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Nordic Skiing/Biathlon Thread

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TBF I think the Estonians were tailing. As soon as Schneider got her final target down it would have been over regardless, she put a lot of time into Talihärm in the last 400m of that lap so unless she completely melts on the final lap, it would have been academic. 4th is still a hell of an achievement but it's not quite a fairytale.

Tandrevold's standing appears to be becoming as much of an issue as it did this time last year, or Lisa Vittozzi's first prone (only the first prone, never the second) two years ago.
 
No fairy tale for the Estonians but finishing fourth is much better than I would have expected, so chapeau to them.

France is so much better than the others right now, that they needed several of them to have bad days to lose this race what didn't happen.

Norway with an absolutely dreadful performance, 5 penalties and 16 spare rounds is one of the worst shootings in a relay that I have ever seen. Tandrevold needs a good sports psychologist above everything else.

Italy also really bad, Vittozzi is in great shape but the same can't be said of her teammates.
 
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I've never seen commentators being so happy over 4th place as the ones in our national TV are right now. The athletes are clearly overjoyed themselves too, it clearly was a 4th place won rather than a medal lost even if the medal wasn't that far. A day to savour.
At the end of the day, the team simply couldn't have done better than they did. They have had a wonderful championships that would have been even better if Tuuli hadn't broken range rules in the Individual, setting great ski times relative to usual and both Ermits and Siimer setting big personal bests as well. If they've all done the best they possibly could, nobody has made any significant mistakes, and the best they could do was 4th place, then they have every right to be happy with it. Like Samu I was a bit conflicted as I'm happy for the Germans to get a medal but an Estonian one would have just been so much more of a story. They shot 0+11 but they were skiing - especially in the second half of the race where they'd already used their strongest athletes - with skiers at a level above their station and how often have we seen athletes inexperienced in contesting podium spots go way too hard on the first two laps and shoot penalty loops or completely capitulate on the final lap? Neither Külm nor Talihärm did that, they were prepared to lose a bit of time to race their own race and just maximise what they had. It would have been so easy, say, for Talihärm to have tried to turn into Julia Simon and fire five shots in an instant when she saw Schneider missing targets with visions of a medal in her head, only to shoot like Tandrevold and end up capsizing the team. We've seen it many a time, albeit not so often at World Championships.

I think a lot of the people who are disappointed are not disappointed because they think the Estonians blew it... they're disappointed because they desperately wanted the underdog medal because while it isn't a full strength German team, it's still a powerhouse nation whose national team budget is way bigger than the Estonians'.