Nordic Skiing/Biathlon Thread

[QueenStagiaire]

Surreal race. Reminds me of cross country skiing races from the 80s. JTB looked like Bambi on ice.

Incredible, Thingnes Bø‘s skis not moving him forward, Christiansen beating him by 1:50 in the skiing part, but looking done at every shooting finally affecting him the last time. Are there any ski experts who know how some skis can be so awful in some conditions?

 

[BigCoward]

I just saw the results and assumed JTB must have skied the wrong way, shooting 18 and finishing 3rd with a head start.

 

[Silhouette]

Incredible, Thingnes Bø‘s skis not moving him forward, Christiansen beating him by 1:50 in the skiing part, but looking done at every shooting finally affecting him the last time. Are there any ski experts who know how some skis can be so awful in some conditions?

Icy conditions and skis that don't have sharp/hard enough edges. You can't push with the skis because they just twist to the side, you might as well be doing classical double poling.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

QFM with Fischer skis was almost beaten by Guigonnat on Salomon's, who started 30 seconds behind him and missed four targets while QFM shot clear. It'll be interesting to see if the same pattern emerges in the women's pursuit.

 

[KZD]

Well Lægreid finally got his win this season. Regarding the discussion above let's not forget that he is the current World Champion in the individual and mass-start races so he is already above a young Heidi Weng in my view. I definitely can see him getting a similar career to Svendsen given how fast he has been skiing lately.

Going to be interesting to see how the snow conditions affect the women's races but its fascinating to see how Nilsson is probably the worse skier out of all Swedish biathletes nowadays.

 

[BigCoward]

Well Lægreid finally got his win this season. Regarding the discussion above let's not forget that he is the current World Champion in the individual and mass-start races so he is already above a young Heidi Weng in my view. I definitely can see him getting a similar career to Svendsen given how fast he has been skiing lately.

Going to be interesting to see how the snow conditions affect the women's races but its fascinating to see how Nilsson is probably the worse skier out of all Swedish biathletes nowadays.

To be clear I was specifically talking about this season with his 5 consecutive podiums.
He also has a slight advantage over Weng, he's getting beat regularly by a top 3 biathlete of all time, she was up against the 2 greatest xc skiers of all time. I bet she spent years thinking 'as soon as those 2 retire I'm going to win *** everything'.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Diggins TV continues even while Winterton is indisposed in France. Christ alive. They haven't even mentioned Fähndrich yet. You know, the woman who won the race.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Diggins TV continues even while Winterton is indisposed in France. Christ alive. They haven't even mentioned Fähndrich yet. You know, the woman who won the race.

Swiss TV with Dario commentating was the opposite.
Ok, I didn't expect this from Pellegrino after coming here at the last minute.
And a 2nd place for Vittozzi in France, great!

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Some impressive skiing by Simon, but Elvira Öberg kept a steady hand on the shooting range. Vittozzi continues to perform well, while Hermann seemed to be suffering due to her skis, but on the other hand she hasn't been the best version of herself skiing wise this year either.

 

[titan31]

Can only assume likes of Magnusson suffered a lot with the conditions and skis there to lose 3 minutes despite only missing 1. Davidova too who could easily have been a riser like Simon and Tandrevold missed 2 and lost places.

 

[jsem94]

I just watched the rerun of the women's biathlon sprint, and I generally blitz through them if I mess them. I sat through pretty much the entire thing this time, it was phenomenal. One of the best atmospheres and one of the most thrilling races I've ever seen - and to top it off, two unlikely Swedes at the very top. I cried my eyes out having followed the sport for years, knowing the struggles Anna Magnusson has had to overcome to get to this point. Chapeau to the French crowd as well.

 

[OJRvE]

Some impressive skiing by Simon, but Elvira Öberg kept a steady hand on the shooting range. Vittozzi continues to perform well, while Hermann seemed to be suffering due to her skis, but on the other hand she hasn't been the best version of herself skiing wise this year either.

Hermann was the fastest skier yesterday fore sure helped by her Fischer rockets and today the conditions was the opposite. I understand this a mistake by the organizer but sure it adds to the excitment. Had it been a Championship Race I would feel bad for the Fischer skiers but now it’s just one of many WC race.

Really like the competitiveness in womens biathlon now. Simon, Vittozi, Elvira, Tandrevold & Hermann look the strongest, which means the 5 most important nations all have an absolute top athlete.

Mens side a little bit dull with Norwegian dominance.

 

[BullsFan22]

Diggins TV continues even while Winterton is indisposed in France. Christ alive. They haven't even mentioned Fähndrich yet. You know, the woman who won the race.

At least she didn’t win.

 

[titan31]

Hermann was the fastest skier yesterday fore sure helped by her Fischer rockets and today the conditions was the opposite. I understand this a mistake by the organizer but sure it adds to the excitment. Had it been a Championship Race I would feel bad for the Fischer skiers but now it’s just one of many WC race.

Really like the competitiveness in womens biathlon now. Simon, Vittozi, Elvira, Tandrevold & Hermann look the strongest, which means the 5 most important nations all have an absolute top athlete.

Mens side a little bit dull with Norwegian dominance.

Be interesting if Eckhoff and Roseland come back and how they do. There's also Wierer and Hanna Oeberg around too, and then likes of Hauser, Davidova and Sola if Belarus are allowed return.

Mens side is really just how many races can JTB win. I know he had the ski issues today but every race so far is basically how many shots can he miss and still win. He's got a good 2/3 shot advantage over the sprint pursuit race on everyone else it seems.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Curious to see how Ida Dahl will do tomorrow against the depleded field. Today she won the 40km long La Venosta ski classics race at altitude with pretty nasty conditions (90% humidity and around -15° at the start).

 

[Mayomaniac]

Dahl ahead of Hennig and Stadlober in the end. A 16th place and she lost very little time to the fastest on the final lap, showing her ability as a long distance skier. Now imagine if this was a classic race and she didn't race almost 2H yesterday in the ski classics. I'd probably select her for a 30km classic mass start.
Diggins with a "oh *** that was scary" after being able to open her eyes again.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Seems like Norway's solution to the bleeding away of the XC audience to biathlon due to the tedium of their dominance is to try to make biathlon as boring as XC.

 

[BullsFan22]

Jessie Diggins is an 11 year old stuck in a 31 year old body.

 

[Mayomaniac]

So did all the Norwegian men get some panzerschokolade after the first 10kms? At least Moch put up a fight for the first hf of the race.
Really low level field, Remi Lindholm inside the top 10 in an individual start 20km skating race...

 

[Libertine Seguros]

French women trying to do what the Norwegian men did in Le Grand Bornand. They forgot to stand out far enough to be able to stand those misses at the last though, letting Hauser in. Winterton going on about how Hauser's always been a good skier and was convinced to sort out the shooting (it's the other way round, of course). Chauveau looks like a real keeper, she was not very consistent as a junior, but was pretty quick on the IBU Cup last year and has adapted very well to the World Cup, was already getting decent points scoring performances last week and after the surprise 4th on Friday, she didn't melt under the pressure in front of the home crowds. She can ski competitively and her shooting is decent enough, she wasn't the pick of her age group in that French team coming through but seems like she might be the long term strongest, a bit like Voigt on the German team, but as more of a skier than a shooter.

 

[KZD]

Seems like Norway's solution to the bleeding away of the XC audience to biathlon due to the tedium of their dominance is to try to make biathlon as boring as XC.

Well at least it was Dale winning this time instead of JT Boe or Laegreid.

The French women's team is looking scary. Even if we account the fact that Chuveau or Jeanmonnot probably overperformed a bit due to the home factor finishing with 5 athletes in the top8 is the kind of result that I only expected the Norwegian men to achieve. And let's keep in mind that Braisaz is in maternity leave this season.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Well at least it was Dale winning this time instead of JT Boe or Laegreid.

The French women's team is looking scary. Even if we account the fact that Chuveau or Jeanmonnot probably overperformed a bit due to the home factor finishing with 5 athletes in the top8 is the kind of result that I only expected the Norwegian men to achieve. And let's keep in mind that Braisaz is in maternity leave this season.

We should also bear in mind that the French team are also disproportionately likely to be on Salomon or Rossignol rather than Fischer who have had so many problems with conditions here. Simon, Chauveau and Colombo are on Salomon and the Chevaliers are on Rossignol, only Jeanmonnot uses Fischer among their team - contrast to, say, the Germans, where four of their six are on Fischer (Preuß is on Rossignol and Voigt on Salomon).

If you look at the lower levels though, they have a great production line. Anaëlle Bondoux was setting top 10 ski times on the IBU Cup at 18 and is now crushing everybody bar Andexer and maybe arguably Tannheimer (who has been within a loop and is even younger) for pace on the Junior Cup, Gilonne Guigonnat is on 7 straight top 15s (five top 10, 2 podiums, 1 win) in the IBU, Paula Botet has just been squeezed out of the World Cup team but has some decent performances at that level and an IBU Cup podium at 21, the Bened sisters are establishing themselves as threats at the IBU Cup and Junior Cup respectively, Océane Michelon and Jeanne Richard both seem promising and they even had Maya Cloetens, now one of the best on the Junior Cup, in their grasp before she chose Belgium over France (she's half-Belgian) to maximise her international opportunities. Granted, some of them will fall by the wayside even if they do establish themselves, like happened to the likes of Lena Arnaud and Coline Varcin, and the way French domestic biathlon is so youth and junior-centric means those that don't make the central team early will often get disillusioned and drift away from the sport, but they have one hell of a production line going.

 

[OJRvE]

Dahl ahead of Hennig and Stadlober in the end. A 16th place and she lost very little time to the fastest on the final lap, showing her ability as a long distance skier. Now imagine if this was a classic race and she didn't race almost 2H yesterday in the ski classics. I'd probably select her for a 30km classic mass start.
Diggins with a "oh *** that was scary" after being able to open her eyes again.

Dahl probably started too fast but managed to recover and got a bit lucky she could ski behind Lotta Weng in the end. Of course easier said than done so it was a good race from but in line with what could be expected.

Once again the loop in Davos is too short, it needs to be at least 6,3km so they only do 3 laps even if I prefer 2x10, 2x7,5+5 or something. Quite ridiculous how Weng and Parmakoski among others could collaborate on different loop. And even so in the mens race with guys like Häggström & Ruskanen benefiting greatly. Holund 2nd instead of 3rd etc.

 

[Erwin]

Really low level field, Remi Lindholm inside the top 10 in an individual start 20km skating race...

You should appreciate the guy, 20 km is a good distance for him. 12th in Ruka (3rd time of the day), 15th in Lillehammer, and 11th in Davos. He's not a natural talent like many others and he doesn't have the VO2max and speed to fight in 10 km races, but he has a big aerobic engine with high thresholds (both LT1 and LT2). Moreover, he's technically very skilled, although his technique falls a bit apart when he's tired.

 

[BullsFan22]

Dahl probably started too fast but managed to recover and got a bit lucky she could ski behind Lotta Weng in the end. Of course easier said than done so it was a good race from but in line with what could be expected.

Once again the loop in Davos is too short, it needs to be at least 6,3km so they only do 3 laps even if I prefer 2x10, 2x7,5+5 or something. Quite ridiculous how Weng and Parmakoski among others could collaborate on different loop. And even so in the mens race with guys like Häggström & Ruskanen benefiting greatly. Holund 2nd instead of 3rd etc.

That’s how Musgrave has had his best results, getting in behind guys like Niskanen, Sundby, Manificat, Krüger, Røthe…