Chelsea Little – Page 9

Shipulin Moves Up To Take Pursuit Victory; Target Malfunction, Subsequent Adjustment Break Up Fourcades’ Podium Party

Chelsea LittleJanuary 15, 2012

When Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen starts a pursuit race in bib 1, it’s a pretty good bet that he’ll stay there. Gamblers today, however, would have been sorry to put their money on the overall World Cup leader. As soon as the 12.5 k pursuit started in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, Svendsen began making errors. After being caught by Frenchmen Simon and Martin Fourcade, who had started second and third, the trio skied into the...

Biathlon World Cup

Currier Surprises with 6th Place in Nove Mesto World Cup, Leads U.S. to Best Day Ever

Chelsea LittleJanuary 14, 20123

After a frustrating individual race on Thursday, in which the top finish was 44th, the U.S. men’s biathlon team was left with two choices: wallow, or rebound for a great day Saturday. Luckily, the men in red, white and blue aren’t prone to feeling sorry for themselves. They picked up and moved on, notching top results in today’s 10 k World Cup sprint in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. They were led by a man who...

Canadian National Ski Team US Ski Team World Cup

Crawford, Jones Jet into Milan Semifinals, Set to Make Waves in Team Sprint Tomorrow

Chelsea LittleJanuary 14, 20121

Kikkan Randall might have been the only North American to appear in the final of today’s sprint in Milan, Italy, but several other women joined her in the heats, with pretty much across-the-board success; two had personal-best finishes. For Canada, both Perianne Jones and Chandra Crawford skied their way into the semifinals. After the heats were drawn, it seemed that the team had bad luck; both women were placed in heat five, making it unlikely...

Canadian National Ski Team US Ski Team World Cup

After Making Quarterfinals, North American Men Done In By Narrow Courses In Milan

Chelsea LittleJanuary 14, 2012

The narrow, winding sprint course through Milan’s Parco Sempione was not good to the North American men on Saturday. While three of them made the heats, not a single one advanced to the semifinals, done in by the narrow course which left little room to maneuver. “It was really tight from the gun and with such a monotonous course you’re not going to get a lot of shifting around,” said American Simi Hamilton, who finished...

Biathlon World Cup

Bjornsen So Close, Yet So Far in 31st-Place Sprint Qualifier: “It’s Kind of a Bummer “

Chelsea LittleJanuary 14, 2012

So far this season, Sadie Bjornsen has been on a quest to make the heats in a World Cup sprint. And while her silver medal with Kikkan Randall in the team sprint in Dusseldorf, Germany was more than she had expected, she still hasn’t crossed her original goal off the list. Today in Milan, Italy, Bjornsen came the closest she’s ever been to the quarterfinals, finishing 31st in the qualifier. That put her just 0.14...

Biathlon World Cup

In Nove Mesto’s Blizzard of Deteriorating Conditions, Zaitseva Keeps Clean and Russia Places 3 in Top 6

Chelsea LittleJanuary 13, 20122

This year’s World Cup biathlon schedule has presented a confusing dichotomy: it seems like races are either characterized by a lack or snow, or too much of it – sometimes at the same venue, just days apart. While panning television shots of athletes racing along thin white ribbons in the woods has become all too common, so too have the fuzzy, gray screens where cameras struggle to pick skiers out through heavy snowfall. “We’ve had...

Biathlon World Cup

Perfect Shooting Brings Russia’s Makoveev First World Cup Win

Chelsea LittleJanuary 13, 20125

If there’s one race in biathlon where shooting really, really matters, it’s probably the individual format. The distances are the longest on the circuit – 15 k for women and 20 k for men – but the penalties for missed shots are so harsh that even the added length makes it difficult to compensate for errors. Instead of hitting the penalty loop, which usually takes 20 to 25 seconds, racers see a minute added to...

Biathlon World Cup

Makarainen Gets Birthday Win in Nove Mesto 15 k – With Photo Gallery

Chelsea LittleJanuary 12, 2012

By this time last year, Finland’s Kaisa Makarainen had won two World Cups, podiumed in five more, and sat atop the rankings on the World Cup. The 2011-12 season is shaping up differently, not just for Makarainen, but for the other women as well. On Wednesday Makarainen became the fifth athlete – each from a different country – to win a World Cup. The 22-second victory, which came despite having one more penalty than second-place...

Other News

Get Wintergized for Women’s Health in Bend January 28th

Chelsea LittleJanuary 12, 2012

On Saturday, January 28 a brand new XC ski & snowshoe event will take place at Oregon’s Mt Bachelor Nordic Center. The inaugural Tour for the Heart presented by Heart Center Cardiology & St Charles Health System is a 5km celebration of women’s winter fitness created to educate and fundraise for women’s heart disease — America’s #1 killer. The Tour features a gentle and scenic 5km route starting from the upper Mt Bachelor Nordic trails...

Canadian National Ski Team Continental Cup Juniors

As Bailey Prepares to Say Farewell, NDC-Thunder Bay Has Guns Blazing Into U23 Trials

Chelsea LittleJanuary 12, 20122

When National Development Center Thunder Bay (NDC-TB) Head Coach Eric Bailey announced in December that he was going to retire at the end of the season, the Canadian ski community wondered who, if anyone, could possibly replace him. Over the last eight years, Bailey had quietly built a reputation as a leader at the remote training center, situated at the head of Lake Superior in Ontario. While Canmore gets most of the press these days...

Biathlon World Cup

Vertigo or No, Imrie Lands Career-Best 20th in Nove Mesto World Cup; Teammate Kocher 15th

Chelsea LittleJanuary 11, 2012

A couple of days ago, Canadian biathlete Megan Imrie couldn’t tell which way was up. Luckily, she’s feeling better – and up was where she landed on Wednesday, near the top of the results sheet in a World Cup individual race in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. Despite a case of vertigo, Imrie finished a career-best 20th place. Athletes have to deal with a lot of variables when they’re preparing for competitions, but vertigo – a...

Biathlon Results World Cup

In Front of 28,000-Strong Home Crowd, Birnbacher Takes Mass Start Victory for Germany

Chelsea LittleJanuary 9, 2012

In the first competition of this week’s six-race series in Oberhof, Germany, Olga Vilukhina anchored the Russian women’s relay team to a victory, the nation’s fourth in a row on biathlon’s World Cup circuit. But in the last competition, Sunday’s 15 k mass start, a different team became dominant. Germany’s Andreas Birnbacher shot 20 for 20 and skied to a 24-second win, annihilating the rest of the 30-man field. In the process, he gave his...

Biathlon World Cup

Photos from Thursday’s Snowy Biathlon Relay

Chelsea LittleJanuary 8, 2012

As described in the race report, the German town of Oberhof finally got some much-needed snow on Thursday – it just happened to come as a blizzard during the World Cup men’s relay held that evening. With both significant snow accumulation and huge gusts of wind hitting the course, the biathletes struggled through with an unusually high number of spare rounds and penalty loops. Italy eventually took the win, with Russia and Sweden rounding out...

Biathlon World Cup

Neuner Bounces Back to Win Oberhof Sprint; U.S. Women Struggle In First Race Back from Break

Chelsea LittleJanuary 6, 2012

After an extreme and unexpected implosion in Wednesday’s relay, Magdalena Neuner of Germany scooted out of the stadium without talking to the press. On Friday, she was able to hold her head high after hitting all of her targets and skiing to a 37-second win over Darya Domracheva of Belarus in the 7.5 k World Cup sprint in Oberhof, Germany. “It was important for me to delete that last race,” she said in the post-race...

Biathlon World Cup

After Rainy, Warm Weekend, Oberhof Finally Blasted With Snow During Men’s Relay; “Hurricane On The Range”, Says Bailey

Chelsea LittleJanuary 6, 2012

When Thursday’s men’s relay in Oberhof, Germany kicked off, the television cameras could barely even show the start. After days of rain and warm conditions, the snow gods of Thuringia finally decided to let the World Cup biathletes see their worst. The snow was falling so thickly that zoomed shots from the cameras could barely pick out the skiers. “That was one of the hardest relays during my coaching career,” said U.S. Head Coach...

Biathlon World Cup

After Devastating Implosion By Neuner, Russia Takes Women’s Relay Victory, Fourth Consecutive Win

Chelsea LittleJanuary 5, 2012

The best biathletes in the world got a warm welcome in Oberhof, Germany, on Wednesday – in fact, they could be forgiven if they felt that they were in the Thuringian version of a tropical storm. Although it didn’t actually rain during the evening race, the temperatures hovered just around freezing, humidity was close to 100 percent, and the wind, despite averaging around two meters per second, was recorded to gust up to 35 miles...

Biathlon Juniors

U.S. Names World Youth/Junior Championships Biathlon Team After Third Race in Qualifying Series

Chelsea LittleDecember 31, 20112

The format and qualification procedure for the World Youth/Junior Biathlon Championships Team Trials were introduced in Thursday’s race reports. In any qualifying series, it all comes down to the last day of racing – when bubble athletes make or break it, when a single amazing performance can catapult a racer upwards in the standings, when men and women go home either elated or heartbroken. In Anchorage, Alaska, Friday was that day for junior biathletes as...

Biathlon Juniors

Del Frate Repeats, But Three New Victors Emerge at Day Two of Biathlon Junior Trials

Chelsea LittleDecember 30, 2011

The format and selection procedures at World Youth/Junior Biathlon Championships Team Trials were explained in Wednesday’s Full results (Excel spreadsheet)

Biathlon Juniors

Dreissigacker, Del Frate, and Geraghty-Moats Dominate as Junior Biathlon Trials Kick Off in Anchorage

Chelsea LittleDecember 28, 20112

Today in Anchorage, World Youth/Junior Biathlon Championships Team Trials kicked off with a bang – or lots of bangs, as rifles knocked down target after target at Kincaid Park’s Sean Doherty of Saratoga Biathlon and Full results (Excel spreadsheet)

Canadian National Ski Team Juniors

Youth Olympic Games Presents: Maya MacIsaac-Jones

Chelsea LittleDecember 27, 2011

How fast is Maya MacIsaac-Jones? At a recent NorAm sprint in Rossland, British Columbia, the Albertan had the fastest qualifying time of any junior, covering the course more than eight seconds faster than any of her competitors. She went on to win the junior race, despite the fact that she’s only sixteen – three years younger than the other podium finishers. And if that isn’t impressive enough, MacIsaac-Jones’ time in the qualifier would have put...

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