Nordic Skiing/Biathlon Thread

[Libertine Seguros]

At least it meant some new faces on the podium and not the same old same old, as Bø had quickly grown just as dull as Fourcade. 3 podiums between the 3 of them before today.

 

[BullsFan22]

Re:

At least it meant some new faces on the podium and not the same old same old, as Bø had quickly grown just as dull as Fourcade. 3 podiums between the 3 of them before today.

I don't think Fourcade was ever as fast as Bø is at the moment. He was close about 40 seconds clear of everyone when he came in for his second shooting. He can afford himself two missed shots and still win a sprint. Clean shooting and he is obviously winning a race, one miss and he's still likely to win, two misses makes it exciting, three and he can still podium. I don't know what sort of shape the medal contenders will be at the World's, but for now the only thing that will stop JT is if he beats himself by missing targets. Nobody is touching him on the tracks. There are a couple Frenchies + or - Fourcade, there's Eberhard, there's Doll, maybe Landertinger when he is in form and Loginov that can come the closest, but they need to shoot better to beat the Norwegian. "Simple."

 

[Singer01]

Re: Re:

At least it meant some new faces on the podium and not the same old same old, as Bø had quickly grown just as dull as Fourcade. 3 podiums between the 3 of them before today.

I don't think Fourcade was ever as fast as Bø is at the moment. "Simple."

Has anyone been? Berger won sprints with 2 misses but 2 misses was a good day for him.

 

[kingjr]

Re: Re:

At least it meant some new faces on the podium and not the same old same old, as Bø had quickly grown just as dull as Fourcade. 3 podiums between the 3 of them before today.

I don't think Fourcade was ever as fast as Bø is at the moment. "Simple."

Has anyone been? Berger won sprints with 2 misses but 2 misses was a good day for him.

He's won one with 3 even.

 

[zarnack]

In a way quite impressive if you can be 5th with 4 misses. That's almost half missed. Wonder, what is the all-time record for that one? I think in the early days of women biathlon Reztsova ended up quite high despite missing a lot.

 

[Singer01]

Yay, skate sprint today in the xc, not seen that in a while.

 

[zarnack]

By the way, can anyone explain me the logic of how they get allocated into groups after qualifying?

I see from live timing that numbers 2, 6, 7 and 9 are in the same quarterfinal! And in the other quarterfinal the smallest number is 13.

I mean it looks slightly unfair, doesn't it?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The American cheerleading on Eurosport International's Anglophone commentary has extended beyond the sycophantic and to the point where I'm outright about to send complaints. It's literally "great news" every time any American does anything good, when Kern was involved with that super close finish with Stenseth and Gimmler, it was like the latter two didn't exist, and it's literally "Simmy" this "Simmy" that in the men's, and it's nothing other than "great news" for the sport that Jess Diggins made it in a lucky loser spot. It's absolutely relentless, like there has almost been no discussion of ANY of the other women in the final, the preview consists of "Sadie Bjornsen is NOT ALONE because Jess Diggins HAS MADE IT THROUGH".

This is like Carlton Kirby watching Sky unenjoyable.

 

[BullsFan22]

Re:

By the way, can anyone explain me the logic of how they get allocated into groups after qualifying?

I see from live timing that numbers 2, 6, 7 and 9 are in the same quarterfinal! And in the other quarterfinal the smallest number is 13.

I mean it looks slightly unfair, doesn't it?

Since Drammen 2015, the top qualifiers can choose which heat they want to place themselves in. The top qualifier could choose heat 5, if he/she so chooses. Qualifiers 25-30 are placed in heats last.

 

[kingjr]

Re:

The American cheerleading on Eurosport International's Anglophone commentary has extended beyond the sycophantic and to the point where I'm outright about to send complaints. It's literally "great news" every time any American does anything good, when Kern was involved with that super close finish with Stenseth and Gimmler, it was like the latter two didn't exist, and it's literally "Simmy" this "Simmy" that in the men's, and it's nothing other than "great news" for the sport that Jess Diggins made it in a lucky loser spot. It's absolutely relentless, like there has almost been no discussion of ANY of the other women in the final, the preview consists of "Sadie Bjornsen is NOT ALONE because Jess Diggins HAS MADE IT THROUGH".

This is like Carlton Kirby watching Sky unenjoyable.

How did you like the final just now.

 

[BullsFan22]

Re:

The American cheerleading on Eurosport International's Anglophone commentary has extended beyond the sycophantic and to the point where I'm outright about to send complaints. It's literally "great news" every time any American does anything good, when Kern was involved with that super close finish with Stenseth and Gimmler, it was like the latter two didn't exist, and it's literally "Simmy" this "Simmy" that in the men's, and it's nothing other than "great news" for the sport that Jess Diggins made it in a lucky loser spot. It's absolutely relentless, like there has almost been no discussion of ANY of the other women in the final, the preview consists of "Sadie Bjornsen is NOT ALONE because Jess Diggins HAS MADE IT THROUGH".

This is like Carlton Kirby watching Sky unenjoyable.

Don't know who it was, whether it was Winterton, Goldstrom or Dixon, I didn't watch the race, but I am not surprised. It's par for the course for them. Winterton in particular has favorites.

 

[wansteadimp]

Re:

The American cheerleading on Eurosport International's Anglophone commentary has extended beyond the sycophantic and to the point where I'm outright about to send complaints. It's literally "great news" every time any American does anything good, when Kern was involved with that super close finish with Stenseth and Gimmler, it was like the latter two didn't exist, and it's literally "Simmy" this "Simmy" that in the men's, and it's nothing other than "great news" for the sport that Jess Diggins made it in a lucky loser spot. It's absolutely relentless, like there has almost been no discussion of ANY of the other women in the final, the preview consists of "Sadie Bjornsen is NOT ALONE because Jess Diggins HAS MADE IT THROUGH".

This is like Carlton Kirby watching Sky unenjoyable.

Complaints to Discovery, Inc, Silver Springs, Maryland USA USA USA

 

[BullsFan22]

What I am more worried about is, as I've been the whole season, is the amount of skate sprints. It's sad really. Flat or flattish skate sprints should not be the future of this sport. It's nice that it opens things up sometimes, giving more skiers a chance, but 9 (!!!) of 12 sprints this year are in the skate technique. If they have an even number of sprints, why can't they have 6/6? Even 7-5 is good. I don't understand what FIS wants go gain from this. Three years ago they started the slogan 'save classic skiing,' by putting in pole length checks, double poling zones, etc, but how about doing the easy thing...have more classic races?

It's strange to see the race profiles at the Alps countries being so moderate to even mellow. The Seefeld courses are more or less what we saw in Cogne today. You can find tougher courses at your local ski club. Val Di Fiemme probably has the toughest tracks on the WC tour of the races in Italy, but unfortunately the lap lengths are 2.5-3.3 km these days.

Another thing, the pattern of weekends seems to be, skate sprint and interval start 10/15km. That is so dry and monotonous.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

It was Winterton and Dixon but wansteadimp, good point, but they were already US-biased before that - it has got worse for sure in the last few years. Seems weird though since obviously their target markets are all external to the US. And while each nation's own commentators have a tendency to be one-eyed and myopic about their own, I have found American sports coverage (of genuinely international sports ar least) to be particularly bad for that, presumably as with lots of all-American sports to compete with, they fear losing the interest of the home audience if they aren't continuously pointing out the American competitors.

It just would be nice to hear about some other athletes once in a while and today, since a lot of the big names they have stats to hand on weren't there and they're usually too busy hyping the Americans and the big name Norwegians to notice anybody else, they seemingly knew nothing about any of the others competing, there was almost no discussion whatsoever of anybody other than the US competitors.

 

[zarnack]

20-y-o Hagström 3rd for Sweden, although admittely in a less competitive field. And the best Swedes were missing (Nilsson, Sundling, Dahlqvist, Ingemarsdotter, Falk, Settlin). The amount of choice Sweden has for women sprint is incredible these days. At least that's one discipline, where Norway has been surpassed in XC.

Not to mention a week ago Sweden was 1st and 3rd in women team sprint despite missing Nilsson and Sundling and despite both teams tripping over themselves during the competition and dropping to the back. :razz:

 

[Max Rockatansky]

Re: Re:

Has anyone been? Berger won sprints with 2 misses but 2 misses was a good day for him.

He's won one with 3 even.[/quote]

OEB almost won a 20k individual with 5 misses against Mesotitsch, who had 1 miss.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re:

In a way quite impressive if you can be 5th with 4 misses. That's almost half missed. Wonder, what is the all-time record for that one? I think in the early days of women biathlon Reztsova ended up quite high despite missing a lot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnc8qtcGwRA

And that was with only 2km ski loops!

 

[Max Rockatansky]

Re: Re:

In a way quite impressive if you can be 5th with 4 misses. That's almost half missed. Wonder, what is the all-time record for that one? I think in the early days of women biathlon Reztsova ended up quite high despite missing a lot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnc8qtcGwRA

And that was with only 2km ski loops!

Yeah, she had some crazy things. Once got top ten in a pursuit with missing 10 of 40.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Re:

In a way quite impressive if you can be 5th with 4 misses. That's almost half missed. Wonder, what is the all-time record for that one? I think in the early days of women biathlon Reztsova ended up quite high despite missing a lot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnc8qtcGwRA

And that was with only 2km ski loops!

Yeah, she had some crazy things. Once got top ten in a pursuit with missing 10 of 40.

More ridiculous than that - it was 10 of 20. Though she did win the sprint in fairness, so she was starting from a position of strength. She missed all 5 at prone 1 and then shot 10/15 after that, which is mediocre enough.

She also won silver at an U21 Worlds sprint despite only hitting 5 targets. Which would be crazy enough, except she was only 18 and would have been one of the youngest in the youth field, but was entered in the juniors 2 years early.

 

[zarnack]

Re:

What I have noticed is that Herrmann has been slowly getting better and better as the season has moved on. A big result for her somewhere could potentially happen, a bit like it happened to Eckhoff last week.

Hah, wow, and it happened.

 

[Singer01]

Wierer missed 8? Was she pissed?

 

[BullsFan22]

Watched the sprint from Cogne. First and obvious, not all the top names were there. The top Norwegians and Swedes were missing, in both men and women's fields. This allowed some skiers that normally don't make the heats, to sneak in. The Swedish women's sprint team is VERY deep and talented. It seems that whoever they put on the start will at least make the semis. That bodes well for the upcoming world's, and if not by next week, for the future. Not sure if Nilsson will race in Seefeld. She is on the official Swedish roster, and is out skiing again, but how much did she lose in training and how much pain does she have (if she does)? Again, their team is deep and they may not need her (at all) to fight for gold in the individual sprint and team sprint.

The American women did (predictably well, if we are to be honest) today. It's a skate sprint on a fast course that doesn't have a significant climb and lot's of free skating is involved, something that people like Diggins thrive on. She was forunate, twice, as she was 4th in her quarterfinal heat and 3rd in the semi to advance as LL. Again, the field wasn't as strong. Sandra Ringwald is the first German to get on the podium in a long time. She skied well last week so her form looks like it's going up, but with a the bigger names on the start lines, I don't think she'll replicate today's result nor do I actually think she'll make the final in Seefeld, but it's a sprint and you never know. The Finnish women don't really have anyone that can fight for medals in the sprint events, certainly not on a consistent basis. The Russian women were 'ok' today, but I would be a bit concerned ahead of Seefeld. Granted, they are better classic skiers and I do put them as serious gold medal contenders in the team sprint should they be in shape. The Norwegian women were, as I said, missing those that made the world's team. I have the Swedes as favorites in both sprint events on the women's side.

The Men's side is, if this season's results (and really the previous season or two as well) are any indication, a battle between Pellegrino and Klaebo with Ustiugov, possibly one or two of the Frenchies like Chanavat, Gros, Jouve, another Norwegian or two and another Russian or two (Bolshunov and Retyvikh). Ustiugov fell today. Wasn't 100% clear if he simply stepped over Pellegrino's skis on one of the corners or Pellegrino impeded him, but he lost his chance at a win (I think) today with that fall. I know that was only the quarterfinal but he was looking strong. Though the Russians didn't have the greatest glide on their skis. De Fabiani was probably the biggest surprise. I know he's improved his sprinting and this was his home turf, at altitude, but still, to not only qualify in 7th but to finish second in a skate sprint is pretty impressive, IMO.

The course seems similar to the one they'll ski next week. The weather is supposed to be like it is in Cogne, so freeze overnight but up to 9, 10 degrees Celsius during the day. Will the snow stay hard? The sprints will be held midday, for TV purposes, (we all know that XC lags behind a number of winter sports at the moment), so the conditions may be on the soft side which will no doubt have an impact. Hopefully it's not a slush fest at any point of the championships.

 

[kingjr]

Huge performance by Fillon-Maillet.

 

[zarnack]

Hah, Frida Karlsson on her World Cup debut was pushing like insane early on, but paid the price with her youthful exuberance. Smart move to test her out before the world championships to gain some experience.

 

[frenchfry]

Bolshunov pulls a Johaug. Good grief.