Anchorage and Eagle Glacier are happening places these days, with the North American Women's Training Alliance (including Norway's Celine Brun-Lie and 13 top U.S. skiers), a couple of French biathletes and the U.S. men's team, which recently arrived for its first unified training camp in Alaska.
After winning bronze in the pursuit at the 2010 Olympics, Marie Laure Brunet was tapped as the next big thing in French biathlon. At age 25 and after two World Championships medals followed by a few tough seasons, she's hanging up her rifle for good.
The French biathlon team seemed to have mastered the blustery conditions in Ostersund - that is, until four-time World Champion Martin Fourcade took over. Instead, it was the Czech Republic who had the most to celebrate as they took the win, their first in the history of the discipline.
Norway, Russia, Germany, France: it's hard to see a biathlon race where these guys aren't on the podium. Here's what you need to know about the biggest teams going into the 2013-2014 season - injury updates, shooting problems, psychological battles, promising juniors, team-naming squabbles. Read on.
RUHPOLDING, Germany – With rain finally falling in this small Bavarian town this morning, it would have been easy to stay at home, watching a television broadcast of today’s mass start races from safe inside a dry living room. But that thought never crossed the minds of the 30,000 fans who packed the Chiemgau arena today, just as they have for every other competition of the 2012 IBU World Championships. And they weren’t disappointed. In...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – Right from the start of the 4 x 6 k relay here at World Championships, the German women made it clear that they were going to give their fans a show – and, most likely, the gold medal that they so vocally craved. Tina Bachmann, a lithe, six-foot-tall 25-year-old, put the field on notice when she turned in the fastest first-leg time, making up for the single spare round she used to...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – In last year’s World Championships individual, Helena Ekholm of Sweden navigated blustery conditions to claim a two-minute win. This morning, she woke up with her usual pre-race jitters, and one more question on her mind. “Of course I this morning I am thinking, oh, maybe I am just the champion for a few more hours,” she said in a press conference after the race. The women’s 15 k had plenty of twists...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – In Saturday’s World Championships sprint, Darya Domracheva of Belarus tried her hardest to best Germany’s Magdalena, but it was to no avail. On Sunday, their battle spilled over into the 10 k pursuit, with the two women at many times so close that they shared the shooting range with each other. Each was confident that they could be the first across the finish line. “I am very strong at the moment,” Neuner...
With racing taking a break for the day in Ruhpolding, Germany, here’s a gallery from the kickoff race, yesterday’s mixed relay. Norway took the win followed by Slovenia and Germany. Click any photo to enlarge.
Of all the nordic disciplines, biathlon is perhaps the one where small errors make the biggest difference. A centimeter here, a millimeter there – missing a target by that much, or little, can have drastic impacts on an athlete’s results. On Sunday, however, Magdalena Neuner didn’t make a small error. She made what is perhaps the worse mistake in biathlon: cross-firing. Coming into the third shooting stage of the 10 k pursuit with a sizeable...
While the once-dominant Norwegian men are in a slump right now, their teammate Tora Berger is just getting started. With an exhilarating mass start win in Antholz, Italy on Sunday – which came down to the final hundred meters but at the same time was a foregone conclusion at least a kilometer earlier – Berger collected her fourth victory in as many individual races, after winning Friday’s sprint by almost 30 seconds as well as...
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...
The biathlon World Cup opened in parasite-infested Ostersund, Sweden on Wednesday, with the country’s own Anna Carin Zidek riding clean shooting through four stages to a nine-second win over France’s Marie Laure Brunet in the 15 k individual competition. Hometown favorite Helena Ekholm finished third. Further down the results sheet, but not too much further, Laura Spector led the U.S. with a 25th-place finish. It was the best race of her career, and the best...
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...