Nordic Skiing/Biathlon Thread

[BullsFan22]

And I pointed out that Egan's ski results as a biathlete for several years were mediocre at best too, before she suddenly got a massive amount better at age 31, so her XC results were not relevant to her biathlon results at that point, in the same way as Stina's biathlon ski times are not relevant to her level as a XC skier at the point where she was winning races with regularity. Pointing at Egan's XC results to slate the talent level in biathlon in 2018-19 when she improved from around 50th to 15th in ski speed is like comparing riders in the 2006-7 South African national calendar to riders contesting GTs in 2015-16 based on their performances relative to Chris Froome, ignoring the huge change in his level in the interim.

The point with Berger and Gössner is not to say "hey look how good they are", it's to say, the argument previously made was that any decent XC skier would win every race on 70%, and those two are outlyingly good skiers in biathlon... who both averaged as near as damnit to 70% shooting. So their results are a good indication of where a good XC skier would be if they shot 7/10 on average.

Egan’s and Dunklee’s results (also Lowell Bailey’s huge spike later in his career) are suspicious, to say the least.

I am talking purely in terms of ski speed, not taking into account shooting. Berger and Gössner would have fought for top 10’s in skate races on the xc circuit, likewise someone like Frode Andresen and Ronny André Hafsås.

 

[SafeBet]

Opinions on Lisa Vittozzi? I don't think I've seen a biathlete regress as much as she did in the past three years.
It's painful to watch.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Vittozzi is a strange one, if she gets through the first shoot unscathed, she's still a really good biathlete as evidenced by the relays, the Hochfilzen sprint and the Annecy pursuit, but she just has some horrendous mental block at that first prone. Almost all her bad results are the product of blowing it right at the start - 4+3+0+0 in the Hochfilzen pursuit, 3+0+1+0 in the Östersund pursuit, 3+0+0+0 in the Östersund individual, 5+1+1+0 in the Annecy mass start, 3+0 in the Oberhof sprint, 4+1 yesterday. Apart from the Hochfilzen pursuit, it's only ever the first prone in 20-shoot races, so it's not even likely to be something tied to the mechanics of her prone shooting, it's definitely more likely to be something in her mind.

 

[BigCoward]

Vittozzi is a strange one, if she gets through the first shoot unscathed, she's still a really good biathlete as evidenced by the relays, the Hochfilzen sprint and the Annecy pursuit, but she just has some horrendous mental block at that first prone. Almost all her bad results are the product of blowing it right at the start - 4+3+0+0 in the Hochfilzen pursuit, 3+0+1+0 in the Östersund pursuit, 3+0+0+0 in the Östersund individual, 5+1+1+0 in the Annecy mass start, 3+0 in the Oberhof sprint, 4+1 yesterday. Apart from the Hochfilzen pursuit, it's only ever the first prone in 20-shoot races, so it's not even likely to be something tied to the mechanics of her prone shooting, it's definitely more likely to be something in her mind.

But the mental aspect of biathlon is what makes it so amazing.

Norway really are going all in for the Olympics. No idea why Roiseland is racing today though.

 

[BullsFan22]

Just a correction, when I said ‘Franziska Preuß,’ I meant Franziska Hildebrand. Just so we’re clear…

 

[search]

Norway really are going all in for the Olympics. No idea why Roiseland is racing today though.

yeah, no idea, maybe they didn't really have anyone else around. Eckhoff left already, and Arnekleiv's sprint was so bad, that another selection propbably wouldn't really be a good thing either.

Stina Nilsson should have secured her Olympic selection today btw, with a very good race. It was between her, Skottheim and Brorsson for the remaining two spots, and although Skottheim was the only one to hit all 10, her running performance is just too poor.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Ustigov is racing 2 races of the Visma Ski classic this weekend for an Italian team.
The la Venosta race, this year once again in Langtaufers, at around 1,900m of altitude. Today there's a 10km classic individual, tomorrow a 32km classic mass start.
Some racing kms against the visma ski series specialists at altitude seems like a good prep for the Olympics to me.

 

[Bavarianrider]

Looking at the profiles this are double poling festivals. Will be interesting to See If He can hold his own against the specialists.

 

[BullsFan22]

He said it was a good training session. Broke his pole early in the race and received one that didn’t fit him well enough. The specialists are too good. Belov had a pretty good race, finishing in 10th, shame he’s not going to the Olympics.

Can’t say what will happen tomorrow. Ustiugov is capable of hanging on, he’s finished on the podium in a Ski Classics race, that was 4 years ago. He can deal with endless double poling, but the lack of races is telling. I hope his form hasn’t dipped.

 

[titan31]

Bit of a farce this relay with Sweden shooting Norway's targets and Norway ending up losing 2 minutes cos of it.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Looking at the profiles this are double poling festivals. Will be interesting to See If He can hold his own against the specialists.

Last weekend most of the best double ploled up the Plätzwiese, an ascent that is 6.3kms at 8.4%!
Ustiugov only finished 39th today 2:25 behind the winner, his training buddy Belov finished 10th. Nyenget finished 2nd today. Before the race there was talk about the Italian Cramer guys Pellegrino and De Fallbiani also competing, but that didn't happen.
I honestly think that the Swedish Visma specialists Max Novak and Johannes Ekloef are probably bigger talents than many of the younger Swedish guys that are competing in the World Cup.

 

[Bavarianrider]

Last weekend most of the best double ploled up the Plätzwiese, an ascent that is 6.3kms at 8.4%!
Ustiugov only finished 39th today 2:25 behind the winner, his training buddy Belov finished 10th. Nyenget finished 2nd today. Before the race there was talk about the Italian Cramer guys Pellegrino and De Fallbiani also competing, but that didn't happen.
I honestly think that the Swedish Visma specialists Max Novak and Johannes Ekloef are probably bigger talents than many of the younger Swedish guys that are competing in the World Cup.

That whole ski classics pro thing is a bit of a mystery to me. How does this series actually generate so much money that skiers would favor it over the World Cup/ Olympic scene. There is no TV Money and the overall exposure in main stream media is basically nun existent outside of Norway/ Sweden, too.
That double poling is also simply crazy. It is absolutely mindestens blowing and hard to comprehend how they are doing this. Just crazy.

 

[BullsFan22]

Last weekend most of the best double ploled up the Plätzwiese, an ascent that is 6.3kms at 8.4%!
Ustiugov only finished 39th today 2:25 behind the winner, his training buddy Belov finished 10th. Nyenget finished 2nd today. Before the race there was talk about the Italian Cramer guys Pellegrino and De Fallbiani also competing, but that didn't happen.
I honestly think that the Swedish Visma specialists Max Novak and Johannes Ekloef are probably bigger talents than many of the younger Swedish guys that are competing in the World Cup.

I don’t know the reason for the two Italians not starting, but Stupak, Maltsev and Matsokina didn’t find a team to join, so they didn’t take part. Perhaps this is what happened to the Italians, if they even planned on racing.

 

[Mayomaniac]

That whole ski classics pro thing is a bit of a mystery to me. How does this series actually generate so much money that skiers would favor it over the World Cup/ Olympic scene. There is no TV Money and the overall exposure in main stream media is basically nun existent outside of Norway/ Sweden, too.
That double poling is also simply crazy. It is absolutely mindestens blowing and hard to comprehend how they are doing this. Just crazy.

But looking at some of the TV pictures I can see why it would be more appealing that mindless lap racing. If there's enough snow you can show wunderful winter landscapes on TV and promote tourism in that are, a bit like a gt stage. But of course the Fis thinks that we need as many laps as possible so that the very few people who watch the race in the stadium get to see more of it...

 

[Mayomaniac]

I don’t know the reason for the two Italians not starting, but Stupak, Maltsev and Matsokina didn’t find a team to join, so they didn’t take part. Perhaps this is what happened to the Italians, if they even planned on racing.

For those who did race the Tour it was never as much of a big deal to get some racing before the Olympics.

 

[BullsFan22]

For those who did race the Tour it was never as much of a big deal to get some racing before the Olympics.

You still need a couple races. One month or a bit more without racing is not always ideal. Ustiugov didn’t race in the tour, his last races before last weekend were in Davos. Of course nobody would guess that FIS would so easily give up (or not care) in trying to relocate the cancelled races, otherwise I think that some of those that missed the tour would have actually done it.

It’s still crazy to me how both WC weekends were cancelled, yet the alpine, jumping and biathlon WC’s and the ibu junior cup are all still taking place, with the same scheduled races.

 

[Bavarianrider]

You still need a couple races. One month or a bit more without racing is not always ideal. Ustiugov didn’t race in the tour, his last races before last weekend were in Davos. Of course nobody would guess that FIS would so easily give up (or not care) in trying to relocate the cancelled races, otherwise I think that some of those that missed the tour would have actually done it.

It’s still crazy to me how both WC weekends were cancelled, yet the alpine, jumping and biathlon WC’s and the ibu junior cup are all still taking place, with the same scheduled races.

Jörg Kapol, that is the only Name You need to know dir everything that goes wrong in CC skiing.

 

[Bavarianrider]

Thomas Bing won today' s race. So even a mediocere World Cup runner who targets and trains for these events is very capable of beating the specialists. Good to see to be honest.

 

[OJRvE]

Thomas Bing won today' s race. So even a mediocere World Cup runner who targets and trains for these events is very capable of beating the specialists. Good to see to be honest.

Todays race was a challenge race and few good skiers took part. Bing was top 10 in last years Vasaloppet though, (after missing the selection to Oberstdorf), which was impressive. I was surprised to read that he was targeting the Olympics this year as I imagined he could have been really good I Ski Classics with specialized training. But maybe his usual training is what works best for Ski Classics as well.

 

[BullsFan22]

Thomas Bing won today' s race. So even a mediocere World Cup runner who targets and trains for these events is very capable of beating the specialists. Good to see to be honest.

To be fair the only specialist ski classics skier at the start line was Rezac, and he’s 49 years old. Everyone else was unknown.

 

[Bavarianrider]

Todays race was a challenge race and few good skiers took part. Bing was top 10 in last years Vasaloppet though, (after missing the selection to Oberstdorf), which was impressive. I was surprised to read that he was targeting the Olympics this year as I imagined he could have been really good I Ski Classics with specialized training. But maybe his usual training is what works best for Ski Classics as well.

He wants to win Vasa Loppet this

Todays race was a challenge race and few good skiers took part. Bing was top 10 in last years Vasaloppet though, (after missing the selection to Oberstdorf), which was impressive. I was surprised to read that he was targeting the Olympics this year as I imagined he could have been really good I Ski Classics with specialized training. But maybe his usual training is what works best for Ski Classics as well.

He wants to win Vasa Loppet this year. It was a big announcement this Fall. Project First German Vasa Victory"

 

[Bavarianrider]

To be fair the only specialist ski classics skier at the start line was Rezac, and he’s 49 years old. Everyone else was unknown.

Ok thanks that puts it into perspective.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Ok thanks that puts it into perspective.

Nyenget, a guy who has multiple top 10 results in world cup classic races only finished 2nd in the individual race and Belov 10th, so the level is high.
A guy like Vylegzhanin is also not exactly dominating since he entered the whole thing.

 

[BullsFan22]

Nyenget, a guy who has multiple top 10 results in world cup classic races only finished 2nd in the individual race and Belov 10th, so the level is high.
A guy like Vylegzhanin is also not exactly dominating since he entered the whole thing.

And this was the 10km individual, on Saturday. Yesterday’s race didn’t have the quality. Bing was the only notable WC skier that I saw.

 

[OJRvE]

He wants to win Vasa Loppet this

Yeah, I saw that he was aiming for both Olympics and Vasaloppet. Usually it is better just to aim for one objective and maximizing one’s potential there. But let’s see if he can improve his position from last year.