Chelsea Little – FasterSkier.com

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CAS’s Legkov Reasoning: Finds Rodchenkov’s Testimony Hearsay, Marks on Bottle Not Relevant

Chelsea LittleApril 23, 2018

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has posted the Court of Arbitration for Sport overturned that ban for Legkov and seven other cross-country skiers. At the time, they did not release many details about how they had come to their decisions. Adding to the confusion was the fact that CAS had upheld the disqualifications for some other athletes, including three biathletes. On Monday, CAS released the details behind its decision in Legkov’s case. In...

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Police Raid IBU Headquarters, Investigating President and Secretary General (Updated)

Chelsea LittleApril 11, 2018

Note: This article has been updated with information about bribes as reported by Le Monde on Wednesday. Austrian police raided the headquarters of the International Biathlon Union (IBU) in Salzburg on Tuesday night and into Wednesday. released a statement on Wednesday, revealing that the search was part of an investigation into President Anders Besseberg and Secretary General Nicole Resch. Resch has taken an immediate leave of absence, and Executive Director Martin Kuchenmeister has taken over as...

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After 8 Years Leading US Biathlon Women, Kähkönen to Head Up Finnish Team

Chelsea LittleApril 3, 2018

When Jonne Kähkönen was hired to be the women’s national team coach by the US Biathlon Association (USBA) in 2010, there wasn’t much of a playbook to follow. The Finn couldn’t mimic the footsteps of his predecessor, because there wasn’t one. For the first time, the women’s team was going to have a coach of their own. “The men’s program was on a really high level going into Vancouver [2010 Olympics],” USBA Chief of Sport...

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Bye Bye Biathlon: Many Retirements After 2018 Olympic Season

Chelsea LittleMarch 29, 2018

With the 2018 Olympics come and gone, many of biathlon’s athletes are calling it quits. Here’s a roundup of who you won’t see on the World Cup next season – and who’s still on the fence about their future. USA 2017 Word Champion Lowell Bailey has long planned to retire after the 2018 season, and now that time has come. His first World Junior Championships was in 1999 and he got his first World Cup start...

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Makarainen Makes Late Push to Claim World Cup Title; Fourcade Locks Up His Seventh

Chelsea LittleMarch 25, 2018

Martin Fourcade didn’t have to do much at the final IBU World Cup weekend in Tyumen, Russia, in order to lock up the overall crystal globe. But the French biathlete came in guns blazing, so to speak, winning Thursday’s sprint by 33.2 seconds and claiming the Total Score title. His only close(ish) challenger in the overall score, Johannes Thingnes Bø of Norway, had finished just 14th in the sprint. He raced up to second in...

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U.S. Seventh in Oslo Relay as Bailey, Burke End Careers; Norway Wins, Canada 16th

Chelsea LittleMarch 18, 2018

OSLO, Norway — In some ways, Sunday’s 4 x 7.5-kilometer men’s relay was very special for the U.S. biathlon team. Two stalwart members – World Championships gold medalist Lowell Bailey and silver medalist Tim Burke – were retiring. It would be the last race of their long international careers. In other ways, though, the team wanted it to just be a normal race. Their goal was to put together a good relay and a good...

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Dunklee Third in Holmenkollen: Podium in Americans’ Last World Cup of the Year

Chelsea LittleMarch 18, 2018

OSLO, Norway—Eight World Cup weekends, a swing by Open European Championships, two weeks at the Olympics, and it all came down to this: Susan Dunklee’s last international race of the season was also her first podium of the season, and she’s heading back to the United States with a third-place finish in the 10 k pursuit. “I’m super happy,” Dunklee said. “I often start feeling stronger and stronger as the season goes on, and this...

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Ransom Retires in Oslo: ‘I Just Had Fun the Whole Time’

Chelsea LittleMarch 18, 2018

OSLO, Norway—Julia Ransom had been mulling over retirement from elite sport for at least two years. That’s even though the Canadian is just 25 years old. She collected two top-ten results this year, in the 15 k individual in Östersund, Sweden, and the 7.5 k sprint in Oberhof, Germany. “I definitely played with the idea for the last year or two — to end with the Olympics,” she explained after today’s pursuit in Oslo. “I’d...

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Fourcade Collects 10th Holmenkollen Win, Doherty 17th in Pursuit

Chelsea LittleMarch 17, 2018

OSLO, Norway — Henrik L’Abée-Lund took

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France Tops Oslo Women’s Biathlon Relay, Canada 11th and U.S. 15th, Coming Back from the Brink

Chelsea LittleMarch 17, 2018

OSLO, Norway — In the last relay of French star Marie Dorin Habert’s career, she turned in a crucial performance to bring her team to the front. Anaïs Bescond extended the gap and France took the win in the women’s 4 x 6-kilometer relay here at Holmenkollen by 14.4 seconds over Germany. Was she nervous going into the last team event she will ever race? “I wasn’t really nervous,” Dorin Habert, 31, said in a...

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More Olympic and World Championship Medalists Join Tyumen Biathlon Boycott

Chelsea LittleMarch 6, 2018

In three weeks time, biathlon’s World Cup circuit will move to Russia. But a number of the sport’s stars won’t be there – and others plan to attend, but aren’t very happy about it. In an Executive Board session in PyeongChang, South Korea, a few weeks ago, the International Biathlon Union (IBU) decided to go on as planned with World Cup races in Tyumen, Russia, even though the Russian Anti-Doping Agency is still not compliant...

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Bolger’s World Cup Debut: ‘The Hard Part Was Over, Now It Was Time to Have Some Fun’

Chelsea LittleMarch 5, 2018

On Saturday in Lahti, Finland, Kevin Bolger of the Sun Valley XC Gold Team made his World Cup debut. In his first season since graduating from the University of Utah, Bolger earned start rights for the final period of World Cup racing by leading the SuperTour. It was quite the debut: in the skate sprint, Bolger qualified in 16th, then advanced through the rounds to the semifinals and finished 11th on the day. There are...

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Pärmäkoski Untouchable in Lahti 10 k; Bjornsen 7th, Saying ‘Let’s Just Send It’

Chelsea LittleMarch 4, 2018

(Note: This article has been updated to include comments from American Caitlin Patterson.) The 2018 Olympics were pretty successful for Finland, in terms of cross-country skiing: Iivo Niskanen won gold in the 50 k and Krista Pärmäkoski earned silver in the 30 k and bronze in the skiathlon and the 10 k skate. After the Games finished, the FIS Cross Country World Cup moved to Finland, but on the first day of competition – skate...

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On World Champ Turf, Pellegrino Crushes Lahti Sprint; Bolger 11th in World Cup Debut

Chelsea LittleMarch 3, 2018

The men’s freestyle sprint final in Lahti, Finland, started in almost comical fashion: the six men who had made it to the final heat of the day skied slowly, then even slower, as nobody wanted to lead. The final was full of dangerous men. Norwegian youngster Johannes Høsflot Klæbo has won five sprints this season, and he just became an Olympic gold medalist in the sprint in PyeongChang, South Korea, a mere ten days ago....

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Boycott Grows, But IBU Hasn’t Budged on Russian World Cup

Chelsea LittleFebruary 24, 2018

In December, Biathlon Canada announced that after the men’s relay at the Olympics on Friday. “Our President, Anders Besseberg… at every turn when he has the chance to defend clean sport, he has turned the other way. And it’s not fair to clean athletes. The latest decision by the IBU was to send the World Cup tour to Tyumen, Russia, for our World Cup final. Team USA is boycotting. The Czech team is boycotting. Canada...

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Friday Olympic Rundown: Historic 15 k Gold Three-Peat for Cologna; Harvey 7th, Patterson 21st

Chelsea LittleFebruary 16, 2018

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, International report

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Tuesday Olympic Rundown: Nilsson & Klæbo Win Sprint Gold; Diggins 6th, Valjas 7th, Caldwell 8th

Chelsea LittleFebruary 13, 2018

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, Women’s international report | Men’s international report | Post-qualifier notes & quotes After winning the sprint qualifier by 0.39 seconds over defending gold medalist Maiken Caspersen Falla and then besting the Norwegian by 0.03 seconds in her semifinal, Sweden’s Stina Nilsson captured Olympic gold in a dominating performance in the classic sprint final, ultimately besting Falla by 3.03 seconds. Falla had to fight to even keep silver, as Olympic Athlete of Russia Yulia Belorukova pushed the pace...

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What’s Happening as Russia’s Sochi Scandal Winds Down: An Editorial

Chelsea LittleFebruary 9, 2018

FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, cleared 28 Russian athletes of doping charges. Many people seemed shocked by this development. The athletes had been disqualified from the 2014 Games by an International Olympic Committee (IOC) Commission. This was after more than 18 months of buildup in which the world learnt of systematic manipulation of the anti-doping process by the Russian state security apparatus at those Olympics. I was both shocked, and not shocked. When all...

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ARD Report: Top Skiers Had Abnormal Blood Profiles, Indicating Potential Doping

Chelsea LittleFebruary 4, 20181

A team of international journalists from Sweden, Switzerland, Britain, and Germany – led by Hajo Seppelt at Germany’s ARD broadcaster – has reported that hundreds of international skiers have had abnormal blood profiles at some point during their careers. In autumn of 2017, a whistleblower shared a database of 10,000 blood test values collected by FIS between 2001 and 2010 with Seppelt, the German documentarian who has brought to mainstream attention serious doping scandals in...

Doping General News Olympics Racing World Cup

Legkov and Seven Other Skiers’ Doping Bans Overturned by CAS (Updated)

Chelsea LittleFebruary 1, 2018

((Update: In accordance with the CAS decision outlined below, thewrote in a press release. “With respect to these 28 athletes, the appeals are upheld, the sanctions annulled and their individual results achieved in Sochi 2014 are reinstated.” The athletes whose results will be reinstated are: 50 k gold medalist and relay silver medalist Alexander Legkov 50 k silver medalist, team sprint and relay silver medalist Maxim Vylegzhanin, also fourth in the 30 k skiathlon relay...

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