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Megan Imrie

Canada’s Le Guellec, Kocher Finish 26th in World Champs Pursuits; Team’s Seven Starters Have Mixed Success

RUHPOLDING, Germany – Two Canadians had high hopes for Sunday’s pursuit: Jean Phillipe Le Guellec was 14th after Saturday’s World Championship sprint, and teammate Zina Kocher 18th. They were poised, it seemed, to have career-best finishes. Le Guellec had never finished in the top ten at World Championships, but started just 12 seconds outside it on Sunday. Kocher was shooting for a top-16, which would have guaranteed her funding through Athletics Canada for the next...

World Championships Sprint Roundup: Bergman’s Baby, Neuner Is Cold As Ice, and Much, Much More

RUHPOLDING, Germany – With more than 250 racers contesting yesterday’s World Championships 7.5 and 10 k sprints, there was plenty of news that didn’t make it into our race reports – both from international stars and from our own interviews with U.S. and Canadian athletes. Here are some of the notable bits that we couldn’t fit in: – Bronze medalist Carl Johan Bergman of Sweden wasn’t really expecting a medal yesterday, but he was expecting...

Kocher’s 18th Is Oh-So-Close to Funding Cutoff; Other Canadian, U.S. Women Disappointed With Sprint

RUHPOLDING, Germany – Canada’s Zina Kocher had a lot to think about during today’s 7.5 k sprint. But this her tenth World Championships, and Kocher says she’s learned a few things along the way. Today, she didn’t let all of the worries and problems get to her head. Instead, she stuck to business and finished 18th. “This is probably the most calm I’ve felt in a long time for a World Championship, so that’s crucial...

Canada Held Back By Slow Skiing, Disastrous Standing Stage by Kocher

RUHPOLDING, Germany – After placing sixth in a World Cup mixed relay earlier this season, the Canadian team came into today’s race at World Championships with high hopes. But they couldn’t handle the heat – literally, in this case, as temperatures neared 50 and the snow turned to slush. “Everything in the sun is pretty soft and mushy,” second-leg racer Zina Kocher told FasterSkier after the race. “It’s actually a pretty hard race, not just...

North American Women Unable to Capitalize on Sprint Results; Studebaker Leads Way With 25th in Biathlon Pursuit

After what was perhaps the best day ever for North American women on biathlon’s World Cup circuit, U.S. racer Sara Studebaker was offered a unique way to approach the coming pursuit. “There’s a bunch of you all hungry for more,” Studebaker’s brother Luke told her. Then he delved into new territory. “[You are] like a pack of North American grey wolves, once endangered to the point of extinction but now flourishing under revamped federal policies....

U.S., Canadian Women “Show Europe That North America Can Mix It Up” In Oslo Sprint

After a gray winter that seemed to always be either snowless or stormy, the world’s best biathletes were thrilled to head to Antholz, Italy two weeks ago, where the sun finally shone in the Alps. The North Americans, it seems, are even happier to be in Oslo, Norway, where the World Cup kicked back into action with a pair of sprint races on Thursday. “There is a good vibe here in Oslo,” U.S. biathlete Annelies...

In Nove Mesto’s Blizzard of Deteriorating Conditions, Zaitseva Keeps Clean and Russia Places 3 in Top 6

This year’s World Cup biathlon schedule has presented a confusing dichotomy: it seems like races are either characterized by a lack or snow, or too much of it – sometimes at the same venue, just days apart. While panning television shots of athletes racing along thin white ribbons in the woods has become all too common, so too have the fuzzy, gray screens where cameras struggle to pick skiers out through heavy snowfall. “We’ve had...

Vertigo or No, Imrie Lands Career-Best 20th in Nove Mesto World Cup; Teammate Kocher 15th

A couple of days ago, Canadian biathlete Megan Imrie couldn’t tell which way was up. Luckily, she’s feeling better – and up was where she landed on Wednesday, near the top of the results sheet in a World Cup individual race in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic. Despite a case of vertigo, Imrie finished a career-best 20th place. Athletes have to deal with a lot of variables when they’re preparing for competitions, but vertigo – a...

Un-Retired Zaitseva Picks Up First Win of Season; Imrie Notches Personal-Best 25th in Hochfilzen Sprint

Remember all those Russian shenanigans about returned to biathlon, because recently she’s been on a tear. The 33-year-old Moscow native picked up her first win of the season on Friday in a 10 k sprint in Hochfilzen, Austria, to go along with two podium finishes from last weekend. She’s now finished on the podium four times in seven starts, and that’s the way she likes it. “I would like to be on the podium in...

Lowell Bailey may be getting a lot of attention these days, but the American biathlete isn’t the only one to have found success in the early days of the 2012 World Cup season. Quietly, the Canadian women have upped their own profile – and their first two weeks of racing culminated in a ninth-place relay finish in Hochfilzen, Austria, tying the U.S. men’s performance. Team member Zina Kocher, who has been racing in senior-level international...

Big Wins, and Winds, Are the Thing In Ostersund As Domracheva Takes Minute-Plus Victory

Perhaps never before have the world’s best biathletes’ dreams of perfection been dashed so quickly at the beginning of a season. Over the last two days in Ostersund, Sweden, each one of the world’s top shooters has missed at least one shot. Usually, there’s just a few races like this in a season. This year, both the men’s and women’s World Cup openers have featured incredibly gusty, unpredictable winds. Even without shooting clean, a few...

Canadian Biathletes Wrap Up World Cup Trials – Photo Gallery

Team Canada wrapped up its World Cup selection trials in Canmore on Tuesday with a pair of mass start races, which were won by Megan Imrie and Nathan Smith. With barely any snow in Scandinavia, the team was lucky to be at home in Canmore, where there has been skiing thanks to “Frozen Thunder,” a snow-saving operation. The team was racing to select two women and one man to join prequalified racers Imrie, LP Leguellec,...

Only The Strong Survive In Rainy Rupholding Shooter’s Duel – Updated

To say that it was raining in Rupholding, Germany, on Thursday would be an understatement. “It was pouring rain, perhaps the worst rain I’ve ever skied in, winter or summer,” said U.S. biathlete Sara Studebaker. “It was tough out there… today was all about fighting through the conditions.” For most of the women’s World Cup field, it was a tough fight as the tracks slowed to a cement-like consistency and the downhills became rutted and...

In Saturday’s World Cup sprint race, Bjorn Ferry gave habitual powerhouse Sweden its third victory of the new season, and its first in a men’s race. On Sunday, Sweden took win number four. After Helena Ekholm and Anna Carin Zidek, the team’s first two World Cup victors this season, left the Swedes within striking distance of the podium, Carl Johann Bergman used some last-minute heroics to take a 0.3 second win over Ukraine France and...

For Kaisa Makarainen, 112 is the magic number. That’s how many starts it took for the 27-year-old Finnish biathlete to win her first World Cup race, which she did Friday on a freezing course in Ostersund, Sweden. Using clean shooting, and skiing that was as hot as the weather was cold—temperatures on the trails were as low as negative 19.2 Celsius, .8 degrees above the legal limit—Makarainen won the women’s 7.5 k sprint, 19 seconds...

Kontiolahti, Finland – Russian Ivan Tcherezov, who missed out an an individual medal at the Olympics, settling for a bronze in the relay, got a measure of revenge, winning the men’s 10km sprint in Finland. Darya Domracheva (BLR) the bronze medalist in the individual competition in Whistler won the omen’s 7.5km event, shooting clean on her way to an 8.4 second victory over Olga Zaitseva (RUS). Tcherezov had a perfect day on the range, one...

Broken Bones Can’t Stop Slovakian Biathlete

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...