Annelies Cook finished 18th and Susan Dunklee 25th in the World Cup sprint in Sochi, Russia today. With only three women and no team for tomorrow's relay, the sprint and individual races were the only chances the U.S. women had to race on the Olympic course before next year; here's what they thought.
Susan Dunklee used a broom handle and cleaned her first World Cup-caliber race on Friday, leading the U.S. women to a repeat 11th at IBU World Championships in the 4 x 6 k relay. The Canadian women got off to a strong start and settled for 12th.
A year after placing fifth in the 15 k individual at World Championships, American Susan Dunklee finished a solid 15th on her birthday despite falling and busting her rifle stock on the last lap. Canadian Rosanna Crawford raced through the range for a career-best 17th at her first World Championships.
Across both the men's and the women's teams, six of the eight Americans qualified for the 60-person pursuits on Sunday. Tim Burke was the lone man to make the top 30, while Annelies Cook led the women's squad in 45th. All six are ready to improve in the pursuit.
US Biathlon's International Competition Committee has named four men and four women to the 2013 World Championship team. World Championships will be held in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, starting February 7th.
The German women skied away form Russia at the end of the women's 4x6km biathlon relay for the win with France taking third. The U.S. team placed 10th and Canada 11th.
Tim Burke skied the third-fastest course time in the 12.5 k pursuit in Antholz, Italy, today, and placed 14th to lead the U.S.; Lowell Bailey was close behind in 16th. Comments from Burke and USBA High Performance Director Bernd Eisenbichler, plus Sara Studebaker (39th place) explains why the Antholz range is tough and JP Le Guellec (38th) checks in before World Championships.
More on the women's World Cup sprint in Antholz, Italy, from U.S. women's coach Jonne Kahkonen, 18th-place finisher Annelies Cook, and Audrey Vaillancourt of Canada, who finished 55th in just the second weekend of World Cup racing in her career.
Careful skiing at altitude and a single penalty on the range netted Annelies Cook the best finish of her World Cup career, placing 18th in a 7.5 k biathlon sprint in Antholz, Italy today. The win went to Olympic sprint champion Anastasiya Kuzmina of Slovakia, who hasn't seen much of the podium since Vancouver.
Germany's Miriam Gossner used her trademark light and quick skiing to combat some dry, sticky, and slow new snow that fell on the Ruhpolding course today and pick up her third win of the season. Annelies Cook (USA) overcame "herky-jerky skiing" to notch a career best and her first top 30.
Miriam Gossner - at just 22 years old already an Olympic silver medalist in cross country skiing, from the relay in Vancouver - skied so fast that not even two penalties in the 7.5 k sprint could keep her from the top spot on the podium. Sara Studebaker (USA) had a season-best performance, shooting clean to finish 29th.
The Canadian and American women broke through on Friday with Rosanna Crawford's twelfth place finish and Susan Dunklee's 14th in the 7.5 k sprint. In all, two Canadians and three Americans were in the points in Pokljuka, Slovenia.
Just like last year at this competition, Lowell Bailey had a good thing going. Today, though, he was able to clean his final stage and stay into the top ten; USBA President Max Cobb called the perfect late-race shooting a big accomplishment, and something that Bailey has been working on. Plus, more from the other North American biathletes.
Soldier Hollow, the Utah venue that played host to the nordic events at the 2002 Olympics, is no stranger to big-name athletes. Just a few weeks ago, World Cup sprint champ Kikkan Randall was there training with the cross-country national team. The medal-winning nordic combined team skis there regularly. But last week, Utah had a visit from another of the nordic world’s most recognizable athletes: Germany’s Andrea Henkel, who joined the U.S. biathlon team for...
Sara Studebaker is an Idaho-raised, New-Hampshire educated, Lake Placid-based Olympic biathlete – who just happens to be adopting Anchorage, Alaska as her second (or third) home. While Studebaker lives and trains primarily out of the Olympic Training Center in upstate New York, her boyfriend, former biathlete Zach Hall, stays in Anchorage, where he has works and trains junior biathletes part-time. Between traveling on the biathlon World Cup all winter and the distance separating the East...
The Chiemgau Arena, a shooting range with paved rollerski loops just outside of Ruhpolding, Germany, is a venue unlike almost anything in North America, with the exception perhaps of a few former Olympic sites. And even if Soldier Hollow has nice rollerskiing, too, Ruhpolding has a bit more: other teams, for one, but also spectators who show up even in the summer just to watch some of the world’s top biathletes train. Here are a...
RUHPOLDING, Germany – At the Chiemgau Arena on Monday, the U.S. biathlon team was surrounded by something it doesn’t always experience in training: a cacophony of shots that didn’t belong to them. With the German women’s team, the Ukrainian national team, and juniors from France and Germany on the range, as well as a group of German men doing a non-shooting sprint workout, training was quite a bit busier than your typical biathlon practice in...
JERICHO, Vt. – If one thing is constant in summer biathlon races here at the Ethan Allen Firing Range, it’s the sight of Lanny and Tracy Barnes near the top of the results sheets. Since 2009, only one of the sisters, Tracy, has been off the podium – and it was just once. Lanny has won the majority of the races. And the 2012 edition of the North American Rollerski Biathlon Championships was no different....
Note: This is the second piece in a three-part series following several groups of biathletes as they negotiate the college question.
BEND, Oregon – Even though the U.S. biathlon national team did not compete in the Pole Pedal Paddle on Saturday morning like their skiing counterparts, the athletes still didn’t get to sleep in for their weekend. After all, this is training camp. Instead, they headed up to Mount Bachelor to do intervals, and had to start early so that they could be off the race trails before the five-sport extravaganza began. “Early in the morning...