JERICHO, Vermont – With the entire U.S. senior field and several top Canadians donning bibs this weekend, there was plenty of excitement at the Ethan Allen Firing Range in Jericho, Vermont. In the senior divisions of the North American Rollerski Biathlon Championships, the men’s races were characterized by close finishes, with Tim Burke outsprinting JP Le Guellec for the pursuit title, Ethan Dreissigacker edging Lowell Bailey by one second for fourth, and Sara Studebaker besting...
JERICHO, Vermont – Just how excited was Jean-Philippe Le Guellec to make the drive from Quebec, Canada, down to Vermont this weekend for the North American Rollerski Biathlon Championships? “Let me put it this way,” he said. “I was supposed to go on a fishing trip this weekend and I ended up cancelling on my friends because I was so happy that Tim [Burke] and Lowell [Bailey] were here. These guys are in the top...
Rossignol Group is delighted to announce that its best athletes have extended their contracts up to the Sochi Olympic Games in 2014. Heading the list is Carl-Johan Bergman, double medalist at the Ruhpolding World Championships in 2012. Third in sprint and second in pursuit, the Swede has demonstrated his ability throughout the season, even wearing the yellow jersey of the World Cup leader in December. “The decision to continue with Rossignol was simple. To achieve...
Fort Kent is only 50 miles from Presque Isle, but competitors in the biathlon World Cups were greeted with an entirely different environment when the circuit picked up and moved northward on Monday. Swirling winds and grinding courses were the challenges in Presque Isle; frigid temperatures and one massive hill welcomed athletes in Fort Kent. On the Canadian and American teams, members hail from locations across the entire continent—from Lake Placid and Quebec to Alberta...
For the fourth straight race, a Norwegian biathlete stood atop the World Cup podium. Was it 36-year-old veteran Ole Einar Bjorndalen? Or perhaps the overall World Cup leader, Emil Hegle Svendsen? Those would be smart guesses, but they’d also be wrong. Instead, it was their teammate, 22-year-old Tarjei Boe, who was the second-fastest skier on Friday and shot clean. Boe has never graced a World Cup podium before, much less won a race. But in...
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...
Independent U.S. biathlete Tracy Barnes and Jean-Phillipe Leguiellec, a member of the Canadian national team, won mass start races in Canmore, Alberta on Friday. It was the end of a three-race series put on by the U.S. Biathlon Association (USBA) to select American athletes to send to World Cup and IBU Cup trips. In the women’s race, Barnes had the cleanest shooting on the day, missing only two targets in four stages, which translated to...
Biathlete of the Year In any normal year, this award would be as straightforward as they come. On the men’s side, Tim Burke (USA) is head and shoulders above the North American field. And despite inconsistent performances, Zina Kocher is the only woman who can threaten to crack the top-20. But this was an Olympic year, and Olympic results count more than World Cup or World Championship races – at least to the public. Neither...
There’s one way to guarantee yourself a good result in a biathlon race: hit all the targets. In the men’s 15 k mass start World Cup in Oslo, Russia’s Ivan Tcherezov was the only one of 30 starters to do so, and he won, by 26 seconds, over Austria’s Christoph Sumann and Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen. From the first loop and first shooting stage, Tcherezov was in the hunt, ensconced in a big group and...
Jean Phillipe LeGuellec (CAN) is making the most of Canada’s first home Olympics in 22 years. With his 13th place finish today, he has now finished 6th, 11th and 13th on winter sports biggest stage. He once again thrilled the home crowd with his strong skiing and solid shooting, finishing 2:24 behind winner Emil Svendsen of Norway. LeGuellec overcame a slow third lap to finish strong. “I slowed down a little and focused on my...
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...
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...