We’ve got guests. Former FasterSkier Managing Editor Rachel Perkins and U.S. Olympian and World Cup podium finisher Sophie Caldwell join us to recap an epic women’s relay from World Championships in Planica. Nine races down, three to go. You can reach us at devon@fasterskier.com and nat@fasterskier.com.
If there’s one competition to watch from the 2023 Biathlon World Championships, it’s the Women’s 4 x 6 k Relay. (Replay available here.) In a dazzling display of biathlon mastery, the Italian quartet knocked down 40 targets with 42 bullets, excelling one after another under pressure in difficult conditions to capture Italy’s first-ever Women’s Relay title. The “Blues” have been investing heavily in biathlon development with their sites set on the 2026 home Olympic...
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, International report Full report Not even a miss in the final stage could keep Slovakia’s Anastasiya Kuzmina from her third medal of the 2018 Olympics, this time gold, in the women’s 12.5-kilometer mass start on Saturday at the Alpensia Biathlon Center. Kuzmina took charge early in the five-loop race, leading Germany’s Laura Dahlmeier into the range for the first prone shooting stage. There, Kuzmina cleaned all five targets quickly...
HOCHFILZEN, Austria — Coming into the women’s 4 x 6-kilometer relay at World Championships, there was certainly one overwhelming favorite: Germany. Not only had the German women won every relay in the World Cup season so far, but the German mixed relay team won gold to kick off the Championships. Plus, anchor leg Laura Dahlmeier had two individual gold medals to her name and one silver so far. “As a team we tried to put...
Another women’s 4 x 5 k World Cup relay, another Norwegian win. Yawn? Not so fast. While the team of Ingvild Flugstad Østberg, Heidi Weng, Astrid Jacobsen, and Marit Bjørgen may have picked up the victory, the women’s race in Ulricehamn, Sweden, was anything but dull. For one thing, it was the closest race in 23 months, going all the way back to the 2014 Olympics where Sweden took gold. The top four teams all...
After leading into the final loop of the women’s 4 x 6 k relay on Sunday, Ukraine successfully held off Germany at the finish, to the audible dismay of the packed stadium in Ruhpolding, Germany. The Ukrainian women took the win by 1.2 seconds, Germany finished second and Italy edged Russia in a sprint for third.
Germany's Vanessa Hinz relied on fast skiing and precise shooting to give her team a 30-second lead heading into the last leg of Friday's 4 x 6 k relay at IBU World Championships, and teammate Laura Dahlmeier ran away with it to win by more than a minute. Canada achieved its top-10 team goal, and the U.S. matched its season best in 12th.
A Russian racer skied over Sadie Bjornsen's tips 2.5 kilometers into the 4 x 5 k relay, but the Americans fought back strong to finish fourth. "We all skied the best we possibly could today," said Liz Stephen. "I’m already dreaming for the next chance at a podium.”
Gabriela Soukalova and Veronika Vitkova are stars on the biathlon circuit. But their younger teammates Eva Puskarcikova and Jitka Landova are proving just as essential in building a relay behemoth: with their third win this eason, the Czechs are favorites going into World Championships. Canada finished eighth with a brand-new relay lineup.
Feisty, unintimidated, and encouraging—if ultimately overmatched. That’s probably the best way to describe Jessie Diggins’ effort at World Championships on Thursday, in which she anchored the U.S. women to a ninth-place finish in the 4×5 k relay. It’s also an apt description of the performance of the entire U.S. team, which fought hard to its best World Championships women’s relay result in over a decade, but was ultimately left three minutes behind the winning Norwegians....