Nordic Skiing/Biathlon Thread

[Vino attacks everyone]

It would help if they simply would stop using salt. If they hadn't used salt today we would have seen a lot harder conditions.

The reason they salted was because they thought it would be a warmer night than what it was. If it had been warm and no salting there would have been hopeless to ski properly.

 

[Bavarianrider]

The reason they salted was because they thought it would be a warmer night than what it was. If it had been warm and no salting there would have been hopeless to ski properly.

They are overdoing it, though. No reason to turn the track into a super fast raceway. Salting cross country tracks has never been done until a few years. Not even when it was super warm. Just look at the 50km of Nagano.

 

[python]

Some interesting post race comments involving sundby... of all the norge skiers, i listen to him the most for speaking with his legs. apparently, he was not only the strongest norge in sochi, but what appears the most aggressive.

Sundby,
‘everyone knows that our team just is not strong enough at the moment,"
(wait a minute, THAT’s not what was said by the coaching staff just days ago. It was ALL attributed to bad skis) w.

Cologna,
‘if it was not for my accident, there would be one less russian on the podium. who rode over my skis ? it does not matter now (some observers thought it was sundby as he was the closest in the video)

vyleg,
‘ was I angry at sundby for the skiathlon ? not at all. I did not cut him off but tried to prevent him from passing me’

legkov,
‘was I concerned with sundby ? Yes, i was. at one point he was trying to pass me incorrectly ( a bit too close), then, i pushed him back…he snapped, that this was the last time he let me push him. i thought to myself, we shall see and i decided to let it go because we both could fall…’

 

[jsem94]

That 1-2-3 was beautiful. That's all I have to say about the 50km.

 

[Cance > TheRest]

I dunno if anyone has seen this, but it turns out Bjørndalen takes another 2 years until WC 2016 in Oslo !!!

 

[Bavarianrider]

One would think he should have enough money by now.

 

[Vino attacks everyone]

One would think he should have enough money by now.

One can say whatever one wants about his training, alone in the italian alps, but I highly doubt he does this purely for money, he seem to really love his sport.

 

[search]

Drammen sprint tomorrow, I guess you guys are pretty excited already.

Not a single post about Lahti last weekend in this thread

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Drammen sprint tomorrow, I guess you guys are pretty excited already.

Not a single post about Lahti last weekend in this thread

A bit of chat in the 'other' thread though, not in the usual accusatory way though, looking at biathlon vs. pure XC in respect of speed after Mäkäräinen's top 10 in the 10k.

There is probably a bit of an Olympic hangover going on, mind. And there's only so many times one can watch Marit Bjørgen before you've seen it all before. I missed the 15k so I can't make any comment on it, and the Nordic Combined had some godawful abomination called a "Team Sprint" which I'd prefer not to be mentioned or seen again. You think I'm too visceral about the sprints? Team Sprints make a tiny bit of sense in XC, but in NC with the Gundersen start it is just so hideously pointless. I guess the idea is that more people can compete than with the relay where there's only ever Germany, Norway, Austria, France and Japan who can podium, but giving us the artificiality of the XC team sprint but not the excitement of head to head racing that the XC version gives us, just leaves us with a messy and utterly unnecessary competition format.

They apparently are considering adding this in biathlon with mixed pairs. The deeper field in biathlon means - do they go with "Norway 1/Norway 2/Norway 3" and have the big four take up half the field? Or do they have a batch of races where only 2 of those countries' allocations of 12 are able to race? Keep the mixed pair sprints to Gelsenkirchen and Moscow please.

 

[search]

yeh, I know, and as far as I could see there wasn't much live coverage on Eurosport as well

I think the 2 men team competition in nordic combined isn't a bad idea, whether it should be labled as a "sprint" is a different thing though

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I'm interested to wonder whether the FIS will consider women's Nordic Combined in the future. Obviously with women's ski jumping still being in its relative infancy, having only just joined the Olympic program, we're some way off that. It's just that given the relatively small size of NoKo as a sport, I just wonder if they will even try for it.

 

[kingjr]

I'm interested to wonder whether the FIS will consider women's Nordic Combined in the future. Obviously with women's ski jumping still being in its relative infancy, having only just joined the Olympic program, we're some way off that. It's just that given the relatively small size of NoKo as a sport, I just wonder if they will even try for it.

Some reporter said during the Olympics that there are not enough women to give it a try. Are there even any?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Some reporter said during the Olympics that there are not enough women to give it a try. Are there even any?

At the moment, probably not. I'm just wondering if, in a few years' time once the women's ski jumping is a bit more ingrained (most of the top names are still very young at this point) and the numbers are increased, if there will be some interest in the NoKo. At the moment it would definitely be too soon to produce a worthwhile field of competition. I guess it would be dependent on how well the ski jumping takes off and then perhaps push to see if the interest in competing in it would be there.

 

[search]

I can't really see it happen anytime soon, but some organizers (especially of those nordic combined only events) might be interested as there are quite large gaps between the jumping and the cross country and not much to do for the spectators

 

[Vino attacks everyone]

Love the combined, almost as interesting as the biathlon. Only problem is that there is only 2 countries that is capable of winning (Norway and Germany)


edit: Well, Watabe is close I guess, and the finish has either changed over to ski jumping or retired.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Love the combined, almost as interesting as the biathlon. Only problem is that there is only 2 countries that is capable of winning (Norway and Germany)


edit: Well, Watabe is close I guess, and the finish has either changed over to ski jumping or retired.

You did not just say that.

 

[search]

there is a very promising finnish talent with Ilkka Herola though

and I wouldn't say it's just Norway vs Germany. Frenzel is a tad too strong at the moment, but in general there are several countries with athletes that can win, Austria (Gruber, Denifl and Bieler all won in 2013 or 2014), France (although Lamy Chappuis has'n had a good season) and sooner or later Italy will win world cups again, it has taken nearly two years for Pittin to recover from his injury but he is still young and getting better and better.

Even Hug won for Switzerland this season - although only because no one else could bother to go to Russia and compete at minus 30°C

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Don't forget Jan Schmid is sort of Swiss too

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

Exciting race in the IBU cup today.

 

[Cance > TheRest]

Exciting race in the IBU cup today.

Yeah! Ferry is the surely the funniest guy in biathlon - good win for him. Didn't watch the Womens race, but saw that Innerhofer won. Who could've expected that? Too bad, Soukalová is sick. She could've gained some points today in the overall :/

 

[search]

Don't forget Jan Schmid is sort of Swiss too

yes, that's true. And Mikko Kokslien's mother is from Finland

looks like we have a lot of no-shows for the 50k tomorrow. Will be tough to beat Cologna I think, in case he has recovered from his sickness (but apparently he has, it wasn't anything but a little cold anyway). And let's see what Tobi Angerer can do in his last ever race

 

[Cance > TheRest]

Ferry and Bjørndalen on the podium. Nice!

 

[MrRoboto]

Remember when the 50k in Holmenkollen was one of the biggest highlights of the season?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXYqMA8NZzw

 

[Bavarianrider]

Anyone got a stream?

 

[python]

quite a lively beginning in holmenkollen...sundby makes no bones about feeling good after 10 k...cologna quet.