Rosanna Crawford had been thinking about this kind of performance for a long time, and even on Friday, after placing 34th in the Hochfilzen sprint, she predicted it was coming. She just didn't think it would come on Sunday in the 10 k pursuit.
Down a quart heading into the IBU World Cup #2 in Hochfilzen, Finland's Kaisa Mäkäräinen rallied to win Friday's sprint by more than 10 seconds. Susan Dunklee led the U.S. in 29th and Canada's Rosanna Crawford was another 5 seconds back in 34th.
The first individual IBU World Cup race took place a week ago in Östersund and wrapped up this past Sunday. Here, we recap everything from biathlon in Sweden and at home in Canmore, to the Lillehammer mini tour and nordic-combined competitions, and second U.S. SuperTour stop in Bozeman, Mont.
Emil Hegle Svendsen talked about throwing out his skis; Ole Einar Bjørndalen didn't use his best. Nathan Smith hopes for stonegrinding before the next World Cup and Susan Dunklee's skis might go back to Fischer for care. One thing is certain: Östersund did a number on skis. How do you come back from that?
The United States biathlon team went into today’s World Cup pursuits looking for improvement, and two athletes nailed it: Lowell Bailey finished 17th and Susan Dunklee 19th. Both used deliberate shooting strategy on Ostersund's gusty range to make their moves.
Nothing went perfectly for the U.S. in Ostersund today, but one thing is clear: Tim Burke and Susan Dunklee are fast! Burke finished 17th and was excited about improving his ski performance in the sprint, a format which is shorter than he would prefer. Lowell Bailey was 23rd while Dunklee and Leif Nordgren missed the points but made the pursuit.
Susan Dunklee came within 3.1 seconds of a top 20 in 21st, which she was pleased with while wanting more. "Today certainly wasn’t our strongest team showing," she explained, citing their lack of on-snow time compared to other teams. "The season is long, and we still have time to tune up. We will get there."
Before the first stop on the IBU World Cup circuit continues in Östersund on Wednesday, we bring you a synopsis of last weekend's racing action and links to full reports.
The IBU doing away with the double-pole zone and trying something new for relays and mass starts: only three lanes, and skating right off the bat. Will it work? Three of the women who started Sunday's relay - including two-time World Cup Champion Kaisa Makarainen - are unconvinced, saying that in a small, competitive field, it's potentially unfair for some teams to start 20 meters behind the front compared to just one row back in the old format.
The United States biathlon team started the season off on the right foot, finishing the World Cup mixed relay in seventh place and being within a shot of the leaders for the entire race. "Today we were in it all the way until the end- It gives us good confidence going forward," said Tim Burke.
“You know we do other workouts,” Tim Burke says with a laugh more than halfway up the 4,867-foot Whiteface Mountain. Minutes before, the U.S. biathlete completed Tuesday's big effort in 13 minutes, 21 seconds, finishing about 1,300 feet higher than he started for a new record in the hill climb named after him.
JERICHO, Vt. — No matter how you slice it, last weekend’s race efforts at the
Following the final week of training in Finland and three days of rollerski races at the coveted Blink Festival in Norway, U.S. Biathlon coach Jonne Kähkönen gives an across-the-pond update from his native Finland.
In the final two days of the 2014 Blink Festival Americans Lowell Bailey and Tim Burke jumped onto the podium in the biathlon mass start and sprint races.
The U.S. Biathlon Women's A-team has been spending the last two weeks soaking up Finnish life and studying the 2015 IBU World Championships course in Kontiolahti with reigning World Cup champion (and local hero) Kaisa Mäkäräinen.
The U.S. biathlon team says that they were far from surprised when Lowell Bailey and Susan Dunklee broke through and onto the podium at the end of this season. That gains the team some recognition: "It’s obvious that we have more athletes that are a threat for everybody now for the top results," head coach Per Nilsson says.
For the first time, Canada qualified two women for a biathlon mass start: Zina Kocher, who skied in second and third place for the first half of the race, and Rosanna Crawford, who achieved a longstanding goal of making the top ten. Crawford was racing with injuries sustained in a collision with a Russian coach in yesterday's pursuit.
A crash on the first loop broke the podium tension for Susan Dunklee, who climbed her way back up to sixth place over the course of the 10 k pursuit. American teammate Lowell Bailey used three penalties to move from 19th up to 14th in the men's 12.5 k pursuit.
Besides Susan Dunklee's podium, Rosanna Crawford finished a career-best 11th in the Oslo World Cup sprint and biathletes Lowell Bailey and Zina Kocher also made the top 20. Here's what the U.S. and Canadian teams had to say about their performances - and the horrible ski conditions in Oslo.
Despite a fall, Susan Dunklee gutted out her first World Cup podium in a biathlon sprint in Oslo today, pushing hard in the finishing stretch to unseat Olga Vilukhina by one second and take third place. "I’m not afraid of being on the podium or even winning one of these days," Dunklee said after notching only the third-ever World Cup podium by a U.S. woman.