For Germany and Norway, it was a two-way battle for first following the final exchange of the men’s 4 x 7.5-kilometer relay on Saturday at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Antholz, Italy. There, thanks to third-leg Johannes Thingnes Bø, Norway had taken the lead by 17.7 seconds over Germany and built a 38-second gap to Russia in third. Ukraine was another nine seconds back in fourth, skiing just ahead of France and...
U.S. SuperTour (Truckee, Calif.): Classic sprints [UPDATED] Less than a week after being men’s 30 k classic mass start champion at this year’s U.S. nationals — won Saturday’s SuperTour classic sprint as well. Lustgarten, of the Craftsbury Green Racing Project, raced to a 1.58-second victory in the men’s A-final at the Auburn Ski Club in Soda Springs, Calif., finishing in 3:03.4. Ben Saxton, of the Stratton Mountain School (SMS) Elite Team, placed second, and Reese...
(Note: This article has been updated to include comments from U.S. biathlete Paul Schommer.) What’s the old saying? It doesn’t really matter what happens in December, as long as it all comes together three weeks before World Championships? The tale of the US Biathlon men’s team goes something like that, with what started out as a skeleton crew of ninth in the 12.5 k pursuit in December in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. On the phone on...
NorAm Western Canadian Championships (Whistler, B.C.): Freestyle sprints [UPDATED] On Friday, the first day of the NorAm Western Canadian Championships at Whistler Olympic Park in Callaghan Valley, British Columbia, Dahria Beatty and Jess Cockney topped the women’s and men’s 1.2-kilometer freestyle sprint A-finals, respectively. Beatty, of the Alberta World Cup Academy (AWCA) and Canada’s National U25 Team, started the day by qualifying in second, 0.31 seconds behind her fellow AWCA and U25 Team member, Olivia...
This week, Tim Burke reached a serious tipping point. A US Biathlon veteran with six International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup podiums to his name (including a silver medal at 2013 World Championships), Burke third in a sprint in Östersund, Sweden. So far this season, Burke, less than a month out from his 35th birthday, had failed to crack the top 20. His season-best result was men’s 4 x 7.5-kilometer relay in Ruhpolding, Germany, using...
IBU World Cup (Ruhpolding, Germany): Men’s sprint Results
The U.S. men’s biathlon team was already starting the World Cup season with a man down: Sean Doherty, the several-time World Youth and Junior Champion and 2014 Olympian, who had come down with mononucleosis. But the team is now down to just three men after fellow 2014 Olympian Leif Nordgren had to have surgery on his toe after an incident with a treadmill. Until January at least, that leaves just Lowell Bailey, Tim Burke and...
Seven weeks, four countries, one van. For US Biathlon A-team members Leif Nordgren and Sean Doherty, this might sum up their summer, or at least how they spent the last month and a half training. "We wanted to expand our boundaries a little bit," Nordgren said. "Mostly just get out and experience new stimuli and train in other cool places with new people.”
OSLO, Norway—With one of their best shooting days, the U.S. men’s biathlon team finished eighth in the World Championships relay, 1:27.3 behind host country Norway. The squad of Lowell Bailey, Leif Nordgren, Tim Burke, and Sean Doherty used just five spare rounds, tying them for the best shooting in the field with second-place Germany and third-place Canada. (
Americans Lowell Bailey, Tim Burke and Leif Nordgren all qualified for Sunday's World Championships mass start, while Canada's Scott Gow tallied a career-best while placing 18th in the 20 k individual on Thursday.
Tim Burke, Hannah Dreissigacker, and Leif Nordgren joined Susan Dunklee in the top 20 in the World Championships sprints, while the entire U.S. and Canadian men's teams made the cuts for Sunday's pursuits.
The third and fourth legs in the IBU World Cup men's relay on Saturday, the Bø brothers led Norway to a 30-second win over France, while Germany picked off three places on the last leg to notch third. The U.S. came close to an unprecedented fourth, finishing fifth behind Russia in a photo finish.
Three American men finished within 16.5 seconds of one another in the top 20 of Thursday's sprint at the IBU World Cup in Presque Isle, Maine, setting themselves up well for Friday's pursuit. The youngest man in the field, Sean Doherty, 20 led them with a career-best 13th.
France stacked its single mixed relay on Sunday in Canmore, putting Marie Dorin Habert and Martin Fourcade in the team-sprint-like event, and the two got what they set out for: first by 45 seconds over Austria and 55 seconds over Norway in third.
Martin Fourcade and the rest of the top three agree, something about racing in Canmore is hard. "None of us felt they were skiing really fast," Germany's third-place finisher Simon Schempp said. He finished more than 18 seconds behind Fourcade and 3 seconds out of second, which went to Russia's Anton Shipulin.
A day after besting Germany's Simon Schempp on the last loop, Anton Shipulin of Russia did so again -- this time beating the German by a second for the men's relay victory. Schempp partially blamed a lapped skier. The U.S. men ended up sixth, tying their season best from a week earlier, while Canada placed 11th with strong shooting.
The U.S. men had their best relay result in three years - despite, they say, not having their 100% best days ever. "I feel like this is absolutely where we belong, but we are capable of more than this," said Tim Burke. "I feel like there’s more to come for this group."
Joanne Reid started shooting this summer after her family received a biathlon rifle that had been her grandfather's. After going to IBU Cup trials in December to "see what happened", Reid found herself in Europe, posting a top-20 and a clean sheet in Nove Mesto - then got called up to the World Cup in Ruhpolding, Germany, one of biathlon's craziest venues.
Germany's Simon Schempp won the second race of the week at the IBU World Cup in Pokljuka, Slovenia, with a 16-second pursuit victory over France's Martin Fourcade, while American Tim Burke raced up to ninth (after starting 14th) for his first top 10 of the season.
The Canadian men posted their second-best result in a World Cup relay in sixth on Sunday in Hochfilzen, Austria. They did so thanks to near-perfect shooting from the Gow brothers and fast ski times from all four team members.