It’s unusual to see World Championship medalists miss more half their shots, but that happened in both the men’s and women’s pursuits in gusty Kamchatka. Kaisa Makarainen and Lukas Hofer survived to win new Mercedes cars.
“It snows in Norway at this time of year too," Norway's Synnøve Solemdal said of the snowstorm during her race. "The season is ending, though – I hope it will stop.” Bjorn Ferry of Sweden took the win in the men's sprint, continuing his late-season tear.
A longtime race official at biathlon's highest levels, Max Cobb took us behind the scenes of a World Championships that featured target malfunctions, course closures, and seeding changes. Plus, he talked about a TD's worst nightmare, and how to handle it.
Both Kaisa Makarainen of Finland and Björn Ferry of Sweden have won plenty of races before – including World Championships and Olympic gold, respectively. But their win in the team competition of the Champion’s Race in Moscow on Saturday was almost certainly their most unusual. For one thing, the pair teamed up despite their different nationalities, which is obviously not possible on the World Cup where they spend most of their time. Only at less...
In late March, Norwegian biathlon ace Emil Hegle Svendsen complained to broadcaster NRK that the national team coaches were not spending enough time with the athletes, and that he hoped to see some changes. He was speaking out of frustration: after the World Cup title had seemingly been within his reach – indeed he wore the yellow bib several times – Svendsen ended up second to Martin Fourcade of France in the rankings. Despite winning...
With SuperTour Finals and U.S. Distance Nationals wrapping up in Craftsbury, Vermont, the North American ski community can call it a wrap on another season. Despite a general lack of snow, the finale in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom was a success – particularly for the U.S. Ski Team’s Kris Freeman, who after a disappointing World Cup season returned to the States to claim the overall win at SuperTour Finals and then the national title in the...
The biathlon season may have ended in North America a few weeks ago, but that hasn’t stopped a group of U.S. juniors from racing their way from to the top. Sean Doherty (Saratoga Biathlon), Tara Geraghty-Moats (Craftsbury Nordic Ski Club/Ethan Allen Biathlon Club), and Casey Smith (Methow Valley Biathlon) flew to Solefteå, Sweden as part of an exchange organized by U.S. Head Coach Per Nilsson. While the main focus on the stay was more to...
Conditions for the first race of Swedish Biathlon National Championships weren’t exactly wonderful in Solefteå, Sweden on Friday. “The weather has been really bad with warm temps and wind,” U.S. National Team Head Coach Per Nilsson told FasterSkier. “It was on the edge to hold the races… today was deep slush, gusty wind and challenging conditions for everybody.” It showed: in the senior division, Helena Ekholm and Carl Johan Bergman took the sprint titles with...
Stockholm city sprints | from the chief of competition | morning photo gallery Wednesday, March 14 city sprintsmen’s report | North American men | photo gallery midweek reporting: magical city sprinting | women’s report | men’s report | women’s photo gallery | notes and quotes Saturday, March 17 10/15 k classic mass start: women’s report | U.S. women | men’s photo gallery | men’s report | North American men men’s photo gallery | men’s report...
Much like the U.S. and Canadian ski teams, many members of the North American biathlon squads have returned from Europe and decided to hop in some straight cross country races. Here’s a roundup of the results. – At SuperTour Finals in Craftsbury, Vermont, U.S. national team biathletes Susan Dunklee and Annelies Cook have contested both races so far in the mini-tour. Dunklee recently returned from Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, where she raced Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in...
Coming into today’s 15 k mass start in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, Martin Fourcade of France seemed to be unstoppable. At World Championships in Ruhpolding Germany a week ago, Fourcade had won the final race, a mass start, by overpowering a better-shooting Bjorn Ferry of Sweden. Then in the sprint here in Khanty-Mansiysk he eked out a 5-second victory, which he parlayed into a more sizable win in the pursuit. Those wins clinched the overall World Cup...
U.S. Biathlon Nationals might not actually feature all the best biathletes in the country, but so far it has proved one thing: the team selected to compete in Europe is really, really fast. Saturday didn’t seem auspicious for anyone, with rain blanketing the West Yellowstone course and every biathlete winding up soggy. But for the second time in as many races, the two World Championship team members who decided to compete at U.S. Nationals took...
On the second day of Canadian Biathlon Nationals in Valcartier, Quebec, one thing looked exactly the same: Rosanna Crawford and Marc-André Bédard finished atop the results sheet. This time, the field was faced with 7.5 and 10 k sprints, with each competitor facing a prone and then a standing stage. In the men’s race, Bédard raced to a six and a half second victory over Scott Gow of Alberta, despite having three penalties to Gow’s...
Both the U.S. and Canada had high hopes and lots of opportunities in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, but for the men competing in the 12.5 k pursuit Saturday, most of those possibilities didn’t materialize. For the U.S., Tim Burke started with bib number four after a season-best finish in the sprint on Friday. He missed a shot in the first stage, and then one in each of the next two, and hovered around tenth position. But after...
Kilometer after kilometer, Martin Foucade of France and Arnd Peiffer of Germany skied on and on, unable to break one another on the trails. Starting today’s 12.5 k World Cup pursuit just five seconds apart, the pair were initially trailed by Sweden’s Fredrik Lindstrom, who finished third in Friday’s sprint. But after just one loop on the Khantiy-Mansiysk trails, Lindstrom missed a shot and lost his spot with the leaders. From then on, it was...
It’s not that Darya Domracheva hasn’t been fast before. No, that’s not what makes her form in the last several weeks so impressive. She’s always been fast: the 25-year-old Belorussian biathlete has won eight races and picked up 27 more podiums, including Olympic bronze, in the past few seasons. But in many of those victories, Domracheva has won by sheer force of will, digging in to the intense head-to-head competition offered up by the World...
Canada’s Zina Kocher took steps to overcome a solid yet frustrating World Championships series by placing ninth in the last World Cup sprint of the season, which was held in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia on Friday. The result tied her best of the season. Coming off a six-race series at World Championships in Ruhpolding, Germany, Kocher said she actually felt great on Friday. “I had no idea how i would feel this week,” she wrote in an...
The world’s top biathletes recently competed in six races in eleven days at World Championships in Ruhpolding, Germany, but as exhausting as that may have been, their season isn’t over yet. The racers hopped on a chartered plane and headed for Siberia – home of the Russian venue Khanty-Mansiysk – to contest three more races over the extended weekend. For American Tim Burke, the last World Cup series wasn’t simply something to check off a...
Fresh off of World Championships appearances in Ruhpolding, Germany, U.S. national team members Leif Nordgren and Annelies Cook won the 10 and 7.5 k sprints at U.S. Biathlon Championships in West Yellowstone, Montana, on Thursday. While most of the rest of the World Championships team continued on to Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, for the final weekend of World Cup racing, Cook and Nordgren headed home for a different kind of racing – which Nordgren said was actually...
After spending literally only a few days in North America since arriving home from biathlon World Championships in Ruhpolding, Germany, Marc-André Bédard wasn’t overly confident in himself going into Canadian Championships at the Myriam Bédard Cener in Valcartier, Quebec. “I have only just returned from World Championships and I didn’t much know what to expect with the time change and my fatigue,” he wrote in an e-mail to friends, media, and sponsors. “But it seems...