With the 2017/2018 season officially in the rearview, FasterSkier is excited to unveil the last of its annual award winners for this past winter. Votes stem from the FS staff, scattered across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and while not scientific, they are intended to reflect a broader sense of the season in review. This set of honors goes to the North American Performances of the Year in cross-country, biathlon and nordic combined. Previous categories:...
With the 2017/2018 season officially in the rearview, FasterSkier is excited to unveil its annual award winners for this past winter. Votes stem from the FS staff, scattered across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, and while not scientific, they are intended to reflect a broader sense of the season in review. This set of honors goes to outstanding North American biathletes on the international circuit. *** Rosanna Crawford, Biathlon Canada Rosanna Crawford had been close to...
With the 2018 Olympics come and gone, many of biathlon’s athletes are calling it quits. Here’s a roundup of who you won’t see on the World Cup next season – and who’s still on the fence about their future. USA 2017 Word Champion Lowell Bailey has long planned to retire after the 2018 season, and now that time has come. His first World Junior Championships was in 1999 and he got his first World Cup start...
OSLO, Norway—Eight World Cup weekends, a swing by Open European Championships, two weeks at the Olympics, and it all came down to this: Susan Dunklee’s last international race of the season was also her first podium of the season, and she’s heading back to the United States with a third-place finish in the 10 k pursuit. “I’m super happy,” Dunklee said. “I often start feeling stronger and stronger as the season goes on, and this...
OSLO, Norway—Julia Ransom had been mulling over retirement from elite sport for at least two years. That’s even though the Canadian is just 25 years old. She collected two top-ten results this year, in the 15 k individual in Östersund, Sweden, and the 7.5 k sprint in Oberhof, Germany. “I definitely played with the idea for the last year or two — to end with the Olympics,” she explained after today’s pursuit in Oslo. “I’d...
FIS Cross Country World Cup Finals (Falun, Sweden): 10/15 k freestyle pursuits Time of day | Final Distance World Cup rankings Men: Pursuit | Final Overall World Cup rankings | Women’s pursuit report | Men’s relay report In her last race of the season, Susan Dunklee returned to the podium. The American started fourth in Sunday’s 10-kilometer pursuit at the International Biathlon Union (IBU) World Cup in Oslo, then made her way into third by the final...
OSLO, Norway — In the last relay of French star Marie Dorin Habert’s career, she turned in a crucial performance to bring her team to the front. Anaïs Bescond extended the gap and France took the win in the women’s 4 x 6-kilometer relay here at Holmenkollen by 14.4 seconds over Germany. Was she nervous going into the last team event she will ever race? “I wasn’t really nervous,” Dorin Habert, 31, said in a...
FIS Cross Country World Cup Finals (Falun, Sweden): 10/15 k classic mass starts Men’s report Day 2 of World Cup Finals in Falun entailed 10- and 15-kilometer classic mass starts on Saturday, and in the first race of the day, Finland’s Krista Pärmäkoski pulled out a thrilling finishing-sprint victory over Norway’s Marit Bjørgen. After American Jessie Diggins led early in the first 2.5 k loop, Bjørgen set the tone from the front for most of...
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
FIS Cross Country World Cup (Oslo, Norway): Women’s 30 k freestyle mass start last race of the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea (a 30 k classic mass start), Bjørgen came from behind to win Sunday’s Holmenkollen 30 k and wasn’t able to let off too much before finish. She didn’t take the lead until less than a kilometer to go and put just enough time into her competition to take the win in 1:18:12.4...
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...
In December, Biathlon Canada announced that after the men’s relay at the Olympics on Friday. “Our President, Anders Besseberg… at every turn when he has the chance to defend clean sport, he has turned the other way. And it’s not fair to clean athletes. The latest decision by the IBU was to send the World Cup tour to Tyumen, Russia, for our World Cup final. Team USA is boycotting. The Czech team is boycotting. Canada...
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, Crawford earned her first career IBU World Cup individual podium in in a 15 k individual in Ruhpolding, Germany. Her third place in the individual was followed by a fourth place, also in Ruhpolding, in the mass start. Even in disappointment, Crawford said the upside was learning a hard lesson as she moves forward. “As I was warming up, I was like, ‘you have to trust...
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...