Nordic Skiing/Biathlon Thread

[KZD]

Putting Tandrevold in the single mixed relay had everything to go wrong and so it did.

Great win for the Swiss.

 

[Mayomaniac]

After a solid 15th place yesterday Davide Graz gets a 10th place today (700m before the finish he was still 7th, exactly the same time as Lapalus). Ok that the Italians had good skis today, but frankly this weekend had really fair conditions.

 

[Lequack]

The single mixed relay was the last race in the home Pokljuka for Jakov Fak, very emotional after a long career.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Putting Tandrevold in the single mixed relay had everything to go wrong and so it did.

Great win for the Swiss.

Kirkeeide is likely the best choice for them there, but then with Knotten in horrifically bad form that would probably leave them with Tandrevold and Lien in the Mixed Relay, and although she's done OK today, Ida has all the same possibilities of catastrophe as Ingrid does.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

A day after Anamarija Lampič somehow doesn't win a race on 19/20 despite being the season-long best skier in women's biathlon... Einar Hedegart, a struggling biathlete last seen setting the 34th best ski time in the 10k Sprint in the European Championships last season, finishes on the podium of the XC World Cup.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I want to someday have the power of Jens Filbrich as cc coach of the German men‘s biathlete, the longer he‘s near the skiers the worse they get at skiing.

I have no idea how he has managed to keep in this role so long, it's almost as bad as the Russian women when they made Devyatyarov the skiing coach and he demanded everybody had to ski like Ekaterina Yurlova because she was their best athlete, regardless of physical shape, strength, size or technique, and the only member of the team who didn't get objectively worse on the skis was... Ekaterina Yurlova, who refused to train with him and used her own personal trainers that she'd used when she was turfed out of the team and fought her way back on her own to win that World title in Kontiolahti 2015.

 

[BullsFan22]

What's hilarious (sad really) is how she is living rent free in your head; you truly seem like you have mental health issues around it at this point.

Dude, I thought you weren’t coming back here. What happened?

 

[BigCoward]

Riiber calls it a day. You can argue about who is the best xc skiier or biathlete, but that is a discussion that is over.
if he had carried on at his current rate he'd have won about 3x as many races as anyone else when he retired. Hopefully there isn't any unfinished business for him and he goes into his retirement happy.
Also nice that Herola finally got a win.

 

[Mayomaniac]

A day after Anamarija Lampič somehow doesn't win a race on 19/20 despite being the season-long best skier in women's biathlon... Einar Hedegart, a struggling biathlete last seen setting the 34th best ski time in the 10k Sprint in the European Championships last season, finishes on the podium of the XC World Cup.

Tbf, Biathlon skiing with it's stop and go nature and short, intense laps is more like sprints, hard to tell too much about one's ability as a distance skier by watching it. Guys like Krüger or prime Holund would also not stick out too much in that kind of format. The weird thing is that nobody in Norway has figured out before that he should focus on XC skiing, but his results in junior biathlon were good.

 

[BullsFan22]

Tbf, Biathlon skiing with it's stop and go nature and short, intense laps is more like sprints, hard to tell too much about one's ability as a distance skier by watching it. Guys like Krüger or prime Holund would also not stick out too much in that kind of format. The weird thing is that nobody in Norway has figured out before that he should focus on XC skiing, but his results in junior biathlon were good.

Exactly

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Tbf, Biathlon skiing with it's stop and go nature and short, intense laps is more like sprints, hard to tell too much about one's ability as a distance skier by watching it. Guys like Krüger or prime Holund would also not stick out too much in that kind of format. The weird thing is that nobody in Norway has figured out before that he should focus on XC skiing, but his results in junior biathlon were good.

The 15/10 free is, however, the main format that strong-skiing biathletes like Berger, Håfsas, Gössner and Mäkäräinen have gone for. I get the shooting-breaks-as-rest-periods theory behind it, and others like Laukkanen/Eder were much better at sprint formats (plus Martin Fourcade would seem to have been similar, exploding spectacularly in the second half of the race when he attempted XC 15ks), but it is by no means universal and I'd presume it depends on the type of athlete one is as a biathlete as well. To use some strong skiers from yesteryear that never did test their mettle in XC, I'd have thought that, say, Magdalena Neuner would have been more suited to the sprint discipline with her power and force, but Darya Domracheva with her efficiency and glide would have been more suited to the 10k. In the XC world, Patricija Eiduka is another one like Hedegart who started out as a biathlete but is actually stronger in the endurance formats, but with her I think it's more a family thing, because all her older siblings did biathlon too.

The fact the men's has reduced from 15 free to 10 free to match the women's might suit some of the biathletes actually, since it reduces that fatigue that they would accumulate in the last few kilometres without the pause for respite that the shooting breaks gave them.

 

[BullsFan22]

The 15/10 free is, however, the main format that strong-skiing biathletes like Berger, Håfsas, Gössner and Mäkäräinen have gone for. I get the shooting-breaks-as-rest-periods theory behind it, and others like Laukkanen/Eder were much better at sprint formats (plus Martin Fourcade would seem to have been similar, exploding spectacularly in the second half of the race when he attempted XC 15ks), but it is by no means universal and I'd presume it depends on the type of athlete one is as a biathlete as well. To use some strong skiers from yesteryear that never did test their mettle in XC, I'd have thought that, say, Magdalena Neuner would have been more suited to the sprint discipline with her power and force, but Darya Domracheva with her efficiency and glide would have been more suited to the 10k. In the XC world, Patricija Eiduka is another one like Hedegart who started out as a biathlete but is actually stronger in the endurance formats, but with her I think it's more a family thing, because all her older siblings did biathlon too.

The fact the men's has reduced from 15 free to 10 free to match the women's might suit some of the biathletes actually, since it reduces that fatigue that they would accumulate in the last few kilometres without the pause for respite that the shooting breaks gave them.

No. Neuner’s sprint wasn’t that great.

 

[kingjr]

Crazy to see Lampič hit 19/20 and still not winning.

Frode Andresen once hit 19/20 in a 20k and did not even get a podium. At a world championship no less.

 

[kingjr]

Tbf, Biathlon skiing with it's stop and go nature and short, intense laps is more like sprints, hard to tell too much about one's ability as a distance skier by watching it. Guys like Krüger or prime Holund would also not stick out too much in that kind of format. The weird thing is that nobody in Norway has figured out before that he should focus on XC skiing, but his results in junior biathlon were good.

OEB stuck out a bit.

 

[Mayomaniac]

OEB stuck out a bit.

Yeah, but Ole was an outliner among outliners, a generational talent (I actually know his former physio really well).

 

[BullsFan22]

Yeah, but Ole was an outliner among outliners, a generational talent (I actually know his former physio really well).

He used to live in your area a lot. Used a camper van. His former squeeze was one of the Santers.

 

[Mayomaniac]

He used to live in your area a lot. Used a camper van. His former squeeze was one of the Santers.

Yeah and his Physio was a former winner of Toblach-Cortina and the Pustertaler Skimarathon, who had worked with Belmondo before.
Yes, I remember the stories about him and Darja sneaking into eachother's hotel rooms in Antholz before their relationship was official and don't remind me of his marriage. A classmate played there with the marching band, so I had to do a big presentation on my own and the teacher gave both of us the same grade. I was mad...

 

[kingjr]

Yeah, but Ole was an outliner among outliners, a generational talent (I actually know his former physio really well).

The aforementioned Frode Andresen was also a distance specialist. He was probably the closest to someone like Holund among the biathletes.

 

[Silhouette]

I don't think I've seen anyone who loved competing more than OEB. If he had been healthy he would have kept going some more years.

 

[DonAragona]

Johaug has done another u-turn and will ski in Lahti this weekend.

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

Johaug has done another u-turn and will ski in Lahti this weekend.

Im fearing another u-turn and that she will also ski next season..

 

[Mayomaniac]

Im fearing another u-turn and that she will also ski next season..

Yeah, little miss Piss likes the media attention a bit too much.

 

[kingjr]

Im fearing another u-turn and that she will also ski next season..

Why fearing? Johaug not being as dominant as she used to be, but still very aggressive, is a best-case scenario for women's CC skiing.

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

Why fearing? Johaug not being as dominant as she used to be, but still very aggressive, is a best-case scenario for women's CC skiing.

For me it's more about the differences in how Cross Country is being portraited in media with or without Johaug.

 

[kingjr]

For me it's more about the differences in how Cross Country is being portraited in media with or without Johaug.

Ah well, just ignore the media =)