All the news that's fit to print from the last World Cup sprints of the season, where Darya Domracheva of Belarus and Jakov Fak of Slovenia took home wins.
Johannes Thingnes Bø came into this season with a rifle painted solid gold. That might seem pretty cocky for a 20-year-old Norwegian in his first year on the senior national team, but this weekend Bø swept all the World Cup races, brought his win total to five for the season, and jumped into second place in the World Cup Total Score. Maybe gold is right after all.
Bjorn Ferry may have mis-timed his Olympic peak, but that meant he has been able to enjoy an incredible weekend of World Cup racing in Pokljuka, Slovenia. Ferry bested Martin Fourcade of France with an elegant and well-timed downhill pass as the pair neared the stadium, followed by a furious sprint. “I can beat Ferry 99 times out of a hundred," Fourcade said - but today he was wrong.
Bjorn Ferry had a disappointing Olympics - he couldn't come even close to repeating his 2010 gold medal in the pursuit - but came back to win the first World Cup since Sochi. For the United States, Lowell Bailey placed 12th and Tim Burke 16th, while Brendan Green led Canada in 21st. "I'm psyched to start of the last trimester with a top 15," Bailey said.
It’s unusual to see World Championship medalists miss more half their shots, but that happened in both the men’s and women’s pursuits in gusty Kamchatka. Kaisa Makarainen and Lukas Hofer survived to win new Mercedes cars.
“It snows in Norway at this time of year too," Norway's Synnøve Solemdal said of the snowstorm during her race. "The season is ending, though – I hope it will stop.” Bjorn Ferry of Sweden took the win in the men's sprint, continuing his late-season tear.
Both Kaisa Makarainen of Finland and Björn Ferry of Sweden have won plenty of races before – including World Championships and Olympic gold, respectively. But their win in the team competition of the Champion’s Race in Moscow on Saturday was almost certainly their most unusual. For one thing, the pair teamed up despite their different nationalities, which is obviously not possible on the World Cup where they spend most of their time. Only at less...
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...
If there’s one race in biathlon where shooting really, really matters, it’s probably the individual format. The distances are the longest on the circuit – 15 k for women and 20 k for men – but the penalties for missed shots are so harsh that even the added length makes it difficult to compensate for errors. Instead of hitting the penalty loop, which usually takes 20 to 25 seconds, racers see a minute added to...
When FasterSkier in an interview last week. “Pichler, because he’s had big success in Sweden and many years… maybe it was time for him to move.” Past Animosity with Russia While the challenge of coaching a supremely talented yet frustratingly inconsistent group of women may be appealing to Pichler, the move to Russia is puzzling given his past relationship with the RBU. For several years, Pichler – who is outspoken on many issues – very...
On Friday morning at 9:30 a.m., the United States will hold its first World Cup race since 2004. The IBU World Cup circuit will be making stops in Presque Isle, Maine, this weekend, and then in nearby Fort Kent next weekend. While it might take almost as long to get to “The County” from the U.S. as from anywhere else, the races should be spectacular. If you can’t make it to Maine, the event will...
In the final shooting stage of Saturday’s mass start World Cup in Antholz, Italy, Martin Fourcade of France and Bjorn Ferry of Sweden went shot-for-shot for four bullets, each dropping all the targets. But while Fourcade quickly hit the fifth target, Ferry hesitated, waiting for the perfect shot. He kept waiting and waiting… and missed. While Ferry headed to the penalty loop, Daniel Mesotitsch of Austria and Anton Shipulin of Russia shot clean and embarked...
Ruhpolding, Germany, has been both kind and cruel to Olympic gold medalist Bjorn Ferry of Sweden. On one hand, the summer before his Olympic victory, he crashed while rollerskiing at the venue. The impact broke his collarbone and he had to have surgery and give up a period of training. But on the other, Ruhpolding is his second home. “I have trained here three times every year for the past ten years, so I have...
In the World Cup sprints in Pokljuka, Slovenia on Saturday, two athletes took their first wins of the season. But while they hadn’t been atop the podium in Ostersund, Sweden, or in Hochfilzen, Austria, their strong performances weren’t entirely surprising: both Bjorn Ferry (SWE) and Magdalena Neuner (GER) were gold medalists at the Vancouver Olympics last year. Canadians led the North American contingent in both the men’s and women’s races. Men When FasterSkier
Swede Bjorn Ferry won his first individual Olympic medal in Vancouver, capturing gold in the pursuit race. He has three career World Cup victories and two relay medals, both from mixed relay events: gold at the 2007 World Championships in Antholz, Italy, and bronze at the 2010 World Championships in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia. Ferry is also the only biathlete we know who is married to a world champion arm-wrestler. Can he continue his winning ways this...
Martin Rosvall, 32, works full time as an assistant professor of physics at the University of Umeå in northern Sweden. But the constraints of a full time job, work-related travel and conferences are no barriers to stellar marathon performances, Rosvall says. Point in case: In March, he finished 15th overall at the Vasaloppet, the 90 K classic race that attracts more than 20,000 skiers and was Rosvall’s main goal for the season. The legendary race...
Most of his competitors train full time; Martin Rosvall, 32, works full time. In March, Rosvall was 15th overall at the Vasaloppet, after having led the podium finishers large portions of the way from Sälen to Mora. No small feat for an amateur.
After several athletes in the men’s 12.5k biathlon pursuit started early, Swedish coaches were seen yelling at event officials, trying to get them to stop the race. You can bet they’re glad nobody listened, as one of their athletes, Bjorn Ferry, caught and passed France’s Vincent Jay on the final loop to take gold. Ferry become the first Swede in 60 years to win Olympic gold in biathlon, coming out on top in a race...
Two biathletes won gold medals in biathlon today, each of them with an inspiring performance. But sadly, the focus on Tuesday wasn’t the skiing—it was a pair of serious errors committed by organizers in the men’s and women’s pursuit that potentially altered outcomes of both races. In the women’s event, three athletes were sent out late, resulting in the replacement of the race referee, according to Norbert Baier, the International Biathlon Union (IBU) official responsible...