Scott Gow found himself on the podium just 1.6 seconds behind the winner of Friday's 10 k sprint on the third day of racing at the IBU Cup in Obertilliach, Austria. Audrey Vaillancourt also shot clean to lead the Canadian women in seventh in the 7.5 k sprint.
With the second weekend of NorAm racing taking place Friday and Saturday at Sovereign Lake, here's a look at who could be some of the top contenders on a regular basis throughout the season, and who could potentially earn race starts in Europe.
Confidence builds on itself. Despite having a cold earlier this week, Rosanna Crawford took Sunday's fifth-place finish on the biathlon World Cup and turned it into a fourth-place follow up, finishing the 7.5 k sprint 36 seconds behind winner Gabriela Soukalova of the Czech Republic.
Biathlon is a roller coaster, but the beauty is that lows can turn into highs: Hannah Dreissigacker wenf from placing 78th in her last World Cup competition to cleaning all ten targets and finishing 17th in today's sprint, good for her first top-20. Susan Dunklee placed 19th with two penalties.
It's tough to swallow getting destroyed by Norwegians week after week. Reese Hanneman is still absorbing a huge jump in training hours from the summer and fall, but also: "I think people really underestimate how hard it is to go from racing well in the U.S. to racing well here on the World Cup.”
After the first race weekend of their European tour was canceled due to low snow, Canadian biathletes finally got started in Obertilliach, Austria, and started out hot: Emma Lunder and Julia Ransom placed 10th and 11th in the women's 15 k individual, and Christian Gow 18th in the men's race.
Rosanna Crawford had been thinking about this kind of performance for a long time, and even on Friday, after placing 34th in the Hochfilzen sprint, she predicted it was coming. She just didn't think it would come on Sunday in the 10 k pursuit.
Martin Fourcade was pretty pumped about his 12.5-kilometer pursuit win on Sunday on the last day of the Hochfilzen IBU World Cup in Austria. Like, eight exclamation points excited. “Yes!!!!!!!!” the two-time Olympic gold medalist and five-time world champion from France started seventh, 28 seconds behind seventh in the sprint with clean shooting. “I am happy that I gave 100 percent of myself today and shoot 20. I am very happy with that … My...
Three women in the quarterfinals and one just barely outside? U.S. Ski Team coach Matt Whitcomb was thrilled with Ida Sargent's and Sophie Caldwell's quarterfinal appearances and pleased to see Kikkan Randall a bit more like herself, he also stayed realistic: "I wouldn’t use any other word that celebrates it more than [good]."
It has been a year and a half since Lenny Valjas last made an appearance in World Cup sprint heats. Let that sink in. The tall Canadian is thrilled that not only is he back and feeling like himself, but he didn't just squeak in - he qualified tenth and missed a lucky loser spot in the semifinals by just 0.03 seconds.
Photos from an exciting day of World Cup racing in Davos, Switzerland. Take some lessons in classic technique from the best!
With a goal of a top eight on Saturday, the Canadians did two places better to tie a team-best sixth in the IBU World Cup men's relay in Hochfilzen, Austria. Russia won it by 20 seconds over France, and Norway was another 7.7 seconds back in third.
Liz Stephen wants to ski like skiing really matters: "I was focused on that aggression, and wanting to win more than I’ve ever wanted to win." That took her to 20th place in the 10 k classic, leading teammates Jessie Diggins and Sadie Bjornsen who all finished within a few seconds. Erik Bjornsen led the U.S. men in 48th place in the 15 k classic.
Martin Johnsrud Sundby had 99% decided to use skate skis in today's 15 k classic World Cup race in Davos. But then at the last second, he changed his mind. The choice worked, and he earned a 6.6-second win over teammate Didrik Tønseth. Dario Cologna went with skate skis and finished third.
Down a quart heading into the IBU World Cup #2 in Hochfilzen, Finland's Kaisa Mäkäräinen rallied to win Friday's sprint by more than 10 seconds. Susan Dunklee led the U.S. in 29th and Canada's Rosanna Crawford was another 5 seconds back in 34th.
Tim Burke put it all on the line and missed a single target -- his last one -- for 13th in Friday's 10 k sprint on the first day of the Hochfilzen IBU World Cup. Also for the U.S., Lowell Bailey shot clean for 17th.
They called her a wild card -- the International Ski Federation, that is. And according to Holly Brooks, she wasn’t sure what she was capable of either. After a second-place finish in the first marathon of the season, she's excited about what's ahead of her.
The World Cup races in Davos, Switzerland, have been shortened due to lack of snow, but the OC has been working hard, spending 70+ hours transporting snow from up high to the race course below. They host this weekend's classic-distance races and freestyle sprints, as well as next weekend's World Cup after the La Clusaz races were canceled.
Norway's Pål Golberg tells FasterSkier why Lillehammer has been good to him in the past (and it's not because he lives there) and why he rollerskis through the winter, at least once a week, and plays golf as much as he can.
A transcript (find a link inside) of the German documentary which exposed systematic doping in Russia reveals an even worse situation than imagined: how easy it is to purchase cheap EPO without a prescription; how Russian officials threaten that any athlete who goes to the press might "have an accident". Plus, we talk to Lowell Bailey, Nathan Smith, and Max Cobb about the situation.