Susan Dunklee placed seventh in today's World Cup test race at the brand-new Olympic venue, while Annelies Cook skied to 14th, the best result of her career - which all bodes well for next year's Games. But the even better news for the U.S. is that both were clean through three stages and ranked fourth and fifth, showing the promise for even better results to come. Darya Domracheva dominated the trails for a big win.
In the gustiest race of the year, not even four penalties could keep Tora Berger from winning her tenth race of the season - the rest of the field had many more. Darya Domracheva of Belarus, arguably her biggest rival, racked up nine, but still managed to place fifth. Instead, it was Marie Dorin Habert of France who limited her damage to two penalties and claimed runner-up honors.
Susan Dunklee used a broom handle and cleaned her first World Cup-caliber race on Friday, leading the U.S. women to a repeat 11th at IBU World Championships in the 4 x 6 k relay. The Canadian women got off to a strong start and settled for 12th.
A year after placing fifth in the 15 k individual at World Championships, American Susan Dunklee finished a solid 15th on her birthday despite falling and busting her rifle stock on the last lap. Canadian Rosanna Crawford raced through the range for a career-best 17th at her first World Championships.
Nine American and Canadian athletes competed in the 10/12.5 k pursuits at IBU World Championships on Sunday. Here are some photos of the action.
Across both the men's and the women's teams, six of the eight Americans qualified for the 60-person pursuits on Sunday. Tim Burke was the lone man to make the top 30, while Annelies Cook led the women's squad in 45th. All six are ready to improve in the pursuit.
Susan Dunklee's single spare round and third-fastest ski time combined to be the best race by any woman skiing the second leg of the mixed relay. But while it may have been a highlight of the U.S. team performance, each member skied a strong race, culminating in a historic eighth-place finish, their best ever at a World Championships.
US Biathlon's International Competition Committee has named four men and four women to the 2013 World Championship team. World Championships will be held in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, starting February 7th.
More on the women's World Cup sprint in Antholz, Italy, from U.S. women's coach Jonne Kahkonen, 18th-place finisher Annelies Cook, and Audrey Vaillancourt of Canada, who finished 55th in just the second weekend of World Cup racing in her career.
Careful skiing at altitude and a single penalty on the range netted Annelies Cook the best finish of her World Cup career, placing 18th in a 7.5 k biathlon sprint in Antholz, Italy today. The win went to Olympic sprint champion Anastasiya Kuzmina of Slovakia, who hasn't seen much of the podium since Vancouver.
Germany's Miriam Gossner used her trademark light and quick skiing to combat some dry, sticky, and slow new snow that fell on the Ruhpolding course today and pick up her third win of the season. Annelies Cook (USA) overcame "herky-jerky skiing" to notch a career best and her first top 30.
Norway already had a winning women's relay team, but the addition of Ann-Kristin Flatland, a former World Cup winner who took last season off to have a baby, only made them more dominant. The Norwegians collected a 54-second victory over Russia, even though their rivals used only a single spare round to clean their 40 targets. The U.S. was 13th and Canada 14th.
The Canadian and American women broke through on Friday with Rosanna Crawford's twelfth place finish and Susan Dunklee's 14th in the 7.5 k sprint. In all, two Canadians and three Americans were in the points in Pokljuka, Slovenia.
Tora Berger set out to achieve a couple of goals Thursday in the first biathlon World Cup of the season. For one, she wanted to make every target. Check. Then, she wanted to work toward an overall World Cup title, and did so beating Darya Domracheva (BLR) by more than a minute.
The Chiemgau Arena, a shooting range with paved rollerski loops just outside of Ruhpolding, Germany, is a venue unlike almost anything in North America, with the exception perhaps of a few former Olympic sites. And even if Soldier Hollow has nice rollerskiing, too, Ruhpolding has a bit more: other teams, for one, but also spectators who show up even in the summer just to watch some of the world’s top biathletes train. Here are a...
At its highest level, biathlon is an extremely lucrative sport. After her first full year on the World Cup circuit, now-retired German star Magdalena Neuner reportedly earned 1.3 million Euros by endorsing products – and that was in 2007, before her several overall World Cup titles. By contrast, in 2010, after several seasons of World Cup racing, Petter Northug was worth just over a million dollars in total. But regardless of the top athletes’ success...
Note: This is the third preview in a quick-and-dirty series on U.S. elite teams. We asked coaches to send their 2012/2013 rosters and tell us what’s new for the coming season. We will be publishing additional reports over the next few weeks. Teams are presented in no particular order. Team: Maine Winter Sports Center Olympic Development Teams Coaches: Will Sweetser (cross-country), Seth Hubbard (biathlon), Amber Dodge (development), TBD (wax tech, intern) Roster: Cross-country: Kris Freeman (U.S....
Our recent series on biathletes facing the question of when and whether to go to college (parts two, and
Our recent series on biathletes facing the question of when and whether to go to college (parts two, and first part of our series, we focused on several elite junior biathletes who, bucking the conventions of the early- and mid-2000’s, decided to go to college before returning – often extremely successfully – to biathlon. Without a single exception, the five athletes said that today’s juniors should not rule college out as a means of facilitating...
Note: This is the last piece in a three-part series following several groups of biathletes as they negotiate the college question. part two looked at USBA’s 2007-2010 Development Team. In November, 2011, Casey Smith was named Junior Biathlete of the Year for 2011 by the United States Biathlon Association (USBA). In a European country, that might mean a pat on the back from a coach at practice, perhaps an honorary celebration thrown by an athlete’s...