Lampič 4th with 3 standing misses. She skied faster than Herrmann. When was the last time she had a top 5 in a distance race in the xc world cup? If she’s already shooting this well and clearly skiing well (for biathlon standards), she’ll be winning races sooner rather than later.
Last season her best distance result was 14th in the 10km classic mass start in Val Di Fiemme. She finished 1:12 behind Nepryaeva.
This was a 7,5km race with two breaks, so it's halfway between a Team Sprint and a 10k. The 10k is only partly relevant here I feel, we usually use that because that's the event biathletes participate in when they moonlight in XC, and because sprints (which people like Eder and Latuillière have done decently enough in) have way more variables that mean it's hard to judge from the limited data points biathletes give us. Team Sprint is perhaps a more appropriate data point (repeated short efforts with recovery time) but it's really hard to form a viable conclusion from them because you've always got a second individual to factor in.
Typically the sprint is the event converted XC skiers (and just generally skiing-biased biathletes) do best in, since it's only 10 shots and individual start so you can manage your own race and don't get pressured by people around you. And besides, Anamarija is a better skier than Herrmann, who is seven years older and at her peak as an XC skier was around the same level as Anamarija was when she defected, so the speed Anamarija has seems in line with expectations, but her range performance was better than I expected at this level after Idre.
Also Lampič was 5th, who did you miss from the results because she started after all 4 finishers ahead of her? She skied roughly a penalty loop faster than Elvira Öberg, which seems more in line with where I thought she'd be (edit: and Elvira's time relative to competition was less outstanding as well), but her shooting drills were slow. Only just slower than Nilsson though, and Stina's been at this a lot longer than Anamarija.
But still, for the "top XC skiers could win every race with 7/10" point, it's still somewhat moot as Lampič would have needed 9/10 to win, therefore not unlike Johannes Thingnes Bø. Although Anamarija's shooting time is the obvious issue as she could have been close to the podium if not on it with a more Bø-like shooting time. Will be interesting to see how she does in the pursuit, last week in Idre she froze up completely in the busy range in prone and nearly held up people who were coming to the mat for the second wave of athletes reaching her shooting lane because she took so long to get started with the traffic all around her.
Anyway, Lampič in distance last season seems very consistent regardless of technique after Christmas - 17th in Zhangjiakou (classic +1'48 from Johaug), 15th in Lahti (classic +1'30 from Johaug), 16th in Falun (freestyle +1'16 from Johaug), 14th in Val di Fiemme (classic +1'11 from Nepryaeva). The World Cup points cutoff seems to be around a minute behind where Anamarija is in all of those.
It'll be fun to follow though, she's the kind of athlete I usually love to follow, she makes a good surrogate Hanna Sola, who I miss from the World Cup this season. If anybody from the two barred nations would get through the net it would be her.
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