Going into Sunday’s women’s 4 x 6 k relay, there had been plenty of excitement already in this year’s biathlon World Championships. What could top Emil Hegle Svendsen’s furious attack in the last few hundred meters of the previous day’s mass start? Or how could there be a performance more dominating than Helena Ekholm’s two-minute victory in the individual race? Well. The fans in Khanty-Mansiysk didn’t realize it, but they were about to see something...
The eyes of the ski world may have been focused on Oslo today, where the Norwegian women ran away with the win in the 4 x 5 k relay, but the biathlon world is focused on Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, where World Championships kicked off today with a mixed relay. And while the result was the same – Norway on top by a solid margin – the route to victory was a lot more challenging for Norway’s...
Magdalena Neuner is among the fastest skiers on the biathlon circuit—but that’s never been her problem. In the past, it has been her shooting that held her back. So when Neuner puts together a good performance on the range, she’s tough to beat. She did just that in Sunday’s 12.5 k mass start in Fort Kent, hitting 19 of 20 targets to capture a dominating 24-second win over her teammate Andrea Henkel. Belarus’s Darya Domracheva...
Germany’s Andrea Henkel skied to her second straight World Cup win on Saturday in Fort Kent, besting her teammate Magdalena Neuner by 25 seconds in the 10 k pursuit. Neuner and Henkel came into the final shooting stage together, and Neuner, a stronger skier, looked to have the race wrapped up when she hit her first four targets. But her last round went awry, and she couldn’t overcome the 25-second deficit she accumulated in the...
Northern Maine is best known for its ties to Scandinavia—both New Sweden and Stockhom are within striking distance of the biathlon venues in Fort Kent and Presque Isle. But in the raw conditions for Friday’s 7.5 k World Cup sprint, it was the German women who felt more at home in Fort Kent. Battling through frigid temperatures and a swirling breeze, Andrea Henkel led her country to a sweep of the top three, with Miriam...
Germany’s biathlon team is deep enough that most other countries have their hands full even when they field their best athletes. But in Saturday’s mixed relay, many only put forth their second string—and the result was predictable. With a crowd of up to five million watching a rare prime-time broadcast back home, the German squad of Kathrin Hitzer, Magdalena Neuner, Alexander Wolf and Daniel Boehm raced to a convincing 30-second win in Presque Isle, ME,...
On Friday morning at 9:30 a.m., the United States will hold its first World Cup race since 2004. The IBU World Cup circuit will be making stops in Presque Isle, Maine, this weekend, and then in nearby Fort Kent next weekend. While it might take almost as long to get to “The County” from the U.S. as from anywhere else, the races should be spectacular. If you can’t make it to Maine, the event will...
When the small town of Ruhpolding, Germany, bid to host biathlon’s 2012 World Championships, they knew they had their work cut out for them. “Preparations for the World Champs 2012 start now,” said Mayor Claus Pichler in August 2008 when Ruhpolding won the bid. “I got plenty of feedback from the delegates at the IBU Congress.” And they have been busy ever since, completely renovating and reconfiguring the area’s stadium as well as giving the...
In the World Cup sprints in Pokljuka, Slovenia on Saturday, two athletes took their first wins of the season. But while they hadn’t been atop the podium in Ostersund, Sweden, or in Hochfilzen, Austria, their strong performances weren’t entirely surprising: both Bjorn Ferry (SWE) and Magdalena Neuner (GER) were gold medalists at the Vancouver Olympics last year. Canadians led the North American contingent in both the men’s and women’s races. Men When FasterSkier
Last weekend, if you had asked which country had the best female biathletes, the answer probably would have been Sweden. Anna Carin Zidek and Helena Ekholm both graced the podium multiple times at the World Cup openers in Ostersund, Sweden. But last weekend, Magdalena Neuner wasn’t racing. In Hochfilzen, Austria, things are different. In Saturday’s 4 x 6 k relay, Neuner was Germany’s second skier. She took the tag in third place, twenty seconds behind...
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...
Magdalena Neuner (GER) left the door open in the women’s 10k pursuit. But Anastasia Kuzmina (SVK) couldn’t shut it. When a penalty by Neuner in the final shooting stage left Kuzmina trailing by just six seconds, the Slovakian had a chance to reel in the leader over the final two k loop. But Neuner put the hammer down, steadily pulling away to win her second medal in three days. After hitting all 20 shots, Marie...
Breaking two bones in your hand a month before the Olympic Games doesn’t sound like good preparation. But it sure didn’t hurt Anastasia Kuzmina. Shaking off an early miss, as well as the injury she suffered in early January, the Russian-turned-Slovakian won her country’s first Olympic medal in biathlon—and its first-ever gold in the Winter Games—on Saturday in the women’s 7.5k sprint. The announcers characterized Kuzmina’s win as a surprise, but her win comes after...