S. women and one Canadian. Dunklee’s teammate on the national team as well as Craftsbury Green Racing Project, Hannah Dreissigacker placed 27th for her fourth-best sprint result, finishing 1:33.7 behind Soukalova with a single prone penalty.
Hannah Dreissigacker (US Biathlon) racing to 27th in the women’s 7.5 k sprint at the IBU World Cup on Thursday in Presque Isle, Maine. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
“I was really happy to clean standing — I am normally a better prone shooter than standing, but I knew that I had to clean standing if I wanted to really do well,” Dreissigacker, the 41st starter, wrote in an email. “I’m very happy that I was able to concentrate for all of the shots and make it happen.
“It felt really special to have my family here, and so many other Americans out there cheering for us,” she wrote. “I actually started just after I heard on the loud speaker that Susan had cleaned. So then she came around the building and headed out on her last lap just a bit behind me. That was a fun lap — I was excited for her, and also all of the staff and fans were out there cheering so hard for her and I could tell that she was gaining on me, and also that she was probably going to podium. I felt like we were doing that lap together, though she only caught me at the very end.”
Also for the U.S., Clare Egan finished 32nd (+1:38.5) with one standing penalty. The 56th starter, Egan looked to be in contention for a top 20 after cleaning prone, but slipped into 28th after standing.
Clare Egan (US Biathlon) racing to 32nd, her second-best IBU World Cup result, in the women’s 7.5 k sprint on Thursday in Presque Isle, Maine. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
“I was thankful to clean prone because it put a little less pressure on the standing, which is the harder discipline for me,” Egan wrote in an email. “I was very shaky in standing and I had to stop and reset my position after missing my 3rd shot, but that worked and I hit the last two.
“This is my 2nd best result ever and by far my best result since World Cup 1,” she explained. “My ski speed took a major hit in December but I am now recovered to where I think I should be so that is a huge relief. I had a top-30 ski time today and 90% shooting so that is an almost perfect day.”
Originally from Cape Elizabeth, Maine (and a teammate of Dunklee and Dreissigacker at Craftsbury), Egan described the experience of racing in her home state.
“My parents, my teammates’ families, and some USOC staff and USBA board members are here,” she wrote. “I heard my name all along the course from voices both familiar and unknown– and that was a first.”
Friday will be Egan’s second time racing a World Cup pursuit.
Maddie Phaneuf (US Biathlon) on her way to 65th in the second individual IBU World Cup of her career on Thursday in Presque Isle, Maine. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
The fourth U.S. woman, 20-year-old Maddie Phaneuf, in her second individual World Cup race, placed 65th (for her best result by 28 places) with a clean prone and two standing penalties.
“My goal was to shoot well and ski strong … which I didn’t feel I reached fully,” Phaneuf wrote. “I felt pretty good on the skis, but not nearly as strong as I was in Romania.”
“My result-goal was to make the Pursuit, which I just missed,” she wrote of Thursday’s World Cup race, in which she needed a top 60 to advance to the pursuit. “But I’m still happy with the result and know that I have the potential to achieve more.”
On behalf of her team, Dreissigacker noted, “Our skis were phenomenal today. Our wax techs definitely deserve a share of the credit for the great day that we had as a team.”
The top Canadian, Zina Kocher placed 42nd (+2:02.0) with three misses (2+1). Overall, she had the 20th-fastest course time.
“I was focused on having consistent solid performances this week in order to qualify for World Champs,” Kocher wrote in an email. “Knowing that it is a trials situation though does bring a bit more nerves into the equation.
“I had thought I had focused on attacking from the start, however looking at the breakdown in ski speeds, looks more like I went out for a casual ski lap 1, & lap 3 an explosion went off,” she wrote of her course times, which ranked 54th on the first loop, then 46th on the second, and finally, third on the last loop. “I’d say I’m happy with 3rd fastest last lap but will work on a more aggressive warm up for the next sprint or relay I do to make sure I’m starting out a bit quicker!”
Also for Canada, Emma Lunder placed 68th with two penalties (1+1), Audrey Vaillancourt was 80th with four misses (2+2) and Erin Yungblut 87th in her World Cup debut, also with four penalties (1+3).
Note: In the men’s 10 k sprint, Sean Doherty led the U.S. in 13th (0+1), Lowell Bailey was 15th (0+1) and Tim Burke 20th (1+1).
“The men were just really consistent,” Kähkönen said. “Everybody close together and just the whole field for the top athletes, so it puts them into a very good place looking ahead for tomorrow’s pursuit race. Hopefully Susan’s podium will give them another push.”
Stay tuned for a separate report on the men’s race.
Watch the men’s and women’s pursuits live on Eurovision (Friday at 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. EDT)
Susan Dunklee with her parents Judy (l) and Stan (r) after Dunklee tied the best-ever U.S. result in an IBU World Cup in second in the women’s sprint in Presque Isle, Maine. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
Dunklee celebrates a career-best second place in the women’s sprint at the IBU World Cup in Presque Isle, Maine. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
Dunklee celebrates a career-best second place in the women’s sprint at the IBU World Cup in Presque Isle, Maine, in February. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
The French women’s 4 x 6 k relay team, including Justine Braisaz, Anaïs Bescond and Anaïs Chevalier, hugs and kisses anchor Marie Dorin Habert at the finish, after Habert secured their IBU World Cup victory by 17 seconds over the Czech Republic on Sunday in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: IBU/Rene Miko)
After Ukraine, Germany and Italy occupied the podium in the first two International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup women’s relays of the season, on Sunday it was time for three other nations to shine in front of more than 20,000 fans in a packed arena in Antholz, Italy.
On a beautiful day with blue skies, almost no wind, and surrounded by the spectacular mountain scenery of the South Tyrolean Alps, the French team with Justine Braisaz, Anaïs Bescond, Anaïs Chevalier, and Marie Dorin Habert shot well and skied fast to stay near the top throughout the 4 x 6-kilometer relay. Habert as the anchor received the tag with a 10.6-second buffer to Russia in second, then closed out the race with clean shooting in both stages, eliminating any chance of other teams challenging her.
After she crossed the finish line in first for France with a time of 1:07.53.5, her teammates hugged her enthusiastically. Overall the French women shot no penalties and required just eight spare rounds.
“It was a very nice race for the team,” starter Braisaz said during the post-race press conference. “I was a bit [too] excited on my first shoot. But it was a good experience to start the relay. And I am very happy today.”
“A very happy end to my week,” her teammate Bescond told the media. “Today I felt very good on my skis. I think all of the team made a very good job.”
“I am very tired, especially this week,” Habert said, reflecting on her season and the race. “It’s a very good thing to finish in the first position.”
The French women’s relay after winning Sunday’s 4 x 6 k IBU World Cup relay in Antholz, Italy. With Justine Braisaz (l), Anaïs Bescond (second from l), Anaïs Chevalier (r), and anchor Marie Dorin Habert (second from r). (Photo: IBU/Rene Miko)
“This is the first time we tried our relay for the World Championships [in Oslo], so it’s important to [get] a good position to see that this formation of the relay is functioning,” she later said in another interview with the IBU.
On the last loop, the Czech Republic, Russia and Italy battled for the positions on the podium, with Veronika Vitková able to create a small gap to secure second place for the Czech team, 17.2 seconds behind France.
Initially, the outlook didn’t look good for the Czech Republic, after second-leg Lucie Charvátová skied two penalty laps and slipped to 12th at the exchange. Later she could be seen in the finish pen with tears in her eyes, while being consoled by team staff.
“After my leg I didn’t think [it would be possible to come back], because I was such a bad shooter in each relay I started this year. So I was afraid, afraid all race, all year,” Charvátová, 22, said during the press conference. “I am so under pressure. So I am very happy, because those other girls are the best.”
Gabriela Soukalová (l) tags Czech teammate Veronika Vitková in fourth during the final exchange in the IBU World Cup women’s 4 x 6 k relay. The Czech Republic team went on to finish second with just two spares from Vitkova. (Photo: IBU/Rene Miko)
Her veteran teammates, World Cup leader Gabriela Soukalová and Vitková turned the race around with solid shooting and fast skiing, recording the best and fourth-best course times on their legs, respectively, to capture second. Overall, the team incurred two penalties and required seven spare rounds. It was the best performance for the Czech relay team this season, after two sixth-place finishes before.
“It’s very surprising,” starter Eva Puscarciokova said during the press conference. “I am very happy today, because it was very hard after my race in Ruhpolding [Germany] when I went to the penalty loop.”
Third place on the podium went to the Russian team with Ekaterina Shumilova, Anastasia Zagoruiko (who replaced Daria Virolaynen from the last relay in Ruhpolding), Ekaterina Yurlova, and Olga Podchufarova, finishing 21.2 seconds back, with no penalties and 10 spare rounds.
Yurlova, Saturday’s pursuit winner, lifted her team from sixth to second, skiing fast — with the second-best course time of the third-leg skiers — and only needing two spares.
“I am really happy about my leg, and especially about my standing [shooting],” Yurlova said at the press conference. “Because I am really, really tired after two competitions before. And now I was really afraid about my standing. It was all shaking, but I am really happy that I could do it clean. Overall I am really satisfied about this World Cup.”
In the finishing stretch, Italy’s anchor, Dorothea Wierer, and Russia’s Podchufarova (who had beaten Wierer in the sprint last Friday) fought for third, as they had done earlier this season at the end of the relay in Ruhpolding, Germany, where Italy came out ahead. But this time, Podchufarova prevailed, to the huge excitement of her teammates who immediately ran into the finish area and piled onto her. Wierer crossed the line just 0.5 seconds behind (+21.7), after having made up nearly 15 seconds after the final shooting.
“My only thought was to come into the finish in the third position,” Podchufarova said in the press conference. “I didn’t know at first that [Wierer] was behind me, only when I came into the stadium I saw it on the monitor. Then I tried my best to get the third place for the team.”
“I wanted to go on the podium, but I was too [many] seconds behind,” Wierer said in a post-race interview with the IBU. “On the finish line I couldn’t anymore, because I was flushed pushing from the first loop, and in the final I had no more energy.
“It was a really nice [weekend], but I am a little disappointed today,” she added with a laugh. “You want always more and more, that is the problem.”
Norway, with Kaia Wøien Nicolaisen, Fanny Horn Birkeland, Marte Olsbu and Tiril Eckhoff, had been in third position behind France and Russia coming into the last shooting, but Eckhoff — a fast skier who has struggled with her shooting all season, hitting 68 percent of her standing targets — again had problems and ended up skiing a penalty lap. She finished fifth for Norway, 47.1 seconds back from France, with a team total of one penalty and 10 spares.
“I had the opportunity and screwed it up. This was real sh*t. This was not the way I wanted to end [my] last World Cup race before the World Championships,” Eckhoff told Norwegian broadcaster NRK after the race, noting she and her coaches were aware of some technical corrections she still plans to implement.
Ahead of the upcoming World Championships on their home turf in Oslo, the Norwegian women have yet to reach the podium since earning bronze in the relay at the 2014 Olympics.
Arguably the biggest surprise of the day was Sweden, with Emma Nilsson, Mona Brorsson, Ingela Andersson, and Linn Persson, in sixth place (+50.5) just 3.4 seconds behind Norway, with no penalties and seven spare rounds.
After the race, the Swedish women claimed they knew they were on a very good trajectory this season.
“We expected it,” Brorsson said during in a group interview with the IBU.
“We really thought we had a chance to be top six,” Andersson added.
They credited their coach, Wolfgang Pichler, for their improved performance, after he helped several Swedish biathletes, such as Magdalena Forsberg, Helena Ekholm and Anna Carin Olofsson (now Zidek) reach Olympic and World Championship medals, before returning last summer after a stint with the Russian biathlon team.
“I think that’s the big difference this year,” said Brorsson. “He always finds a way to motivate you. On the track, he is incredible. He knows what he is doing.”
Ukraine, winner of the last relay in Ruhpolding and usually a team with very solid shooting performances, had some difficulties on the range on Sunday and finished ninth (+1:45.5). The team with Iryna Varvynets, Valj Semerenko, Olga Abramova (replacing Juliya Dzhyma) and Olena Pidhrushna stayed near the front for most of the race and Semerenko even exchanged in the lead. But Abramova needed five spares, and anchor Pidhrushna had to ski a penalty lap, setting them farther back (12 spares overall).
Similarly, Germany had been in second place for both relays this season. On Sunday, with their regular anchor Laura Dahlmeier taking a break after a respiratory infection, the team struggled almost right out of the gate. Starter Karolin Horchler required five spare rounds and only narrowly avoided the penalty lap in her prone stage, leaving in last position at that time. She tagged off already a minute behind the best in 15th, before Miriam Gössner and Vanessa Hinz moved up a bit, but each incurred a penalty to slow down the chase. Anchor Franziska Hildebrand still managed to improve her team two positions on her leg, ultimately finishing 10th (+1:51.8).
“I don’t know why, but my legs felt like a sewing machine today in standing, that hasn’t happened to me in a long time,” Gössner told German TV broadcaster ARD in an interview while the race was still going on. “I stood there, and already from the first shot my legs were shaking so much that I really didn’t have myself under control anymore. Even though I went slowly on the prior loop. I tried to fight and prevent the penalty lap, but unfortunately I did not succeed.”
“My race was all right. All in all I am satisfied,” Hildebrand told ARD. “We somehow struggled a bit in Antholz. Next time it hopefully will be better again for us. There are weekends where not everything works out, and this was one of those.”
Switzerland, with Saturday’s pursuit runner-up Selina Gasparin, started the relay very strong, with Gasparin tagging off in the lead, and her younger sister Aita Gasparin keeping the team in contention in fourth. Then two less-experienced skiers closed for Switzerland, with Irene Cadurisch tagging off in fifth place, before anchor Ladina Meier-Ruge faded a bit and lost two minutes to the front. They finished 12th with nine spares, one place ahead of Canada.
Canada 13th, U.S. 17th
After achieving her first-career top 20 in Saturday’s pursuit, Canada’s Julia Ransom had said her team was “fired up” for the relay, and that they were eager to reach the top six after feeling they had come close in ninth a week ago in Ruhpolding.
Unfortunately on Sunday, the performance on the shooting range did not allow that to happen for the Canadian team with Ransom, Rosanna Crawford, Megan Tandy, and Zina Kocher.
Starting as the scramble leg, Ransom missed two targets in her first prone stage, then required all three spares to clean them, narrowly avoiding the penalty but only leaving the range again in 18th position, already 41 seconds back.
After skiing a fast second loop (with the third-best course time, seventh-best overall) and a clean standing shooting, she moved the team back up significantly and tagged Crawford in ninth place, 32.2 seconds behind the top.
Crawford had two solid shooting performances, requiring one spare round in her prone stage and two in standing. Skiing the 11th-fastest second-leg course time, she brought her team close to the top six in seventh place, just 32.5 seconds out of first.
Tandy skied a very fast first loop (fourth-best), and came through her prone stage with two spare rounds, leaving still in 10th position. After a slower loop, she then struggled in her standing position, and was unable to avoid the penalty lap (0+2, 1+3), losing a minute to the top. She tagged off in 13th place (+1:58.7).
Kocher as the team’s anchor initially held 13th and had a solid first prone shooting with one spare round, but lost another minute on the next loop. In the final standing, similar to Tandy, she also ran out of spares and had to ski a penalty lap, leaving the range in 14th and more than four minutes behind the leaders. On the final loop she was able to pass Bulgaria’s anchor Daniela Kadeva, finishing 13th for Canada (+4:12.2 minutes) with two penalties and 15 spare rounds.
In an email, Biathlon Canada’s head coach Matthias Ahrens explained that the team was packing up Sunday afternoon, driving to Munich, Germany, then flying back to Canada early Monday morning. The Canadian athletes could not be reached for immediate comment.
“Women’s race started excellent with Julia and Rosanna, then unfortunately Megan and Zina could not match that Performance,” Ahrens briefly noted about the women’s result before leaving Antholz.
Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) used a total of four spares between two stages in the women’s 4 x 6 IBU World Cup relay, handing off in 14th. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)
The U.S., with Clare Egan, Susan Dunklee, Annelies Cook, and Joanne Reid, adapted its lineup order a bit again on Sunday compared to the first two relays, with Egan starting and Cook moving to the third leg.
“Today I got my first mass-start experience at the World Cup level,” Egan wrote in an email. “It reminded me of how much I thrive on head-to-head racing. The decision was made with the intent of giving me that head-to-head experience, both because it will be useful in the future for pursuits and mass starts, and because I think my coaches thought I would like it.”
She skied at a steady pace in the middle of the field, and required just one spare in each of her shooting stages.
“The altitude is a challenge here, for the skiing of course but also for recovering before the shooting,” Egan wrote of the biathlon trails situated some 2,000 meters (6,500 feet) above sea level. “The range approach does not provide rest, so I have been making rest for myself by skiing into the range extra easily.”
“There was a light wind but it was constant, so with the correct sight adjustments the wind was not a factor,” Egan explained. “I had super fast skis and put them to good use passing people on course, but then despite using only one spare round per stage, I still lost places on the range to faster shooters.”
On the last loop, Egan sped up her pace and skied the sixth-fastest course time of her leg, catching six other teams in front of her to hand off in 12th place (+53.9)
“The highlight for me was on the last lap when I passed Team Germany,” she wrote.
After receiving the tag from Egan, Dunklee set out fast with the best course time on her first loop, but then required three spare rounds in her prone shooting. After skiing her second loop at a slightly lower pace, she managed to miss only one target in standing. She slipped two spots to tag off in 14th (+1:10.1), with the third-best course time overall.
Cook was initially able to hold that position, despite requiring two spares in her prone. Then in standing, she used all three spares and had to ski a penalty lap. That set her back to 18th place, more than three minutes behind the leaders. She tagged off still in that position (+3:36.7).
In the second World Cup weekend of her career, Reid, 23, skied as the U.S. anchor for the second time. She posted the ninth-best course time on her first loop and managed to shoot clean in prone, but then was lapped by the top teams after another penalty in her standing. That kept Reid from skiing her last loop and ended the race for the U.S. in 17th place with two penalties and 14 spares. Estonia and Romania behind them were lapped as well.
Next Stop: Canmore/Canada
The IBU World Cup picks back up again in two weeks in Canmore, Alberta, with sprints on Thursday, Feb. 4 and Friday, Feb. 5, followed by mass starts on Saturday, Feb. 6, and single-mixed relay (1 woman, 1 man) and mixed relay (2 women, 2 men) relays on Sunday, Feb. 7.
Several strong athletes will not make the trip overseas, notably several members of the Norwegian team, such as Eckhoff and Synnøve Solemdal, citing a focus on instead preparing for the upcoming World Championships.
Sitting in second in the overall World Cup standings, Habert plans to be there to fight for more points: “Just five days to recover, and then we will fly to Canmore,” she said at the press conference.
“We are still in discussion with the coaches about the best approach,” Germany’s Hildebrand told ARD. “In order to stand nicely relaxed and regenerated at the start in Oslo.”
Note: The U.S. men placed sixth in the men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay to match a season best, despite using 13 spares and skiing a penalty lap, with Lowell Bailey, Tim Burke, Leif Nordgren, and Sean Doherty. Canada’s men, with Christian Gow, Nathan Smith, Macx Davies, and Scott Gow, placed 11th with eight spares and no penalties.
Stay tuned for a complete report on the men’s race.
Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen celebrates her second IBU World Cup victory of the 2015/2016 season on Sunday at the 12.5 k mass start in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
“I know I will probably feel tired, but everyone else in the race will be exhausted from the past month so that shouldn’t be a big problem,” US Biathlon’s Susan Dunklee predicted in an email to FasterSkier on Friday.
Several other athletes had echoed this feeling of really looking forward to a break, including France’s Marie Dorin Habert and Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier, winners of the IBU World Cup races last Friday and Saturday, respectively.
A bit of mental and physical exhaustion toward the end of a long stretch of eight races was evident in the women’s 12.5-kilometer mass start race on Sunday afternoon. Even athletes who had already been highly successful this season skied slower and shot more misses than usual. At least one woman seemed to be at the top of her game: Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen.
After achieving third place in Saturday’s pursuit, the two-time Overall World Cup champion improved on that by winning the mass start in 34:40.2 minutes.
Despite a penalty lap in the first prone shooting, which set her back to 20th place, with her skiing strength as the fastest athlete on the course and three-consecutive clean stages thereafter (1+0+0+0), Mäkäräinen was able to close the gap to the leaders again.
On the final loop, she managed to distance herself from the Czech Republic’s Gabriela Soukalová and Russia’s Olga Podchufarova, two athletes who cleaned the entire four-stage race.
“When I had one penalty in the first prone, I thought the day would not be that good,” Mäkäräinen said in the post-race press conference. “But I decided it would be my last mistake for this competition!”
On the third loop, she had come back to the top of the field and was skiing in a small group with Soukalová and her Czech teammate Veronika Vítková. Both strong skaters with the eventual fifth- and seventh-fastest course times, they nonetheless had no chance to keep up with Mäkäräinen when she decided to push the tempo.
She came first into the final shooting and fired before the others had reached their positions, hitting all her targets, and left the stage 4 seconds ahead of Soukalová in second. On the last loop, she almost tripled that lead until the finish.
Soukalová finished second, 11.8 seconds back, and Podchufarova placed third, 27.7 seconds after Mäkäräinen. Vítková was fourth, 12.5 seconds off the podium, with her only miss in the final stage.
The women’s IBU World Cup mass start podium in Pokljuka, Slovenia: with Finland’s winner Kaisa Mäkäräinen (c), runner-up Gabriela Soukalova (l) of the Czech Republic, and Russia’s Olga Podchufarova (r) in third. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
For Mäkääainen, the win was her 17th in an IBU World Cup and her second one of the season.
Asked in an English interview with German TV broadcaster ZDF if the improved shooting was most likely reason for her recent successes, Mäkäräinen said, “Probably. It seems like all the women are shooting really well, and skiing times are more and more close to each other, so I cannot do that much on the course even if I feel strong. So I also need to shoot well.”
“I now plan to go home to Joensuu [Finland] to spend time with my family, with my parents,” Mäkäräinen said when asked about her plans for the holiday break.
“I think the first week is a little more easy, and then I will start preparing for Oberhof [Germany, the site of the next World Cup races Jan. 6-10].”
Runner-up Soukalová was satisfied with her result, commenting in the press conference about the race and about Pokljuka in general, the site where she achieved her first World Cup victory.
“I am so happy, I was feeling that I lost energy from yesterday,” Soukalová said. “My teammate Veronika Vítková was helping me on the track. Pokljuka is my favorite destination, I would like to continue to be on the podium here.”
After Vítková had shot a miss in the final shooting, Podchufarova was still able to overtake her to grab the final spot on the podium. It was the Russian’s first World Cup podium, and while this result might have been unexpected to outside observers, she believed she executed her game plan well.
“I am not surprised. I had a certain plan before the competitions, and everything went according to the plan,” Podschufarova said at the press conference. “I was almost the last one at the start, as I was trying to take it slowly and save my energy for the final loops.”
Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) placed sixth in the IBU World Cup sprint on Friday, Dec. 18, in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Podchufarova added that she expects this result will also help her team, since this was the first podium for the Russian women this season.
“I think it’s because of the last preparation period, it was hard for us to start,” she said. “With this podium, things will get easier as the pressure will be off.”
At the halfway mark, 22-year-old Norwegian Hilde Fenne had been in the lead, after creating a little gap to a larger chase group. But in the first standing, she missed three of five shots and lost almost a minute in the penalty laps. She finished in 16th place with four penalties (0+0+3+1), 1:40.2 minutes back from Mäkääainen.
Austria’s Lisa Theresa Hauser, also 22, was one of four athletes in the women’s field to clean all four shooting stages, but could not quite keep up with the fastest skiers on Sunday, coming in eighth place (+1:08.7) to tie her career best.
“Four times zero, that’s amazing. The mass start seems to be my race,” Hauser told Austrian TV broadcaster ORF. “I am almost surprised it worked so well today because the last two days were quite hard. Today I even could improve on the track during the course of the race. I am super happy. Now I can really enjoy the holidays.”
Dunklee was the lone North American to qualify for the mass start as the best athlete outside of the top-25 due to her results in the preceding two races (sixth in the sprint and 10th in the pursuit) in Pokljuka. She finished 22nd (+2:29.5) after missing four targets throughout the mass start( 1+0+1+2).
Starting out of the ninth row in bib 26, Dunklee initially attempted to improve her position on the first round, but broke or lost a ski pole early in the first loop. After recording a miss in the first prone, she exited the penalty loop in 22nd place, already 31.9 seconds behind the leaders.
After the second loop and a clean second prone shooting, she improved to 16th and 38.4 seconds behind. She skied a strong third loop with the 11th-fastest course time, but a miss in the first standing prevented her from moving up more, as she fell back 30 more seconds to 19th place.
Then in the final shooting, Dunklee had two more penalties, almost doubling her time back behind the leaders to 2:11.6 in 22nd place. She kept that position to the finish, only losing a bit more time to Mäkäräinen.
New Women’s World Cup Leader is The Old One
Martin Fourcade tweeted the following photo on Saturday of him and French teammate Marie Dorin Habert holding up the overall World Cup leader’s bibs: “This does not happen every day!” he wrote. (Photo: Martin Fourcade/Twitter)
On Saturday evening, a proud World Cup leader Martin Fourcade posted a picture on Twitter that showed himself and teammate Dorin Habert both holding up the “yellow bibs” of the Overall World Cup score leaders, with the caption “this does not happen every day!”
While Fourcade was able to defend his position on Sunday, Dorin Habert, who had said in a press conference after the pursuit that she hoped, “I won’t wear it just for one competition,” didn’t get her wish granted after finishing seventh on Sunday.
When the World Cup resumes in Oberhof next month, Soukalová will be the woman in yellow again, leading the overall standings with 359 points to Dorin Habert’s 345. After eight competitions, Germany’s Franziska Hildebrand is in third place (307), while Mäkäräinen moved up to fourth (278).
“This is really good motivation for me,” Soukalová said. “I know that the season will be long. We will have a lot of competitions, and girls are very strong. We will see.”
Dunklee improved to 27th place in the World Cup standings with 97 points, and Biathlon Canada’s Rosanna Crawford, the other North American in the top 30, ranks 29th with 91 points.
Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) placed sixth in the IBU World Cup sprint on Friday in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
(Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Note: This article has been corrected to include Susan Dunklee’s sixth-place pursuit finish last season in Antholz, Italy. On Friday in Pokljuka, Slovenia, Dunklee tied her best result last season and posted her best sprint finish in two years.
***
For Susan Dunklee, it felt really good to smell the roses (and gerbera daisies or whatever those orange flowers were) on Friday at the third International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup stop in Pokljuka, Slovenia.
It’s not that she hadn’t been to the flower ceremony before; the 29-year-old US Biathlon veteran placed sixth in a pursuit last January in Antholz, Italy, and she reached the podium two seasons ago at a World Cup sprint in Oslo, Norway. Before that in January 2014, Dunklee placed fourth in a sprint in Antholz, Italy, which, at the time, stood as the best result by a U.S. female biathlete since 1994.
In the time since Dunklee’s 2014 sprint podium, she has continued to lead the U.S. women’s team while experimenting with some tweaks to her training and her approach.
“Biathlon is a notoriously up and down sport,” Dunklee wrote in an email after Friday’s 7.5 k sprint, in which she placed sixth for her best result in two seasons.
In two weeks of racing beforehand, Dunklee had not finished higher than 31st this season. She placed 64th in the World Cup opening sprint in Östersund, Sweden, then 53rd at the sprint last weekend in Hochfilzen, Austria. In both races, she missed four of 10 targets.
“After getting off to a rough start this season, I realized that my biggest challenge would be to remain happy and confident, and to keep my focus forward,” Dunklee explained.
She described her summer training as high-quality.
“I took a lot more ownership in the planning, specifically targeting my weakest areas,” she wrote. “After seeing huge steps forward in training, I was hoping for big things this winter. In those first few races of the season I did a great job executing my race plan, but the results didn’t reflect that at all. That was frustrating and disappointing.”
Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) racing to sixth in the women’s 7.5 k sprint at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Thank goodness for breakthroughs. On Friday, Dunklee knocked down 9 of 10 targets for her best shooting of the season. Combined with fast skiing (with her overall course time ranking seventh of 103 finishers), she ended up sixth, 30.6 seconds behind winner Marie Dorin Habert of France and 17.6 seconds off the podium.
Dunklee started second and set a long list of split times to beat for those behind her. Her time on the first loop held up as third-fastest of the day, and her last loop ranked eighth.
The eventual top four — Dorin Habert in first, Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier in second (+1.1) and Franziska Hildebrand in third (+13.0), and Veronika Vitkova of the Czech Republic in fourth (+16.4) — all cleaned the two-stage race. Another Czech skier, Gabriela Soukalová in fifth (+25.2) missed one prone shot, like Dunklee. Fortunately, prone hasn’t been Dunklee’s problem.
“Skiing and prone shooting have already been strong,” Dunklee observed. “Standing shooting has been what held me back this season. I’ve been working to fix a very minor issue with my timing. The trigger-finger/brain connection has been off and caused my shots to land left.”
In Pokljuka, her standing shots grouped more toward the center, she explained. She cleaned that stage, and that was the moment she knew Friday’s race could be a good one.
The second starter, she didn’t hear much in terms of split information, so she told herself to imagine she was fighting for a top 10. Dunklee finished first and held the lead until Soukalová in bib 15 finished 5.4 seconds faster.
“I felt relaxed today,” Dunklee noted. “Everything seemed so quiet that first loop — it reminded me of starting bib number 1, at Ruhpolding World Championships in 2012 when I had one of my best performances [placing fifth in the 15 k individual]. I tried to recreate that feeling.”
Back then, she was 26 and only four years into her biathlon career. Fifth stood as the best result ever for a U.S. woman at IBU World Championships.
Susan Dunklee and the US Biathlon support crew following Dunklee’s sixth-place finish in the women’s IBU World Cup sprint in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Three and a half years later, she was back at the flower ceremony and within striking distance of the podium.
“This is a huge confidence booster for me going into the Christmas break and reaffirms the work I did this summer,” she wrote. “I am very happy today. Our whole staff is happy. Seeing them so excited at the flower ceremony reminds me of how many people are behind creating a good performance.”
According to US Biathlon Chief of Sport Bernd Eisenbichler, the last few weeks haven’t been easy for Dunklee.
“She struggled a bit in the last weeks with her confidence, especially in standing shooting, but made a great step forward in the pursuit in Hochfilzen and today was just perfect,” he said in a US Biathlon press release. “She worked hard to cut her shooting times over the summer and showed that today very impressively. On the track she looked good and the seventh ski time reflects that. But I also know there is quite more to come for her on the ski speed in the coming weeks.”
U.S. Women’s Coach Jonne Kähkönen said he’d seen her progression throughout the summer and fall, but knew Dunklee needed a good race “to get the ball rolling.”
“Susan had the patience to analyze and the hunger to keep working during the first weeks of racing,” Kähkönen said. “We talked a lot about the challenges of the shooting specifically at this venue and it is just great to see her stick with the plan and get a reward for all the hard work. What is even greater is the fact that this was not by all means a perfect race, so there are still things to keep working on and trying to get even better — as always.”
Dunklee will start Saturday’s 10 k pursuit in sixth, 31 seconds behind Dorin Habert.
“I am very happy today. Our whole staff is happy. Seeing them so excited at the flower ceremony reminds me of how many people are behind creating a good performance.” — Susan Dunklee, sixth in Pokljuka sprint
Also qualifying for the pursuit, Canada’s Rosanna Crawford finished 23rd (+1:11.4) in the sprint with a single standing penalty. She started early in bib 10 and while her race was slower than Dunklee’s (her course time ranked 38th overall), Crawford cleaned standing, and hit every target up until her last shot.
At that moment, she let out an audible scream, which TV cameras picked up, and she shook her head as she skated out of the range and into the penalty lap.
“I’m feeling a bit frustrated with my ski speed right now,” Crawford said afterward in a Biathlon Canada press release.
Like Dunklee, the 27-year-old Crawford also tried something different this training season. Specifically, she was hoping to peak later this winter.
“The shooting has been pretty good but the shape isn’t quite there,” Crawford said. “I knew that with changing things the first trimester of racing might now be where I want to be. Hopefully things pay off and the ski speed will come.”
About 15 seconds behind her, Crawford’s teammate Julia Ransom placed 31st (+1:26.3) for a new career best, improving upon 32nd in the Östersund sprint this season. The 22-year-old Ransom finished the day with a single prone penalty.
A third Canadian woman, Megan Tandy, made the pursuit in 51st (+2:00.8), finishing with three penalties (1+2). One of the latest starters in bib 95, Emma Lunder got some TV time during her shooting stage, where she missed two in addition to two preceding prone penalties en route to 89th (+3:31.7).
In the men’s race on Thursday, five Canadians qualified for the pursuit — a first for their team.
“This has been a pretty good start for the team, and our younger athletes are definitely ahead of where I was at their age,” Crawford said. “I think the good results by the older athletes in the past few years has allowed us to better prepare athletes coming up. With more support on Tour, less Tour fees, and more money put towards summer training – the results are showing with many of the team members getting World Cup points.”
Three U.S. women missed the top-60 pursuit criteria, with Hannah Dreissigacker finishing 7.3 seconds back from 60th in 64th (+2:20.5) with a single standing miss. Clare Egan placed 84th (+3:18.8) with two prone penalties, and Annelies Cook finished 94th (+3:47.0) with five misses (2+3).
Saturday’s races start at 11:15 CET (5:15 EDT) with the men’s pursuit, followed by the women’s pursuit at 13:30 CET (7:30 EDT).
The women’s 7.5 k sprint podium on Friday at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia, with winner Marie Dorin Habert of France (c), and two Germans: Laura Dahlmeier (l) in second and Franziska Hildebrand (r) in third. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Note: This article has been corrected to include American Susan Dunklee’s sixth-place pursuit finish last season in Antholz, Italy. On Friday in Pokljuka, Slovenia, Dunklee tied her best result last season and posted her best sprint finish in two years.
This season, several of the best cross-country skiers in the world, including Norway’s Marit Bjørgen, Kikkan Randall of the U.S. Ski Team, and Finland’s Aino-Kaisa Saarinen, are taking a sabbatical while expecting the birth of their first children. If the skiing of France’s young mother Marie Dorin Habert is any indication, they really don’t need to worry about making successful comebacks.
For quite a while during the women’s 7.5 kilometer sprint at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia, it looked like Germany could achieve another victory on Friday — just like the team did a week ago with a podium sweep of the sprint in Hochfilzen, Austria. But Dorin Habert had other plans and claimed the top spot on the podium with a winning time of 20:17.8 minutes.
France’s Marie Dorin Habert takes aim during the standing stage of Friday’s sprint at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. She cleaned the two-stage race and won by 1.1 seconds. (Photo: IBU/Kvetoslav Frgal)
Last March, the 29-year-old French biathlete was the big surprise of 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland, with two gold medals (in the sprint and pursuit) and two silvers (relay and mixed relay), which she achieved just half a year after the birth of her daughter Adele in September 2014. She returned to the World Cup last January.
On Friday, Dorin Habert added and first victory of the season (and third World Cup win) to her list of achievements, beating two Germans, Laura Dahlmeier — the winner of last week’s pursuit — by 1.1 seconds and Franziska Hildebrand, the winner of last week’s sprint, by 13.0 seconds.
Under sunny skies with calm, stable wind, just like the men raced in Thursday, all of the three women on the podium shot clean in the two-stage race, incurring no penalties.
Asked how she is managing her life with a 1-year-old while competing as a World Cup athlete, Dorin Habert explained in an English interview with German broadcaster ZDF: “It is very complicated to organize everything. I am lucky because my husband [retired French biathlete Lois Habert] can sometimes go with me. He is a commentator on TV for Eurosport France,” she said.
He and the baby joined her at the first IBU World Cup in Östersund, and last week, Adele returned home while Dorin Habert raced in Hochfilzen.
“This week she is with me in the hotel in Bled [Slovenia] with the nanny,” she explained. “So very nice, but very complicated to organize the travel and flights and everything.”
Dorin Habert started 35th on Friday and after two flawless stages, she left range for the second time trailing Dahlmeier, in bib 30, by 5.4 seconds.
“My standing [shooting] was very bad throughout all the start of the season,” Dorin Habert told ZDF. “[Today is] the first time that I am okay, so I’m very happy for that.”
Already skiing fast and with the added advantage of hearing her coaches call out split times to the leaders, Dahlmeier and Hildebrand, Dorin Habert pushed hard on the final loop to make up the deficit. Descending down a small ramp into the stadium, she entered the finishing straight with long, gliding steps while swinging her arms without using her poles, and crossed the line 13 seconds faster than Hildebrand (who started 20th) to take the lead. At the end of the day, nobody else out of 105 starters could catch her, although Dahlmeier came within 1.1 seconds at the finish.
“I am not surprised, but I am very happy,” Dorin Habert said of her win at an IBU press conference. She posted the third-fastest course time.
“I did a good job on the shooting range. I worked hard on my standing shooting,” she added. “It was hard on the skis, as we had a lot of races last week. I tried to be very concentrated on each target.”
Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier racing to second in the women’s IBU World Cup sprint in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)
Looking like the winner for a long time, Dahlmeier shot clean and skied the fourth-fastest overall course time.Despite missing out on another win by just over a second, the 22-year-old German was very satisfied with her performance.
“This is the first time this season that I’ve managed to shoot a ‘zero’ [no misses],” she told ZDF. “I’m extremely excited to be back on the podium. I knew it would be a close race, and that you really would have to deliver a ‘zero’ on the shooting range.
“It was a perfect day for me,” she said at the press conference. “Marie was first today, we will see what happens tomorrow. I am happy about my form. We are a little higher above sea level, and that’s stressful [on the body]. I am already looking forward to the Christmas break.”
Dahlmeier missed the World Cup opener in Östersund, Sweden, with a nagging cold. She’ll start Saturday’s pursuit 1 second behind Dorin Habert and 12 seconds ahead of Hildebrand, her teammate.
Like the other two podium finishers, Hildebrand, 28, took her time on the shooting range to hit all 10 targets. Her standing shooting time ranked 96th.
“I had to catch my breath after the second or third shot. From my point of view that was a great series, all very secure hits, everything in, everything white,” Hildebrand told ZDF. “That saved me today.”
But she more than made up for a few lost seconds on the range by avoiding the penalty lap and skiing fast, recording the fifth-ranked overall course time. From the last shooting to the finish she still lost about ten seconds to Dahlmeier, but for a reason: “I’m a little bit under the weather today,” she said. “I didn’t know how it would work. I felt during the race, especially on the last lap, that I was not quite as fresh anymore. But I think it was still a great race, and overall I’m really satisfied.”
Showing the depth of their team, all six of Germany’s starters finished in the top 15 with Maren Hammerschmidt in seventh, Franziska Preuss in ninth, Vanessa Hinz in 13th, and Miriam Gössner in 15th. Less than two years after leaving the 2014 Olympics without any women’s biathlon medals — and with several decorated athletes such as Magdalena Neuner and Andrea Henkel (now Andrea Burke) having retired in recent years — the team feels like it is on a good trajectory again.
“We trained hard. We are a good team, and we can push each other to become better,” Hildebrand said in the press conference.
“We have proven that we have arrived at the top again, and you always have to account for us,” Dahlmeier told ZDF. “I hope we can keep this up all season, and then achieve our peak at the World Championships [in March].”
Fourth place went to Veronika Vítková of Czech Republic, who finished 16.4 seconds behind Dorin Habert, also with two clean stages. Her teammate and overall World Cup leader Gabriela Soukalová placed fifth (+25.2), as the best athlete who had to ski a penalty lap (with a single standing miss).
American Susan Dunklee placed sixth for her best sprint result in two seasons. She finished 30.6 seconds behind Dorin Habert and 17.6 seconds off the podium. She might have been able to make it had she avoided her penalty lap in the prone shooting, and was the second-best athlete with a penalty on Friday. She’ll start 31 seconds back in the pursuit.
The women’s top six at the flower ceremony following the IBU World Cup sprint in Pokljuka, Slovenia, with Marie Dorin Habert of France in first, Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier and Franziska Hildebrand in second and third, respectively, Veronika Vitkova (third from r) and Gabriela Soukalova (second from r) of the Czech Republic in fourth and fifth, and American Susan Dunklee (far right) in sixth. (Photo: IBU/Kvetoslav Frgal)
Pursuit up next
The times back from Dorin Habert as the winner of the sprint carry over into the pursuit race on Saturday.
“Everyone can expect a very exciting race,” Dahlmeier told ZDF. “The shooting range will be decisive again. You just have to shoot well, and then everything is possible, I am looking forward to it.
“Everything is possible,” she said in the press conference. “It is difficult to predict who will win, but I will fight for the first place in tomorrow’s competition.”
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![The men's pursuit podium at 2017 IBU Open European Championships on Saturday in Duszniki-Zdrój, Poland, with Russia's Alexander Loginov (c) in first, Evgeniy Garanichev (l) in second, and Latvia’s Andrejs Rastorgujevs (r) in third. (Photo: IBU)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/01/jpg-5.jpeg")
![France’s Martin Fourcade is greeted by his teammates after winning gold in the mixed relay to open the 2016 Biathlon World Championships in Oslo, while behind him Germany’s Simon Schempp crosses the finish line for the silver medal, and Norway’s Tarjei Bø comes onto the final stretch to claim bronze. (Photo: IBU/Evgeny Tumashov)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/03/image1.png")
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![Germany's Simon Schempp after one of his shooting stages during Thursday's mixed relay at IBU World Championships in Oslo, Norway. He anchored Germany to second, 4.3 seconds behind France. (Photo: IBU)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/03/2016-03-03_d0096ec6c835753.jpg_image_scaler_800x0.jpg")
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![The French women's 4 x 6 k relay team, including Justine Braisaz, Anaïs Bescond and Anaïs Chevalier, hugs and kisses anchor Marie Dorin Habert at the finish, after Habert secured their IBU World Cup victory by 17 seconds over the Czech Republic on Sunday in Antholz, Italy. (Photo: IBU)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/01/2016-01-24_af30b57b3fedd0c.JPG_image_scaler_800x0.jpg")
![The French women's relay after winning Sunday's 4 x 6 k IBU World Cup relay in Antholz, Italy. With Justine Braisaz, Anaïs Bescond, Anaïs Chevalier, and anchor Marie Dorin Habert (second from r). (Photo: IBU/Rene Miko)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/01/2016-01-24_0ca37df18c77d8b.JPG_image_scaler_800x0.jpg")
![Gabriela Soukalová (l) tags Czech teammate Veronika Vitková in fourth during the final exchange in the IBU World Cup women's 4 x 6 k relay. The Czech Republic team went on to finish second with just two spares from Vitkova. (Photo: IBU/Rene Miko)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/01/2016-01-24_e9a73f19e8ea4f7.JPG_image_scaler_800x0.jpg")
![Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) used a total of four spares between two stages in the women's 4 x 6 IBU World Cup relay, handing off in 14th. (Photo: USBA/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/01/Dunklee24012016cm36.jpg")
![Finland's Kaisa Mäkäräinen celebrates her second IBU World Cup victory of the 2015/2016 season on Sunday at the 12.5 k mass start in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/12/unnamed-132.jpg")
![The women's IBU World Cup mass start podium in Pokljuka, Slovenia: with Finland's winner Kaisa Mäkäräinen (c), runner-up Gabriela Soukalova (l) of the Czech Republic, and Russia's Olga Podchufarova (r) in third. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/12/unnamed-38.jpg")
![Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) placed sixth in the IBU World Cup sprint on Friday in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/12/unnamed-43-e1450494298627.jpg")
![Martin Fourcade tweeted the following photo on Saturday of him and French teammate Marie Dorin Habert holding up the overall World Cup leader's bibs: "This does not happen every day!" he wrote. (Photo: Martin Fourcade/Twitter)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/12/CWnkYWUWsAA7qAS.jpg")
![Susan Dunklee (US Biathlon) racing to sixth in the women's 7.5 k sprint at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/12/unnamed-55.jpg")
![Susan Dunklee and the US Biathlon support crew following Dunklee's sixth-place finish in the women's IBU World Cup sprint in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/12/Dunklee18122015cm13.jpg")
![The women's 7.5 k sprint podium on Friday at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia, with winner Marie Dorin Habert of France (c), and two Germans: Laura Dahlmeier (l) in second and Franziska Hildebrand (r) in third. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/12/unnamed-93.jpg")
![France's Marie Dorin Habert takes aim during the standing stage of Friday's sprint at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia. She cleaned the two-stage race and won by 1.1 seconds. (Photo: IBU/Kvetoslav Frgal)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/12/2015-12-18_adc52d287f81439.JPG_image_scaler_800x0.jpg")
![Germany's Laura Dahlmeier racing to second in the women's IBU World Cup sprint in Pokljuka, Slovenia. (Photo: Fischer/NordicFocus)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/12/unnamed-103.jpg")
![The women's top six at the flower ceremony following the IBU World Cup sprint in Pokljuka, Slovenia, with Marie Dorin Habert of France in first, Germany's Laura Dahlmeier and Franziska Hildebrand in second and third, respectively, Veronika Vitkova and Gabriela Soukalova of the Czech Republic in fourth and fifth, and American Susan Dunklee (far right) in sixth. (Photo: IBU/Kvetoslav Frgal)](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/12/2015-12-18_63c85d8fea3a65f.JPG_image_scaler_800x0.jpg")