Nordic Skiing/Biathlon Thread

[Singer01]

World Champs starting up shortly, If Fourcade wins only 2 of the 4 individual gold medals maximum i'll be happy. I'm much more excited for the women's events where any of the top 4 or 5 can win on any given occasion.
Mixed relay starts us off, and that is also a wide open race, Norway probably have the strongest pair of men (assuming younger Boe is on top form), however the women, especially Eckhoff have been distinctly Meh this year, i'll go with Germany for the Win.

 

[Cance > TheRest]

Re:

World Champs starting up shortly, If Fourcade wins only 2 of the 4 individual gold medals maximum i'll be happy. I'm much more excited for the women's events where any of the top 4 or 5 can win on any given occasion.
Mixed relay starts us off, and that is also a wide open race, Norway probably have the strongest pair of men (assuming younger Boe is on top form), however the women, especially Eckhoff have been distinctly Meh this year, i'll go with Germany for the Win.

Yeah, that could be a problem. I'm still struggling to see how the Norwegians can finish outside the medals though. Germany is really strong on all positions, and then there's France and Czech Republic next in line.

I hope the Czech team will do well in the mixed relay. Apart from Koukalova's medal-potential in the individual races and Krcmar's chance in the mass start/pursuit, I feel like the mixed relay is one of the Czech team's biggest medal opportunities. It's also a discipline that they've won WC gold in before.

 

[Kokoso]

I've been watching universiade men xc relay. Kazakh finishman f****d up hilariously and gave Russian's victory. Couldn't believe my eyes. I was pretty surprised with Norway; nation who every time they explain their great results presents that they have most active xc skiers, it's national sport and so on...but they've been terrible, just terrible, huge loss, plain terrible.

 

[BullsFan22]

Re:

I've been watching universiade men xc relay. Kazakh finishman f****d up hilariously and gave Russian's victory. Couldn't believe my eyes. I was pretty surprised with Norway; nation who every time they explain their great results presents that they have most active xc skiers, it's national sport and so on...but they've been terrible, just terrible, huge loss, plain terrible.

The Norwegians hardly care about the Universiade. They've never really sent strong teams there. It's mostly the Russians and Kazakhs that sent decent skiers the past couple seasons. It's too bad.

 

[Kokoso]

Re: Re:

I've been watching universiade men xc relay. Kazakh finishman f****d up hilariously and gave Russian's victory. Couldn't believe my eyes. I was pretty surprised with Norway; nation who every time they explain their great results presents that they have most active xc skiers, it's national sport and so on...but they've been terrible, just terrible, huge loss, plain terrible.

The Norwegians hardly care about the Universiade. They've never really sent strong teams there. It's mostly the Russians and Kazakhs that sent decent skiers the past couple seasons. It's too bad.

Nobody cares much about universiade. But the point was different. Point is that when you have plethora of great skiers, even your D, or E, heck even K team is gonna be quiete decent. But they where disastrous. It could undermine the argument "we (Norwegians) have biggest pool of great skiers of all (countries) hence why we dominate"

 

[Kokoso]

Koukalova is injured :sad:

 

[python]

lahti is just over 2 weeks away...3 major xc ski teams already announced who will compete.

the latest news is that olsson is sick again and may not compete. i dont understand this sensitive flower. barely raced a full season lately... retires, un-retires, sometimes says he will race to only claim he is sick again. he needs to give sundby a call and find out how the dude with 3 major self admitted health problems is able to dominate all season long for 4 years now and counting ...

speaking of sundby, he seems back to his old arrogant ways after a humble flash at the tds earlier. i just read at the vg.no - he likes that 'EVERYONE is afraid of me'. in the place i read that petter is ready to blame himself for a shytti form. he's another sensitive flower. over trained back in october...and that's the blame. i dont know. smells like the spinning just prior to sochi, when everything was blamed on a summer ailment preventing him from proper peaking

may be i am too tough on petter...may be he, like olsson, needs to give martin a call to learn how to 'stay healthy' ??

and the poor russians are having a whole different set of problems. they are the only major nation still to announce the lahti team. and it is understandable with vyleg, legkov and belov still under the fis ban to compete. they hope to add the 3 at the last moment. and if they cant, the is i hear the plan B. who will they then bring over to finland besides the guaranteed ustiougov, bessmertych, larkov and kriuokov ? for sure it should chervotkin and bolshunov who just annihilated the competition at the junior worlds . they may also add retyvych and sedov who won in s. korea last week. at first i was more optimistic on sedov, but after re-watching the team relay race from 2 weeks ago i have my reservation. he instantly went from 1st to 9th in the 3d leg when hellner dropped the hammer. perhaps he improved but i doubt he'll reach by lahti the hellner/sundby/iversen/ustiougov/krogh etc...speed. all that said, i think the russians can collect 1-2 golds (in sprint events in particular).

i left out the ladies, but that's for another post...

 

[Kokoso]

Re:

he needs to give sundby a call and find out how the dude with 3 major self admitted health problems is able to dominate all season long for 4 years now and counting ...

poor russians

What three major health problems? Asthma in only one I know...

Poor Russians? Really?

 

[BullsFan22]

Re:

lahti is just over 2 weeks away...3 major xc ski teams already announced who will compete.

the latest news is that olsson is sick again and may not compete. i dont understand this sensitive flower. barely raced a full season lately... retires, un-retires, sometimes says he will race to only claim he is sick again. he needs to give sundby a call and find out how the dude with 3 major self admitted health problems is able to dominate all season long for 4 years now and counting ...

speaking of sundby, he seems back to his old arrogant ways after a humble flash at the tds earlier. i just read at the vg.no - he likes that 'EVERYONE is afraid of me'. in the place i read that petter is ready to blame himself for a shytti form. he's another sensitive flower. over trained back in october...and that's the blame. i dont know. smells like the spinning just prior to sochi, when everything was blamed on a summer ailment preventing him from proper peaking

may be i am too tough on petter...may be he, like olsson, needs to give martin a call to learn how to 'stay healthy' ??

and the poor russians are having a whole different set of problems. they are the only major nation still to announce the lahti team. and it is understandable with vyleg, legkov and belov still under the fis ban to compete. they hope to add the 3 at the last moment. and if they cant, the is i hear the plan B. who will they then bring over to finland besides the guaranteed ustiougov, bessmertych, larkov and kriuokov ? for sure it should chervotkin and bolshunov who just annihilated the competition at the junior worlds . they may also add retyvych and sedov who won in s. korea last week. at first i was more optimistic on sedov, but after re-watching the team relay race from 2 weeks ago i have my reservation. he instantly went from 1st to 9th in the 3d leg when hellner dropped the hammer. perhaps he improved but i doubt he'll reach by lahti the hellner/sundby/iversen/ustiougov/krogh etc...speed. all that said, i think the russians can collect 1-2 golds (in sprint events in particular).

i left out the ladies, but that's for another post...

If Ustiugov is in the form he showed in the Tour de Ski, then the Russians should expect at least a couple medals. Besmmertnykh will be tough in the 15km classic, his favorite event. Larkov has had a consistent season, with a number of top 10 and even top 5 results. Sedov is back in good form after battling sickness early in the season, and despite only facing a few top skiers in Korea, he was impressive and made it look easy. The other options are Turyshev, Chervotkin, Bolshunov, Volzhentsev, Chernousov (though i doubt it), Dementiev (doubt it), Glavatskikh, in the distance races and Kriukov, Gafarov, Retivykh, Parfenov and Panzhinskiy (along with Ustiugov) for the sprints and team sprint. Kriukov will likely be kept for the team sprint only, as he is a better classic skier and not sure about Panzhinskiy in the team sprint. Excellent speed in qualifiers, but little to no strategy in the heats. Just goes out hard and tries to hold it. He makes it to the finals, but runs out of energy and finishes 5th or 6th. Ustiugov is going to have to decide, I think, between the skiathlon and team sprint. The team sprint is the day after the skiathlon and I don't think he'll recover fast enough to contend in the team sprint if he races the skiathlon. The positive is that the Russians have a strong, deep men's team and their youngsters are rising quickly and are in good form AND since Vylegzhanin won the skiathlon in Falun, they have an extra spot (so 5 racers can start for them) in that race.

The women have a shot in the sprint (Matveeva), team sprint (Matveeva and most likely Belorukova who is a better classic sprinter), the relay (if they all ski well) and even Tchekaleva in one or two of the distance races.

 

[Kokoso]

Re: Re:

I hope the Czech team will do well in the mixed relay. Apart from Koukalova's medal-potential in the individual races and Krcmar's chance in the mass start/pursuit, I feel like the mixed relay is one of the Czech team's biggest medal opportunities. It's also a discipline that they've won WC gold in before.

So far Puskarcikova terrible, Koukalova absolutely great performance.

 

[BullsFan22]

What douche move move by Fourcade going way over to his left in the finishing straight to cut Shipulin off when Shipulin was trying to go around him, and then he ups the ante by turning around and yelling towards Shipulin. Uncalled for. Also, if they hadn't played cat and mouse, they would have caught Schempp. Instead, he was worried about beating the evil Russians. They were closing down on Schempp very, very quickly. Fourcade attacked on the biggest, longest hill, then almost completely stopped near the top, and they were around 10 seconds with still enough snow to make up even more.

 

[python]

if i was a supreme commander of anything i'd invite shipulin to join me...a consistent reliable dude one can almost always count on in crisis.

fourcade ? not so much imo.

 

[kingjr]

Shipulin is the best Relay-biathlete of the last 4 years or so for me.

 

[Rider]

What Fourcade did to Loginov, looks intentional: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiykIc9cOGA

 

[kingjr]

If it was, it's lame. He has every right to be frustrated, but that's not the way to express it IF it was intentional.

 

[Rider]

Yes it was intentional, different angle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhFOzBpoYQc

 

[May0maniac]

God dammit, WIndisch lost the Silver medal at the last shooting and finished 4th, that was a bit of a bummer.

 

[kingjr]

I think he would have lost it anyway, Fourcade and Shipulin were flying.

 

[BullsFan22]

Re:

If it was, it's lame. He has every right to be frustrated, but that's not the way to express it IF it was intentional.

You can see him look towards the Russians and then ski to his left towards them, making contact with Loginov's skis, essentially skiing over his skis and then he went to his right.

If he wants to be angry, he can be angry, but there is no need to act like a jerk out on the course. Loginov was caught doping and served the normal sentence of two years. No need to take out his frustration out on the trails. That's why Shipulin and Loginov decided not to shake his hands at the ceremony. In fact, Loginov told Shipulin that he felt it was intentional what Fourcade did. Shipulin agreed with Loginov and said that he would back his teammate.

 

[May0maniac]

Re:

I think he would have lost it anyway, Fourcade and Shipulin were flying.

I don't know, he was skiing really well and after the final climb it was mainly downhill, I would probably pick him in a sprint finish.
Lisa Vittozzi was really impressive, she's a huge talent and it's nice to see that someone from Cadore made it.
She's a member of the Gruppo Sportivo Forestale (the sport section of the Italian State Forestry Corps) and like many of thre athletes she's often training in Auronzo (it's their headquarter for Winter sports).

 

[kingjr]

Re: Re:

If it was, it's lame. He has every right to be frustrated, but that's not the way to express it IF it was intentional.

You can see him look towards the Russians and then ski to his left towards them, making contact with Loginov's skis, essentially skiing over his skis and then he went to his right.

If he wants to be angry, he can be angry, but there is no need to act like a jerk out on the course. Loginov was caught doping and served the normal sentence of two years. No need to take out his frustration out on the trails. That's why Shipulin and Loginov decided not to shake his hands at the ceremony. In fact, Loginov told Shipulin that he felt it was intentional what Fourcade did. Shipulin agreed with Loginov and said that he would back his teammate.

I think it was an impulsive act, I don't think he wanted to make him fall, but he wanted to do something the same way you deliberately bump your shoulder into someone walking in your direction if you're angry about something. I see no other reason for him to move to the left of Shipulin in that situation, it makes no sense.

He's playing it clever now, saying he didn't do anything on purpose, making it look like the Russians are the agressor, because they refused to shake hands with him due to the incident with Loginov. It's classical Primary Schoolyard tactics.
I think it's an own goal in the long term, I fail to see how creating this tension is helpful in the fight against doping. You could maybe make a case for him wanting to make Loginov feel uncomfortable, to send a message to dopers or potential future dopers, but I don't think this is the way to do it.


@Mayomaniac, even with clean shooting he would have had to keep the pace throughout the whole last lap and then win the sprint. Today, that would have been unlikely I think.

 

[Singer01]

Koukalava held her nerve like a boss there, she knew even if she hit 10 it would be close due to her slower average last lap than Dahlmeier.

 

[Gigs_98]

One really has to feel bad for the Italians. They lost silver at the last shooting yesterday and today got 4th and 5th place today and Vittozzi only two tenths of a second behind the bronze medal.

 

[Kokoso]

One really has to feel bad for the Italians. They lost silver at the last shooting yesterday and today got 4th and 5th place today and Vittozzi only two tenths of a second behind the bronze medal.

Quite on the contrary. Sanfilippo and Vitozzi were 29th and 39th respectively in the World cup before the sprint. Thus one should feel really glad for them because these are great results for them, realy including.

 

[Kokoso]

Re:

Koukalava held her nerve like a boss there, she knew even if she hit 10 it would be close due to her slower average last lap than Dahlmeier.

At the end it was really race only between Koukalova and Dahlmeier. Both of them I quite like. I've to say I felt pretty moved when I saw her crying genuinly. She's one of the stars for some years now but gold medal from Olympics or Worlds was missing and now it's here and in what style! It is yet more pleasing because I didn't like her much earlier, but she has certainly changed and now is very likeable person.