Susan Dunklee had been looking for something all season, a sort of spark. And while the U.S. biathlete hadn’t necessarily found it on Thursday, she had still pulled off fourth place in the women’s 7.5-kilometer pursuit at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Oslo, Norway. “I feel like right now I’m relying on good habits to carry me through the rest of the season,” Dunklee, 32, of US Biathlon, said in a phone...
IBU World Cup (Oslo, Norway): Women’s and men’s sprints
NCAA Skiing Championships (Steamboat Springs, Colorado): 15/20 k freestyle mass starts On the fourth and final day of NCAA Skiing Championships at Howelsen Hill in Steamboat Springs, Katharine Ogden skied to her second-straight national title, Ian Torchia became an NCAA champion and the University of Denver (DU) won its 24th NCAA National Championship. Ogden, a Dartmouth College freshman, raced to a 38.4-second victory in the women’s 15-kilometer mass start, finishing in 43:22.0 minutes for her...
IBU World Cup (Kontiolahti, Finland): Women’s 7.5 k sprint Darya Domracheva of Belarus raced to her third World Cup victory of the season on Friday, and American Clare Egan tallied a career best in 13th, just behind Canada’s Rosanna Crawford in 12th in the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup women’s 7.5 k sprint in Kontiolahti. Domracheva started 16th and shot a perfect 5-for-5 in prone, then missed one in her standing bout, but skied...
FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, mixed relay team placed fifth two days ago). Öberg passed Bescond to claim silver for Sweden, 10.7 seconds back, while Bescond anchored France to bronze (+17.6), ahead of Norway in fourth (+29.7), Slovakia in fifth (+38.4), Switzerland in sixth (+43.5), Poland in seventh (+43.6), Germany in eighth (+53.9), Italy in ninth (+1:04.1), and Canada in 10th (+1:33.4). The U.S. finished 13th (+2:01.9) of 18th teams. With...
FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, Full report Ranked just 10th coming into today’s women’s relay, the team from Belarus stole the show with Darya Domracheva skating across the line to claim the fourth Olympic gold of her career after strong efforts from Nadezhda Skardino and Iryna Kryuko, both of whom have stood on the World Cup podium before, and newcomer Dzinara Alimbekava, a 22-year-old newcomer with just 11 World Cup starts to her name. It was the first relay...
FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, two individual gold medals at these Winter Games. The final leg of Tuesday’s race presented the opportunity for another. Coming through the last exchange, it was Germany’s Erik Lesser tagging off to Arnd Peiffer. Without Fourcade chasing them, Germany’s chances of a medal would have seemed certain. Peiffer, who learned around 1 p.m. that afternoon that he would start the relay in place of Simon Schempp, who reportedly was...
FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, Full report A few shooting errors by pursuit bronze medalist Anais Bescond were not enough to derail France, as the team of Marie Dorin Habert, Bescond, Simon Desthieux, and Martin Fourcade took gold in the mixed relay. Skiing the first leg, Dorin Habert shot clean and tagged off just seven seconds behind the leading team from Italy. Bescond then used four spare rounds over the course of her relay leg, dropping the team to fourth...
FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, Full report It was a disappointing opening to the Olympics for Johannes Thingnes Bø of Norway, who despite winning eight World Cup races this season started the Games with finishes of 31st and 21st in the sprint and pursuit. But on Thursday he showed why he was a medal favorite and won the 20 k individual race – only by 5.5 seconds, but that margin becomes impressive when you...
FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle due to a tainted food supplement came to light (her suspension later was reduced to six months) and the team again failed to reach the podium. “For our team this medal is particularly important,” Hönig said. “We still have the defeats of Sochi somewhere in the back of our minds. Well, I particularly do, so for me this is a gigantic moment. I believe having a medal...
FasterSkier would like to thank Fischer Sport USA, Concept2, Full report The 2018 Winter Games kicked off Saturday with the women’s 15-kilometer skiathlon, which saw Sweden’s Charlotte Kalla take her second-career individual Olympic gold (third including relays) and first individual gold in eight years. Not far behind her, American Jessie Diggins achieved the best Olympic result for an American woman in cross-country skiing. After Kalla established herself as a leader early in the opening 7.5 k classic leg,...
After making her debut in the World Cup points last season, Joanne Reid had a bumpier ride than expected on her way to being named to U.S. Biathlon’s Olympic Team. Maybe twice as bumpy. In March, a heart problem Reid had been dealing with came to the fore. “Hindsight is 20/20,” she said in an interview from Italy this week, guessing that she might have started having symptoms in 2014 or even earlier. But she...
IBU World Cup (Antholz, Italy): Women’s 7.5 k sprint So far this season, Norway’s Tiril Eckhoff had yet to crack the top 20 outside a relay in the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup. That all changed Thursday when she won the women’s 7.5-kilometer sprint in Antholz, Italy. She did so by hitting all 10 targets and besting the time of Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier by 12 seconds at the finish. “I was very nervous for...
FIS Cross Country World Cup (Dresden, Germany): Freestyle sprints Men’s report For her second-straight World Cup sprint, Sophie Caldwell of the U.S. Ski Team reached the podium in the women’s 1.2-kilometer freestyle sprint on Saturday in Dresden, Germany. Caldwell placed third in the final behind Sweden’s Hanna Falk, who won it in 2:11.02 minutes, and Maja Dahlqvist, also of Sweden, who placed second (+0.23). Caldwell and Dahlqvist both lunged in a photo finish for second,...
IBU World Cup (Ruhpolding, Germany): Men’s 4 x 7.5 k relay Less than a week after International Biathlon Union (IBU) press release, the Norwegians avoided the penalty lap and used seven spares to clean. First-leg skier Birkeland put them in second with near-perfect shooting (0+0, 0+1), just 0.4 seconds behind Germany’s Erik Lesser, who cleaned without any spares, in first. (Birkeland was also on the Norwegian team that won the
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...
Say this name three-times fast: “Dreissigacker”. Not so easy at first. Break the four-syllable surname into discrete parts: Driess (with a hard I) – i – gack – er. It then rolls off the tongue … Dreissigacker. In northern Vermont and in particular around the Craftsbury Outdoor Center, Emily Dreissigacker, of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project (CGRP) is as well known a name as any. Her parents, Dick Dreissigacker and Judy Geer, bought the Outdoor...
For some American biathletes, there was a lot on the line in Jericho, Vermont this past weekend. Saturday and Sunday were rollerski biathlon competitions that served as the third and fourth of a four-race team selection series. Six athletes – Susan Dunklee, Clare Egan, Lowell Bailey, Leif Nordgren, Sean Doherty, and Tim Burke – had already booked their places for the first period of World Cup racing thanks to results from last season. But between...
Dozens of German biathletes from all parts of the country descended on the small town of Langdorf (Arber) in the Bavarian Forest mountain range last weekend for their national championships. Since guests are allowed to compete in the races (a sprint and a pursuit), a number of international biathletes — including a handful of North Americans — made use of this opportunity during a training block in Europe for a performance test against some tough...
Special thanks to John Lazenby for providing photos from 2017 US Biathlon Rollerski Championships in Jericho. For a Ethan Allen Firing Range inside a National Guard military base. Just as it has in the past, the format included men’s and women’s sprints on Saturday followed by mass starts on Sunday, and this year, the races drew nearly 100 competitors from across the U.S. and even some from Canada. A Complete results: Mass Start