Nordic Skiing/Biathlon Thread

[Max Rockatansky]

Johannes Kühn once actually did that. In Oberhof, in fact.

Legendary race with Ebs winning his leg and Belgium leading for half of the race. We will see the same today with gusts of 65-85 km/h. It's going to be pretty wild. There will be also rain today. It's not a good day for relays. Not at all. But yeah...in the end it's all about the party.

Is there any reason they can't just push both events back a day?

In order to still award the medals, the relays and or mass starts could be retrospectively evaluated in the World Cup afterwards. The next relay races are scheduled for March 11 in Östersund, Sweden. Instead of competing for World Cup points, the athletes would then be competing for World Cup medals.

If I remember correctly, the Worlds in 1999 were postponed several time due to the cold weather in Kontiolahti. They only could do Sprint, Pursuit and Relays in Finland. Individual and Mass Start were held in Oslo one month later.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Kühn nearly did it again today... Czechs have an amazing chance for a medal here, and Ponsiluoma doing what Christoph Stephan once did here about a decade ago - shot himself down to last place in shooting 1, then hit 5/5 while everybody was panicking and doing loops at the top of the range and reemerged right up at the front.

However, it's definitely going to be one of those situations where unless the luck balances out, France and the Czechs (and the Swiss, but Finello shot even worse than he usually does) got a huge slice of luck there. At least Vetle's bad leg and then the wind giving a deficit has meant Johannes might have to work for his gold this time.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Jacquelin survives the prone shooting, but he can still throw it all away next time in.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

But Jacquelin has killed himself now. Or Strvrtecky is actually just going really fast right now.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The French have a chronic problem with last laps in relays and I really don't understand it. It's been going on for a long time. It's not just the likes of Simon Fourcade who always burned himself out either. The Chevalier sisters, QFM, Jacquelin, Fabien Claude and even Justine Braisaz-Bouchet at times have had last laps where they suddenly capitulate to people they should easily beat over a final lap sprint. Guigonnat (who isn't usually much of a ski speed demon anyway) and Simon are about the only ones thus far exempt. I fear a Czech heartbreak with Mareček on the last leg against QFM, Samuelsson and of course JTB, but they truly deserve a medal.

Yes, they've got super lucky with the wind twice so far, but they can rightly say, hey, we earned it by gambling on front-loading the lineup, and getting to the front on merit on leg 1.

 

[titan31]

I can't see JTB catching here. If Laegreid had avoided the penalty loop there, I'd say it was nearly a cert when he was within 25 seconds but bit too far off now really.

 

[BigCoward]

I can't see JTB catching here. If Laegreid had avoided the penalty loop there, I'd say it was nearly a cert when he was within 25 seconds but bit too far off now really.

If he shoots the same as them he wins. He took 16 seconds back in less than 2km

 

[titan31]

If he shoots the same as them he wins. He took 16 seconds back in less than 2km

He has to push for that though and is paying for it now. He's come out worse off for doing that. He can ski his own race at least than 30 seconds. He has to push there

 

[titan31]

Yup, that's done. Bit of a shame, 7 golds would have been ridiculously impressive.

That one less penalty shoot or even two more hits from anyone would have made this a serious race.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Well done, Quentin.
But crazy shooting from Bø as well.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Yup, that's done. Bit of a shame, 7 golds would have been ridiculously impressive.

That one less penalty shoot or even two more hits from anyone would have made this a serious race.

Blame Christiansen's bad first leg for the most part for Norway's silver, and Guigonnat's great first leg for France's gold. Sturla and Tarjei both shot penalty loops, but they did it at lottery shoots where nearly everybody was shooting penalties, and both were top 5 leg times (and Sturla was ahead of all three who set better leg times than him, who honestly thinks Rastorgujevs' leg time, set with the sole aim of stopping the Latvian team from getting lapped, is relevant to the medal battle for example), whereas Vetle was shooting in pretty reasonable conditions and gave them a hard deficit; Guigonnat's strong leg and fast final lap meant that Claude was able to get out of standing before the wind really picked up and set them up for victory.

 

[titan31]

Blame Christiansen's bad first leg for the most part for Norway's silver, and Guigonnat's great first leg for France's gold. Sturla and Tarjei both shot penalty loops, but they did it at lottery shoots where nearly everybody was shooting penalties, and both were top 5 leg times (and Sturla was ahead of all three who set better leg times than him, who honestly thinks Rastorgujevs' leg time, set with the sole aim of stopping the Latvian team from getting lapped, is relevant to the medal battle for example), whereas Vetle was shooting in pretty reasonable conditions and gave them a hard deficit; Guigonnat's strong leg and fast final lap meant that Claude was able to get out of standing before the wind really picked up and set them up for victory.

Yup, it's on all them really. Not one of them performed to what you'd expect really. If Christensen shoots clean that first shoot, if Tarjei or Laegreid didn't get a penalty loop and if JTB didn't mess up that prone shoot and missed 2 less, we get a race there at the end.

 

[KZD]

Incredible how a French team in 'bad shape' still manage to win gold, chapeau.

 

[titan31]

Tandrevold needs to just be dropped completely from the team. Her performance atm is pretty poor and I'd worry they're doing more damage to her mentally at this stage with how it's going.

1 of 5 there is horrific

 

[search]

lol, Michi Rösch just mentioned that he met one of the athletes having a beer in the pub next door the other day. Not Tandrevold, though, but Wierer.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Tandrevold needs to just be dropped completely from the team. Her performance atm is pretty poor and I'd worry they're doing more damage to her mentally at this stage with how it's going.

1 of 5 there is horrific

Ingrid's last shoot is becoming as much of a psychological block as Vittozzi's first one was last year. She's on paper far better than anybody else on the team bar Røiseland, but she's a complete liability in the relay at the moment.

 

[search]

Auchentaller looks really nervous. Let's see how that goes, hopefully she can stay in touch to launch Vittozzi with a chance for gold.

 

[titan31]

Ingrid's last shoot is becoming as much of a psychological block as Vittozzi's first one was last year. She's on paper far better than anybody else on the team bar Røiseland, but she's a complete liability in the relay at the moment.

Yup, we all know she's talented and she's skiing well but she's a bit broken mentally atm unfortunately it seems with that standing shot. I think they should call her season after the worlds and start working on it for next season.

 

[BigCoward]

Norway relay teams could be in double figures for the day by the end of this for penalty loops.

 

[BigCoward]

Good for Italy. Pretty flawless.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Wooooh!
That was a flawless team performance and the coaches already talked about Auchentaller's great final lap yesterday.
Now the question is, where will the party be bigget, Rasen-Antholz or Sappada/Plodn?

 

[Mayomaniac]

lol, Michi Rösch just mentioned that he met one of the athletes having a beer in the pub next door the other day. Not Tandrevold, though, but Wierer.

Compared to how she used to be in her teenage years that's actually rather tame.
Back then drinking and partying was her nr. 1 priority and the sport only came second (her words, not mine)

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Wooooh!
That was a flawless team performance and the coaches already talked about Auchentaller's great final lap yesterday.
Now the question is, where will the party be bigget, Rasen-Antholz or Sappada/Plodn?

Auchentaller is from Innichen, no?

 

[Mayomaniac]

Auchentaller is from Innichen, no?

No, she's not from my hometown. Innichen and Bruneck are the 2 nearest hospitals, so she was born in that Hospital, but isn't from there.
Same as Vittozzi being born in Pieve di Cadore. Her mother gave birth in the nearest hospital, but she's from Sappada. Actually pretty common in rural areas.

 

[BigCoward]

If you are JTB do you try and build a 15 second gap on first lap to buy you a miss with an easy catch up, then just repeat the process. It also means everyone else is working stupidly hard from the start.
What's the forecast like?