Nordic Skiing/Biathlon Thread

[KZD]

Laegreid was surprisingly slow in the first weekend races but in this last week he has been superb and was the best male athlete of the World Championships. Right now, it even looks like he may win the World Cup although JTB is still the favourite especially because there is not any other individual race. Dale also doing some great championships, only the gold medal missed but he will get one if he enters in the Norwegian relays. QFM finally gets a medal but France was the opposite of Laegreid, from plus to minus. A shame the final misses from Fak and Eder and has something happen to Jacquelin to see him so demoralised?

In the women's Hauser showed again that she became one of the best biathletes of the world and she may really become a World Cup contender in the next year. Tandrevold also much better than earlier in the season and she might also contend for the World Cup in the future. Tough finish for Olsbu but she is not in a great shape unlike Eckhoff that was the best athlete from the championships.

As expected Norway dominated the medal table, JTB and Olsbu may have failed but Eckhoff and Laegreid made up for that. France started well but lost a bit of steam with some irrelugar performances. Still, Jacquelin's pursuit win was one of the highlightsof the Championships. Sweden was a disappointment in the women's, Germany continues far from their best and Russia even worst.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Yikes, could be worse than Sochi for the temperatures!!! At least when there's temperature issues there's a justification for the short loops, the rest of the time they've no excuse.

As I've said a few times, I'd like it if they did it more like a cycling Worlds or something when they have these races, if it's about the crowds. Instead of a 50km race being 8 laps of 6,25km, make it 4 laps of a super hard 10km, then 4 laps of a 2,5km circuit which has small but steep obstacles so you can make a gap, but not get major separation so if you want to break the race up big time you have to do it on the 10km circuit.

Not that that's relevant for Oberstdorf regardless of the length of loop they can do though. At this rate it'll be 20 laps of a 2,5km...

 

[titan31]

Ya, at those temperatures, they're going to have to do a very short loop. It's going to be meh

 

[BullsFan22]

Yikes, could be worse than Sochi for the temperatures!!! At least when there's temperature issues there's a justification for the short loops, the rest of the time they've no excuse.

As I've said a few times, I'd like it if they did it more like a cycling Worlds or something when they have these races, if it's about the crowds. Instead of a 50km race being 8 laps of 6,25km, make it 4 laps of a super hard 10km, then 4 laps of a 2,5km circuit which has small but steep obstacles so you can make a gap, but not get major separation so if you want to break the race up big time you have to do it on the 10km circuit.

Not that that's relevant for Oberstdorf regardless of the length of loop they can do though. At this rate it'll be 20 laps of a 2,5km...

To be fair to Sochi, the two skiathlons, the team sprint, the relays and the long distance mass starts were held in solid, hard packed conditions, while the sprint heats and individual races were in slush. I imagine it will be very similar to Seefeld. They will need to make salt the trails, particularly where there’s no shade.

 

[BullsFan22]

Yikes, could be worse than Sochi for the temperatures!!! At least when there's temperature issues there's a justification for the short loops, the rest of the time they've no excuse.

As I've said a few times, I'd like it if they did it more like a cycling Worlds or something when they have these races, if it's about the crowds. Instead of a 50km race being 8 laps of 6,25km, make it 4 laps of a super hard 10km, then 4 laps of a 2,5km circuit which has small but steep obstacles so you can make a gap, but not get major separation so if you want to break the race up big time you have to do it on the 10km circuit.

Not that that's relevant for Oberstdorf regardless of the length of loop they can do though. At this rate it'll be 20 laps of a 2,5km...

They keep doing short laps even when there’s plenty of snow and the trails are suited for all sorts of racing. You can’t expect much from FIS Cross Country, not from this current group led by Mignerey. They are so fixated on tv that they are forgetting traditional viewers, which I think still think outnumbers viewers that just watch a couple races a year or only for major championships.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Well, the World Championships are underway. We've had our qualification races (shout out to Adriano Solano), with the outsider nations, people without UCI points, and some interesting results. You can actually use some of the women's ones with some kind of representative nature because of the performance of Baiba Bendika, the Latvian biathlete. Campbell Wright, a teenage New Zealander on the IBU Cup, did the men's race. We also had the qualifying for the women's ski jumping, which went more or less as expected, no big casualties and Sara Takanashi winning ahead of Marita Kramer, fresh off her unwanted and unplanned break at Râșnov that cost her the yellow bib. Obviously it means little, and there were no major casualties, though Carina Vogt, albeit many years off her heyday, qualifying just 32nd is a bit surprising as she is usually good at raising her game in the championships.

Sprints this morning, and while Maiken Caspersen Falla looked very strong early on she tailed off and the final was an exhibition from Jonna Sundling. Falla just held on against a fast-moving Anamarija Lampič for silver, the Slovene made up a huge amount of space but just fell short. She seems happy enough with bronze though. The sprint event being in Classical was a clear disadvantage for the American team, and for once it looks like the Eurosport team's relentless excuse-making blaming the skis for every American misfortune (or even just not massive slice of good fortune) might have had some legs. The men's race was more like we might expect - less open, more processional. Three Norwegians, two Russians and good old Oskar Svensson who hasn't learned his lesson from the Tour de Ski and tried to race away from everybody double poling all the way, before the inevitable Klæbo win was inevitable and the Norwegian lockout of the podium was almost as much so.

 

[zarnack]

Svahn and Dahlqvist struggling was a surprise. Svahn used to be winning everything, but now nowhere. Well, guess that's a lesson for timing the form. Meanwhile the experienced Falla has targeted the championship, while having shown very little during world cup season. Still, Sweden in the form of Sundling got a bit of a revenge for tangling in the Seefeld final.

Lampic winning a medal means championships are already a success for Slovenia. Let's be honest, outside of Norway, Russia and Sweden every medal would be considered a success for every other country in XC. This is the state of affairs these days. There certainly will be opportunities in team sprint for some more nations to join.

One question is whether Norway can beat their biathlon championships success (7 golds out of 12 events). I think matching Seefeld's 10 golds may be too difficult if Bolshunov is indeed the man to beat in distance races. Those 10 golds was the perfect storm really.

 

[Silhouette]

Svahn seems to be less than 100% after her injury. She skipped the national championships too.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Well, the World Championships are underway. We've had our qualification races (shout out to Adriano Solano), with the outsider nations, people without UCI points, and some interesting results. You can actually use some of the women's ones with some kind of representative nature because of the performance of Baiba Bendika, the Latvian biathlete. Campbell Wright, a teenage New Zealander on the IBU Cup, did the men's race. We also had the qualifying for the women's ski jumping, which went more or less as expected, no big casualties and Sara Takanashi winning ahead of Marita Kramer, fresh off her unwanted and unplanned break at Râșnov that cost her the yellow bib. Obviously it means little, and there were no major casualties, though Carina Vogt, albeit many years off her heyday, qualifying just 32nd is a bit surprising as she is usually good at raising her game in the championships.

Sprints this morning, and while Maiken Caspersen Falla looked very strong early on she tailed off and the final was an exhibition from Jonna Sundling. Falla just held on against a fast-moving Anamarija Lampič for silver, the Slovene made up a huge amount of space but just fell short. She seems happy enough with bronze though. The sprint event being in Classical was a clear disadvantage for the American team, and for once it looks like the Eurosport team's relentless excuse-making blaming the skis for every American misfortune (or even just not massive slice of good fortune) might have had some legs. The men's race was more like we might expect - less open, more processional. Three Norwegians, two Russians and good old Oskar Svensson who hasn't learned his lesson from the Tour de Ski and tried to race away from everybody double poling all the way, before the inevitable Klæbo win was inevitable and the Norwegian lockout of the podium was almost as much so.

The conditions looked pretty bad, it's way too hot to Ski atm. De Fabiani's move in the semi-final was really dirty, he tried to bully his way to the front when there was no space. I do wonder if the Italian's should send Rastelli to the distance team, he can keep up with everyone on the climbs, but just lacks the double poling strength/top speed on the finishing straight to compete in a sprint.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Oei, Marita... the facepalm was clearly for show. The tears were real. The top 4 miles above anybody else, and it always sucks when it's you. Just ask Kristin Størmer Steira.

 

[BullsFan22]

Conditions are like that because FIS doesn’t move the dates up earlier in the calendar. The average day time high in Oberstdorf for this time of year is consistently 5-10 degrees Celsius over the past few years. It’s 50-50 (at best) that conditions in Oberstdorf are good in early January when the TDS takes place, so why would the weather be optimal now? Two months later in the year? Last season for the World Cup in January 25 and 26, the conditions were good, enough snow and not warm. Hopefully this problem gets through Mignerey and FIS that you need to move the races to an earlier date, at least.

 

[titan31]

Ya, if you're running races this late, you either go very north or you go very high. Ideally run it earlier but a bit screwed as you need to give enough of a gap with the TDS (unless they just don't run a full TDS in world or Olympic years)

 

[KZD]

Regardless of whether we like him or not is undeniable that Klaebo is the best sprinter ever and at 24 years of age three sprint titles in big championships is incredible because not only he is dominant but he also he has more of a killer instinct than Johannes Boe that tends to crack under pressure much more. Regarding the other results is more or less what I expected, but fromthe very little that I saw the skis also played a big role, Svensson skis were gone in the final and the Russians skis were also not at the same level. I worry that this might skew future results on Norwegian's favour.

Great win for Sundling in the women's, clearly the strongest and Falla knew when to peak at the right time, unlike Svahn (she also has the killer instinct) Impressive finish by Lampic too, the best double poller in women's skiing.

 

[zarnack]

As far as I can remember, pretty much every FIS Nordic Ski Worlds has been held in late Februrary/early March. It's sort of tradition to hold it near the end of the ski season, so that world cup season in general is sort of a build-up to it. But surely... given some locations WCH should be held earlier, also given the tendency of generally warming weather (even if this winter has been cold in Europe). In Seefeld 2 years ago it was also already reaching near +10C in late February.

Another issue may be clashing with biathlon WCH, which was held in the first half of February this time. I think FIS would want to avoid that clash.

 

[BullsFan22]

Regardless of whether we like him or not is undeniable that Klaebo is the best sprinter ever and at 24 years of age three sprint titles in big championships is incredible because not only he is dominant but he also he has more of a killer instinct than Johannes Boe that tends to crack under pressure much more. Regarding the other results is more or less what I expected, but fromthe very little that I saw the skis also played a big role, Svensson skis were gone in the final and the Russians skis were also not at the same level. I worry that this might skew future results on Norwegian's favour.

Great win for Sundling in the women's, clearly the strongest and Falla knew when to peak at the right time, unlike Svahn (she also has the killer instinct) Impressive finish by Lampic too, the best double poller in women's skiing.

I think that’s very debatable. Svahn, Dahlqvist, Stupak, Nepryaeva all have stronger finishes.

Falla was sick all year, raced only one World Cup, and no podiums since Lenzerheide TDS last season. I don’t know what she’s been doing to prepare but she absolutely nailed it.

 

[zarnack]

Falla was sick all year, raced only one World Cup, and no podiums since Lenzerheide TDS last season. I don’t know what she’s been doing to prepare but she absolutely nailed it.

That's what experienced old hands do. Now that goes back a long way, but Alsgaard in 2003 didn't show his face all world cup season, but then showed up at the world championships and won 2 golds. You target one specific event or a certain period (say, championship period) and you are included in the team, because the team trusts you to do well based on experience.

 

[roundabout]

Probably the best way would be to have Nordic Worlds before the Alpine Worlds as those may be less affected by future warming (and yes, I know that the Alpine Worlds got postponed once because of warm weather) , but this gains only 2 weeks.

Perhaps another week can be gained by having the FIS Worlds 4 Week begin at the first week of February instead of the second week (not sure why this was the case this year), but that's about it as far as moving around the schedules can realistically go in my opinion.

 

[Erwin]

Probably the best way would be to have Nordic Worlds before the Alpine Worlds as those may be less affected by future warming (and yes, I know that the Alpine Worlds got postponed once because of warm weather) , but this gains only 2 weeks.

Perhaps another week can be gained by having the FIS Worlds 4 Week begin at the first week of February instead of the second week (not sure why this was the case this year), but that's about it as far as moving around the schedules can realistically go in my opinion.

In theory, yes, the World Championships could start earlier, but FIS loves its Tour de Ski. If the worlds began before the Alpine Worlds, few athletes from the Scandinavian countries would participate in the Tour. That can already be seen during the olympics years to some extent, and it could be even more extreme.

I, personally, highly dislike the Tour. I would prefer it being dropped from the calendar altogether. FIS doesn't need to imitate cycling.

 

[DenisMenchov]

Norweigan team for skiathlon:

Johannes Klabo
Emile Iversen
Shur Rete
Simen Hegstad Kruger
Hans Christer Holund

That's a big f u to Golberg, who was third in Lahti and second in Norwegian Championships in skiathlon.

 

[zarnack]

I, personally, highly dislike the Tour. I would prefer it being dropped from the calendar altogether. FIS doesn't need to imitate cycling.

The tour has never grown on me either. Cycling has had tours for over 100 years and then FIS thought that they need to increase the popularity of XC somehow (just like with mass-starts and all that). Mini-tours seem like an okay compromise to me. They are compressed into one weekend, and gaps don't become too big in those either yet.

I also don't like the idea that one tour is so decisive in the overall world cup. Basically if you don't participate or fall ill and abandon the TdS, your chances of winning the overall cup are over (yeah I know Kläbo won one year despite not participating there).

 

[Mayomaniac]

Yeah, I was also wondering about moving the date of the WC, these kind of things are to be expected in central Europe at this time of the year.
Golberg probably deserves the spot over Klaebo based on his results. How short/easy is the lap? If the race isn't selective I can kinda see why they'd pick Klaebo, but the guy has never delivered in a Skiathlon in the world cup, so it's still a bit questionable. I guess that could mean that Goldberg could take Klaebo's spot in the 50km classic race, I doubt that Klaebo will be doing anything but the team sprint and the relay after the Skiathlon.
Do we already have an official startlist for the Skiathlon?

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The tour has never grown on me either. Cycling has had tours for over 100 years and then FIS thought that they need to increase the popularity of XC somehow (just like with mass-starts and all that). Mini-tours seem like an okay compromise to me. They are compressed into one weekend, and gaps don't become too big in those either yet.

I also don't like the idea that one tour is so decisive in the overall world cup. Basically if you don't participate or fall ill and abandon the TdS, your chances of winning the overall cup are over (yeah I know Kläbo won one year despite not participating there).

The problem is they changed the calendar to be nearly 50% sprints, so they needed something that would redress the balance of the points.

Get the sprints back down to around 1/3 and give us a fairly even split of sprint races, middle distance (10/5, 15/10) and proper distance (skiathlon, 30/20 (increase this from 15, no reason why the women's distance shouldn't increase by similar level) and 50/30) and then you don't need to have the Tour so heavily biased points-wise as everybody has something to play for. Instead they've turned "distance" into a very nebulous concept with anything that isn't a sprint counting towards it, even prologues and 10/5s which are only "distance" for the calibre of athlete competing in the same way as the RideLondon women's race is "endurance" for the pros.

 

[roundabout]

Yeah, I was also wondering about moving the date of the WC, these kind of things are to be expected in central Europe at this time of the year.
Golberg probably deserves the spot over Klaebo based on his results. How short/easy is the lap? If the race isn't selective I can kinda see why they'd pick Klaebo, but the guy has never delivered in a Skiathlon in the world cup, so it's still a bit questionable. I guess that could mean that Goldberg could take Klaebo's spot in the 50km classic race, I doubt that Klaebo will be doing anything but the team sprint and the relay after the Skiathlon.
Do we already have an official startlist for the Skiathlon?

Classic

https://tramino.s3.amazonaws.com/s/oberstdorf-2021/1080982/ger-oberstdorf-wc19-125-11-3-75.pdf

Free

https://tramino.s3.amazonaws.com/s/oberstdorf-2021/1080981/ger-oberstdorf-wc19-125-09-3-75.pdf

So tough enough if everything can be raced as planned despite all BR's complaining

 

[Libertine Seguros]

So the NoCo team fell shy of the medals and the women's ski jumpers have their work cut out to make the podium from here. Who's going to score the hosts' first medals? Not seeing any in the skiathlons, and I know the women's NoCo is hard to judge as it's the first season of there being a World Cup, and only one of the events has been able to run so far, but no Germans were up there in the ranking. Eisenbichler in the NH tomorrow evening perhaps? I'm presuming there will be a moratorium in the press if they don't get at least some metal from the NoCo team competition on Sunday, but if they don't, then they could be in trouble for the Mixed jumping as well with Vogt doing so badly here.

 

[zarnack]

I remember in 2019-20 Norway pretty much dominated NoCo season, but in 2020-21 it has been more mixed, behind Riiber at least. The nations up there are still usual suspects though. Germany on their day could threaten Norway in the team event. Austria and Japan battle it out for top 3 as well. Others don't stand a chance. Herola is the sole reminder left of how good Finland used to be in that discipline.