Germany's Vanessa Hinz relied on fast skiing and precise shooting to give her team a 30-second lead heading into the last leg of Friday's 4 x 6 k relay at IBU World Championships, and teammate Laura Dahlmeier ran away with it to win by more than a minute. Canada achieved its top-10 team goal, and the U.S. matched its season best in 12th.
Leave it to dads to predict medal potential. Ekaterina Yurlova's father did just that, one month before the Russian won gold at IBU World Championships in the women's 15 k on Wednesday. Susan Dunklee placed 12th with her best shooting in an individual race in the last week, and Megan Heinicke tallied her third-straight top 30 in Kontiolahti.
The world's best biathletes battled blowing snow and variable conditions in the women's 7.5 k sprint at the 2015 IBU World Championships in Kontiolahti, Finland. In the end it was France's Marie Dorin Habert who walked away with the victory while Canada's Megan Heinicke was the first North American in 23rd.
Darya Domracheva literally weathered the storm better than anybody in Nove Mesto, including Finland’s Kaisa Mäkäräinen, to win Sunday's 10 k pursuit by 6.8 seconds. Susan Dunklee started ninth and led the U.S. in 18th with five penalties on an especially challenging Sunday.
Germany's Laura Dahlmeier squeaked ahead of teammate Franziska Hildebrand on the final loop to earn her first-ever IBU World Cup victory. American Susan Dunklee took ninth to capture her third-straight top-10 result, while American Annelies Cook had one of her best World Cup results ever in taking 28th.
He felt a little weird saying it, but Bernd Eisenbichler viewed Friday’s single mixed relay — a brand-new event which was first tested in Oslo last season — as a “good training opportunity” for US Biathlon's Annelies Cook and Tim Burke. The two teamed up for ninth on the first day of the IBU World Cup in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic.
How often do you see ten biathletes lined up at the firing range, but no one pulling the trigger? In Sunday's World Cup women's relay, patience was the name of the game as strong winds swirled around Antholz, Italy.
The Canadians got off to a strong start, skiing in second throughout the first leg of Wednesday's 4 x 6 k women's relay at the IBU World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany. The Czech women held steady up front to tally their second-straight relay win in the last week.
Biathlon is a roller coaster, but the beauty is that lows can turn into highs: Hannah Dreissigacker wenf from placing 78th in her last World Cup competition to cleaning all ten targets and finishing 17th in today's sprint, good for her first top-20. Susan Dunklee placed 19th with two penalties.
Rosanna Crawford had been thinking about this kind of performance for a long time, and even on Friday, after placing 34th in the Hochfilzen sprint, she predicted it was coming. She just didn't think it would come on Sunday in the 10 k pursuit.
Down a quart heading into the IBU World Cup #2 in Hochfilzen, Finland's Kaisa Mäkäräinen rallied to win Friday's sprint by more than 10 seconds. Susan Dunklee led the U.S. in 29th and Canada's Rosanna Crawford was another 5 seconds back in 34th.
Susan Dunklee came within 3.1 seconds of a top 20 in 21st, which she was pleased with while wanting more. "Today certainly wasn’t our strongest team showing," she explained, citing their lack of on-snow time compared to other teams. "The season is long, and we still have time to tune up. We will get there."
Before the first stop on the IBU World Cup circuit continues in Östersund on Wednesday, we bring you a synopsis of last weekend's racing action and links to full reports.
The United States biathlon team started the season off on the right foot, finishing the World Cup mixed relay in seventh place and being within a shot of the leaders for the entire race. "Today we were in it all the way until the end- It gives us good confidence going forward," said Tim Burke.
U.S. Biathlon, unlike some national teams, doesn't select its World Cup team each spring. Certain team members prequalify, but there were at least two spots up for grabs at the four-race rollerski trials held in August and October in Jericho, Vt. The final team was announced Tuesday, one month before the season starts in Sweden. (Updated)
“You know we do other workouts,” Tim Burke says with a laugh more than halfway up the 4,867-foot Whiteface Mountain. Minutes before, the U.S. biathlete completed Tuesday's big effort in 13 minutes, 21 seconds, finishing about 1,300 feet higher than he started for a new record in the hill climb named after him.
Lowell Bailey went 2 for 2 on the weekend in Jericho, and two different U.S. women edged Canada's Rosanna Crawford for victories at the North American Rollerski Championships at the Ethan Allen Firing Range.
Following the final week of training in Finland and three days of rollerski races at the coveted Blink Festival in Norway, U.S. Biathlon coach Jonne Kähkönen gives an across-the-pond update from his native Finland.
The U.S. Biathlon Women's A-team has been spending the last two weeks soaking up Finnish life and studying the 2015 IBU World Championships course in Kontiolahti with reigning World Cup champion (and local hero) Kaisa Mäkäräinen.
Sara Studebaker and Susan Dunklee qualified for Saturday's World Cup pursuit in Pokljuka, Slovenia - Studebaker because of her good shooting, and Dunklee despite losing a part of her rifle sight on trail. "I had very little chance of lining it up correctly to hit anything," Dunklee lamented after an incident that drew attention from international commentators.