After a wildly disappointing 20 k individual on Wednesday where he missed six shots and finished more than ten minutes behind the winner, French biathlon star Martin Fourcade pulled himself together and turned in a dominating performance in the 10 k sprint today, winning by 28 seconds.
Martin Fourcade took flight coming into the stadium with yet another win, then stuck a perfect telemark landing; Dominik Landertinger was second and Jakov Fak third in the 15 k mass start. American Tim Burke was ninth, but disappointed after losing several spots on the final loop.
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.
Although he said he wasn't thinking about last year, when Martin Fourcade of France bested him in race after race and took home three World Championships titles, Emil Hegle Svendsen of Norway certainly seemed like he was on a mission, notching the fastest ski time to earn his second gold in Nove Mesto.
Despite a few penalties - "bugs" that he hoped he could work out before World Championships - Anton Shipulin led Saturday's biathlon pursuit in Antholz, Italy, wire to wire. Jakov Fak turned on the afterburners so snag second place, and Daniel Mesotitsch finished third.
Despite an Olympic bronze medal and World Championships gold, Jakov Fak hadn't won a regular World Cup competition until this season. How things change. After four podiums, the Croatian-turned-Slovenian is ranked eighth overall. He talked to FasterSkier about the ups and downs of his sport, and how he still returns to his roots in Croatia to train and to "find peace."
Tim Burke (USA) has not only recovered from his compartment syndrome scare two winters ago, but he has also finally regained his confidence after having surgery. Andreas Birnbacher (GER) won the mass start, but Burke was on the podium for the first time since 2010.
After erratic shooting kept him from his usual spot on the podium all season, Emil Hegle Svendsen of Norway used calm and focus to best Martin Fourcade in the final stage of today's 12.5 pursuit in Pokljuka, Slovenia.
Jakov Fak (SLO) earned his first regular-season victory last weekend in Hochfilzen, Austria, and on Thursday in Pokljuka, Slovenia, he built off that success in front of a home crowd. His slim 0.8-second win in the 10 k sprint over Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen was the first World Cup victory Slovenia has ever seen on home soil.
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.
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.
On Sunday, IBU Championships wrapped up in Ruhpolding, Germany, after eleven days of exciting racing that saw both dominating performances from overall World Cup leaders and refreshing victories and medals from lesser-known athletes. The big winners at the championships were Martin Fourcade of France and Tora Berger of Norway; Fourcade picked up three individual gold medals in the sprint, pursuit, and mass start, along with silver in the men’s relay. That was almost matched by...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – After two straight races with Martin Fourcade emerging victorious and familiar, tradition-rich countries like Norway, Sweden, and Russia rounding out the podium, it could be easy to forget that the world of biathlon is a broad one. But in today’s World Championships 20 k individual race, Jakov Fak of Slovenia reminded the world that his tiny country, home to just two million people, has the talent to cut it on the world’s...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – There were plenty of errors at the IBU World Championships mixed relay today, mistakes that were big enough to have a surprising and significant impact on the outcome of the race. France’s third-leg racer, Simon Fourcade, received the tag from Marie Dorin Habert in second place, just 11 seconds behind Norway. But he imploded in spectacular fashion, using all six of his spare rounds, hitting the penalty loop, and losing almost two...
While U.S. and Canadian skiers have been competing at FIS and World Cup races for several weeks now, the American biathletes waited until Sunday to kick off their season in an IBU Cup sprint. The race in Ostersund, Sweden, was actually the second of the weekend, but the U.S. team sat out of Saturday’s race. While the men were lucky to have skipped the windy conditions that shook up the result sheet in the opener,...
The first big chinks in Ole Einar Bjoerndalen’s armor showed up at the 2010 Olympics, where his two-medal performance was eclipsed by the three podiums collected by his Norwegian teammate, Emil Hegle Svendsen. Bjoerndalen, 36, was charitable at the time, as befitted a living legend with nearly three-dozen World Championships medals to his name. And there was no sense that he felt threatened by Svendsen—after all, the three medals that Svendsen won in Vancouver represented...
Much to Ole Einar Bjorndalen’s chagrin, his Norwegian teammate Emil Hegle Svendsen beat him for a second straight race. As Bjorndalen crossed the finish line in second place, 3.9 seconds behind Svendsen at the end of Saturday’s 10 k World Cup sprint, he threw his poles onto the ground in frustration and rolled his eyes at the cameraman. Bjorndalen held the lead at the 8.4 k checkpoint, but fell on the final downhill coming into...
American hopes for a medal in the men’s 10k biathlon sprint fell about as hard as the snow did in the middle of today’s race. 25 minutes into the event, the steady drizzle that came down throughout the morning morphed into a wild snow squall, slowing the skiing drastically and effectively squashing the chances of anyone still on course. The medalists in the race—France’s Vincent Jay, Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen, and Croatia’s Jakov Fak—all were...