After two years, Corrine Malcolm is no longer on the biathlon national team. But as she said in a blog title, "that's okay." Now on the CXC roster and nannying to pay her bills while she lives in Bozeman, Malcolm feels fit and is trying to figure out if her Olympic goals are still possible without the financial means to attend both sets of biathlon trials leading into the winter season.
When the 2013 season turned into a disaster for Canadian biathlete Megan Imrie, she headed back to her parents' ranch for a few weeks of checking the traplines, bonfires and picnics in the snow, and spending time with her horses. The chance to rejuvenate mid-winter has her ready to go for Sochi, and these days you'll find her making the most of on-snow training with the national team.
The Sochi Organizing Committee showed off, for the first time, the beautiful meals that will be up for grabs at the Olympics in February. Across the nordic sports, North Americans could medal in, we estimate, four events - and if you start talking a little crazy, maybe almost a dozen sets of the handcrafted hardware could come back across the Atlantic.
Leaving their rifles at home, the U.S. biathlon team is in Bend and today addresses a question that many skiers face come spring: how do you tackle the first couple overdistance workouts after a break? How long should they be, and what activity is best? Coaches Per Nilsson and Jonne Kahkonen assigned a three to four hour classic OD, and gave us their tips.
Vermont biathlete Tara Geraghty-Moats spent the year training at a Swedish ski gymnasium, with the goal of improving her shooting thanks to full-time coaching; it paid off with a win in the junior sprint at Swedish Championships. In a month, she'll move back to the U.S. to train with Algis Shalna and focus on the next World Juniors in Presque Isle, Maine.
After a successful demo in the small Alaskan village of Kiana last year, former national team biathlete Zach Hall coordinated an effort to introduce biathlon to six villages this year as part of Lars Flora's NANANordic program. For kids in the villages, the combination of skiing and hunting just makes sense; for the athlete coaches, it was the experience of a lifetime.
With a bevvy of international podiums by North American men and a group of four U.S. and Canadian women who ended the season ranked in the 40's, it was tough to pick our biathletes of the year. But Americans Tim Burke and Annelies Cook stood out to snag top honors.
At just 22 years of age, both Sophie Caldwell and Scott Gow competed in their first World Championships. A skier for SMS T2, Caldwell made several sprint quarterfinals on the World Cup this year, including placing 20th at World Champs. Gow contributed big to the Canadian biathlon team, finishing 31st in the 20 k individual at senior Championships, where he was also the youngest competitor to qualify for the pursuit.
With the Olympics looming, the U.S. Biathlon Association cut its national team to the smallest it has been in years, with no new members and only one athlete under the age of 25; development was cut almost completely. President and CEO Max Cobb hopes that good performances in Sochi will be a rising tide that lifts all boats in his sport.
2012 World Junior Champion Kurtis Wenzel began mulling retirement in December; despite his first World Cup start and a national title, come April, it still felt like the right decision. The Canadian biathlon team is also losing 2012 Female Biathlete of the Year Melanie Schultz, who struggled to find her ski speed - and motivation - all season.
Former college skiers Susan Dunklee, Annelies Cook, and Hannah Dreissigacker decided not to go straight to vacation when their World Cup biathlon season ended. Instead, they're racing SuperTour finals - for most, the first classic races and first sprints of the season. After a collection of top-ten results, it looks like a good decision, but they're also keeping things fun with an intra-team "Biathlon Cup" competition.
In his first year as a senior, Canada's Kurtis Wenzel - last year's World Junior Champion in the individual - saw his season progress as normal. Then, at the very end, things got exciting: he got the surprise call to race in his first World Cup, at the Olympic venue in Sochi, then returned home to win his first national championship.
Audrey Vaillancourt (Quebec) completed her set of three titles at 2013 Canadian Biathlon Championships with a photo finish victory over Megan Heinicke (Biathlon BC) on Tuesday.
Audrey Vaillancourt (Quebec) made it two for two, winning the pursuit at Canadian Biathlon Championships at Whistler Olympic Park on Sunday. Vaillancourt started first after her Saturday sprint victory and finished first despite missing four shots (1+0+1+2) in 31:43.4 for the fastest ski time of the day.
From Drammen to nearby Oslo, to a frigid and snowy biathlon weekend in Siberia, and Norwegian dominance and U.S. junior nationals - a lot of exciting racing this weekend, much of it with extra significance as the end of the season draws near.
After blunders in Saturday's pursuit, Martin Fourcade of France was back to his winning ways in the mass start, and has become the first man since Raphael Poiree to sweep all of the crystal globes. American Tim Burke was in the pack fighting for second, but despite pushing Emil Hegle Svendsen to his absolute limit had to settle for fourth by just 0.3 seconds.
Even Gabriela Soukalova's mother, an Olympic silver medalist, was impressed with the dominant performances the 23-year-old from the Czech Republic has put on in Khanty Mansiysk this weekend. Marie Dorin Habert of France and Kaisa Makarainen of Finland rounded out the podium in the 12.5 k mass start.
Christoph Sumann was having a bad run of things. Just two weeks ago, you could find the 37-year-old former Olympic medalist dabbling in ski races - classic ski races - at home in Austria. But in today's pursuit in Russia, the biathlete was back at the top of his game, shooting a perfect 20-for-20 while Martin Fourcade seemed a shell of his former self, accumulating five penalties.
As Gabriela Soukalova took her lead from the sprint and turned it into another victory in the 10 k pursuit, U.S. biathletes Annelies Cook and Susan Dunklee ended their World Cup seasons on a bitter note: after too many penalties, neither was able to qualify for the mass start. Dunklee added insult to injury by cross-firing on the wrong targets and receiving a time penalty. Still, though, she said it was a fun week.
Coming off the high of a top-five in Sochi, Russia, last weekend, U.S. Biathlon’s Tim Burke continued the momentum on Friday in Khanty-Mansiysk with a ninth-place finish in the 10 k sprint, the third-to-last race of the World Cup season. Lowell Bailey also had a strong finish in 11th place, two seconds behind Burke with perfect shooting.