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Nordic Skiing/Biathlon Thread

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meat puppet said:
BullsFan22 said:
Victoria Carl skiing ahead of Parmakoski in a 30km skate race? Now I've truly seen everything...
Just does not have it. Finnish commentators sang the virtues of her restraint clearly assuming she bounces back. In reality Karlsson hit the gas after ski change and she went boom.


Her form just isn't there in Seefeld. She hasn't been bad, she just missed out on a medal in the 10km and the she wasn't too far back in the skiathlon but walking away from Seefeld without a medal must be very disappointing for her. Maybe her skis weren't as good as the top few. The Germans, as I've been saying throughout the week, have had superior skis. In all the tough condition days this season (think Lillehammer pursuit, Seefeld...) they've nailed the waxing. Must be something about the wet, sapping snow.
 
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zarnack said:
Good race for second place. Karlsson has surprised me yet again. It's scary to think, how good she might be in the future though if she is that good already as a teenager. Clearly the hopes of someone truly taking on Johaug in the next few years rest on her. Good effort by Diggins, but not enough to save a medal to US from the championships.

About dominance the only thing I would say that it is not good for the sport in general. Plenty of countries like Germany, Italy, Czechia have thrown in the towel already. Nobody cares any more.

So far in the championships only 2 countries have won XC golds - Norway 9, Sweden 2. It's fewer countries than what has been in the past. Russia has been second in almost every men discipline. The competition keeps shrinking. I would think even Norwegians are getting bored of repetition.
As an outsider with no national stake in which nation wins, I can still appreciate the competition because I find the internal competition between the Swedes, Norwegians and Russians entertaining. I can see how it's a problem that other nations give up and thus stop contributing as much to the pool of talent, because we will never know if there are hidden talents that could potentially become great athletes from these nations. I can also see why it's a problem for the team events. But from an entertainment point of view, and in the individual competitions, I'm fully entertained watching Russian, Swedish and Norwegian athletes battle it out.
 
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zarnack said:
Good race for second place. Karlsson has surprised me yet again. It's scary to think, how good she might be in the future though if she is that good already as a teenager. Clearly the hopes of someone truly taking on Johaug in the next few years rest on her.

About dominance the only thing I would say that it is not good for the sport in general. Plenty of countries like Germany, Italy, Czechia have thrown in the towel already. Nobody cares any more.

So far in the championships only 2 countries have won XC golds - Norway 9, Sweden 2. It's fewer countries than what has been in the past. Russia has been second in every men discipline. The competition keeps shrinking. I assume even Norwegians are getting bored of repetition.
But weirdly, I think the Norwegian domination hasn't been as ridiculous as a few years ago. They have won more golds than ever before, sure, but season-long the competition has been less one-sided than ever, and even at these championships, take Klæbo and Johaug out of it, and the Norwegian team really isn't as dominant as it was a few years back. In the 30k at Lahti they took 1-2-3-4, and 1-3-4-8 in the 10k (1-5-10-19 this year). In Falun they did a 1-2 in both the skiathlon and the 30k, with all four in the top 10, and it was only because of unusual changing conditions in the 10k and some start number gambles by others that they failed so badly there. They also won both women's relay and team sprint in Falun and Lahti. In Val di Fiemme the women won every gold bar the Team Sprint, and did a 1-2-3-4 in the skiathlon and 1-3-4 in the 30k as well as a 1-2 in the 10k. They won every gold bar the Team Sprint in Holmenkollen too, and there's also the 1-2-3 in the 30k and the 1-3-4 in the skiathlon at the Sochi Olympics to count.

Overall, across these Championships, the women's XC has, largely thanks to the Swedes, seemed much less of a parade of one nation than for much of the last decade - it's just that Johaug is still an outlier and if you take her out of the results sheet, it's a much more competitive field; Østberg is proven class, but she doesn't just run away from the whole field like Therese does, and the battle between her and Karlsson after Frida dropped, and Ingvild caught and dropped, Diggins made for an interesting medal fight; Weng has been far from her best this season, as has Haga; Jacobsen has never been especially consistent but hasn't hit her best form at these championships, Falla has decided to stop racing the longer disciplines as she isn't going to adapt to them at this stage in her career the way Østberg has, and Bjørgen has retired. The Slinds, the Udnes Wengs and the new young Norwegians have yet to really hit the ground running in the same way that Andersson, Karlsson and even, preceding them, Nilsson have done (though Skistad may, given time, as the sprints are more of a lottery as a small mistake like that can cost you so much), and while they're not going to be winning races with strong fields anytime soon, the championships only allowing four starters per nation is a positive thing for athletes like von Siebenthal and Stadlober who are distance specialists, and Victoria Carl was really good today and is only 23 too. The danger is that she has made noises about biathlon in the past, and obviously hæmorrhaging talent to biathlon has been a long-standing problem for the Germans. The Russians can be competitive, at least in the sprints and the 10k, with Nepryaeva and Belorukova who are both young. Look at the Norwegians leading the charge in the World Cup: Jacobsen is 32. Johaug is 30. Eide is 29. Østberg, Haga and Falla are 28. Weng is 27. Most of them still have years in them, sure. But even when they were obliterating the calendar with veterans like Steira and Skofterud backing up Bjørgen and Johaug, they were giving young athletes more opportunities - and those young athletes, who grew up to become the Østbergs, Fallas and Wengs - were doing more with their opportunities than we're seeing from the young Norwegians now. Is the ease of winning distance with Johaug masking - as Tora Berger's success did in the biathlon - that there is actually less strength in depth than they might think?
 
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Singer01 said:
Karlsson going home with 1 of each medal, i think she would have taken that. She is going to be winning a lot more over the coming years. Diggins ski technique should come with a parental advisory warning.
Jess is nothing like as bad as her counterpart in biathlon though. Just as Diggins commits heinous Langlauf fashion crimes and has an alarming technique, watching Susan Dunklee ski... Mühlegg shakes his head in frustration at the inefficiency. And she also committed an even worse fashion crime in Canmore, doing a relay wearing polka-dot knee-length pants over her already-awful stars-and-stripes ski suit.

It had to be a bet.
 
Re: Re:

Libertine Seguros said:
Singer01 said:
Karlsson going home with 1 of each medal, i think she would have taken that. She is going to be winning a lot more over the coming years. Diggins ski technique should come with a parental advisory warning.
Jess is nothing like as bad as her counterpart in biathlon though. Just as Diggins commits heinous Langlauf fashion crimes and has an alarming technique, watching Susan Dunklee ski... Mühlegg shakes his head in frustration at the inefficiency. And she also committed an even worse fashion crime in Canmore, doing a relay wearing polka-dot knee-length pants over her already-awful stars-and-stripes ski suit.

It had to be a bet.

It was officially -19 in Canmore so as weird as it looked, to me it seemed like an extra layer of clothing and nothing more
 
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One thing I started wondering about. I know Johaug won a medal, when she was 18. Now Karlsson has won 2 individual medals at 19. Who else has won an individual medal as a teenager? I can't remember. There have been some in top 10 though.
 
Re:

zarnack said:
One thing I started wondering about. I know Johaug won a medal, when she was 18. Now Karlsson has won 2 individual medals at 19. Who else has won an individual medal as a teenager? I can't remember. There have been some in top 10 though.
not quite what you are looking for, but Astrid Jacobsen won gold a month after turning 20 in 2007
 
Re: Re:

Libertine Seguros said:
zarnack said:
Good race for second place. Karlsson has surprised me yet again. It's scary to think, how good she might be in the future though if she is that good already as a teenager. Clearly the hopes of someone truly taking on Johaug in the next few years rest on her.

About dominance the only thing I would say that it is not good for the sport in general. Plenty of countries like Germany, Italy, Czechia have thrown in the towel already. Nobody cares any more.

So far in the championships only 2 countries have won XC golds - Norway 9, Sweden 2. It's fewer countries than what has been in the past. Russia has been second in every men discipline. The competition keeps shrinking. I assume even Norwegians are getting bored of repetition.
But weirdly, I think the Norwegian domination hasn't been as ridiculous as a few years ago. They have won more golds than ever before, sure, but season-long the competition has been less one-sided than ever, and even at these championships, take Klæbo and Johaug out of it, and the Norwegian team really isn't as dominant as it was a few years back. In the 30k at Lahti they took 1-2-3-4, and 1-3-4-8 in the 10k (1-5-10-19 this year). In Falun they did a 1-2 in both the skiathlon and the 30k, with all four in the top 10, and it was only because of unusual changing conditions in the 10k and some start number gambles by others that they failed so badly there. They also won both women's relay and team sprint in Falun and Lahti. In Val di Fiemme the women won every gold bar the Team Sprint, and did a 1-2-3-4 in the skiathlon and 1-3-4 in the 30k as well as a 1-2 in the 10k. They won every gold bar the Team Sprint in Holmenkollen too, and there's also the 1-2-3 in the 30k and the 1-3-4 in the skiathlon at the Sochi Olympics to count.

Overall, across these Championships, the women's XC has, largely thanks to the Swedes, seemed much less of a parade of one nation than for much of the last decade - it's just that Johaug is still an outlier and if you take her out of the results sheet, it's a much more competitive field; Østberg is proven class, but she doesn't just run away from the whole field like Therese does, and the battle between her and Karlsson after Frida dropped, and Ingvild caught and dropped, Diggins made for an interesting medal fight; Weng has been far from her best this season, as has Haga; Jacobsen has never been especially consistent but hasn't hit her best form at these championships, Falla has decided to stop racing the longer disciplines as she isn't going to adapt to them at this stage in her career the way Østberg has, and Bjørgen has retired. The Slinds, the Udnes Wengs and the new young Norwegians have yet to really hit the ground running in the same way that Andersson, Karlsson and even, preceding them, Nilsson have done (though Skistad may, given time, as the sprints are more of a lottery as a small mistake like that can cost you so much), and while they're not going to be winning races with strong fields anytime soon, the championships only allowing four starters per nation is a positive thing for athletes like von Siebenthal and Stadlober who are distance specialists, and Victoria Carl was really good today and is only 23 too. The danger is that she has made noises about biathlon in the past, and obviously hæmorrhaging talent to biathlon has been a long-standing problem for the Germans. The Russians can be competitive, at least in the sprints and the 10k, with Nepryaeva and Belorukova who are both young. Look at the Norwegians leading the charge in the World Cup: Jacobsen is 32. Johaug is 30. Eide is 29. Østberg, Haga and Falla are 28. Weng is 27. Most of them still have years in them, sure. But even when they were obliterating the calendar with veterans like Steira and Skofterud backing up Bjørgen and Johaug, they were giving young athletes more opportunities - and those young athletes, who grew up to become the Østbergs, Fallas and Wengs - were doing more with their opportunities than we're seeing from the young Norwegians now. Is the ease of winning distance with Johaug masking - as Tora Berger's success did in the biathlon - that there is actually less strength in depth than they might think?


The Norwegians nailed their waxing. Their men nailed their form. The Russians, on the other hand, had subpar skis in virtually every race, which is not surprising, because they always have trouble waxing for the warm conditions. Ustiugov was not in form and didn’t have any luck. Bolshunov was in ok form but tactically lost two races. Bessmertnykh and Larkov had good form but were missing 3 seconds each.

The women were not as good as they have been earlier in the season. I think they skied too many races. Sedova was sick post TDS but decided to race in Otepää while sick and then missed Ulricehamn and Cogne and wasn’t at her best in Seefeld. Belorukova was ok, but terrible skis in the team sprint did her and Nepryaeva in. They were more than capable of winning gold in the team sprint.

The Norwegians dominated the medals. Apart from the Swedes and Russians, one medal from Niskanen and two from Pellegrino, there was nothing from anyone else. That’s not good for the sport.
 

Singer01

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Bookies don't hold out much hope that tomorrow won't be another Norwegian gold. Roethe, Krueger, Sundby are 3 big favourites. Hoping Musgrave can represent the UK well.
Not sure my wife will let me have 2 hours of XC skiing on the t.v. tomorrow.
Glad the biathlon starts soon, even though JTB is odds on for everything the nature of biathlon makes a sweep much less likely, and the Norwegian women are nowhere near as good as the men.

There is a very good chance that by the end of both championships Norway have more golds than the rest of the world combined, something has to change just to keep people interested.
 
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No Bolshunov nor Ustiugov on the start list. What's that? Russia has just confirmed that they are out of running for the gold. I would be amazed if any of the other guys could do it.

Musgrave, yeah. Kind of funny that if a guy coming from a country with very little snow could be Norway's biggest rival.

By the way, a quick comment on the other sports in the Nordic championships too as they have been completed.

In nordic combined Germany has stopped winning all golds in these championships. Kind of pity though that Austria, who has kept winning medals in everything that involves jumping, didn't get that elusive gold.

Ski jumping is probably in best shape in terms of international competition among the three "nordic disciplines". Germany won team event this time. Norway won at olympics (now only 5th). Before them in the worlds Poland won. And before them Austria won. You never know, what's gonna happen. And on top of that a Japanese is leading the overall world cup.
 
Re:

zarnack said:
No Bolshunov nor Ustiugov on the start list. What's that? Russia has just confirmed that they are out of running for the gold. I would be amazed if any of the other guys could do it.

Musgrave, yeah. Kind of funny that if a guy coming from a country with very little snow could be Norway's biggest rival.

By the way, a quick comment on the other sports in the Nordic championships too as they have been completed.

In nordic combined Germany has stopped winning all golds in these championships. Kind of pity though that Austria, who has kept winning medals in everything that involves jumping, didn't get that elusive gold.

Ski jumping is probably in best shape in terms of international competition among the three "nordic disciplines". Germany won team event this time. Norway won at olympics (now only 5th). Before them in the worlds Poland won. And before them Austria won. You never know, what's gonna happen. And on top of that a Japanese is leading the overall world cup.
Can't rule out the Slovenes either, they always have a wonderkid or two ready to roll off the production line, and there was a point three or four years ago when Peter Prevc was expected to win everything in the way that Kamil Stoch then started doing, and then Ryoyu Kobayashi started doing too. And Killian Peier has suddenly found a rich vein of form that might mean Switzerland has some kind of Simon Ammann succession plan.
 
Re:

zarnack said:
No Bolshunov nor Ustiugov on the start list. What's that? Russia has just confirmed that they are out of running for the gold. I would be amazed if any of the other guys could do it.

Musgrave, yeah. Kind of funny that if a guy coming from a country with very little snow could be Norway's biggest rival.

By the way, a quick comment on the other sports in the Nordic championships too as they have been completed.

In nordic combined Germany has stopped winning all golds in these championships. Kind of pity though that Austria, who has kept winning medals in everything that involves jumping, didn't get that elusive gold.

Ski jumping is probably in best shape in terms of international competition among the three "nordic disciplines". Germany won team event this time. Norway won at olympics (now only 5th). Before them in the worlds Poland won. And before them Austria won. You never know, what's gonna happen. And on top of that a Japanese is leading the overall world cup.

Ustiugov probably doesn't feel that he is able to fight for the win in this race after what happened to him in the relay.
As for Bolshunov although he would be Russia's best hope he already raced every event in these Championships and on top of that he is fighting for the overall World Cup globe with Klaebo so maybe its wise to skip this one, especially considering the amount of racing he was been doing in the last months.
I don't really understand what is Chervotkin doing in the start list considering his poor performances this year. Despite his age I think Vylesghanin would be a safer bet.
I bet in a Sundby-Roethe-Kruger podium
 
Re:

zarnack said:
No Bolshunov nor Ustiugov on the start list. What's that? Russia has just confirmed that they are out of running for the gold. I would be amazed if any of the other guys could do it.

Musgrave, yeah. Kind of funny that if a guy coming from a country with very little snow could be Norway's biggest rival.

By the way, a quick comment on the other sports in the Nordic championships too as they have been completed.

In nordic combined Germany has stopped winning all golds in these championships. Kind of pity though that Austria, who has kept winning medals in everything that involves jumping, didn't get that elusive gold.

Ski jumping is probably in best shape in terms of international competition among the three "nordic disciplines". Germany won team event this time. Norway won at olympics (now only 5th). Before them in the worlds Poland won. And before them Austria won. You never know, what's gonna happen. And on top of that a Japanese is leading the overall world cup.

Well, it was clear that Belov, Melnichenko, Spitsov trio will start the 50km race once all of them were out of the relay. I don't know if the plan for Chervotkin to start it was there all along, Now that I checked his results page on the FIS website, I saw he's done one marathon race (42km) two weeks ago in Italy and he won there so maybe they targeted this one for him. They already payed respect to Maxim putting him in the 15km C, it was a nice way of sending him to his well deserved retirement.