It was warm, wet and calm in Finland on Thursdsay requiring perfect shooting and strong legs. Norwegian Johannes Thingnes Bø delivered, shooting clean and beating France's Martin Fourcade, who also cleaned, by 7.1 seconds. Canada's Nathan Smith led the North Americans in 21st.
It would be easy to relax now that the Olympics are over - but the U.S. men's biathlon team is doing anything but. Lowell Bailey placed 10th and Tim Burke 13th in today's pursuit, while Leif Nordgren scored his first World Cup points of the season. "They still give the same amount of World Cup points for a win, and the prize money is still the same," Burke laughed.
It's not every day that you find yourself sprinting for all you're worth down the finishing stretch of the Olympics against Martin Fourcade. But that's just what happened to Canada's Nathan Smith, who not only dueled with Fourcade to the end, but beat him. "I thought I had good chances,” Smith said. “I’m usually pretty good at sprint finishes.”
Three men in the 30-racer mass start? Check. Two finishes in the top ten? Check. In a lot of ways it was a best-ever day for the Canadian men's biathlon team, but the squad was left with a slight sense of longing for what could have been. "That’s what they are disappointed about - it’s a mixed feeling because they are so close, and they know they were right there," said coach Jean Paquet.
Brendan Green led the Canadians in 21st with his best Olympic result on Thursday, and if he hadn't had two penalties in the 20 k individual, he would've been even closer. His teammates, Nathan Smith and JP Le Guellec placed 25th and 35th, respectively, and Tim Burke placed 44th with four penalties.
After turning in clean shooting and the fastest shooting times on the first two stages of today's Olympic pursuit, Jean Philippe Le Guellec was in first place, ready to bring Canada a medal. But a crash on a slushy, skied-out downhill corner left him with a broken ski and cost him 15 places, as well as affecting his next shooting. In his stead, Nathan Smith moved from 13th up to 11th to lead Canada.
Setting out on the last loop of today's 10 k sprint, Jean Philippe Le Guellec of Canada as sitting in fourth - all he had to do was make up a couple of seconds to earn a medal. But on Sochi's treacherous and brutally difficult course, Le Guellec gave it his all and still ended up fifth. It bettered his previous record for a Canadian men's Olympic performance by one spot; teammate Nathan Smith placed 13th.
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Sitting in fourth place at each of the first three handoffs, the Canadian men were in the game for the entirety of today's World Cup biathlon relay in Antholz, Italy. They eventually finished sixth - the first time any of them could remember going to the flower ceremony as a team. France won the race, anchored by Martin Fourcade.
Simon Schempp and Lukas Hofer looked pretty chummy after the finish men’s 10 k sprint at the World Cup in Antholz, Italy this Friday. Maybe their laughter was a product of their relief of finishing a challengingly slow course, or maybe it was that both of them were on the podium for the first time this season. More likely, however, it was the fact they both sat atop that podium in a rare tie for first place having skied the 10 k in 22:44.9.
Canada has pared its World Cup squad down to just the men who will represent their country at the Olympics - and with qualifying off their shoulders, they can now focus on just racing. That was a relief to everyone as Canada skied and shot to a successful relay performance on Thursday.
Brendan Green may have missed last season with a back injury, but as Canada's top biathlete in the 2012 season it's still not a surprise that he made the Olympic squad. Though he didn't compete at the Sochi warmup event last year, he was on hand to train and help with skis, so he has an idea of what he's up against.
Nathan Smith notched another top-30, inching him closer to completing Olympic qualification, but other than that it was a tough day for the North American men. "I would have thought that with two penalties I would have been in the top 15 for sure," said Tim Burke, who finished 21st.
JP Le Guellec led the Canadians in 13th in Friday's 10 k sprint at the second World Cup in Hochfilzen, Austria, and Rosanna Crawford took 17th in the women's 7.5 k on a day where conditions improved then worsened with heavily falling snow and changing winds.
The Canadian men's team continued its tear of the IBU Cup circuit, with Brendan Green - in his first season of racing since a debilitating back injury in 2012 which required two surgeries - placing second in the 20 k individual in Beitostolen. Lanny Barnes led the U.S. with an 18th-place finish in the women's race.
JP Le Guellec, Scott Perras, Zina Kocher, and Rosanna Crawford will start the biathlon season on the World Cup - but 11 other Canadians have the chance to fight it out for the remaining World Cup spots, where they can also qualify for the Olympics. The team was chosen after two trials races in Canmore this week.
Images from the men's 12.5-kilometer pursuit at the Ethan Allen Firing Range on Aug. 11, the last of the two-day North American Biathlon Rollerski Championships in Jericho, Vt. (Women's 10 k pursuit photos to come.)
Lowell Bailey could go around telling people he won two national rollerski titles this weekend. But that’s not exactly the biggest deal for Bailey, a U.S. biathlon champion multiple times over who’s been competing at the sport’s highest level for more than a decade.
The Canadians will be the first to admit that things didn't go so well for them at the recent World Cups in Sochi. But they aren't letting it get them down - after all, next year is a completely different training cycle, and they won't be peaking for anything but the Olympics. With an unusually full roster that even included Brendan Green, they made the most of their preview.
Despite tying his career-best World Cup result last year, winning three IBU Cup races and hitting the podium in another, and securing a spot on Biathlon Canada’s “A” team, until recently Nathan Smith wasn’t feeling too confident about the upcoming season of racing. “I got a cold at the end of August and I guess I underestimated how much of a toll it took on me,” he told FasterSkier in an interview on Thursday. “So...