A single errant bullet forced Dunklee into a penalty lap and pushed her down to 14th place on the day — tantalizingly close to the podium, but still good enough for the best-ever Olympic finish in a sprint race by an American woman,
Anastasiya Kuzmina of Slovakia hasn't won a race in over a year, but today she repeated her Olympic sprint title from Vancouver, shooting clean and skiing the fourth-fastest time of the day. Olga Vilukhina, a Russian biathlete who this season switched to the training group of Vladimir Korolkevich, which also included two athletes who recently failed doping tests, took silver.
For most, the Olympic experience goes much deeper than results, and that couldn't have been more true for several North Americans competing at the highest stage of their sport for the first time on Saturday. U.S. cross-country skier Jessie Diggins emerged in eighth and Canadian biathlete Nathan Smith tallied 13th to highlight the day.
Setting out on the last loop of today's 10 k sprint, Jean Philippe Le Guellec of Canada as sitting in fourth - all he had to do was make up a couple of seconds to earn a medal. But on Sochi's treacherous and brutally difficult course, Le Guellec gave it his all and still ended up fifth. It bettered his previous record for a Canadian men's Olympic performance by one spot; teammate Nathan Smith placed 13th.
Norwegian Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, 40, won the 10 k sprint at the 2014 Olympics on Saturday — earning his seventh career gold and 12th Olympic medal, besting competitors half his age over 10 kilometers of skiing and two rounds of shooting.
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Canada's Rosanna Crawford says that some features of the Sochi course have stayed the same since the World Cup visited last year: the big climbs, the shooting range with an easy approach and huge retaining walls which cut the wind. But as Max Cobb explains, some changes have been made to the courses as well based in part on Organizing Committee layout errors.
Some of Irina Starykh's competitors are defending her, saying the investigation is not yet complete; administrators and coaches from Scandinavia wonder how stupid you'd have to be to try doping in the leadup to the Olympics; a former IOC medical director believes Starykh's coach and team doctor are the last vestiges of the old Soviet doping system, and hopes they will be weeded out.
Audrey Vaillancourt has spent a lot of time bouncing around different European race circuits this season. Today, she eked out a 2-second victory in the 15 k individual at Open European Championships thanks to the best shooting in the field, and among the fastest range times. It's the first time a Canadian has ever won a race at the Championships.
In a letter to the Russian Biathlon Union, Irina Starykh confirmed that the IBU had notified her of a positive "A" sample. She resigned from the team until the situation is clarified, and also so that she could attend the opening of the "B" sample. Meanwhile, Alexander Tikhonov points out that a doctor sacked in 2009 after a doping scandal was re-hired this year, and was present on the World Cup circuit.
The International Biathlon Union handed provisional sanctions to three athletes who tested positive for banned substances. Russian website Championat is alleging that two are Ekaterina Iourieva, a 2008 World Champion who has already served one doping ban for EPO; and Irina Starykh, currently the top-ranked Russian woman. Across the biathlon world, athletes expressed frustration and dismay.
Minnesota native Anna Kubek started off her week right with a sixth-place finish in the junior women's 12.5 k individual at Open European Championships for biathlon. Kubek was just 14 seconds off the podium. In the men's 15 k race, Christian Gow of Canada finished 15th.
Pam Weiss, a top American competitor in both biathlon and cross country skiing who now splits her time between Jackson Hole and teaching kayaking in New Zealand, tells us more about the wild early days of women's biathlon, based on her personal experience. Art Stegen, a former national team coach now based in upstate New York, provides commentary around the edges about why adding a women's team was the best move the U.S. ever could have made.
For the second time this season, a women's World Cup biathlon competition was called off mid-race due to deteriorating conditions. On Sunday, it was fog that enveloped the stadium in Antholz, Italy, making it impossible to see the targets on the shooting range. Megan Imrie (CAN) and Annelies Cook (USA) were on course at the time, and talk about what happened.
Sitting in fourth place at each of the first three handoffs, the Canadian men were in the game for the entirety of today's World Cup biathlon relay in Antholz, Italy. They eventually finished sixth - the first time any of them could remember going to the flower ceremony as a team. France won the race, anchored by Martin Fourcade.
This weekend Russell Currier hit the biathlon World Cup for the first time this season, and was happy with his performances heading into the Olympics: in the sprint he finished 60th, using the 17th-best ski time of the day to make up for a bevy of penalties, and then he improved his shooting in the next day's pursuit.
After collecting his first World Cup victory in yesterday's sprint, Simon Schempp of Germany held on for win number two in the pursuit today despite two penalties that bounced him out of the lead for large portions of the race. Lowell Bailey of the United States moved up to 12th place, although he wishes he'd hit a shot in the last round that would have left him in podium position.
Germany's Andrea Henkel skied with both calm and grit, shooting a perfect 20-for-20 and delving deep into the pain cave to hold off a charging Nadezhda Skardino of Belarus in the final kilometer of today's World Cup 10 k pursuit in Antholz, Italy. Susan Dunklee of the U.S. was in a top-five position for over half the race before being felled by shooting errors.
Simon Schempp and Lukas Hofer looked pretty chummy after the finish men’s 10 k sprint at the World Cup in Antholz, Italy this Friday. Maybe their laughter was a product of their relief of finishing a challengingly slow course, or maybe it was that both of them were on the podium for the first time this season. More likely, however, it was the fact they both sat atop that podium in a rare tie for first place having skied the 10 k in 22:44.9.
It was a day of firsts in the women’s 7.5 k sprint on the trails of Antholz, Italy. New faces found their way onto the podium, and American Susan Dunklee was just 0.6 seconds out, finishing a career-best fourth -- the best result by a U.S. female biathlete since 1994.