After spending most of last season away from the World Cup, Jeremy Teela and Lanny Barnes are back in action. Barnes says she is completely recovered from compartment syndrome surgery; Teela loves being a father, but is focusing for this season on one last push for his fourth Olympics. Both held their relay teams in the top 8 this weekend.
Action was exciting in the World Cup biathlon relays on Saturday, with plenty of lead changes, untimely penalties, and aggressive skiing. The scenery was also pretty nice, with the field snaking up long climbs and through open meadows. You're sure to find some pictures of your favorite biathletes in our photo set - and get a hankering to hit the trails yourself.
Photos from this weekend's World Cup biathlon sprints in Hochfilzen, Austria.
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.
With five penalties, Lars Berger didn't stand a chance of defending his sprint win from Friday. Instead, the last three World Cup Total Score winners crowded the podium. Martin Fourcade of France timed his strike to come out as the clear winner, with Emil Hegle Svendsen and Tarjei Bø of Norway finishing second and third.
When the leaders from Friday's sprint faltered, Norway's Synnøve Solemdal was there to step in. Clean shooting over the last three bouts gave her an 11-second victory, her first since she picked up her very first win here in Hochfilzen last season.
The U.S. men went for it today, and the team was in podium position for much of the first half of Saturday's 4 x 7.5 k relay competition. They ended up 11th with Lowell Bailey, Tim Burke, Jeremy Teela, and Leif Nordgren, just 25 seconds out of sixth.
Ole Einar Bjorndalen moved Norway from 16th to first on the second leg of the men's World Cup relay, and then Emil Hegle Svendsen sealed the deal with strong shooting on the anchor leg. It was a rematch of a previous race where he faltered and allowed Russia's Dmitry Malyshko to take over - but today Malyshko made the mistakes. Sweden placed second.
The Canadian men were as high as fourth place and the women as high as sixth in today's World Cup relays, but each team accumulated penalty loops at unfortunate times which bumped them down a few places.
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.
Aided by an early bib and a mid-race snowstorm, Lars Berger - who was left off the Norwegian national team this year - earned his sixth win but the first in three years. He beat Martin Fourcade of France, who had two fewer penalties but was stuck in slow snow conditions. Ole Einar Bjorndalen of Norway was third.
Despite a mid-race snowstorm that put later starters at a serious disadvantage, Lowell Bailey finished 16th and Tim Burke 24th in the 10 k sprint in Hochfilzen. They were the only two Americans, men or women, to qualify for the pursuit races on Sunday. "We can't control the weather," shooting coach Armin Auchentaller said.
Switzerland has never won a biathlon World Cup race - and it was especially surprising that the first victory would come from its small women's team. But Selina Gasparin has been close to the podium before and today she sealed the deal in the 7.5 k sprint, eking out a 1-second victory over Veronika Vitkova of the Czech Republic.
After providing Canada's best women's result at the 2010 Olympics, biathlete Megan Heinicke moved to Germany, got married, and had a baby. Illness prevented her from skiing a full World Cup schedule in 2012, but this year she is back and has already notched a top-30 result.
Just like last year at this competition, Lowell Bailey had a good thing going. Today, though, he was able to clean his final stage and stay into the top ten; USBA President Max Cobb called the perfect late-race shooting a big accomplishment, and something that Bailey has been working on. Plus, more from the other North American biathletes.
23-year-old Synnøve Solemdal used the best shooting of her career to propel herself to a dominating, 30-second win in Hochfilzen, Austria. “Everyone was cheering ‘Synnøve’ all the way to the finish," she marveled after the race. Tora Berger placed second, giving Norway two women on the podium for the first time since 2005.
After winning Olympic bronze and then a World Championship in 2012, Jakov Fak of Slovenia was on the hunt for his first regular World Cup victory. He got it in a 12.5 k pursuit today, edging Dimitry Malyshko of Russia and dropping France's Martin Fourcade on a punishing final climb in Hochfilzen, Austria.
Rosanna Crawford scored points in a World Cup biathlon race for the first time today, beating her previous best finish by almost 30 spots to place 24th. Meanwhile, Jean Philippe Le Guellec wrote in an e-mail that he was "totally happy with following up last week with a top 10."
Andreas Birnbacher paid Martin Fourcade back for his tough tactics last weekend, this time around notching a 0.4-second victory over the Frenchman in a 10 k sprint. Darya Domracheva of Belarus also collected her first win of the season, and the tenth of her career, thanks to rifle problems that slowed down Kaisa Makarainen on the range.
Biathletes on the IBU World Cup circuit hit up Hochfilzen, Austria for the second straight weekend after poor snow conditions in France forced the cancellation of a scheduled weekend there. While doubling up in Hochfilzen wasn’t too exciting, U.S. biathlete Lowell Bailey said that it wasn’t as bad as he’d expected, either. “The second week of racing here in Hochfilzen turned out to be quite a bit different than the first even though we were...