Recent content by zarnack

Well, just like yesterday the conditions became much calmer for the mens' race compared to women's. And it took the last race of the season for SHL to finally NOT deliver in the shooting range any more. Still, despite loss an incredible season by a rookie and most wins (7) too. For the second...

They couldn't cancel any more after everyone had been hyped up to Sunday being the Great Decider of the crystal globe. Now everyone just has to deal with what they have got.

Oh, what a lottery. Men's crystal globe will be probably decided in a lottery too then if conditions remain anything similar. She could have missed all 5 and still got a better result. Not sure what she thought, a mental capitulation in crazy conditions.

Wow, JTB was dominating the race with Lägreid around 4th position. But JTB blows it and ends up second... behind Lägreid. Just new twists and turns keep coming.

Ironically the wind probably helped Nilsson here, because it didn't matter if she missed some targets, so did everybody else!

Hanna Öberg has for whatever reason completely tanked at the end of the season, so looks like she will drop out of top3 in the overall standings altogether. While Eckhoff and Röiseland are clear 1-2 overall. JTB-Lägreid battle continues as usual - JTB clearly faster on skis, but more...

Maybe the comparison is more related to that both Kazakhstan and Latvia are fringe nations in these respective sports. Once Poltoranin was caught, Kazakh XC was pretty much dead. Latvia of course still has Baiba Bendika, but I wonder if this affair could effectively wipe them off from biathlon...

Northug won both sprint and 50 km, even in the same championship (2015). So this is not something completely new. But it may be the effect of decreasing competition depth, so that a good talent can shine through in a variety of disciplines. For example we don't even have true classic...

Oh, that's a surprise. And so sudden. Peiffer has still been quite competitive this season, so him going for the Olympics would have made more sense than for example Moravec, who is clearly past his prime. But it is what it is I guess. German's men team is going to face some difficulties indeed...

Meanwhile in biathlon Eckhoff is what I guess JTB aspires to be. Absolutely peerless. Meanwhile the overall cup between JTB and Lägreid is still too close to call, even though on skis JTB is peerless.

Yep, to break away from the field and finish alone is quite a feat in a short mass-start race, in men's class (Johaug in women does this on most occasions anyway). Wonder, what is Bolshunov's strategy for the pursuit. 50km is a long distance. Will he wait for others in the beginning or is he...

I realized that a top nation can bring a maximum of 16 XC skiers (8 men + 8 women) to Olympics. So there are some limitations in the selection process, which makes it tricky. If we imagine Norway could only bring 8 male skiers to Oberstdorf, it means they would have probably won one medal less...

So thought to share some statistics now about cross-country skiing that the championships are over. Medals distributed in XC: Norway 18 (18 in Seefeld as well), Sweden 7 (5), Russia 5 (8), the rest 6 (5). So the state of affairs is pretty much the same as 2 years ago. Out of those 6 medals for...

At least Bolshunov is now a confirmed dirty competitor. He did exactly the same thing he hated that was done against himself (by Mäki). He knows he doesn't have a chance against a skier, who would beat him in every sprint (Kläbo), so playing dirty is his only option.

Anyway, leaving aside all the drama in the end, I thought the second half of the race was quite entertaining. It was interesting to see a guy like Iversen, who usually avoids doing work and relies on sprinting, trying to pull away from others for a while. And then Krüger caught back a 40-second...