2018 Masters World Cup (Minneapolis, Minnesota): 4 x 5 k relays Matt Liebsch, 34, anchored the winning relay of the youngest men’s age group (AG 1) at 2018 Masters World Cup on Wednesday, crossing the line in 45:57.2 minutes (the fastest relay time of the day) and teaming up with fellow Americans Christopher Harvey, Mark Johnson and Zach Varty. Two teams competed in that age group’s 4 x 5 k relay, with Italy finishing second,...
After making her debut in the World Cup points last season, Joanne Reid had a bumpier ride than expected on her way to being named to U.S. Biathlon’s Olympic Team. Maybe twice as bumpy. In March, a heart problem Reid had been dealing with came to the fore. “Hindsight is 20/20,” she said in an interview from Italy this week, guessing that she might have started having symptoms in 2014 or even earlier. But she...
On Saturday, Darya Domracheva watched as second place in the World Cup pursuit skied away from her. She had stepped on competitor Dorothea Wierer’s pole in the final corner of the 10 k pursuit in Antholz, Italy, and felt it unsportsmanlike to try to beat Wierer to the finish when the Italian had only one ski pole. So she in a press conference of the abundant fresh snow that had fallen overnight and continued to...
Norwegian biathletes started in the lead of both of today’s World Cup pursuits in Antholz, Italy, today, and one stayed there: Johannes Thingnes Bø cruised to a one-minute win over French rival Martin Fourcade, shooting a perfect 20/20 and flying on the trails. In the women’s race, his teammate Tiril Eckhoff had a few too many missed shots, and as she faded to fourth Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier surged to eventually claim a 17.3-second win over...
IBU World Cup (Antholz, Italy): Women’s 7.5 k sprint So far this season, Norway’s Tiril Eckhoff had yet to crack the top 20 outside a relay in the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup. That all changed Thursday when she won the women’s 7.5-kilometer sprint in Antholz, Italy. She did so by hitting all 10 targets and besting the time of Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier by 12 seconds at the finish. “I was very nervous for...
Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Rosanna Crawford. For a few minutes, it looked like Biathlon Canada’s Rosanna Crawford could clutch her third in the 15 k individual). She has followed that up with another one of her best results of her career. “The crowd was amazing in Ruhpolding this whole week! I loved having my first podium at one of the most popular World Cup venues,” she wrote. “We had...
IBU World Cup (Ruhpolding, Germany): Men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay Less than a week after International Biathlon Union (IBU) press release, the Norwegians avoided the penalty lap and used seven spares to clean. First-leg skier Birkeland put them in second with near-perfect shooting (0+0, 0+1), just 0.4 seconds behind Germany’s Erik Lesser, who cleaned without any spares, in first. (Birkeland was also on the Norwegian team that won the
For a while it looked as if the podium in the women’s 15-kilometer individual at the Thursday’s IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany, had been all but decided with only a few more athletes circling the course. But then the favorites who had already finished had someone to worry about. Along with some 13,000 spectators in the stands, they paid close attention to the video walls in the arena, as one late-starting Canadian — Rosanna Crawford...
IBU World Cup (Ruhpolding, Germany): Women’s 15 k individual IBU Cup women’s 15 k individual, also on Thursday. “That spark is exactly what our team needs right now and the timing is spot on,” Dunklee continued. “We will field our first women’s relay this weekend. It has been a challenging season so far living and traveling with such a small crew, trying to stay upbeat and carry the team with a skeleton group.” The World Cup...
IBU World Cup (Ruhpolding, Germany): Men’s 20 k individual For France’s Martin Fourcade, the difference between a miss on the last shooting stage of the men’s 20-kilometer individual International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup on Wednesday versus perfect shooting wouldn’t have ultimately changed his result in Ruhpolding. Despite the one-minute penalty, which was tagged onto his total time after his lone miss of the day, Fourcade still won by a minute. The Czech Republic’s Ondřej...
After cleaning the fourth and final shooting stage in the men’s 12.5-kilometer pursuit on Saturday at the 2018 International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Oberhof, Germany, Martin Fourcade of France hoisted the biathlon rifle onto his back, spun around and fully faced the way he’d come, glancing for a moment at his three closest competitors behind him: Norwegians Johannes Thingnes Bø and his older brother Tarjei Bø, and Emil Hegle Svendsen, before heading out on...
On Friday, American biathlete Tim Burke finished fourth in the 10 k World Cup sprint in Oberhof, Germany, 20.1 seconds behind France’s Martin Fourcade. A few years ago, it wouldn’t have been at all unusual to see Burke in that position, or even on the podium. He’s the 2013 World Championships silver medalist in the 20 k individual, but he had a couple of tough seasons, with compartment syndrome surgery in the middle. Last year,...
U.S. Cross Country Championships (Anchorage, Alaska): Freestyle sprints Women’s report Caitlin Patterson racked up her second-straight national title at this year’s 2018 U.S. Cross Country Championships and Reese Hanneman topped the men’s freestyle sprint final on Friday at Kincaid Park in Anchorage, Alaska. In the first of two sprints at 2018 U.S. nationals, Patterson, the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP) skier who won the Complete results *** NorAm Trials (Mont Sainte-Anne, Quebec): Classic sprints Canada’s...
For athletes who finished 2017 on a high note, the first race of 2018 can be a couple of two things. One is a continuation of the good competitions right like they left off. Another is a downgrade leaving them wondering if they’ve lost their mojo. For some women in Thursday’s 7.5 k World Cup sprint in Oberhof, Germany, it was the former. Anastasiya Kuzmina of Slovakia started in the yellow bib denoting the leader...
LE GRAND-BORNAND, France — After a long weekend of racing, beginning with heavy snow and continuing with glazed tracks, the biathlon World Cup is on break for two weeks to recalibrate and rejuvenate as the athletes prepare for the rest of the season and the 2018 Olympics in February. Here’s what some members of the field thought about the races this weekend – the bits of interviews and press conferences that didn’t make it into...
NorAm mini tour (Rossland, B.C.): 10/15 k freestyle pursuits Team Gregg ended the Rossland NorAm mini tour with another double win, with American Caitlin Gregg and her husband Brian Gregg winning the 10- and 15-kilometer freestyle pursuits, respectively, at the Black Jack Ski Club trails. Caitlin capped the long weekend with her third-straight win, a 48.28-second victory over former Canadian biathlete Zina Kocher (Foothills Nordic). Caitlin started first and was first across the finish in 29:02.86,...
LE GRAND-BORNAND, France—Martin Fourcade was winless so far this season, a strange situation. On Saturday he joked that his current foe, Johannes Thingnes Bø of Norway, was just too good and couldn’t be beaten. But in the last race of the French World Cup weekend, the men’s 15 k mass start, Fourcade managed to do it, thrilling the 16,000-strong home crowd in the process. The formula was simple: shoot clean. Fourcade did, Bø didn’t, and...
LE GRAND-BORNAND, France—Justine Braisaz was so excited for today’s 15 k mass start that she jumped the gun, scooting forward on her skis a few seconds before the start and having to reset. That provoked a laugh among the crowd and perhaps even her competitors, but they weren’t laughing by the time the race finished and Braisaz had left them in the dust, claiming her first World Cup win – on her father’s birthday, no...
NorAm Mini Tour (Rossland, B.C.): Freestyle sprints On Day 2 of NorAm racing in Rossland, British Columbia, Julien Locke, of the Black Jack Ski Club and Canadian National U25 Team, won the men’s 1.4-kilometer freestyle sprint final on his home trails by just one-hundredth of a second over Evan Palmer-Charrette, of the National Team Development Centre (NTDC) Thunder Bay, in 2:38.13. NTDC Thunder Bay had two on the podium with Julian Smith in third, 0.4...
LE GRAND-BORNAND, France – Well, that didn’t take long. After missing the first stop on the World Cup calendar due to illness and showing less than her usual ski speed in Hochfilzen last weekend, Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier picked up her first International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup win of the season in the women’s 10-kilometer pursuit on Saturday. The 24-year-old German, who was the overall IBU World Cup champion last season as well as three-time...