Norway's Emil Hegle Svendsen is off to one heck of a start at Biathlon World Champs with three wins in as many races. Brian Gregg found similar success in two out of three races over the long weekend, and Sophie Caldwell made the Scando Cup podium in a skate sprint.
Photos from the women's 10 k pursuit at biathlon World Championships, where Tora Berger of Norway took home gold.
Tora Berger didn't have her best day, but after a quick and clean last standing stage, she was headed for gold. The other leaders weren't so lucky: after a disastrous crash, Ann Kristin Flatland broke a binding and Olga Zaitseva lost valuable time. In their places, Krystyna Palka of Poland earned silver and Olena Pidhrushna of Ukraine bronze.
Olena Pidrushna has twice finished second in World Cup racing this season, but she's never won a competition - and she fell ill after the last World Cup races in Antholz, Italy. She was as surprised as anyone else to find herself atop the podium in the women's sprint, beating Tora Berger of Norway by six seconds. Ukrainian teammate Vita Semerenko was third.
While Norway had seldom a worry en route to another mixed relay title, France and the Czech Republic capitalized on a late-stage meltdown by Russia's Dmitry Malyshko to earn their spots on the podium. The Czech medal was especially exciting to the home crowd, and the racers struggled to express how special the moment was.
Starting in 14th position, over a minute behind sprint winner Anastasiya Kuzmina, Tora Berger didn't think she had much of a chance in today's World Cup biathlon pursuit. Despite two penalties, her ferocious skiing brought her into the spotlight under the Antholz sun.
Norway already had a winning women's relay team, but the addition of Ann-Kristin Flatland, a former World Cup winner who took last season off to have a baby, only made them more dominant. The Norwegians collected a 54-second victory over Russia, even though their rivals used only a single spare round to clean their 40 targets. The U.S. was 13th and Canada 14th.
Miriam Gossner was unable to repeat yesterday's victory, missing all five targets on her first of four shooting stages and ten of twenty in total. Instead Olga Zaitseva of Russia rose to the top, after starting in fifth position and accumulating three penalties in the middle of the race.
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 fog in Pokljuka, Slovenia, tripped up everyone in the 12.5 k mass start - but Tora Berger overcame her penalties and collected the 20th win of her career. Rosanna Crawford of Canmore, meanwhile, picked up her fifth top-30 result in a row and is heading home for the holidays happy.
23-year-old Synnøve Solemdal used the best shooting of her career to propel herself to a dominating, 30-second win in Hochfilzen, Austria. “Everyone was cheering ‘Synnøve’ all the way to the finish," she marveled after the race. Tora Berger placed second, giving Norway two women on the podium for the first time since 2005.
Andreas Birnbacher paid Martin Fourcade back for his tough tactics last weekend, this time around notching a 0.4-second victory over the Frenchman in a 10 k sprint. Darya Domracheva of Belarus also collected her first win of the season, and the tenth of her career, thanks to rifle problems that slowed down Kaisa Makarainen on the range.
ÖSTERSUND, Sweden – To beat Tora Berger these days, you have to defeat her not only on the trails, but also on the range. And that has proved more or less impossible here in Östersund. In three races, the Norwegian has taken 50 shots and missed just two of them. That feat was matched by only four women: Andrea Henkel of Germany, Marie Laure Brunet of France, Nadezhda Skardino of Belarus, and Eva Tofalvi of...
ÖSTERSUND, Sweden – It took perfect shooting for Canada’s Jean Philippe Le Guellec to ski to an 18-second win earlier this afternoon in the men’s 10 k sprint. Tora Berger in the women’s 7.5 k edition? Not so much. The Norwegian powerhouse missed a shot in standing, but still cruised to a 16.9-second victory over Olena Pidhrushna of Ukraine, with Olga Vilukhina of Russia placing third another two and a half seconds behind. In fact,...
Tora Berger set out to achieve a couple of goals Thursday in the first biathlon World Cup of the season. For one, she wanted to make every target. Check. Then, she wanted to work toward an overall World Cup title, and did so beating Darya Domracheva (BLR) by more than a minute.
After months of training and anticipation, the nordic sports opened their seasons around the world this weekend with races around the world. Established veterans had several dominating performances, but there were new faces on the podiums as well, signaling that when World Cup racing starts next weekend, things could be pretty interesting. In Bruksvallarna, Sweden, the Swedish, Canadian, and Slovenian national teams butted heads in a three-day race series. One of the biggest surprises was...
On Sunday, IBU Championships wrapped up in Ruhpolding, Germany, after eleven days of exciting racing that saw both dominating performances from overall World Cup leaders and refreshing victories and medals from lesser-known athletes. The big winners at the championships were Martin Fourcade of France and Tora Berger of Norway; Fourcade picked up three individual gold medals in the sprint, pursuit, and mass start, along with silver in the men’s relay. That was almost matched by...
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...