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Nordic Skiing/Biathlon Thread

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I live in the states as well, but try the YouTube channel ‘nalyzhi’ (on skis) they also have a page on VK, essentially the Russian version of Facebook: https://m.vk.com/nalyzhi.

You can also try typing in ‘Лыжные гонки’ to YouTube and try most recent. Unfortunately there’s no coverage of the most recent Russian cup races on tv, so the Russian fans seem to be relying on amateur footage.
That's a bummer, I hoped for some proper TV coverage. The way Välbe was talking about it, as a paralell season to the World Cup, I kinda expected it.
 
The biathlon, by the way, is like that. Full TV coverage and broadcast start to finish, easy to find on youtube. With the same graphics as the World Cup, just in Cyrillic, and commentary by the same team that do the World Cup over there, so they're pulling double duty now.

Basically all that the Russian XC federation said they were gonna do, the Russian biathlon federation did actually do.
 
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WC win number 60 for JTB, current win streak stands at 5.

Barring injury/sickness, the question the men's biathlon season is pretty much reduced to see how JTB 2022 edition stands against historic achievements.

Can he challenge any of these all time records?

Most wins in a season - 16 (JTB already holds this)
Longest consecutive win streak at - 8 (Bjørndalen)
Most consecutive podiums - 18 (Fourcade)
Most podiums in a season - 22 (Fourcade)
 
WC win number 60 for JTB, current win streak stands at 5.

Barring injury/sickness, the question the men's biathlon season is pretty much reduced to see how JTB 2022 edition stands against historic achievements.

Can he challenge any of these all time records?

Most wins in a season - 16 (JTB already holds this)
Longest consecutive win streak at - 8 (Bjørndalen)
Most consecutive podiums - 18 (Fourcade)
Most podiums in a season - 22 (Fourcade)
Does he have the desire to keep going to get past OEB's win total?
Laegreid must be getting really pissed off with him. He is becoming the early career Heidi Weng of biathlon.
 
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Does he have the desire to keep going to get past OEB's win total?
Laegreid must be getting really pissed off with him. He is becoming the early career Heidi Weng of biathlon.

JTB is on record saying he will continue until after the 2026 olympics.
He looks to be better than ever, so he should have a decent chance of surpassing OEB by then.

Because of his incredible 20/21 season Lægreid already has 9 individual wins (and 8 2nd place finishes)to his name in a relatively short career, which means so far he is winning at a far higher rate than Weng ever has when on the podium.
Could be that those stats will become more similar to Weng though if JTB continues his alien mode, but I think it is more likely he will end up in the Hegle Svendsen/Fischer range by the time he is done.
 
The biathlon, by the way, is like that. Full TV coverage and broadcast start to finish, easy to find on youtube. With the same graphics as the World Cup, just in Cyrillic, and commentary by the same team that do the World Cup over there, so they're pulling double duty now.

Basically all that the Russian XC federation said they were gonna do, the Russian biathlon federation did actually do.
That actually surprises me, one would assume that the Skiing federation has more money and influence than them, maybe Välve's "neutral" stance rubbed some people the wrong way (pure speculation on my behalf).

Back to XC skiing, Pellegrino said that he knew that Mocellini was strong because he manhandled him in every roller ski classic double pole sprint training during the summer, according to him it wasn't even a fight. He still had some questions about his recovery and the ability to be able to produce the same effort and the end of a race with multiple climbs (and a hard surface like asphalt probably favours pure strength and having long limbs/great leverages).
 
Golberg missing Davos. The Swedes will be without Andersson, Karlsson, Halfvarsson, etc. It’s going to be a poorly attended weekend.
Apparently Golberg has a cold, Klaebo on the other hand will be there. But yeah, besides the many people who already wanted to skip the race lots of others have picked up a cold/gotten sick recently. Usually the gap between the Norwegians and the rest gets smaller in Central Europe, but I'm not sure if the French and the Germans will be able to put up a fight in the skating distance race.
 
Apparently Golberg has a cold, Klaebo on the other hand will be there. But yeah, besides the many people who already wanted to skip the race lots of others have picked up a cold/gotten sick recently. Usually the gap between the Norwegians and the rest gets smaller in Central Europe, but I'm not sure if the French and the Germans will be able to put up a fight in the skating distance race.

Swedish team will be made up of B and C skiers, including marathon racer Ida Dahl.

My prognosis is the Americans will go 1-2 in the women’s 20.

I haven’t heard anything on other top Norwegian men missing this weekend, so Krüger, Holund, Røthe will all figure.
 
Swedish team will be made up of B and C skiers, including marathon racer Ida Dahl.

My prognosis is the Americans will go 1-2 in the women’s 20.

I haven’t heard anything on other top Norwegian men missing this weekend, so Krüger, Holund, Røthe will all figure.
Tbf, Dahl was 4th in that Swedish 15km prep race where Andersson won just ahead f Karlsson, so besides those 2 she's probably already one of the best distance skiers on the Swedish team.
 
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Tbf, Dahl was 4th in that Swedish 15km prep race where Andersson won just ahead f Karlsson, so besides those 2 she's probably already one of the best distance skiers on the Swedish team.
Sweden has like 3 good distance skiers and rest of the team consists of sprinters which can preform in distance under the right circumstances. No sprinters took part in the Bruksvakallarna race. But I expect Dahl to be around 20th position based on her that preformance, maybe better because of altitude acclimatization advantage I think she is equally good in skate as classics (when forced to go with grip wax).
 
Sweden has like 3 good distance skiers and rest of the team consists of sprinters which can preform in distance under the right circumstances. No sprinters took part in the Bruksvakallarna race. But I expect Dahl to be around 20th position based on her that preformance, maybe better because of altitude acclimatization advantage I think she is equally good in skate as classics (when forced to go with grip wax).
Yeah, if it was 20km classic she'd probably just try to double pole all of it with no wax skis.
 
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Yeah, if it was 20km classic she'd probably just try to double pole all of it with no wax skis.
Sure, problem is FIS usually prevents by these techniques zone but sure she should be able to double pole most of the World Cup courses with good results.

Dahl is btw one of the few Swedish female skier who wasn’t a junior star and still is competing. That’s thanks to the Ski Classics teams, maybe this could be a solution for other countries as well since FIS are not prioritizing this at all. Norway of course has a huge program which let late bloomers like Kalvaa and Theodorsen and continue until they became really good.

Bad news is even if Ebba Andersson is now back in training she is out from Tour de Ski and won’t compete until mid January.
 
JTB is on record saying he will continue until after the 2026 olympics.
He looks to be better than ever, so he should have a decent chance of surpassing OEB by then.

Because of his incredible 20/21 season Lægreid already has 9 individual wins (and 8 2nd place finishes)to his name in a relatively short career, which means so far he is winning at a far higher rate than Weng ever has when on the podium.
Could be that those stats will become more similar to Weng though if JTB continues his alien mode, but I think it is more likely he will end up in the Hegle Svendsen/Fischer range by the time he is done.
I meant Weng like this season, not historically. You are that high on Laegreid? Comparable to Svendsen?
Edit, I didn't realise Laegreid was only just 25, looks much older. He therefore has the chance to add a alot more wins, especially if he can get his standing improved even moderately (currently 98% in prone is nuts, what's the best % over a full season?).
Riiber and Westvold Hansen make NC dull dull dull.
 
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I meant Weng like this season, not historically. You are that high on Laegreid? Comparable to Svendsen?
Edit, I didn't realise Laegreid was only just 25, he has the chance to add a alot more wins, especially if he can get his standing improved even moderately (currently 98% in prone is nuts, what's the best % over a full season?).

Simon Eder had a 94% hit rate in prone standing in the 2020/21 season, but he may have done better in earlier seasons. He's currently on 100% this season.
 
Voigt hit 10/10, but was still way off the pace. Anna Magnusson takes a surprising win ahead of Linn Persson and Hermann. I was rooting for Sophie Chauveau on the last lap, but she was too tired at the end to take a podium in front of the home crowd. Three French women in the top 10 and none of them were Simon.
 
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I meant Weng like this season, not historically. You are that high on Laegreid? Comparable to Svendsen?
Edit, I didn't realise Laegreid was only just 25, looks mich older. He therefore has the chance to add a alot more wins, especially if he can get his standing improved even moderately (currently 98% in prone is nuts, what's the best % over a full season?).
Riiber and Westvold Hansen make NC dull dull dull.

Anything could obviously happen, but on average 3-4 wins a year over a decade long career seems realistic to me.

Yeah, I am sure Riiber is a greath athlete, but I just skip the NC...
I used to watch pretty much all winter sports, but nowadays I skip most that's not Biathlon and alpine skiing.
It's just more exciting to watch than pretty much all other winter sports.
 
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Suprise victory for Magnusson! I am so happy for her, for an athlete that been there for a long time without success. She was very talented as junior almost equal to Hanna Öberg and the first WC-season were promising. Then her progress stopped and she had problem with her hand and periosteum. At a time she was almost outside the a-team but she has slowly build back she was 7th in Olympics and started this season good.

I knew she is good at altitude and the soft conditions suits her (still having problems with periosteum means hard surface is challenging for her) but I wouldn’t dreamed of performance like this 4th fastest ski and fastest on the last loop. But that’s the beauty of biathlon, if all pieces place together you get really good results.

Over to CC and Davos, I noticed the womens field consists of 39 skiers in the sprint. It’s really bad. Illness plays a part and Sweden have only 2 starters now that Svahn , Karlsson & Sundling declined and Ribom, Dahlquist, Hallqvist, Ilar and Dyvik are ill. But I also read some teams (like the Czech) are skipping Davos entirely because it is too expensive and FIS is doing nothing.
 
Sad state of affairs at the cross country World Cup. When was the last time there were that few skiers? I didn’t know about the Czechs. The Swedish team keeps getting hit with sicknesses. Only two women lining up tomorrow. As a comparison, during the Covid season, when the Finns, Norwegians and Swedes skipped the Davos and Dresden races, 51 women raced the sprint. The Russians had 6 women in that race. There were 80 men that season. Now there are 67.

Maybe FIS should worry about the lack of skiers at their races rather than worrying about distances. First promote the sport to get more skiers and more countries (from all over the world) represented and once they are there, then worry about equal distances.