Official xc skiing world cup thread

[Libertine Seguros]

Germans back to winning ways in Oberhof, as Magdalena Neuner shakes off the rust from the relay and shoots clear to win. It's the usual suspects at the top - Domracheva 2nd, Zaitseva 3rd and Mäkäräinen 4th, Domracheva with 1 miss 37 seconds back, Mäki with 2 54 seconds back, Zaitseva in the middle 43 seconds back, but like Lena she shot clear. Andrea Henkel coming into some kind of form with 5th, but 1'20" back with only 1 miss - it's quite clear that there is quite some gap in ski speed between Neuner and the rest, with only a handful able to come close to her - Mäkäräinen, Solemdal, Domracheva and Berger the only ones to have really stood up against her ski speed all year. Even the tiny blonde express train that is Miri Gößner can't hold a torch to her, though Miri has had an absolutely terrible season so far; it seems she's sacrificed a lot of ski training to improve with the rifle, and really hasn't improved with it all that much, missing 4 targets today (though only one was from standing, so small mercies since Miriam Gößner taking on a standing shoot is biathlon's equivalent of Andrea Guardini taking on Monte Zoncolán).

Berger missed 3 targets; the rest of the top 10 is filled out by good shooting performances - Gregorin and the relatively unheralded pair of Dubarezava and Burdyga, followed by Rasimoviciute and another of the season's revelations, Olga Vilukhina. Bigger names cluster just outside the top 10 (Kuzmina, Sleptsova, Berger), whilst a disappointing day for France sees Marine Bolliet in 16th their unexpected top finisher after disappointment for Brunet (who actually shot the same as Bolliet but was outskied by the youngster) and Boilley (who looked to be doing well at the halfway stage, then missed 3 in the stand), and Marie Dorin in a catastrophic 71st after missing all 5 prone shots. Even worse for Sweden, with nobody in the top 30 at all - Ekholm in 31st after 3 misses, and worryingly for them, her sister Jenny continues to be a sharp shot, going clear, but continues to make zero progress whatsoever in her ski times, finishing 40th and being outskied by at least two people (Bachmann & Gößner) who missed no fewer than 4 shots; also being outskied by people like Fuyuko Suzuki and Yuliya Dzhyma (who?) can't be good for her confidence.

 

[roundabout]

seems there's a big 4 in the women's biathlon now. One hand it's good that there's 4 of them, however the gap to 5th seems quite big

 

[Libertine Seguros]

seems there's a big 4 in the women's biathlon now. One hand it's good that there's 4 of them, however the gap to 5th seems quite big

Bear in mind that 2 of them are probably retiring at the end of the season. On the other hand last year Tora Berger went on a crazy hotstreak at this point in the season and won something like 5 out of 7 consecutive races, being 2nd in the other 2. Kuzmina is still there or thereabouts, either Brunet or Dorin can compete on their day and the super-fast youngsters like Solemdal and Gößner still have plenty of improving to do.

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

Germans back to winning ways in Oberhof, as Magdalena Neuner shakes off the rust from the relay and shoots clear to win. It's the usual suspects at the top - Domracheva 2nd, Zaitseva 3rd and Mäkäräinen 4th, Domracheva with 1 miss 37 seconds back, Mäki with 2 54 seconds back, Zaitseva in the middle 43 seconds back, but like Lena she shot clear. Andrea Henkel coming into some kind of form with 5th, but 1'20" back with only 1 miss - it's quite clear that there is quite some gap in ski speed between Neuner and the rest, with only a handful able to come close to her - Mäkäräinen, Solemdal, Domracheva and Berger the only ones to have really stood up against her ski speed all year.

These were the average time gaps in december (I didn't put these stats together but I trust they're accurate):

MÄKÄRÄINEN Kaisa
DOMRACHEVA Darya +7.93s
SOLEMDAL Synnøve +11.47s
NEUNER Magdalena +13.96s
ZAITSEVA Olga +30.55s
BERGER Tora +30.97s
KUZMINA Anastasiya +31.23s
EKHOLM Helena +32.03s
BACHMANN Tina +34.48s
HENKEL Andrea +42.26s
GÖSSNER Miriam +43.47s

and today...

1. DOMRACHEVA Darya
2. MÄKÄRÄINEN Kaisa +4.3s
3. NEUNER Magdalena +7.8s
4. SOLEMDAL Synnoeve +38.1
5. BERGER Tora +50.1
6. KUZMINA Anastasiya +51.2
7. HENKEL Andrea +53.7
7. ZAITSEVA Olga +53.7

Miri has had an absolutely terrible season so far; it seems she's sacrificed a lot of ski training to improve with the rifle, and really hasn't improved with it all that much, missing 4 targets today (though only one was from standing, so small mercies since Miriam Gößner taking on a standing shoot is biathlon's equivalent of Andrea Guardini taking on Monte Zoncolán).

Bear in mind that 2 of them are probably retiring at the end of the season. On the other hand last year Tora Berger went on a crazy hotstreak at this point in the season and won something like 5 out of 7 consecutive races, being 2nd in the other 2. Kuzmina is still there or thereabouts, either Brunet or Dorin can compete on their day and the super-fast youngsters like Solemdal and Gößner still have plenty of improving to do.

Is this Zaitseva's last season?

 

[python]

great day for winter sports lovers today
(all times GMT)

01:15 - 02:30, Nordic Combined, World Cup

02:30 - 03:3, Alpine Skiing, World Cup

04:00 - 08:45, Ice Speed Skating, European Championships

05:00 - 05:30, Cross Country Skiing, FIS Tour de Ski
(surprized it's only half hour ...northug is losing his 2nd today ??

06:30 - 07:45, Biathlon World Cup

 

[Bavarianrider]

As always men mass stared race sucked.
The track needs to be a lot harder to make a good race. The climbs have to be longer !!!!!

 

[Nastyy]

Such a shame to see Manificat and Legkov lose any chance of a good result because of awful skis. The French waxing team didn't find proper combination for Manificat in 3 of the four classic races(not including sprint).

 

[python]

As always men mass stared race sucked.
The track needs to be a lot harder to make a good race. The climbs have to be longer !!!!!

that's for tomorrow - a rare ALL uphill race...today was by design about bonus points to liven the action and break up the bunch. i don't mind particularly when northug got zero bonus points at the finish

Eldar Rønning smart racing..a well deserved win. legkov ist kaput, doubt he'll reclaim 3d overall.

legkov waxing problems are particularly strange b/c all his teammates seemed OK.

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

Hellner is a very good climber in form. Would love it if he chased down Northug tomorrow.

 

[Ragerod]

I didn't expect to see Yoshida in the thick of it today, what a pleasant surprise.

1. Dario COLOGNA 4:01:33.1 SUI
2. Petter jr. NORTHUG 4:02:55.1 NOR
3. Marcus HELLNER 4:03:39.6 SWE
4. Devon KERSHAW 4:03:39.8 CAN
5. Lukas BAUER 4:05:08.4 CZE
6. Alex HARVEY 4:05:09.7 CAN
7. Maxim VYLEGZHANIN 4:05:35.1 RUS
8. Alexander LEGKOV 4:05:38.1 RUS
9. Sergey TURYSHEV 4:05:43.9 RUS
10. Jens FILBRICH 4:05:52.2 GER

Hopefully Hellner and Kershaw work together to get that gap to Northug down before the Alpe Cermis. That's the only way they stand a chance of getting second and personally I'll be hoping both of them pass the Norwegian.

 

[Nastyy]

Allez allez Simon!! If Simon wins this and it seems likely that he will, I shall celebrate it tonight! It's been a long time coming.

Loses by 1.1 to Pfeiffer F*CK.

 

[Libertine Seguros]

That's a great run by Peiffer. The conditions certainly sped up in the middle of the running; Michael Rösch put in a storming ski time and shot fast only missing one, but his time was only good for 16th in the end, despite being inside a minute of Peiffer's winning time. Simon Fourcade must wonder what on earth he has to do to get a win; that's two sprints in a row where he's skied fast and shot clear, and not got the duke. At Hochfilzen he was clearly the athlete of the day, with conditions being absolutely dreadful when he went, and then a freakish change in conditions making shooting easier AND skiing faster later on relegating him to 6th; here Peiffer just absolutely shone on the skis, really crushing the opposition on them. Well, except Emil Hegle Svendsen, whose time was incredible given that he had three misses in that. Lukas Hofer had a great run too, the Italians are having an amazing weekend, but he went off too fast on the final lap and paid for it by falling away a bit at the end.

 

[python]

therese is not herself today

jastina seems completely rejuvenated after a day off, impressive !

 

[Lupetto]

What happend to Therese "Rujano" Johaug? Was hoping for her to gain back some seconds today and to destroy Cermis tomorrow, like she did last year.

 

[meat puppet]

Ditto, re Johaug. An off day clearly.

As much as I like Justyna beating Björgen, Im really not a big fan of her style. Just awful, pure brute force. But probably takes the cake tomorrow and better her than Björgen I guess.

Lähteenmäki will be a very tough nut in years to come.

 

[crapna]

Mass starts really are rock bottom. Pure idiotism.

 

[DenisMenchov]

I missed todays races due to Christmas lunch with my familly. Thank you guys for covering it up.

 

[Ferminal]

Awful for Legkov

 

[python]

some interesting bits about yesterdays classic races at the tds:

- therese said to nrk it just wasn’t her day
- rønning was supposed to work for northug, and he did for some time, but then decided to take his own chance
-cologna complained that the climbs were too steep, bauer simply said, ‘it is not skiing, it is running.’
-harvey said he felt he could pass cologna at the finish but made a mistake of staying behind when cologna started his herring bone on the last climb
- the unofficial theories about legkov’s troubles yesterday (he hasn’t spoken himself yet) range from poor choice of new sponsor (rossignol) to mistakes with training for the season to troubles on the team. my personal opinion (after comparing his style in previous years to the winning style if this tds classic time trial) that he relies more on the upper body strength now and thus perhaps overemphasized glide over kick waxing. it was obvious during the victorious time trial - his glide in the last 100 m was marvelous - but perhaps backfired on yesterday's monstrous climbs. also, his remarkable strength herring boning in earlier SHORTER (!) climbs yet being able to stay with 'gliders', speaks to the same conclusion. the grape vine said his teammates refused to pace him back to the pack.

 

[DenisMenchov]

Kowalchyk destroys Bjoergen on Final Climb and wins Tour de Ski

 

[python]

'destroyed' is the word i too wanted to use...we still don't know who won the climb ?

 

[Lupetto]

we still don't know who won the climb ?

Johaug did.

1 Johaug 34:18
2 Kowalczyk 0:51
3 Bjoergen 1:08
4 Kristoffersen 1:11
5 Shevchenko 1:14
6 Zeller 1:20
7 Laahtenmaki 1:26
8 Stephen 1:33
9 Roponen 1:51
10 Jacobsen 1:55

http://www.fis-ski.com/pdf/2012/CC/2569/2012CC2569RL.pdf

 

[Bavarianrider]

Neuner beasting on the last lap

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

Hellner is really ripping this climb.

 

[Lupetto]

Northug is half-dead. Hellner passing him very easy. Northug shouldn't have wasted his energy with Aylar Lie.