Nordic Skiing/Biathlon Thread

[roundabout]

Personally it's slightly better than I expected.

 

[crapna]

LIVO!

Like Janne Immonen

 

[meat puppet]

eff me, hellner tries something

 

[python]

i dont understand why harvey is not sharing the front

he clearly slowed allowing a couple of lingering skiers like chernousov rejoin the pack. if the swedes are to drop the hammer they have only 8 km...as soon as i finished typing this, hellner went to the front

 

[meat puppet]

cologna and vyleg attack

 

[python]

those 2 little hills with 1k to go is the typical vyleg ground for his sneaky attacks...

was i right or what !

m hero today though was alex harvey !

 

[Bavarianrider]

No medals for Norway

 

[python]

poor dario he must be now acquiring the vyleg complex, just like everyone is clearly ALREADY having a norge complex...

will be interesting if northug is still going to show ANYTHING in the team sprint after today's efforts. if he does, the clinic will explode

 

[Bavarianrider]

Will they go up the M?rderbaken in the 15km and 50km also?

If so, no medals for Northug there, too

 

[meat puppet]

yup, good call python.

 

[Lupetto]

Will they go up the M?rderbaken in the 15km and 50km also?

If so, no medals for Northug there, too

The steep section in the 15km race two times. And five times on the 50km in classic style.

They won't do it in the relay.

 

[ToreBear]

Well done by Maxim. Finally number one!

 

[jens_attacks]

thank you vylgeg. no seriously, thank you thank you!

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

Chances are Bjorgen and Weng in top form would've made it a quadruple. I get why Marit peaked for the TdS, since it's the one prestigious race she had never won, but why didn't Heidi prioritize the Worlds?

That Northug fellow sure is poor in mass starts. Not a single W in the last 3 years.

 

[ToreBear]

Chances are Bjorgen and Weng in top form would've made it a quadruple. I get why Marit peaked for the TdS, since it's the one prestigious race she had never won, but why didn't Heidi prioritize the Worlds?

That Northug fellow sure is poor in mass starts. Not a single W in the last 3 years.

I wouldn't draw your conclusions based on one race. There are far to many variables involved.

Yep that Northug dude should really stick to individual races.

 

[neineinei]

21 year old Alina Yakimkina died in competition at the 2015 Russian Biathlon Cup in Tyumen.

RIP

http://tass.ru/sport/1783821

 

[Pazuzu]

Chances are Bjorgen and Weng in top form would've made it a quadruple. I get why Marit peaked for the TdS, since it's the one prestigious race she had never won, but why didn't Heidi prioritize the Worlds?

She's still pretty young. Maybe she figures she'll have better opportunities to win WC medals in the future as she continues to improve.

 

[ToreBear]

21 year old Alina Yakimkina died in competition at the 2015 Russian Biathlon Cup in Tyumen.

RIP

http://tass.ru/sport/1783821

These things happen to young people from time to time. Each time they are just as sad. Rest in Peace Alina.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

21 year old Alina Yakimkina died in competition at the 2015 Russian Biathlon Cup in Tyumen.

RIP

http://tass.ru/sport/1783821

That's terrible. Must be pretty traumatizing for the competitors on track with her as well. While as ToreBear notes, this kind of thing does happen occasionally, and as was discussed on the forum back when Fabrice Muamba had his on-pitch collapse, athletes are at higher risk of sudden cardiac problems than the general population, it doesn't make it any less shocking or surprising when it does.

She's still pretty young. Maybe she figures she'll have better opportunities to win WC medals in the future as she continues to improve.

Heidi's still never won a World Cup race. When you look at some of the people who have, that's pretty crazy. That's part of the price you pay for being good at distance these days though; the field is not deep enough to allow for proper distance specialists, and those races don't allow for the factor of luck to the same extent as the sprints. It feels like for most of the season, the mass start distance races have basically been Marit leading a chasing duo of Therese and Heidi, then everybody else way back. Obviously the Worlds are a different matter with different people peaking, and Heidi is still plenty young enough to have future opportunities, maybe she just messed up her timing of when she peaks.

 

[ToreBear]

That's terrible. Must be pretty traumatizing for the competitors on track with her as well. While as ToreBear notes, this kind of thing does happen occasionally, and as was discussed on the forum back when Fabrice Muamba had his on-pitch collapse, athletes are at higher risk of sudden cardiac problems than the general population, it doesn't make it any less shocking or surprising when it does.

Heidi's still never won a World Cup race. When you look at some of the people who have, that's pretty crazy. That's part of the price you pay for being good at distance these days though; the field is not deep enough to allow for proper distance specialists, and those races don't allow for the factor of luck to the same extent as the sprints. It feels like for most of the season, the mass start distance races have basically been Marit leading a chasing duo of Therese and Heidi, then everybody else way back. Obviously the Worlds are a different matter with different people peaking, and Heidi is still plenty young enough to have future opportunities, maybe she just messed up her timing of when she peaks.

Heidi still has yet to figure out the peaking thing. Usually she just gets better as the season progresses and is at her best in March. It might be she and the coaches have figured this out this year, or she will just keep improving through the season. I think it's part of development of learning how your body reacts to training and racing.

As for yesterdays performance, to me it looked like she had terrible glide on the classic part. One of the things that make Marit so great is that she has an enormous amount of skis for different conditions. Heidi is still too young to have amassed such a good inventory as well as the experience in racing in various conditions. So with the selection of skis not fitting the conditions it's not hard to imagine her struggling in yesterdays conditions.

It could of course be she has suddenly dropped out of form, but in my mind, skis/condition/technique were her issues yesterday.

As for Marit, it just seemed like she had a really bad day. She has elected to not start in the sprint relay to get some rest.

As for Heidi not being on the top of the podium, I think she is close, but Marit being the best female skier of all time, I think second to her is a victory in it self. Weng is the only one I currently see being able to beat Marit in a sprint after a long race.

In a purer sprint, Stina Nillson is the one with the best chance to beat Marit.

 

[python]

on a lighter note, the corpulent lady-n-chief of the russian ski federation suggested that the norge women should compete in men's races...not to be outdone, one of her chief coaches (next to v?lbe in the picture) suggested that petter northug is a...a real russian....b/c he can drink, compete and win
(norwegian)
http://www.adressa.no/100Sport/mesterskap/article493921.snd

and the secret behind the alex harvey's success yesterday was also revealed - it was due to some incredible cakes prepared a swedish cook
(english)
http://fasterskier.com/article/harv...bronze-for-second-medal-of-2015-world-champs/

if seriously, the article goes into some very interesting comments about the race, the conditions, tactics etc both by alex himself and the canadian coach.

in about 20 minutes, we'll have the ladies team sprint start. i looked up the start list quickly...no bjoergen, but justyna is in. also a surprise is that randall will NOT be running for the usa. among men, the start list has no surprises except i do not see hellner on the swedish team.

will be interesting how northug will perform in a 3d race in a row...

who will win ? the ladies i believe swedes p), men ? - russians or norges.

 

[meat puppet]

the swedish ladies will have a hard time winning, I guess. stina nilsson was awesome in the classic individual sprint, but not very impressive ie seemingly tired and stiff while skating in the semis today. ingemarsdottir was very solid though.

E: well, nilsson was stiff and tired, but mustered an impressive last 500m and sprint. norway overpowered the others. no surprise there.

 

[python]

the swedish ladies will have a hard time winning,

of course, it was a tongue in cheek. the norge girls could enter 2 teams and still take both top places. i am truly happy for the poles and justyna's bronze

men's final just started, it will be interesting to see the tactic...i was very impressed by kriukov's elegant skate in the semis. he is supposed to be a classic specialist, isn't...

edit, there is no tactic per se ....the norges attacked from the start

 

[roundabout]

Should have entered Krogh in the 30 as well.

 

[python]

one world-famous sprint coach in a recent interview made an interesting comment. he thinks it is obvious that northug had stressed sprint training this season and THAT explains his sprint dominance...he also made another bold observation...he thinks that due to the same emphasis on sprints, petter wont win any individual distance golds in falun.

we'll see...so far he was right.