Nordic Skiing/Biathlon Thread

[Bavarianrider]

I d love to see someone like Niskanen or Bolshunov go for for the Vasa Loppet once. And try to win it with kick wax. Just because they can. ( I know they probably can`t, but would be interesting to see a try)
That would be amazing. I especially hope that Niskanen will give it a try once.

 

[DenisMenchov]

I d love to see someone like Niskanen or Bolshunov go for for the Vasa Loppet once. And try to win it with kick wax. Just because they can. ( I know they probably can`t, but would be interesting to see a try)
That would be amazing. I especially hope that Niskanen will give it a try once.

Niskanen has the best classics technique in the peloton right now, but Bolshunov is the king of long distance double polling. Remember his win last year at Engadin? He simply went away on the flat. So I guess he could win Vasaloppet, maybe even easily.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Niskanen has the best classics technique in the peloton right now, but Bolshunov is the king of long distance double polling. Remember his win last year at Engadin? He simply went away on the flat. So I guess he could win Vasaloppet, maybe even easily.

Yea, but wouldn't you rather watch Niskanen do it? 70km of the most beautiful classic style of anybody active today followed by 20km of the ugliest facial expressions of abject agony in the sport?

We saw how the crowd came unglued at the start in Lahti. The famously reserved Finns got to see Iivo Niskanen win an individual start race in the classic style. The only way their day could have been better would have been if they could have watched it from trackside saunas or they were giving out free salt liquorice on entry.

 

[Mayomaniac]

I d love to see someone like Niskanen or Bolshunov go for for the Vasa Loppet once. And try to win it with kick wax. Just because they can. ( I know they probably can`t, but would be interesting to see a try)
That would be amazing. I especially hope that Niskanen will give it a try once.

Yeah, but the whole route is kinda meh for someone like Niskanen, who has to drop everyone before the sprint. Something like the Marcialonga with it's fiinal climb has a more interesting profile that would suit him better.
Klaebo could just try to stay in the main group and win the sprint. Bolshunov could probably do the same, but I think that he'd try to demolish everyone with his double poling strength. Like DenisMencchov mentioned, his double poling strength is incredible.
I recently had a conversation with a long distance skier and he said that he focusses more on the hip hinge component and getting on his toes when double poling instead of his arms, so that he'll use more of the bigger muscle groups in his body (core, hamstrings, glutes and various back muscles) so that your arms don't get sore halfway through the race, but I guess most high level skiers who are good a double poling for a long distance do that.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Ski Marathon's also feature a decent amount of dirty tactics, things that we'd call road blocking in cycling. Once a big team has a guy with a good sprint ahead they spread out to occupy all of the tracks and try to slow everyone down as much a possible...
One of the biggest freaks in Ski Marathons has to be Emil Vokuev, who won the Marcialonga with a +60km solo attack.

 

[frenchfry]

No these are words to reinforce my point of view and also to give the appreciation that a great generation of French biathletes deserve. I don't know what is so shocking in my comment you just need to look at French biathletes result between 2017-2020 to see that they were very close to Norway.

Personally, I hope that Norway doesn't become dominant in biathlon as they were in cross-country until very recently, the sport doesn't need that.

I think you are right about future Norwegian dominance, at least for the men. Strangely this year Fillon-Maillet and Jacquelin are 1-2 for the overall but it almost seems like the Norwegians are more dominant, likely because there is more depth for the Norwegians. Fillon-Maillet is having an outstanding season!

 

[SafeBet]

I wouldn't sleep on Perrot though.
He's younger than both Andersen brothers and Bakken, and already has some nice results in the World Cup.

 

[BigCoward]

I think you are right about future Norwegian dominance, at least for the men. Strangely this year Fillon-Maillet and Jacquelin are 1-2 for the overall but it almost seems like the Norwegians are more dominant, likely because there is more depth for the Norwegians. Fillon-Maillet is having an outstanding season!

QFM during his 6 consecutive pursuit wins has shot 115/120. Which is just insane. Especially when one of them was windy as f*£k

 

[BigCoward]

They are doing mixed relay and team sprint this weekend. Interesting but not necessarily good.
Just as well they didn't do that 5 or 6 years ago, imagine how much a team of Johaug, Bjoergen, Sundby and Northug could have won by, they probably would beat any other team of 4 XC skiers in history, from all nations combined.

 

[roundabout]

I d love to see someone like Niskanen or Bolshunov go for for the Vasa Loppet once. And try to win it with kick wax. Just because they can. ( I know they probably can`t, but would be interesting to see a try)
That would be amazing. I especially hope that Niskanen will give it a try once.

Niskanen is hardly a dominant long-distance classic skier based on his record of 1 win, 1 2nd place in 8 starts in a 50K classic in World Cup, Worlds and OG.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Niskanen is hardly a dominant long-distance classic skier based on his record of 1 win, 1 2nd place in 8 starts in a 50K classic in World Cup, Worlds and OG.

Yeah, he's a "victim" of modern mass start races. I feel that his record would look a lot different if we still had 50km individiual start races.

 

[BigCoward]

QFM is having a quietly remarkable year.

Sundling won qualifying again, by 9 seconds. Absolutely insane level of dominance.

 

[Mayomaniac]

One more thing about Vasaloppet, another 11th place for Bing, peetty good.
Seeing him at that level after his horrible training crash in Toblach before the Seefeld WC is always great. He had an open Shin and Fibula fracture on one leg and the local doctors thought that it would be a career ending injury.

 

[Norbea]

15 km in Falun. Calle and Didrik back in form after a long spell in the valley of darkness.

1. Didrik Tønseth
2. Calle Halfarsson
3. H.Ø. Amundsen
4. H.C. Holund
5. M.L. Nyenget

 

[KZD]

15 km in Falun. Calle and Didrik back in form after a long spell in the valley of darkness.

1. Didrik Tønseth
2. Calle Halfarsson
3. H.Ø. Amundsen
4. H.C. Holund
5. M.L. Nyenget

Tønseth has been actually pretty good this season after a few weaker years but Halfarsson was a real surprise. Meanwhile, Klæbo managed to lose the sprint World Cup to Jouve after getting infected in the post-olympic period and Fillon Maillet's perfect shooting streak came to an end with a standing miss which cost him the win to Christiansen today.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Tønseth has been actually pretty good this season after a few weaker years but Halfarsson was a real surprise. Meanwhile, Klæbo managed to lose the sprint World Cup to Jouve after getting infected in the post-olympic period and Fillon Maillet's perfect shooting streak came to an end with a standing miss which cost him the win to Christiansen today.

Yeah, but this year Toenseth was manly good in classic races.
I expected more from Krüger and Poromaa was pretty bad today (does he always ski such a high cadence V2 uphill?

 

[Norbea]

I expected more from Krüger and Poromaa was pretty bad today (does he always ski such a high cadence V2 uphill?

Poromaa seems to struggle more technically in skating. He is not able to get enough power into it in the way he skates. Maybe he'll improve. He is still young.

 

[Norbea]

Riiber did his thing and is now 1 point ahead of Lamparter. Johaug also did her thing.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Poromaa seems to struggle more technically in skating. He is not able to get enough power into it in the way he skates. Maybe he'll improve. He is still young.

Yeah, you could clearly see the difference in power between him and the best skiers. He tried to make up for it with his high cadence, but he lacked power.

 

[Norbea]

Tønseth has been actually pretty good this season

Only at the end of the season.

 

[frenchfry]

15 km in Falun. Calle and Didrik back in form after a long spell in the valley of darkness.

1. Didrik Tønseth
2. Calle Halfarsson
3. H.Ø. Amundsen
4. H.C. Holund
5. M.L. Nyenget

3 Canadians in the points including a top 10.

 

[Bavarianrider]

Where is that Halverson s performance coming from? Only adds to the feeling that he had superb Talent end let a lot on the table in his career.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Where is that Halverson s performance coming from? Only adds to the feeling that he had superb Talent end let a lot on the table in his career.

Didn't he get sick after skiing himself into decent shape during the Tour de Ski this year?

 

[BigCoward]

Anyone got a link to the teams for the mixed relay/sprint?

 

[OJRvE]

Where is that Halverson s performance coming from? Only adds to the feeling that he had superb Talent end let a lot on the table in his career.

Reading Swedish media it seems like he is an idiot and has no idea what he is doing. What worse is that he has taken on leadership role and influenced the younger male skier in a bad way (especially Victor Thorn who ruined his talent by wrong training) which led to the complete breakdown of Swedish mens team. However, I think it’s better now, for instance him and Poromaa are good friends but it seems Poromaa is not taking any advise related to training.