Re:
kingjr said:
For Rastorgujevs the boat may already have sailed. Hofer is a different story.
You never know though, Eberhard used to be a similarly wild "ski fast, shoot fast with eyes closed and hope" athlete who somehow managed to get it together enough to win a few races once he was about 30. Andi Birnbacher was also 30 when he got his first win, and managed to parlay that into a great run of form after Michi Greis retired that saw him become the de facto leader of the German men until Schempp was ready to take that role. Kühn is another who has the speed, so could get a surprise win if, like in the Individual at Pokljuka, he hits all the targets (still can't believe he did that). For the most part it's the same big few teams - Germany, Norway, France, Russia - among the men, but there's a few that could upset the apple cart, Hofer as you mentioned, Sebastian Samuelsson, I wonder about Sean Doherty if he stays injury-free for a couple of seasons too, he was great and really quick as a junior. The Czech men seem to have come out the other side of their golden period as Slesingr and Moravec get old, but Krcmár is good on his day.
For the women there are far fewer teams that are top-down strong as a unit meaning there are far more nationalities up at the front or at least with a chance to win, which increases the number of potential audience nations I guess. The top 2 in the World Cup are Italians, the Germans have a strong team, both with people who are proven champions (Dahlmeier), people who are popular and sympathetic (Preuß) and people who can win races or come 85th on any given day (Herrmann). France have a very strong - and young - team which again has people like Braisaz who could win or miss the pursuit. Norway's team now has a proper leader in Røiseland/Olsbu, given that Eckhoff is just way too inconsistent, and Sweden have a good young team too. Russia have finally found a way past their purgatory of journeywomen like Shumilova and Uslugina filling the team and are seeing some new faces establish themselves, and while the Czechs no longer have Koukalová at the head of the field, it doesn't look like it'll be too long before Davidová becomes the heroine for their team either. Belarus and Ukraine are in transition with their stars retiring or aging but they've got young people coming through, while Finland still has Kaisa and Slovakia has the pressure taken off Kuzmina by Fialková this season too. Hojnisz has finally found some consistency bringing the Poles back to some kind of prominence that they haven't had in six years, while the US, Austria and even Japan have some outsiders who can make a flower ceremony or two. Even those teams that DO have strength in depth either have no obvious leader (Russia, France) or a number of unpredictable or unreliable athletes (Germany, Norway) that means their success does not feel inevitable, and in the relays you see nations less deep in talent produce great performances as they isolate it as a good way to develop other athletes in high pressure environments.
It's easy to see why that holds more of an audience than XC where the Norwegian C team can usually beat the German, Czech, Canadian, Ukrainian A teams. The other thing is, the factor of the shooting. There are a lot of people mentioned up there - Herrmann, Doll, Kühn, Hofer, Mäkäräinen, Eckhoff, Eberhard - and plenty of others I didn't mention - not least Bø, Fourcade, Dahlmeier et al - who would be reasonable XC skiers (and indeed Herrmann WAS a reasonable XC skier). But quite a few biathletes are not the best XC skiers out there - they rely on excellent shooting drills (eg Eder, Wierer) or consistency in the range (eg Skardino, Semenov) to bring them results. The additional factor of the shooting means that the chance of getting results on a World Cup kind of level is open to more people than it ever would be in a pure XC skiing race because those that aren't among the best XC skiers can perform out of their skin in the range on a difficult shooting day and make podiums and flower ceremonies. The fastest biathletes can be at a very good level skiing-wise - look at the myriad performances by the likes of Lars Berger in the World Cup, or Miriam Gössner missing the podium in the 10k free at Val di Fiemme by half a second - but they also don't win that often because of their unreliable shooting. People like Irina Kryuko, Serhiy Semenov, Rosanna Crawford, Martin Ponsiluoma, Antonin Guigonnat, Monika Hojnisz - these can podium a World Cup event in biathlon which they would never have the chance to do in XC, notwithstanding the colossal funding gap between the best XC nations and the smaller teams. And that is a large reason why talent hæmorrhages from XC to biathlon in almost every non-major XC nation.