Even the most renowned athletes and national teams in the mixed relay on Sunday afternoon admitted they had not yet found their perfect groove in Östersund, Sweden, on the opening day of the 2017/2018 International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup season. Nevertheless it still made for an exciting race, with four teams vying for the podium on the last lap. And in the finishing stretch, anchored by veteran Emil Hegle Svendsen, the same country prevailed...
Two years ago, Nathan Smith and Rosanna Crawford in an Austrian Ski Federation press release. “It already paid off to toil for another year. I knew this would be one of the toughest single mixed competitions, because you always carry the exhaustion from the last climb to the shooting range. But I could pace myself well. I think tactically it was a strong performance, and that’s the most important thing in the single mixed. It’s...
After a disappointing day of sprints in Sjusjøen, Norway, on Saturday, the Norwegian biathlon team rebounded in Sunday’s mass starts to claim wins from Marte Olsbu in the women’s race and Erlend Bjøntegaard in the men’s race. In the women’s 12.5 k mass start, Olsbu had just one penalty, in the first prone stage, and came back through the field to ski to a 25-second win over Anais Bescond of France, who had two penalties....
Note: This article has been updated to include comments and verification from Biathlon Canada High Performance Director Roddy Ward, and explain the modified shooting format used for Friday’s sprint. *** Almost exactly two weeks before Biathlon Canada sends the rest of its World Cup team to Europe for the first trimeter of International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup racing, the national team held trials this past Tuesday through Friday on snow in Canmore, Alberta. Three...
Frozen Thunder is back, but it’s not the same Frozen Thunder you knew before. Every year, snow is stored all summer at the Canmore Nordic Centre in Canmore, Alberta, and rolled out in October to provide local ski and biathlon teams with on-snow training opportunities. This year, the loop has changed. “It feels good to be back on the snow after such a long time away,” Biathlon Canada’s Nathan Smith wrote in an email. “The...
Few nordic ski racing and biathlon venues are as awe-inspiring as the Canmore Nordic Centre in Alberta, Canada. Just south of the venue, amidst the geologic upheaval that is the Canadian Rockies, punches the Zina Kocher, a three-time Canadian Olympic biathlete, fostered a deep connection to Boruta as she emerged onto the Canadian biathlon radar. Kocher told FasterSkier on the phone that she qualified for the national championships in 12th grade at age 17. To...
If you made it past the article’s title, then get ready to immerse yourself in the intricacies of Canadian high-performance sports funding. OK, here it goes…money, money, money. Add this for effect, $. Imagine for a moment you’re the CEO of a national sporting body and you’ve got high aspirations — things like championship and Olympic medals. There’s an infinite amount of puzzle pieces to organize and assemble. There are two critical pieces to even...
When Biathlon Canada missed most of the season due to a rare virus. For Smith, the health issues have passed and Ward reported that he was back to training a full load. Crawford and Green, he concluded, were overtrained. The winter taught the team some painful lessons that they are learning from and he is confident that the athletes will be back to their prior form this year. “One thing as a team we have...
Biathlon Canada has named 11 athletes to its senior national team for 2017-2018. The group is headlined by three athletes who scored World Cup top-20’s last season: Scott Gow, Julia Ransom, and Rosanna Crawford. Also returning is 2015 World Championships silver medalist Nathan Smith, who sat out most of last season recovering from a virus. The senior team does not distinguish between ‘A’ and ‘B’ squads this year, instead functioning as one group. “We are...
(For English version, http://unispourlesport.com) vient d’ailleurs récemment de mettre en ligne un plan d’entraînement personnalisable pour coureurs. « Les choses se passent bien », écrit Vaillancourt dans un courriel le mois dernier.
Note: The following interview with retired biathlete Audrey Vaillancourt was conducted in French and translated to English. For French version, Unis pour le sport” (United for Sport). “This project is an effort to help athletes achieve specific goals regarding racing, training, technique in various sports, ranging from cross-country skiing and biathlon to obstacle-course racing and running,” she explained. “We already sense a strong demand for such services across the province.” Most recently, the website published an...
Happy May! With the start of a new training year, FasterSkier scanned social media for a sense of how nordic skiers kicked off Day 1 (and the days before) of the 2017/2018 season. Kikkan Randall of the U.S. Ski Team (USST) and Alaska Pacific University (APU) “sneaking in some secret Mom training” while pushing her son Breck on April 30: View this post on Instagram Excited to kick off a new training season tomorrow! (Sneaking in some secret Mom training...
For the past 13 years, Eric de Nys has been ingrained in the sport of cross-country skiing and its offshoots, including biathlon. He spent 10 years as a coach on Cross Country Canada’s national team, leading the women’s World Cup team in his final two years there. Based in the same town and out of the same training facilities in Canmore, Alberta, de Nys parted ways with the national team after the 2014 Olympics and October 2015, de Nys...
With the 2016/2017 season officially in the rearview, FasterSkier is excited to unveil its annual award winners for this past winter. Votes stem from the FS staff, scattered across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and while not scientific, they are intended to reflect a broader sense of the season in review. This set of honors goes to outstanding athletes across the nordic disciplines who had a major breakthrough at any level of racing. Previous categories:...
With the 2016/2017 season officially in the rearview, FasterSkier is excited to unveil its annual award winners for this past winter. Votes stem from the FS staff, scattered across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and while not scientific, they are intended to reflect a broader sense of the season in review. This set of honors goes to outstanding North American junior athletes across all nordic disciplines. *** Katharine Ogden, Stratton Mountain School/U.S. Ski Team Yes, Stratton’s...
For races and ski jumpings at the famous Holmenkollen arena on a hillside above Oslo, a frequent visitor in the audience is the King Harald V of Norway, a passionate and knowledgeable fan of all nordic sports. And usually the winners of the competition get the honor of being invited up to the royal suite overlooking the arena. On Friday in the women’s 7.5-kilometer sprint at the Interntional Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup final in...
The single mixed relay is a relatively new format, and one that is not yet contested at World Championships or the Olympics. And so when a single mixed relay (two athletes) and a ‘normal’ mixed relay (four athletes) are held on the same day, the U.S. Biathlon World Cup team’s policy has always been clear: prioritize the mixed relay, and get the World Champs and Olympic team the most practice possible for their big days....
IBU Biathlon World Cup (Kontiolahti, Finland): Single Mixed Relay In the last single mixed relay of the season, Susan Dunklee held the lead after two loops of skiing. She was looking for a top tag-off to American Lowell Bailey, but she crashed on a downhill. Nevertheless, she was able to focus on the shooting range and climb back into podium position. The leaders were gone, however: Simon Eder and Lisa Therese Hauser of Austria ran away with the...
Martin Fourcade and Laura Dahlmeier: each secured some sort of crystal globe today, in recognition of their season-long consistency on the biathlon World Cup. But in the 12.5 kilometer and 10 kilometer pursuits in Kontiolahti, Finland, their approaches to those globes were very different. Fourcade, the French athlete who had already secured the season-long Total Score title, was looking to also pick up the ‘small crystal globe’ for pursuit competitions. He has won many season...
NCAA Skiing Championships (Jackson, N.H.): 15/20 k freestyle mass starts On the final day of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Skiing Championships in northern New Hampshire, the University of Utah pulled out a 16.5-point victory over the University of Colorado-Boulder (and finished 17.5 points ahead of the University of Denver) in the team standings, and the Petra Hyncicova, achieved their second-straight titles in as many nordic races this week. On a frigid Saturday morning in Jackson,...