On Sunday, French biathlete Jean-Guillaume Béatrix knew he was the luckiest man in Pokljuka, achieving the first World Cup victory of his career in a men’s 15-kilometer mass start he hadn’t planned on racing.
Martin Fourcade was behind some race drama on Saturday in the IBU World Cup men's pursuit, which the man who finished second behind him -- Simon Schempp -- called a "psycho race." American Lowell Bailey was in the hunt for a top 10 and placed 13th with a single penalty.
Tim Burke put it all on the line and missed a single target -- his last one -- for 13th in Friday's 10 k sprint on the first day of the Hochfilzen IBU World Cup. Also for the U.S., Lowell Bailey shot clean for 17th.
Norway, Russia, Germany, France: it's hard to see a biathlon race where these guys aren't on the podium. Here's what you need to know about the biggest teams going into the 2013-2014 season - injury updates, shooting problems, psychological battles, promising juniors, team-naming squabbles. Read on.
Tim Burke (USA) has not only recovered from his compartment syndrome scare two winters ago, but he has also finally regained his confidence after having surgery. Andreas Birnbacher (GER) won the mass start, but Burke was on the podium for the first time since 2010.
After winning Olympic bronze and then a World Championship in 2012, Jakov Fak of Slovenia was on the hunt for his first regular World Cup victory. He got it in a 12.5 k pursuit today, edging Dimitry Malyshko of Russia and dropping France's Martin Fourcade on a punishing final climb in Hochfilzen, Austria.
Andreas Birnbacher paid Martin Fourcade back for his tough tactics last weekend, this time around notching a 0.4-second victory over the Frenchman in a 10 k sprint. Darya Domracheva of Belarus also collected her first win of the season, and the tenth of her career, thanks to rifle problems that slowed down Kaisa Makarainen on the range.
ÖSTERSUND, Sweden – After placing a disappointing tenth in yesterday’s 10 k sprint, Martin Fourcade of France was seeking redemption – and to stay in the overall World Cup leaders bib that he had earned after winning Wednesday’s individual race. Last year’s overall champion missed only a single one of his twenty shots in today’s 12.5 k pursuit, which put him on a trajectory towards the front. The penalty came in the second standing stage,...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – Martin Fourcade is a glutton for punishment. At every chance he got, the Frenchman would push the pace over the top of the last steep hill during today’s World Championship 15 k mass start. As the rain gently fell on the Chiemgau Arena and competitors looked more and more bedraggled, Fourcade attacked again and again, jump-skating up hill after hill, and dragging himself back from penalties that may have come from pushing...
With racing taking a break for the day in Ruhpolding, Germany, here’s a gallery from the kickoff race, yesterday’s mixed relay. Norway took the win followed by Slovenia and Germany. Click any photo to enlarge.
When Germany’s Andreas Birnbacher left the shooting range for one more three-kilometer loop in Sunday’s mass start race, there was little doubt that he’d be beaten to the finish line. Yes, Birnbacher was leading. And yes, he was wearing the red bib denoting that he led the discipline standings on the World Cup circuit. There was just one problem: Emil Hegle Svendsen of Norway was right on his shoulder. Just one day earlier, Svendsen had...
Both Tim Burke and Lowell Bailey had their moments in Saturday’s mass start race in Antholz-Anterselva, Italy. After two shooting stages, Burke was in the top ten. After three, Bailey was 11th. But in the end, after four stages and 15 k of skiing, the Americans ended up in a race with each other – for 20th place. “It was an up and down race for me today,” Bailey wrote in an e-mail to FasterSkier....
In the first competition of this week’s six-race series in Oberhof, Germany, Olga Vilukhina anchored the Russian women’s relay team to a victory, the nation’s fourth in a row on biathlon’s World Cup circuit. But in the last competition, Sunday’s 15 k mass start, a different team became dominant. Germany’s Andreas Birnbacher shot 20 for 20 and skied to a 24-second win, annihilating the rest of the 30-man field. In the process, he gave his...
There were a lot of unusual things about the World Cup biathlon races in Hochfilzen, Austria on Saturday. First, there was the inch of snow that fell during the men’s 12.5 k pursuit. Then, there was the fact that the field was incredibly compressed thanks to some strange weather in the original sprint race. “The snow storm that stopped [mid-race on Thursday] had a bigger effect than I expected,” U.S. biathlete Jay Hakkinen told FasterSkier....
Despite coming off of a successful World Championships in which they led the count with eight medals (including two relay golds), the Norwegian team was unable to keep their hot streak going when the World Cup landed on home turf in Oslo. At Holmenkollen Stadium on Thursday, the best the team could muster was a second-place finish by Tora Berger in the women’s 7.5 k sprint. She finished over 30 seconds behind Magdalena Neuner of...