With Canada’s Kurtis Wenzel winning gold in the junior men’s 15 k individual, it was easy to overlook the other North American performances at biathlon World Junior Championships on Tuesday. But there were several other notable finishes in Kontiolahti, Finland, including top-20’s from Wenzel’s teammates Aaron Gillmor and Audrey Vaillancourt. Biathlon Canada, it appears, is on its way up. “It was certainly a welcome surprise to hear that Kurtis was in the lead after his...
Canadian biathlon has been on the upswing all year, with top-ten performances from three different athletes on the World Cup and wins and podiums on the second-tier IBU Cup circuit. At World Youth and Junior Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland, the Canadians had been hoping to continue their success, and started off well with a top-ten finish by Julia Ransom. But the athlete most likely to make waves was a young man who was also surrounded...
The top Canadian and American women in the youth individual race at biathlon World Junior Championships on Monday couldn’t have had more different attitudes coming into the event. Canada’s Julia Ransom, for instance, was looking for payback. After a strong showing in 2010 in Torsby, Sweden, Ransom struggled in 2011, producing a top result of just 36th place in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. “Last year was definitely a frustrating year for me,” she told FasterSkier...
ERZURUM, Turkey — Stina Nilsson (SWE) trained all summer for the World Juniors sprint, and on Monday she got what she’d worked for with her victory at the Kandilli Nordic Ski Center. She led a 1-2-4 Swedish team performance in the freestyle sprint, which exceeded ever their coaches’ expectations. Jonna Sundling (SWE) was fourth. Unlike the men’s sprint outcome, which featured a repeat winner, Nilsson came from a 12th-place showing in the classic sprint at...
ERZURUM, Turkey — For elite skiers under the age of 20, the FIS Junior World Championships are a focal point of the previous year’s training. No matter the national team, an athlete’s success at World Juniors causes elated finish-line celebrations, as it confirms he can ski as fast, or perhaps faster, than he ever thought possible. The freestyle sprint, the opening events of the 2012 championships at Kindalli Nordic Ski Center, was no exception....
ERZURUM, Turkey — Less than a day remains before the start of the 2012 FIS Junior and U23 World Championships. Despite language barriers and transportation confusion, the excitement at the Kandilli Nordic Ski Center was palpable in anticipation of Monday’s junior freestyle sprints. The sun even came out for the occasion, revealing a mountainous, moon-like landscape that had previously been hidden behind clouds. Kandilli lies about 40 k to the west of Erzurum, where athletes...
When the International Olympic Committee (IOC) held their first-ever winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria in January, they invited many of the best teenage athletes in the world to compete in 13 sports. But it wasn’t only the best young athletes who converged on the historic venue, which also hosted the 1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics. The IOC invited some of the biggest stars in winter sports – many retired, but some still competing...
Thursday night, the Slovakian town of Osrblie kicked off the 2012 Open European Championships of biathlon with an elaborate ceremony featuring athletes from 32 different countries. On Friday, racers flooded past on the trails and hundreds of shots were fired on the range, by the best field the venue has hosted since its last World Cup in 2005. What are the Open European Championships? The event, which lasts a week, actually serves several purposes. It’s...
SEEFELD IN TIROL, Austria— Despite significant recent snowfall, the Youth Olympic Games staff managed to polish the HS 75 meter jump in Seefeld Arena in time for Saturday’s Team Jumping event—the final Nordic event of the Games. The Canadian Team— consisting of female special jumper Taylor Henrich, male special jumper Dusty Korek and Nordic Combined skier Nathaniel Mah— managed to take advantage of the inconsistent conditions to secure a historic Bronze medal. The team...
SEEFELD IN TIROL, Austria— It’s been a week of memorable firsts here in Seefeld Stadium during these Winter Youth Olympic Games. The very Youth Games themselves, hosted by the Austrian city of Innsbruck, served as the winter debut for the International Olympic Committee’s latest concoction, thereby making Innsbruck— the two time host of the Olympic Games, in 1964 and 1976— the first city to host three Olympic Games. The Youth Games is a shiny new...
SEEFELD IN TIROL, Austria– Anna Kubek, Heather Mooney, Sean Doherty and Paddy Caldwell have some important news they’d like to share with you. History was made here in the storied Seefeld Arena during the Cross-Country/Biathlon Mixed Relay event, with Team USA crossing the line in 3rd to take the Bronze medal. A detailed report will follow shortly.
SEEFELD IN TIROL, Austria— Today’s evening sprints in Seefeld were big for the Scandinavians. Having walked away from the sole distance event of Games with nothing but a pair of clunky 4th place “wooden medals”, the Nordic powerhouse nations came out this evening with their guns blazin’. But the Americans, specifically members of the Caldwell family, have a history of turning heads in Seefeld. This time around it was young Paddy who made quite a...
While Standard and Poors may have recently downgraded Austria’s credit-worthiness to ‘AA’, no one is questioning Tyrol’s ability to put on world class ski races. Clear skies and cold temperatures delayed start times by one hour, but the resulting bomber tracks in Seefeld Stadium heated up quickly beneath the skis of the world’s fastest Junior racers during Tuesday’s YOG Classic races. Russian athletes took advantage of the familiar brisk conditions to steal the show—in the...
Highlighted by her fourth-place performance in the senior freestyle sprint at U.S. Nationals, 17-year-old Corey Stock (Cambridge Sports Union) earned her first trip to Europe with the U.S. Ski Team’s (USST) World Junior Championship squad this coming February. It’s difficult to determine the most remarkable part of that statement. For starters, Stock’s age would normally make her a candidate for the J1 trip, and yet as the top junior finisher in the skate sprint in...
SEEFELD IN TIROL, Austria– Every Nordic race director is well versed in Murphy’s Law. Today, Seefeld Stadium was more or less the Titanic—the unsinkable race venue. Temps were cold, the loops were covered with a meter and a half of perfectly groomed snow, thousands of cowbell clanging Tyroleans lined the course, and the IBU’s finest were on hand to supervise. The Women’s 7.5km Pursuit event at the Youth Olympic Games was to go off without...
SEEFELD IN TIROL, Austria In his address to the competitors and spectators who packed the bleachers of the Bergisel stadium during the Opening Ceremonies of the inaugural Winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, IOC President Jacques Rogge emphasized the importance of the Games with respect to the core Olympic values. “You have a chance to be true champions, not only by winning medals, but by conducting yourself like Olympians,” Rogge told the 1,078 Youth Olympians...
–SEEFELD IN TIROL, Austria It was a busy day for the double hitters today in Seefeld during the second day of competition at the Youth Olympic Games. Bluebird skies, calm winds, and perfect tracks delivered the type of conditions that race directors dream of. Nordic Combined Men’s Individual Competition Action kicked off Sunday morning with the Nordic Combined Men’s Individual competition. Competitors took part in one competitive round of jumping held on the HS...
SEEFELD IN TIROL, Austria– Beneath crisp blue skies, the world’s finest junior ski jumpers flew into the annals of Olympic history today in Seefeld, Austria. The individual ski jumping event marked the first competition event to be held at the 2012 Winter Youth Olympic Games. As if to prove that world-class ski jumps are more prevalent in Austria than are Mini-Golf courses in Fort Lauderdale, Youth Olympic action shifted today across the Inn River valley...
INNSBRUCK, Ausria – Welcome to Innsbruck, Austria! After a 36 year hiatus, Olympic competition has now returned to the bustling university city of Innsbruck for a third time in the form of the Inaugural Youth Winter Olympic Games. The capital city of the alpine province of Tyrol in Austria’s western panhandle, Innsbruck twice hosted the world during the 1964 and 1976 Olympic Winter Games and now proudly bears the distinction of being the only city...
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...