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Nordic Skiing/Biathlon Thread

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Re:

I would like to add that Britain doesn't only have Musgrave, but also a couple of sprinters, like Andrew Young. So certainly something has been happening there. Not sure what, though.

Singer01 said:
Finally got around to watching men's mass start. How often does someone miss 5? I don't remember ever seeing that!

I remember Gontier missed all targets in one relay, which means 8 missed shots! (5+3)
 
Other than the obvious examples of cross-fire errors (which we've seen a good few of over the years) or shooting standing up during a prone shoot (Domracheva's managed this once, and nearly did it again with the crystal globe on the line!), Preuss missed all 5 in shooting 3 in the women's race earlier in the day, and Ustyugov has missed all 8 before in a very windy relay race. Oberhof is often a common thread in that, as we've also had Johannes Kühn turn up in stand in a relay, be completely unable to see the targets, fire all 8 rounds as fast as he can and go onto the loop rather than stand there for an eternity trying to find the targets, and we've had Gössner start a pursuit with bib #1, ski a lap at half-speed (for her) and still miss 5, only following in the footsteps of her mentor and predecessor of course, because Neuner threw away her best ever shooting day and a minute's lead in the Mass Start at Antholz in 2009 with 5 errors before anybody else even arrived, to go 0+0+0+5. Preuss, Bø, Ustyugov and Kühn can at least claim conditions were the main cause, I don't think the Bavarian speed queens even have that excuse.

Any 2-loop relay performance requires 5 misses, but I assume you're meaning leaving the whole set of targets unclosed rather than just missing five of eight. Also, if you look lower down the startlist, especially in the IBU Cup, you'll see a few of these from time to time, but generally speaking not from people who are among the main World Cup field, and especially not from the elite talents.
 
By the way, what does anyone think - will we see the (re-)emergence of Chinese in the next few years, particularly in biathlon? Because quite often olympic hosts try to get their act together in sports in order to leave a good impression in their home. 3 years still to go. China used to be decent in biathlon, particularly on the women side, but have gone missing this decade. XC is a longer shot, so wouldn't expect much there. Though a Chinese sprinter made it into top 30 in Seefeld, so if anything, maybe something in sprints?
 
Zhu Zhenyu and Fanqi Meng won gold in the Single Mixed Relay at the 2016 Youth Olympics, and Meng won gold in the Individual at the Junior World Championships this season, so perhaps they'll spark a resurgence?

BullsFan - perhaps part of the reason for the non-traditional nations like Britain and Andorra coming to the fore, other than that Musgrave obviously is living and training in Norway anyway, might actually be what we were discussing earlier, that for several nations where both sports are established, their kind of upper-mid-level skiers are defecting to biathlon because they aren't quick enough to win in XC and might stand a chance with the right shooting in biathlon, and in some countries biathlon even provides more funding and support than staying in XC, whereas since biathlon and XC skiing are equally minimally funded by those minor nations, there isn't the same draw towards it. Or, alternatively, if an Andrew Musgrave came along from somewhere like Germany or the Czech Republic, seeing his likely peak being a few World Cup top 10s and the success of and support for the biathlon team, may move towards that instead of spending 4-5 years of development on the XC World Cup to slowly inch forward to the point where only the Norwegian A team can beat them and they can get a good placement in championships because Norway and Russia are only allowed four starters each; while Britain has a biathlon team (Andorra hasn't entered any international biathlon since Laure Soulié retired five years ago) it offers no real appreciable advantage over the XC team, especially for somebody already based in Norway.
 
Okay folks, I didn't quite expect that the overall world cup would be resolved in such way. But Vittozzi flopped so badly she isn't even making it into top 60, and thus pursuit! Wierer has got it, unless she flops in pursuit as badly as Vittozzi did today, and leaves a minor chance for the mass start.
 
Re:

zarnack said:
Okay folks, I didn't quite expect that the overall world cup would be resolved in such way. But Vittozzi flopped so badly she isn't even making it into top 60, and thus pursuit! Wierer has got it, unless she flops in pursuit as badly as Vittozzi did today, and leaves a minor chance for the mass start.
with the two worst results striked out, it's still a bit more open than what it looks like though. Wierer is likely to lose 36 points, Vittozzi definitely 0 now.

So she now is the favorite of course, but if Wierer finishes ~10th again on Saturday, for example, she'd head into the final competition with a ~25 point lead only. That's a win for Vittozzi and 8th upwards for Wierer, to turn things around.
 
Bookies have JTB as evens to win today, i know he has a peerless record in the sprint this season but his standing shooting at the WC was so appaling, it must be playing on his mind. He blew the pursuit and mass start and nearly blew the relay. I suppose if he is going to win anything it will be the sprint where he only has to go through it once.
Also a clean prone shoot takes a lot of pressure off, when he goes into the stand knowing that 4/5 most certainly gives him a win and 3/5 gives him a decent chance.
 
So I gather Nilsson has won the sprint cup as well. Pretty impressive considering she was out with an injury for a while. But other than the period her performance was hindered by injury, she has been winning almost all sprints. Sweden's domination in that discipline is so thorough though that I could understand if someone started to complain it's bad for the sport, lol. Interesting though that nowadays women are carrying the weight of Swedish skiing these days. Not just XC, but largely also biathlon.
 
BullsFan22 said:
Frida Karlsson may be pretty but she sure doesn't ski it. Left, right, left, right, also planting the poles wide on purpose so nobody can pass her. Very nice tactics. Swedes usually don't play these kind of games (maybe Jönsson had one or two instances back in the day).

Reminds a bit Spitsov. Also today.

I'm sure I've read somewhere (maybe first time here) that bad skiing style is proper justification for a suckerpunch with pole. Poor Jessica Diggins.
 
bambino said:
BullsFan22 said:
Frida Karlsson may be pretty but she sure doesn't ski it. Left, right, left, right, also planting the poles wide on purpose so nobody can pass her. Very nice tactics. Swedes usually don't play these kind of games (maybe Jönsson had one or two instances back in the day).

Reminds a bit Spitsov. Also today.

I'm sure I've read somewhere (maybe first time here) that bad skiing style is proper justification for a suckerpunch with pole. Poor Jessica Diggins.

Well Karlsson's pole went straight to Belorukova's glasses, and I as I said, she wasn't staying in any line. Yes, the skier in front has the right of way, but it's not pleasant to ski behind or beside someone that does that, especially when you are trying to make a move. I am not condoning hitting someone else's poles, but I understand the frustration.

Spitsov made a risky move to make a pass on the top of the hill before heading back to the stadium, it's infringement when you make contact and normally people get penalized for that. Sometimes it works and you can make the move cleanly sometimes it doesn't. It didn't today for Spitsov.
Not sure what Diggins has to do with the infractions in this race or others.
 
BullsFan22 said:
bambino said:
BullsFan22 said:
Frida Karlsson may be pretty but she sure doesn't ski it. Left, right, left, right, also planting the poles wide on purpose so nobody can pass her. Very nice tactics. Swedes usually don't play these kind of games (maybe Jönsson had one or two instances back in the day).

Reminds a bit Spitsov. Also today.

I'm sure I've read somewhere (maybe first time here) that bad skiing style is proper justification for a suckerpunch with pole. Poor Jessica Diggins.

Well Karlsson's pole went straight to Belorukova's glasses, and I as I said, she wasn't staying in any line. Yes, the skier in front has the right of way, but it's not pleasant to ski behind or beside someone that does that, especially when you are trying to make a move. I am not condoning hitting someone else's poles, but I understand the frustration.

Spitsov made a risky move to make a pass on the top of the hill before heading back to the stadium, it's infringement when you make contact and normally people get penalized for that. Sometimes it works and you can make the move cleanly sometimes it doesn't. It didn't today for Spitsov.
Not sure what Diggins has to do with the infractions in this race or others.

Strange your first message didn't say anything about Belorukhova though, like there was nothing wrong on her doing. Just ugly skiing Frida...

Hint for Diggins... loosen up for humour. Not sure you have it though based on how your comrads are behaving through out the season in xcountry.

Ps. Hitting another in such sport is never understandable.
 
bambino said:
BullsFan22 said:
bambino said:
BullsFan22 said:
Frida Karlsson may be pretty but she sure doesn't ski it. Left, right, left, right, also planting the poles wide on purpose so nobody can pass her. Very nice tactics. Swedes usually don't play these kind of games (maybe Jönsson had one or two instances back in the day).

Reminds a bit Spitsov. Also today.

I'm sure I've read somewhere (maybe first time here) that bad skiing style is proper justification for a suckerpunch with pole. Poor Jessica Diggins.

Well Karlsson's pole went straight to Belorukova's glasses, and I as I said, she wasn't staying in any line. Yes, the skier in front has the right of way, but it's not pleasant to ski behind or beside someone that does that, especially when you are trying to make a move. I am not condoning hitting someone else's poles, but I understand the frustration.

Spitsov made a risky move to make a pass on the top of the hill before heading back to the stadium, it's infringement when you make contact and normally people get penalized for that. Sometimes it works and you can make the move cleanly sometimes it doesn't. It didn't today for Spitsov.
Not sure what Diggins has to do with the infractions in this race or others.

Strange your first message didn't say anything about Belorukhova though, like there was nothing wrong on her doing. Just ugly skiing Frida...

Hint for Diggins... loosen up for humour. Not sure you have it though based on how your comrads are behaving through out the season in xcountry.

Ps. Hitting another in such sport is never understandable.

Tell that to Fourcade.

My 'comrads' eh? Ignorant much?
 
What a race by the Swede women complete donimation.

In the men, Klaebo won as expected, but Bolshunov did better than expected with his fourth place and gives an important step in the fight for the overall (I think that on sunday he will break Klaebo)

Also, good to see such a long sprint race in the World Cup.
 
Did not see the sprints today. But I understand from various media that Belorukova found her inner Ustiugov/Toenseth and started punching - this time with poles. Not a good move on her part as she was the one responsible for holding an appropriate distance to Karlsson - not the other way around.

Other than that, I'm happy to see Östberg extend her lead in the World Cup. She is the ideal world cup winner in my world.
 
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Cance > TheRest said:
Did not see the sprints today. But I understand from various media that Belorukova found her inner Ustiugov/Toenseth and started punching - this time with poles. Not a good move on her part as she was the one responsible for holding an appropriate distance to Karlsson - not the other way around.

Other than that, I'm happy to see Östberg extend her lead in the World Cup. She is the ideal world cup winner in my world.

She did keep an appropriate distance to Karlsson.

a3QsRW2.png
 
Re: Re:

John de Savage said:
Cance > TheRest said:
Did not see the sprints today. But I understand from various media that Belorukova found her inner Ustiugov/Toenseth and started punching - this time with poles. Not a good move on her part as she was the one responsible for holding an appropriate distance to Karlsson - not the other way around.

Other than that, I'm happy to see Östberg extend her lead in the World Cup. She is the ideal world cup winner in my world.

She did keep an appropriate distance to Karlsson.

a3QsRW2.png


Yep, and here we can again see that Karlsson makes contact, twice, with that right handed pole:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OC9p9K1bBc

Again, I am not condoning what Belorukova did, but I can see why she was pissed. Even earlier in the heat she was swerving a lot, couldn't pick a straight line. Reminded me of Oystein "The Sausage" Pettersen. Also look at the semifinal where Kalla, Bjoernsen and Diggins crashed on the top of the first hill before the left handed turn. Karlsson was also involved.
 
Re:

Cance > TheRest said:
Did not see the sprints today. But I understand from various media that Belorukova found her inner Ustiugov/Toenseth and started punching - this time with poles. Not a good move on her part as she was the one responsible for holding an appropriate distance to Karlsson - not the other way around.

Other than that, I'm happy to see Östberg extend her lead in the World Cup. She is the ideal world cup winner in my world.

Belorukova didn't punch Karlsson, Ustiugov didn't punch anyone and neither did Toenseth. Punching is what Mike Tyson did for a living.
 
I think you have to give Frida Karlsson a bit of a break. She is just so young and inexperienced at this stage, and she is more of a distance skier anyway. Basically it was her first ever sprint on world level. She is bound to be tactically immature and all that. Despite all that not bad to end up 5th.

Edit: On other matters it looks like Pellegrino has become the bridesmaid of Kläbo. Almost always second...