Nordic Skiing/Biathlon Thread

[jsem94]

So many Swedes taking a tumble there... woah.

Congratz to the winners. It's sad that both dominants made it to their respective finals. The tour is definitely over now.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I'm starting to fear that Heidi is never going to win a race, and it's going to destroy her.

 

[jsem94]

Therese will have to have a dip in form or get sick or something. Then she's in with a shot.

 

[Cance > TheRest]

Re: Re:

Nice win by Iversen. A class above Ustiugov in the sprint.

yep, iversen was the strongest. he proved it. a class above ustiugov who won all his heats in the conditions that did not favour heavy skiers ? i would not say so. btw, iversen looks a tad like some finns or as if he has a mix of eastern asian in him. not that it matters, but does anyone know ?..

some other impressions. the caldwell win was a pleasant surprise. doubt she herself still believes it. as expected, those who started in the last semi were disadvantaged in terms of recovery and it showed on sundby and northug. the krogh fall increased his handicap to northug and ustiugov, but i think he's still 3d overall (?) what else ? cologna was below par imo, poltoranin is getting into shape and i hope he will say his word in the remaining classic events.
ustiugov looks more and more like a guy for the podium. i would love to see if he can lift his massive body up cermes better that petter.

I was referring to the sprint in the last 500 meters. Coming from behind and closing a gap, then winning the sprint by 10 meters. I'd say that's a class above Ustiugov in the deciding sprint finish.

 

[Singer01]

Re:

I'm starting to fear that Heidi is never going to win a race, and it's going to destroy her.

she is still very young though, while MB and TJ had victories by her age they were nowhere near the level they subsequently became.
i'm hoping when she eventually gets it right the floodgates will open.

 

[swixplank]

My main concern is that like cycling the women are not competing over the same distances as the men. This is frankly ridiculous, it makes much of the discussion about the merits of various skiers capabilities fairly meaningless, for instance, to call 5km in cross country skiing a distance event is silly, especially when the women's "sprint" event in the biathlon is 2.5km further.
Winter sport is run by men, as evidenced by the attitude of the ski jumping committee who are doing everything in their power to marginalise women ski jumpers, probably because they are often out jumping the men. However that is another subject.
Back to cross country / biathlon, make all distances between men and women equal, get rid of the bonuses and have an equal balance between classic and free.
Apologies for being a little contentious on my first post.

 

[Bavarianrider]

So Johaug didn't get punished for her obvious skating in the sprint.
As always Norwegians cheats get away with whatever they do. What a joke Fis is.

 

[jens_attacks]

Go heidi weng, your day today

 

[jens_attacks]

Go oestberg you have this.

 

[jens_attacks]

Now that was a hard ridden race.
Congrats to lady pantani, unstoppable

 

[meat puppet]

sundby bad day? 24sec off the pace.

 

[jens_attacks]

Russia kill sundby today plz

Go poltoranin-legkov!

 

[jens_attacks]

Epic poltoranin win

Kudos to sundby, i like him more when he suffers.
Peaking for so long might make him lose this tour

Great race today anyway.

 

[jsem94]

MJS showing he is sometimes human I guess. Nice to see Cologna back to some better form, and Poltoranin is too good in those classic mass starts to lose.

 

[python]

this is a sweat sensation...sundry sundby a triple sweat - poltoranin won, that's two and northug did not sneak out from anyone's back. that's a third sweat...

actually i suspected something is going on with sundby when he posted only the 29th fastest time in the pursuit 2 days ago, behind the fastest krogh and legkov...

the tds is now wide open.

 

[Gigs_98]

I don't watch XC skiing very often, but today I watched the men's race and it really turned out to be a very good idea.

 

[Trond Vidar]

Strategy (from the norwegian coach) is that there is no team strategy. Everyone for themselves.

26 sec @ 10.75km
39 sec @ 12.75km
56 sec @ Finish

Tough day for Sundby

Never been so happy to see a non-norwegian top 3! good for the sport.

Notes from the interview:
- Petter N said he really felt heavy after the sprint yesterday. Struggled through the last 2-3 rounds. Says the tour starts now.
- Niklas Dyrhaug was set to up the pace after the second sprint, and he felt good and strong - so he did. Got the word a 1km later from management that he needed to slow down because of Martin.
- Martin said he had a really bad day. Loses lots of seconds. No excuses, just crap form.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Mythical Alexey Poltoranin! Mighty performance and distance Classic specialist!

I am now greatly fearing that if Sundby has another off-day Petter Northug could actually win this, even though he typically wilts on the Alpe. Will root for Ustiugov, Poltoranin or Tønseth to save that misery, although if Sjur Røthe can get himself a bit closer I am a fan...

 

[BullsFan22]

Re:

Mythical Alexey Poltoranin! Mighty performance and distance Classic specialist!

I am now greatly fearing that if Sundby has another off-day Petter Northug could actually win this, even though he typically wilts on the Alpe. Will root for Ustiugov, Poltoranin or Tønseth to save that misery, although if Sjur Røthe can get himself a bit closer I am a fan...

Poltoranin will need to have one of his best ever skate races on Friday, win another classic 15km mass start on Saturday and hope for the best on Sunday's final stage. It's gonna be hard for him to win. Not only because he is over 1:30 back, but because that hill climb is for him, like Northug, a weakness. I think if he podiums he would have done well. Ustiugov, not sure. This is his first tour, and he's shown remarkable consistency and poise. It's not really too surprising to see him up there though, he's shown this sort of promise as a junior and u23, where he dominated. I think he'll need to do something special in the final 3 stages, and hope that Sundby has another off day or two. Same for Northug. Sundby is still in the driver's seat. Everyone else might be too far behind. I think the mass start on Saturday will tell all.

 

[Mr. Brooks]

Re:

Strategy (from the norwegian coach) is that there is no team strategy. Everyone for themselves.

I would have hoped so, as I wasn’t particularly impressed by the 2013-incident (Flugstad Østberg deliberately stopping before the finish line to let Størmer Steira pass). However, coach Nystad explains that they did try to communicate to the team what was going on but didn’t get through because of all the noise. Apart from that the word is that MJS skis were not particularly good yesterday. Martin himself does not want to express any opinions in public on this («no excuses»). Whatever, this made the rest of the tour a lot more interesting than I had expected – good!

 

[python]

so, what happened to sundby ? nystad told nrk it was due to martin's skis...perhaps, but i think it was more likely due to his form sliding off the peak. i could be wrong, but in one of my posts above i referred to the 1st troubling signal i noticed after the skating pursuit.

hardly any commentator i read made a big deal of it or even mentioned that sundby's absolute time was... near the bottom of the top 30 losing to the fastest krogh and legkov something like 30+ seconds. i do realize the limitations of over-analyzing the pursuit results b/c tactical racing obviously influenced the times too. for instance, northug decided to squander a dozen seconds waiting for a teammate's back to hide behind. also, krogh fast time can be also explained by 'sucking' on the very fast skis of roethe and ustiugov. nevertheless, martin up front was in a full time trial mode. i doubt it would make sense for him to go anything but a full throttle when 5 more races were still ahead. iirc, right after the pursuit he said something like, one more race like this and i can lose too much.

of course then there was a classic sprint where he placed high and showed again good speed. but efforts like that cost double if the body already had started to climb down.

if my observations were correct, what we saw yesterday fits my theory. but again, i could be wrong as well and martin will again stomp everyone tomorrow.

among other noteworthy observations is that legkov was uncharacteristically strong in not his preferred style and that both northug and ustiugov despite huge suffering at the finish engaged in the personal rivalry. i was also surprised by poltoranin's post race comment that he will be fighting for the podium. that's despite his ALWAYS mediocre performance on the alpe cermis.

 

[Kokoso]

Czech biathlon news

Czech men and women haven't deployed six men and women in world cup until now, when they deploy Adam Václavík. Women stay five in number. Is this normal situation with other countries, not to deploy all possible biatlhletes in world cup?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Re: Czech biathlon news

Czech men and women haven't deployed six men and women in world cup until now, when they deploy Adam Václavík. Women stay five in number. Is this normal situation with other countries, not to deploy all possible biatlhletes in world cup?

I don't think the Belarusians have deployed all 6 women a few times this season too. I wouldn't say it's a "normal" situation, but that's mainly as only the top 5 countries get an allocation of six, and usually Norway, Germany, Russia and France account for four of those and their budget and resources cover six athletes easily (although for a while the French sent five women because Laure Soulié, representing Andorra, trained and lodged with them) and they have loads of IBU Cup options at a reasonable level so it's only if they get injuries or illnesses that they wouldn't fill the allocations.

I am surprised at the Czechs not entering six women at most races though, they've got a lot of talents coming through the system, the venues the World Cup has been at so far aren't too far away from them and are Schengen. I'm less surprised by Belarus mainly as the bulk of their points were Domracheva's, and with her out, strength in depth is lacking a bit and also the logistical issues are greater for them.

 

[Bavarianrider]

So the one and only indivdual start races in this Tour yet again are a frightening 5 and 10 kilometres long. Sorry, but that's simply a joke. Fis is run by a bunch of retards.

 

[jens_attacks]

ridiculous short but i hope russia goes thermonuclear on sundby