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...
U.S. Cross Country Championships (Anchorage, Alaska): 20/30 k classic mass starts Women’s report Sweden’s Hedda Bångman denied Caitlin Patterson of her first outright victory of the week at 2018 U.S. Cross Country Championships, but Patterson as the first American racked up her third-straight national title in the women’s 20-kilometer classic mass start at Kincaid Park on Sunday in Anchorage, Alaska. Bångman, a 22-year-old freshman at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU), pulled off a 15.9-second...
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...
IBU World Cup (Oberhof): Women’s and men’s pursuits told the IBU after. “My shape is very good now but I was worried if I could concentrate on the shooting … After the first shooting, I was relaxed and realized it was OK. I just gave the other girls two chances … I must apologize for my emotion [on the shooting range], but I was so happy and enjoyed the last loop.” Wierer finished 1:04.4 minutes...
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...
Two hundred and thirty biathletes, 115 men and 115 women, will earn the right to be called a 2018 Olympian — 10 of whom will be Canadian. The top-six teams in last season’s International Biathlon Union’s (IBU) final Nation’s Cup ranking can bring a full team of six men and six women to the Games. Canada’s men’s finished ranked 13th while the women ranked 15th, so each squad can bring five athletes. this document detailing...
Picture some 45,000 rambunctious fans, loud music blaring, a course comprised of 10,000 cubic feet of machine-made snow, a shooting range surrounded by bulletproof glass, 1,300 fir trees as decorations, and 10 biathlon teams representing their nations, all packed into a huge stadium with a retractable roof that’s home to soccer team Schalke 04 in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. That’s the setting for the annual “Biathlon auf Schalke” two-person mixed relay show race, also known as the...
NorAm/SuperTour (Sovereign Lake near Vernon, British Columbia): 10/15 k freestyle VERNON, B.C. — The combined NorAm and SuperTour event at the Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre continued with individual-start distance races and continued with the theme of U.S. domination of the leaderboard. Ian Torchia, of Northern Michigan University (NMU) and the U.S. Ski Team D-team, started the day with a big victory in the men’s 15 k freestyle, finishing in 36:29.7 minutes and on the heels...
One day after Friday’s 10-kilometer sprint, Doherty shot 18-for-20 in the pursuit (1+0+1+0). “I am very happy with the race today,” Doherty wrote in an email to FasterSkier. “The execution on the range was good in the tough conditions we had today. It’s nice to have a solid back-to-back set of races here. … The ski shape is still a ways off but it’s heading in the right direction.” In very difficult conditions in the...
NorAm/SuperTour (Sovereign Lake near Vernon, British Columbia): Classic sprints On the opening day of the NorAm Continental Cup series in Canada (which doubled as a U.S. SuperTour), American Kaitlynn Miller of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP) started Saturday with a nearly three-second win in the classic-sprint qualifier at the Sovereign Lake Nordic Centre, then went on to win her quarterfinal and semifinal before topping the final as well. Miller was the fastest women’s qualifier...
Note: This article has been updated to include comments from Biathlon Canada’s Nathan Smith and Emma Lunder. Calm wind and a light drizzle for the men’s International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup sprint on Friday afternoon in Hochfilzen, Austria, turned into a full-blown blizzard for the women’s sprint that followed. One multiple-time Olympic and world champion weathered the elements best, as Darya Domracheva of Belarus won the latter with clean shooting. She was one of...
If you were to ask France’s Martin Fourcade what’s wrong with a second and third place, and even two fourth place finishes in the first four races of the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup season, he’d likely politely tell you nothing — it just wasn’t up to his usual standards. “Despite my two podiums here, I felt that if I had not won here, it would have been my worst season opener since, for...
Biathlon Canada’s World Cup Team at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Östersund, Sweden, had a number of things to be happy about on Saturday afternoon as the first men’s 10-kilometer sprint race of the new season wrapped up. Christian Gow was already smiling at the cameras as he stood in the starting-gate booth. Beginning the sprint as the very first starter in a large field of 108 athletes from 30 nations, Gow...
Norway’s Johannes Thingnes Bø routinely races with a rifle completely coated from the stock to the barrel in a bright golden paint, and on Thursday, in the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup men’s 20-kilometer individual race in Östersund, Sweden, that display of his ambitions to be the best biathlete in the world didn’t even seem ostentatious. The 24-year-old, three-time world champion didn’t just win the race, he won by a huge margin distancing the...
Three Canadians and one American competed at last week’s International Biathlon Union (IBU) Cup opener in in Sjusjøen, Norway, with Canada’s Emma Lunder posting an individual top 20 and her teammates Sarah Beaudry and Carsen Campbell teaming up to place fourth in the single mixed relay on Sunday, Nov. 26. In an email, Biathlon Canada High Performance Director Roddy Ward explained that Canada did not send its National “Z” Team, arrived in Europe on Nov....
Even the most renowned athletes and national teams in the mixed relay on Sunday afternoon admitted they had not yet found their perfect groove in Östersund, Sweden, on the opening day of the 2017/2018 International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup season. Nevertheless it still made for an exciting race, with four teams vying for the podium on the last lap. And in the finishing stretch, anchored by veteran Emil Hegle Svendsen, the same country prevailed...
Note: This article has been updated to include comments and verification from Biathlon Canada High Performance Director Roddy Ward, and explain the modified shooting format used for Friday’s sprint. *** Almost exactly two weeks before Biathlon Canada sends the rest of its World Cup team to Europe for the first trimeter of International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup racing, the national team held trials this past Tuesday through Friday on snow in Canmore, Alberta. Three...
If you made it past the article’s title, then get ready to immerse yourself in the intricacies of Canadian high-performance sports funding. OK, here it goes…money, money, money. Add this for effect, $. Imagine for a moment you’re the CEO of a national sporting body and you’ve got high aspirations — things like championship and Olympic medals. There’s an infinite amount of puzzle pieces to organize and assemble. There are two critical pieces to even...
Biathlon Canada has named 11 athletes to its senior national team for 2017-2018. The group is headlined by three athletes who scored World Cup top-20’s last season: Scott Gow, Julia Ransom, and Rosanna Crawford. Also returning is 2015 World Championships silver medalist Nathan Smith, who sat out most of last season recovering from a virus. The senior team does not distinguish between ‘A’ and ‘B’ squads this year, instead functioning as one group. “We are...