On Sunday, IBU Championships wrapped up in Ruhpolding, Germany, after eleven days of exciting racing that saw both dominating performances from overall World Cup leaders and refreshing victories and medals from lesser-known athletes. The big winners at the championships were Martin Fourcade of France and Tora Berger of Norway; Fourcade picked up three individual gold medals in the sprint, pursuit, and mass start, along with silver in the men’s relay. That was almost matched by...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – While biathlon doesn’t draw huge crowds in the U.S., Germany is another story. As in Norway and Russia, biathlon is the most successful winter sport; over the course of the 10 weekends of World Cup and Championship racing in this season, 450,000 spectators will have attended competitions. And nowhere are they more vocal than in Germany, home of Oberhof and Ruhpolding, the two most popular venues on the circuit (during Germany’s partition,...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – When U.S. women’s coach Jonne Kahkonen showed up on the shooting range for Saturday’s women’s 4 x 6 kilometer relay, he looked a bit…. different than the last time he’d been there. The previously blonde Finn, who is in his second year coaching the U.S. women, was sporting a dark purplish pink hue atop his head, which turned out to match well with the red and blue U.S. team gear. His new...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – With rain finally falling in this small Bavarian town this morning, it would have been easy to stay at home, watching a television broadcast of today’s mass start races from safe inside a dry living room. But that thought never crossed the minds of the 30,000 fans who packed the Chiemgau arena today, just as they have for every other competition of the 2012 IBU World Championships. And they weren’t disappointed. In...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – Martin Fourcade is a glutton for punishment. At every chance he got, the Frenchman would push the pace over the top of the last steep hill during today’s World Championship 15 k mass start. As the rain gently fell on the Chiemgau Arena and competitors looked more and more bedraggled, Fourcade attacked again and again, jump-skating up hill after hill, and dragging himself back from penalties that may have come from pushing...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – With only Susan Dunklee qualified for Sunday’s mass start race, Saturday’s 4 x 6 k relay was the last race of World Championships for the rest of the U.S. women. They wanted to end the Championships on a high note, but rather than set a tough results-based goal, their approach was more in line with the temporary pink hair dye they’d all used for the occasion: the Americans wanted to have fun,...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – After a week where not many team members were satisfied with their performances, the Canadian women’s squad crafted a new strategy for the 4 x 6 kilometer relay on Saturday. In most cases, Megan Imrie and Zina Kocher have skied the first two legs. But not this time: for World Championships, the women wanted to mix things up. “We just decided to try switching it because usually Megan and Megan and Yolaine...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – Right from the start of the 4 x 6 k relay here at World Championships, the German women made it clear that they were going to give their fans a show – and, most likely, the gold medal that they so vocally craved. Tina Bachmann, a lithe, six-foot-tall 25-year-old, put the field on notice when she turned in the fastest first-leg time, making up for the single spare round she used to...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – The U.S. men’s relay team had high hopes coming into Friday’s 4 x 7.5 kilometer relay. At last year’s World Championships in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, the team turned in one of the most surprising relay performances of the week, placing sixth after losing a photo finish with Italy just 38 seconds behind the victorious team from Norway. The Americans had been seeded 14th and not considered a threat in the race. This year,...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – Going into today’s men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay, the field was wide open. France, with double gold medalist Martin Fourcade and silver medalist brother Simon Fourcade, was a prerace favorite. But last year’s top two teams, Norway and Russia, hadn’t dominated in the individual races, and neither had host country Germany. Meanwhile, Sweden’s Carl Johan Bergman had won two medals, and three Swedes had finished in the top ten. Slovenia and...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – When Susan Dunklee was leading Wednesday’s World Championship 15 k individual race, fans, coaches, and journalists alike were scratching their heads. Who is this Susan Dunklee? The American World Cup rookie is not unknown on the circuit – coming in to these races she had scored World Cup points eight times and finished in the top 20 in a sprint in Antholz, Itlay – but she wasn’t too familiar, either. While the...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – After calling biathlon on Eurosport for 15 years, Sigi Heinrich has seen a lot of races, but the veteran commentator says he never gets bored watching the sport. FasterSkier caught him in the media center to talk about the World Championships so far, why biathlon is Europe’s most popular winter sport, and what the U.S. chances might be in the men’s relay. FS: You were never a biathlete – so how did...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – Three members of the U.S. women’s biathlon team knew before they even started their races on Wednesday was going to be a good day at World Championships. As Lanny Barnes was waiting to start her four-stage, 15 k individual race, she heard over the loudspeaker that teammate Susan Dunklee was finishing – and that she was in the lead, almost guaranteed a top-five finish or maybe even a medal. “Before I started...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – In last year’s World Championships individual, Helena Ekholm of Sweden navigated blustery conditions to claim a two-minute win. This morning, she woke up with her usual pre-race jitters, and one more question on her mind. “Of course I this morning I am thinking, oh, maybe I am just the champion for a few more hours,” she said in a press conference after the race. The women’s 15 k had plenty of twists...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – Susan Dunklee started today’s World Championship 15 k individual race with bib number one, and she wasn’t too happy about it at the time. In the sprint, the American had started dead last, almost an hour after the first woman. Today, she was looking forward to being seeded in group one and skiing the whole race with other top athletes. “I thought for this race, ‘yes, I’m going to be in the...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – As has been the case so many times this week, the Canadian men’s team was simply not satisfied after the 20 k World Championships individual on Tuesday. “The course was nice,” Jean Phillipe Le Guellec told FasterSkier, struggling to find some positive notes from the race. His performance, he said, was not one of them. “My shooting was just – there was nothing I could do,” he lamented. “You can’t come in...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – After Jay Hakkinen’s sprint race on Saturday, where he missed five of ten shots including four in the standing stage, the American veteran was so upset that he didn’t have any interest talking to the press. On Tuesday after the 20 k individual race, the willingness to chat served as a barometer for Hakkinen’s feelings about his performance. “We can talk today,” he joked at the finish line. “It was good enough.”...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – After two straight races with Martin Fourcade emerging victorious and familiar, tradition-rich countries like Norway, Sweden, and Russia rounding out the podium, it could be easy to forget that the world of biathlon is a broad one. But in today’s World Championships 20 k individual race, Jakov Fak of Slovenia reminded the world that his tiny country, home to just two million people, has the talent to cut it on the world’s...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – On Sunday, for the first time during these World Championships, the sun went behind the clouds over the Chiemgau Arena here in Ruhpolding. The same could be said for U.S. medal aspirations, as both Lowell Bailey and Tim Burke fell victim to shooting errors after it seemed like they could be en route to the best World Championships results of their careers. “Today we’re definitely disappointed,” Burke said in an interview after...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – Two Canadians had high hopes for Sunday’s pursuit: Jean Phillipe Le Guellec was 14th after Saturday’s World Championship sprint, and teammate Zina Kocher 18th. They were poised, it seemed, to have career-best finishes. Le Guellec had never finished in the top ten at World Championships, but started just 12 seconds outside it on Sunday. Kocher was shooting for a top-16, which would have guaranteed her funding through Athletics Canada for the next...