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Nordic Skiing/Biathlon Thread

Page 491 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
Jeanmonnot does not lead in the overall actually, she‘s 29 points behind.

My bad, I got confused. Preuß also powered Germany to a relay win today, she is in superb shape.

Proper distance racing in Davos today. Iversen back into a decent shape and Lapalus with a great podium, he also did really well in this course last year during the TDS, he will be an outside contender there once again. First bad distance race from Amundsen this season probably paid the price for reaching the sprint final yesterday and he is still a bit better in skating anyway.
 
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The long double poling sections here expose the 2nd rate double poling level in the world cup (compared to the ski classics). Nyenget has also a decent amount of Ski Classics experience and Slind needs no further introduction. As long as you don't try to double pole everything like Musgrave on this course it really helps a ton to be good at it.
 
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Saw on the results list that Sundling didn’t race. What a pity. I think in the form she is now, she could have done well.

The Swedish women only had Ilar and Henriksson race today. That’s a real shame. There were only 42 skiers on the results list. Very small once again and sad for this sport.
 
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Yes, it's called biathlon for a reason.

80% is better than Anamarija usually manages, but it's roughly what a top skier needs in order to be a top performer, looking at other top skiers of times past - Neuner (78,2% career hit rate), Domracheva (82,6%), Mäkäräinen (81,5%), Herrmann (81,0%), Braisaz (78,5%), Kuzmina (79,4%) and Eckhoff (80,0%). This therefore should be considered par for the course for a skier of her calibre - 80% is roughly what is needed for a top skier to compete for the win.

Only two women have won a race on 75% or lower shooting record in the last 15 years - Miriam Gössner in a pursuit in 2012 where she put on the most outlying ski performance of her career and started just 2 seconds behind the lead-off, and Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold in a 2021 mass start in the last race of the season where conditions were dreadful and only one woman out of 30 (Janina Hettich) shot above 75%.

Lampič's career average to date is 62,5%. That's some way off where it needs to be for her to be anything other than the occasional troubler of the top places, because her skiing is the best out there at the moment, but it's not outlying enough to counter the deficit in shooting accuracy to her nearest rivals for ski speed even among athletes of similar characteristics than her; she has a 16% lower hit rate than Braisaz-Bouchet, let alone the >21% gap to Elvira Öberg. While obviously she has the speed to win a race, she still needs at least 9/10 to do it, and even then she's still some way off the shooting records of similar styled athletes who were less successful or consistent than those I mentioned above - take, say, Hanna Sola (73,5%), Lucie Charvátová (70,6%) or Katharina Innerhofer/Komatz (72,7%). Hell, Gössner's career hit rate was 69,2% and she's basically the poster girl for outlying skiers who are too erratic to be an overall threat.

The last two races have been a promising step up for her - she went 10/12 in the relay in Hochfilzen and 8/10 today. Keep this up and eventually she will either hit that extra target she needs, or find a race where none of the types like Braisaz-Bouchet, Öberg or Simon hit 9 and get a win. But I'd also preach caution - that relay came after Slovenia had long fallen down the order so she was picking off various minor teams; and today she was in the earlier pot so there was no pressure on her shooting as none of the big guns had gone before her (and only Selina Grotian ended up anywhere near her either). She was 8th with 7/10 in Hochfilzen... but she still would have needed 9/10 to win. And she promptly then shot 10/20 in the subsequent pursuit to drop 30 places. She frequently has a pretty good sprint race - but she's never hit more than 70% in a four shoot race at the World Cup, and only once (15/20) on the IBU Cup.
 
Preuß was back to getting denied a victory by a small margin, but she has put herself in a pretty good position in the overall standings now. A very bad day for Jeanmonnot on the other hand. JBB is not out of it yet, but one could easily see her miss a lot of targets tomorrow.
A shame for the overall battle that back problems has forced Davidová to skip this WC round right when she was finding her best form again.
 
Yes, it's called biathlon for a reason.

80% is better than Anamarija usually manages, but it's roughly what a top skier needs in order to be a top performer, looking at other top skiers of times past - Neuner (78,2% career hit rate), Domracheva (82,6%), Mäkäräinen (81,5%), Herrmann (81,0%), Braisaz (78,5%), Kuzmina (79,4%) and Eckhoff (80,0%). This therefore should be considered par for the course for a skier of her calibre - 80% is roughly what is needed for a top skier to compete for the win.

Only two women have won a race on 75% or lower shooting record in the last 15 years - Miriam Gössner in a pursuit in 2012 where she put on the most outlying ski performance of her career and started just 2 seconds behind the lead-off, and Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold in a 2021 mass start in the last race of the season where conditions were dreadful and only one woman out of 30 (Janina Hettich) shot above 75%.

Lampič's career average to date is 62,5%. That's some way off where it needs to be for her to be anything other than the occasional troubler of the top places, because her skiing is the best out there at the moment, but it's not outlying enough to counter the deficit in shooting accuracy to her nearest rivals for ski speed even among athletes of similar characteristics than her; she has a 16% lower hit rate than Braisaz-Bouchet, let alone the >21% gap to Elvira Öberg. While obviously she has the speed to win a race, she still needs at least 9/10 to do it, and even then she's still some way off the shooting records of similar styled athletes who were less successful or consistent than those I mentioned above - take, say, Hanna Sola (73,5%), Lucie Charvátová (70,6%) or Katharina Innerhofer/Komatz (72,7%). Hell, Gössner's career hit rate was 69,2% and she's basically the poster girl for outlying skiers who are too erratic to be an overall threat.

The last two races have been a promising step up for her - she went 10/12 in the relay in Hochfilzen and 8/10 today. Keep this up and eventually she will either hit that extra target she needs, or find a race where none of the types like Braisaz-Bouchet, Öberg or Simon hit 9 and get a win. But I'd also preach caution - that relay came after Slovenia had long fallen down the order so she was picking off various minor teams; and today she was in the earlier pot so there was no pressure on her shooting as none of the big guns had gone before her (and only Selina Grotian ended up anywhere near her either). She was 8th with 7/10 in Hochfilzen... but she still would have needed 9/10 to win. And she promptly then shot 10/20 in the subsequent pursuit to drop 30 places. She frequently has a pretty good sprint race - but she's never hit more than 70% in a four shoot race at the World Cup, and only once (15/20) on the IBU Cup.

Have you ever done a biathlon race?
 
The way JTB is going this season and with some of his Norwegian teammates a bit less good than in the previous season, I think he will beat Bjørndalen's record already next season. Big shoutout to Perrot, who is slowly becoming one of the best biathletes in the world.

Preuß looking superb once again, she is building a really solid lead in the world cup.