Biathlon World Championships; Khanty-Mansiysk (Siberia).

Event 1 - Mixed Team relay: Well, here we go - cold conditions and looks to be variable wind conditions along the range; apparently the US team tried lane 1 and 30 (today?) and found a considerable difference in sight adjustment (6 clicks in all?). On leg 1 Berger is looking good but glad to see Andrea Henkel shooting better in the standing position - dropping back a bit though on the final lap pre handover. Eckholm's shooting a bit shaky by her normal standards?

Leg 2: Second skiers away and Lena Neuner is flying, as usual - can she shoot well today though? So far so good - Flatland only one spare round required, and Lena goes clear - 13.8 seconds behind now with Zidek in third; home team not having a good day, although noble sniper Zaitseva has just cleared all her targets! Into the standing shoot for the 2nd women - Lena clear again!!!! Flatland has missed one and is now 12 seconds back; Zidek not having a good time which lets Mäkäräinen through into third.

Leg 3: Now this is going to be exciting - Arnd Peiffer away 24.7 seconds in front of Björndalen (OEB) with Greis v Bø to come! Peiffer has flown round the lap and has 4 x 4 down but a minor mechanical distracts him and he needs a spare round; OEB misses 2 and the gap is now 28.7 seconds; Finland third 1m.08 behind. Tora Berger reckons the wind isn't as bad as it looks on the range but the number of misses by others suggests she was either lucky, or just very good! Speaking of the range and wind - Arnd misses 2, OEB just one and the gap is down to 19 seconds. Finland still 3rd, but slipping back a little and Bjorn Ferry has got Sweden up into 4th - the caption showed 4 misses but apparently all his targets were down. 
Ye gods - Eurosport are cramming in the adverts today - very annoying! As a result the two leaders are through the split time check before we rejoin but at the next Arnd has held his lead - he hands over to Greis who leads off with a gap of 23.9 seconds - well done Arnd!

Final leg: Good news for the GB team - they are hoping to finish this team event but apparently if you're lapped then that's the team out; Greis has just done that to the Brits - but I think they'll be allowed to start the 4th leg (didn't see them listed on the finishers though)! Perhaps in revenge the weather gods aren't on Michael's side and he doesn't have a good prone shoot; Tarjei Bø however is very steady and the gap is now only 3 seconds - soon after he's right on Greis's shoulder and through; Bergman meanwhile is third with Fourcade 4th - Finland have dropped back to 6th behind Belarus. At the next split Bø is up on Greis and comes into the last shoot about 25 metres clear. Bø misses one, but gets it with the first spare round - chance for Greis but he does exactly the same and the gap is 14.9 seconds as they leave on the final lap. Bergman has a bit of a cow, and so it's Martin Fourcade who leaves in third, 20 seconds up on the Swedes. Italy, with Lucas Hofer are 5th - the Finns have an awful final shoot and are now only 3 seconds clear of Russia in 6th - Russia coming back from early problems. 
So to the finish - Michael Greis can catch most people but not Tarjei Bø who has been brilliant today and deservedly takes the win for the Norwegian team with Germany in 2nd and France third - good start to the championships and exciting racing. Sweden 4th, Italy 5th and Russia 6th.

A difficult day today, trying to watch the Men’s GS from Kranjska Gora, the Men’s 10 Km sprint biathlon from Khanty-Mansiysk and the Women’s downhill from Tarvisio! In Siberia, 5 ½ hours east of Moscow, Michal Slesingr is away early in the men's 10 Km sprint but misses 1 in the prone letting Vincent Jay take over the early lead after shoot 1. Emil Hegle Svendsen (not at the cross country Worlds, despite rumours?) is fast but also misses 1 – even so with his speed he’s only 4 seconds behind; shooting seems to be causing problems today as the wind has shifted since the teams zeroed. At shoot 2 Jay misses 1; general feeling is that he’s not fast enough to get away with this; Svendsen, who is much faster, also misses another in the standing shoot but even so is only 7 seconds down on Slesingr at this stage.

Shipulin is also very fast but his shooting lets him down – stony silence from the home supporters. Back at shoot 1 Arnd Peiffer is showing that he’s very much in form and goes clear; fellow German team member Micky Greis perhaps rushed his first shot here and records a miss – soon after Tarjei Bø comes in to shoot – he’s about the same pace as Greis and also misses one; doesn’t seem quite up to normal form today? Meanwhile Svendsen has finished and despite his 2 misses he’s in the lead at that stage; doesn’t look as though he’ll keep it though as Arnd P has completed shoot 2 with only 1 miss and is skiing really fast. Meanwhile Björndalen (OEB) shoots clear in the prone, but he’s nearly 27 seconds off AP’s pace, while Tarjei Bø is a similar margin behind at shoot 2 - the Norwegians seem a bit off form today, and later interviews suggest it might be due to the distractions of trying to be in the Nordic WC in Oslo?

Meanwhile the Russians are having a bad day on the range as one after the other drops targets – morale among the supporters is understandably a bit low; Tscheresov looks as though he might lift their spirits but then misses his final shot. Conditions are obviously tricky as OEB misses 2 in shoot 2, and Greis 1 – later starter Martin Fourcade misses 2 in the prone and everyone writes him off until he clears the standing targets and uses his speed to catch back up – it looks for a while as though he might even win, but the last hill is too much and he comes in 13 seconds behind Peiffer in second place; brilliant effort! At last there’s some good news for the Russians as Andrei Makoveev shoots clear (the first person to do so today) and races for the line – he fades as he gets towards the end and to the great relief of Tarjei Bø, who looks a little vulnerable in third, he can’t quite make it and ends up 4th, just off the podium.

That’s about it – for a while Simon Fourcade looks as though he might join his brother, but he drops a target and can’t catch up. Final result – 1st Peiffer (GER); 2 M Fourcade (FRA); 3 Bø (NOR); 4 Makoveev (RUS); 5 Svendsen (NOR); 6 Birnbacher (GER). Great showing by the Germans who were all in the top 10 (Stephan 7th, Greis 9th). Great news for the GB team as 2 got into the top 60 and will thus start the pursuit on Sunday (Lee-Steve Jackson 48th and Marcel Laponder 57th – he was also clear in the shooting, the only person to do so apart from Makoveev )

Good report on this on the BBC 606 by Urlaub in Polen - give it a look!

With the German men doing so well this morning in the 10 Km sprint, the big question was whether Magdalena Neuner and the other German women could match them in the Women's 7.5 Km. Lena was off early and at the first split was already up on Italy's Ponza who is no slouch herself. At the first shoot, and we know she's better at the prone shoots, Neuner went clear and as the other competitors took their turn it was obvious that the women were going to shoot better than the men! Nice to hear Lee-Steve Jackson's view from the commentary box - he reckoned the wind conditions were about the same as for the men, so possibly the coaches and the female competitors had learned some lessons from this morning?

In the early stages Kuzmina was well in touch, clearing the prone targets with a very nice rhythm to be 2.8 seconds up on Neuner after shoot 1. Ekaterina Yurlova gave the home crowd something to cheer about after the disappointing performance by the Russian men this morning (except Makaveev) by also going clear on the first shoot - huge cheer! Shoot 2 was going to be be critical, and Lena Neuner is obviously on form today as she cleared the lot - 10/10 today (for the 2nd time this championship) and she really took off on the final lap to finish in 20:31.2. Of the possible challengers, Marie Dorin had also shot clear but apparently has a cold which might have slowed her down a bit; Helena Eckholm was better on the range than in the relay and also went clear but was unable to match Lena's ski speed.

Among the later starters was Kaisa Mäkäräinen (Finland) whose speed was good enough early on to suggest she might be the main threat to a double German gold. She duly went clear and left the range after shoot 2 about 4 seconds down on Lena; unfortunately she couldn't match the German's speed on the final lap and finished just a fraction over 12 seconds behind; Kuzmina's one missed target dropped her to third at that stage. To the delight of the crowd, Olga Zaitseva also shot clear and left shoot 2 with a decent chance of getting on the podium - despite her efforts she was unable to keep up the speed and ended in that most disappointing of places - fourth! Even so the Russian women did well, holding up under the pressure of home expectation (best results - 4th & 6th).One other obvious contender should have been Tora Berger, but she was a little off the pace and uncharacteristically missed one target at each shoot which dropped her out of the running.

In the end Magdalena Neuner was just too accurate and fast and took another gold for Germany (ZDF refer to her as "goldlena") from Kaisa Mäkäräinen who may well be a real threat in the pursuit. Kuzmina was third, Zaitseva 4th, Eckholm 5th and Yurlova 6th. Tora Berger could only manage 7th ahead of Dorin, Gössner (so 2 Germans in the top 10) and Semerenko. Andrea Henkel was only 20th so will (?) lose the overall World Cup lead to Kaisa Mäkäräinen. More good news for GB as I think Amanda Lightfoot should end up in the top 60 beating, among others, Selina Gasparin.

Out doing my own sport so missed the live stuff and had to make do with reports and highlights.

The Men's 12.5 Km Pursuit was divided into the top 4 finishers and the rest; Arnd Peiffer led off with Martin Fourcade just a few seconds behind, but obviously a man on a mission as he arrived at shoot 1 level with Peiffer and shot clear just a tiny bit faster than the German - good start for both at the range. Russia's hopes suffered another blow when their top starter, Makaveev, missed 2 on his first visit to the range, unlike Norway's Tarjei Bø who also went clear. At this stage I had to go out, but from there on it became a straight battle for the medals between Arnd P, Martin Fourcade, Bø and his Norwegian team-mate (and rival) Emil Hegle Svendsen. By the end of the final shoot Fourcade, with 3 misses was still ahead of Peiffer (2), Bø (2) and Svendsen (2) - impressive ski speed from the Frenchman and by that stage there was no credible threat to these 4 remaining. On the final lap Fourcade kept his lead but Arnd was tiring and had very little left when the Norwegians closed him down - in the end Martin Fourcade took his first World Title from a fast closing Svendsen, with Bø just beating Peiffer by 0.6 seconds - top 4 separated by only just under 6 seconds! I feel very sorry for Arnd Peiffer - huge effort and no podium, but you could see from his skiing that he was completely spent at the finish; even so nearly a minute ahead of Andi Birnbacher in 5th. The French were probably delighted to see Simon Fourcade in 6th. Britain's Lee-Steve Jackson completed the event in 47th place. More at [url]http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/06032011/58/fourcade-wins-maiden-world-title.html [/url]

The Women's 10 Km Pursuit was also a cracking race, with some excellent shooting. The sprint winner, Magdalena Neuner led Kaisa Mäkäräinen (Finland) away by about 12 seconds with Kuzmina, Zaitseva, Eckholm and Yurlova making up the top 6 starters. Mäkäräinen seemed to have a good strategy - she's obviously on good form and, as an ex cross country specialist who transferred to biathlon in 2003(?), has the raw speed to be a very serious contender, so she didn't feel the need to go too fast too early. Coming into the final shoot Lena was about 40 seconds clear of Mäkäräinen, both having shot 15/15 so far. Alas, Lena missed her first and last shots and came out of her 2 penalty loops some 8 seconds behind the Finn who had improved her record even more by shooting 20/20; could the fast Neuner catch the fast Kaisa on the final lap? Possibly Lena had just put too much into the early laps becuase Mäkäräinen pulled away and took a really well deserved world title; Lena, even with 2 misses, took another silver (1 gold & 2 silvers so far) which she seemed very happy with, with Helena Eckholm, also with 20/20, in third. In fourth, making a spectacular charge from 20th at the start, was my nomination for star of the day, Andrea Henkel - 20/20 and a faster ski time than Mäkäräinen (but then again, she's a real star too and didn't need to go any faster, I suppose!). Berger and Kuzmina had errors in the shooting but still came in the top 6 while Miri Gössner had an "interesting" day - 10/10 in prone and up to 4th place before having a reversion to type and missing 4 in shoot 3 (I know how she feels!) which dropped her to 16th. Good news however was that she didn't go flakey, shot clear in shoot 4 which got her up to 12th and her sheer speed took her to 7th overall. The Russians, still having a disappointing championships, came in 10th, 11th and 12th, with Zaitseva dropping 8 places en route. More events this week!

I can see why this doesn't quite catch the TV Directors' imagination with its format, but it's still an exciting event, especially as here it's a full one minute added to the overall time for every miss, rather than a 20-25 second penalty loop. Also a full 20 Km course and 4 shoots - 2 standing, 2 prone. Interesting first couple legs; Michi Greis went off quite slowly with the commentators wondering about his recent form but later Bø and Svendsen were also away gently - the older hands taking it easier than say Arnd Peiffer and Martin Fourcade? Nice to see Lee-Steve Jackson (clear at that stage) getting a mention on the ZDF ticker (Jackson überrascht: Nach dem 2. Schießen führt mittlerweile Ivan Tcherezov vor dem Briten Jackson und Michael Greis.) for actually being ahead of Michi (who missed 1 in shoot 2) after shooting 2. However, after shooting 2 things began to unravel a bit for a few of the faster starters; Arnd Peiffer for example missed 2 in shooting 3 and this dropped him down, especially as he dropped another in shoot 4. Missing wasn't entirely the end of the day though for some people, as the commentators found out when they wrote off Emile Hegle Svendsen after his 2 misses in shoot 2 - he cleared the rest and his ski speed ramped up nicely towards the end when others began to fade. (They also wrote off Fourcade in the 10 Km sprint when he missed 2; he won the silver!)

Man of the day was probably the in form Tarjei Bø; he shot 0,0,1,0 and had impressive speed, again not fading as the race progressed - good tactics and impressive discipline by the Norwegians. Conversely Martin Fourcade seemed to mirror Arnd Peiffer's plans by starting fast, but he also had 3 misses (0,0,1,2) which gave him just too much to recover. Meanwhile the Russians, having a disappointing championships so far, were shooting brilliantly - Maxim Maksimov shot 15/15 to immense cheers from the crowd, and his ski speed seemed pretty good too, although the dropping temperatures were making things a bit harder for the later starters. Among others coming through were Ole Einar Björndalen (OEB), who is getting a tough time from some commentators - off form, too old etc; he answered many critics with 0,0,0,1 and some good speed, while Semenov, Vincent Jay, Christophe Sumann and the Estonian Tobreluts were also 15/15 after shooting 3.

By this stage it looked good for a Norwegian heavy podium, with Bø taking revenge on Svendsen, who had made a remarkable recovery for his 2 misses to finish 49.7 secs back from his countryman. However, Maksimov had other ideas, clearing his last 5 targets and heading out on his last lap - I think about 4 seconds back on Bø's time? Despite the support of the crowd he couldn't match Bø's pace - with a huge effort he managed to split Bø and Svendsen; as Sumann missed his final target the question now was whether Maksimov could hold onto the silver - in the end Sumann couldn't quite take him, but did dislodge Svendsen from the podium. Meanwhile Semenov and Tobreluts both missed 2 of the last 5 and while Vincent Jay shot clear he just wasn't fast enough to worry the leaders today.

That really brought things to a close; Bø (Nor) took the gold with Russia at last getting a medal - silver to Maksimov. Sumann (Aut) kept the bronze from Svendsen (Nor) in 4th, Bjorn Ferry (Swe) in 5th and OEB (Nor) in 6th (not bad for an old man - only 36!). No medals for Germany today with Greis 7th, Birnbacher 8th and Arnd Peiffer 15th. Martin Fourcade (Fra) ended up 10th, but it's worth highlighting Britain Lee-Steve Jackson's performance - 47th overall, so no World Cup points, but a great run - if my maths are correct he missed 3, same as Simon Fourcade, and was only 14.2 seconds behind the Frenchman!

Does this result give Svendsen the World Cup win in the Individual discipline??

Caught the early part of the Women's Individual today, but had to go out and missed the end, so all I have is the early stages and the result! The women certainly drew the short straw with the weather; about -15 today, which with wind chill was apparently down at about -26 equivalent. In addition the wind was about force 4/5 and extremely variable in both force and direction; while skill was at a premium there was also a huge element of luck in getting a lull as you came in to shoot - many people adjusted for the wind as they started the shoot only to see it shift through 180 degrees and/or vary in speed quite drastically! Still, as someone pointed out a while ago - it is an outdoor sport!

Tora Berger was away early - I'm not a huge fan but even I will admit she was extremely unlucky with conditions ending up with 5 misses (1,1,2,1) and seeming to be a bit slower than normal - perhaps deciding that it was worth saving something for later after incurring 5 minutes of penalty time? Domracheva fared even worse (1,2,1,2) and fell once leaving the range, while Lena Neuner, also away early on, had one clear round but then also suffered from the conditions (0,2,1,2) - you hardly need to speak German to translate her comment "Wie Lottospielen", but at least she was skiing faster than Berger.

Kaisa Mäkäräinen had an even worse day (1,2,2,2,) - probably the unluckiest so far with the weather, except possibly Zidek who missed 3 on her first shoot, while Nadezhda Skardino (new name to me), a BLR athlete although born in Russia (bet they wish they'd held on to her and Kuzmina), had a good day on the range - maybe a bit lucky but she looked to be very careful about checking the wind conditions and waiting if necessary - result 0,0,0,1! Speaking of the Russians they were without Sleptsova (being rested for the mass start?) and Zaitseva who is apparently ill. The Germans rested Hitzer and Gössner, replacing them with Bachmann and Buchholz.

With the finishers starting to come in, I had to leave but at that stage Helena Eckholm (Swe) was 15/15 and skiing fast too. As it turned out, she shot 20/20, one of very few to achieve this in tough conditions, and very deservedly won the race. Tina Bachmann (Ger), who started 57th so I hardly saw her, had only 2 misses (0,2,0,0) and took the silver from Vita Semerenko (Ukr) (1,0,0,2) in Bronze. Skardino was 4th with only that 1 miss and amazingly Lena Neuner still finished 5th despite 5 misses, beating Marie Dorin with only 3!

Other notables were Yurlova in 7th, Kuzmina 9th, Tora Berger in 10th and Kaisa Mäkäräinen in 28th; the Brits had quite a respectable day with Amanda Lightfoot finishing in 34th place (0,2,1,0) - Nerys Jones 62, Adele Walker 71 and Fay Potton 85.

At this stage the Germans lead the medal table with 2 gold, 3 silver, 0 bronze with Norway second (2,1,2) and France third (1,1,1). More to come tomorrow ..

If you support team Germany, look away now! The men's 4 x 7.5 Km team relay was a bit of a nail-biter. Norway looked very strong on paper, but with several other teams threatening and the inevitable pressure anything might happen. It was also a lot warmer, so the poor old technicians were back in the spotlight trying to get the set up correct. First blood went to Norway with a great leg from Björndalen; Christoph Stephan (Ger) had a poor shoot in the prone (3 spare rounds needed) but managed to pull Germany back to within striking distance by the handover.

Alexander Os (Nor) had a nasty moment on leg 2 when he had a mini meltdown on the standing shoot and had to ski a penalty loop, to the delight of the Russians who closed up again. Birnbacher (Ger) had trouble on the prone shoot but managed to ski himself back into it, while Os's speed meant that by the second handover Norway was leading from Germany and Russia; at this stage Latvia (who have been begging and selling their cars to fund their team) were lying in 4th place ahead of Ukraine and Sweden.

Leg 3 saw Arnd Peiffer (Ger) go head to head with Emil Hegle Svendsen (Nor) with Maxim Maksimov trailing for Russia. The commentators thought it might be a little odd putting Arnd against Svendsen and that it might have been better to have kept him for the final leg - maybe they were right? For my money Maksimov was a real star today, up against two faster skiers he kept in touch and let his better shooting keep him up with the hunt - even at the standing shoot, when he was probably suffering from a faster leg than he could cope with, he went clear - alas, on the last stretch to the final handover the strain told and he dropped back by about 30 seconds.

On to the final rotation and Peiffer handed over to Michi Gries just fractionally ahead, a situation Tarjei Bø soon reversed; Tcherezov still in touch for Russia. Gries and Bø came into the final prone shoot neck and neck, with the German geting the first shot away and looking good as the target fell - alas the next flurry of shots went wide and he ended up with no spare rounds and 3 targets still standing - off to three penalty loops and goodbye medals. Bø was much steadier and despite needing 1 spare led away from Italy, Ukraine and Sweden, Russia also fading a bit at that stage. In the final shoot Bø had a comfortable margin but missed one target - first spare just low, second just low and third wide - off to the penalty loop but this is Tarjei Bø and he's in awesome form - he held his lead from Tcherezov and Sednev and skied off for the gold medal; magnificent effort from Norway. A great tussle between Russia and Ukraine went in the host's favour with Tcherezov taking the silver from Sednev, who just held off a surging Bjorn Ferry. Italy and USA in a photo for 5th (USA well above their bib number, so well done them) and Germany 7th and gutted - dreadful day on the prone range for them. Not a good day, and to add insult Maria Riesch is now only 38 points ahead of Lindsey Vonn in the overall Alpine after a disappointing GS.

More on [url]http://www5.biathlonworld.com/en/press_releases.html/do/detail?presse=1263 [/url]

Mass starts today for both women and men; 30 racers in each. Women first; as you might expect from such a fast, large group it's a bit bumpy at the start - Domracheva an obvious victim with a fall and a broken pole and as they settle she's 29th of 30. For the Russians Zaitseva is back from illness - better rested than the others but what has the illness done to her fitness? At shooting 1 (prone) only 10 of the 30 get 5/5 including Lena Neuner, Dorin, Eckholm, Ponza and Zaitseva; Andrea Henkel is fast but misses 2, not a good start! On to shoot 2 and Lena misses 1, so, very unusualy, does Helena Eckholm. Marie Dorin goes clear and leads away from Neuner, already back in contention, Ponza and Kuzmina - Henkel, Domracheva and Tora Berger are all trailing a bit at this stage with 3 misses.
Into the first standing shoot, not Neuner's strongest suit especially after she's clawed her way back into a good lead, and she misses twice, as does Kuzmina; Dorin is clear as is Ponza - Berger and Domracheva are coming back, also clear here. They head out again with Dorin leading, from Ponza, Brunet, Eckholm and Zaitseva - Lena back in 7th. Neuner's ski speed gets her back up with the pack as they come in for the final shoot; Ponza drops 2, Lena 1 but so does Dorin - Berger & Domracheva both clear and after such an awful start it's Domracheva who leads away on the final lap from Neuner, Dorin, Berger and a resurgent Kaisa Mäkäräinen. Lena Neuner has already skied her way back into this twice - has she enough left to get Darya and if so, can the girl from Belarus hold off Berger? As a German team supporter I was delighted to see Lena pass Darya, who must have known that Tora Berger was closing her down, with Kaisa still in the hunt too. In the end Domracheva dug really deep to take the silver; brilliant result after such a poor start, with Berger in third. Another gold for Lena!! More at http://www5.biathlonworld.com/en/press_releases.html/do/detail?presse=1271

In the men's event the money had to be on a Bø v Svendsen clash with a side bet on a Russian or German producing a slight surprise. In shooting 1, 14 of the 30 went clear despite a tricky wind shift, including both Fourcade brothers and Michi Gries trying to make amends for his meltdown yesterday - he hasn't had an easy time in some sections of the German media, but they also gave Lena stick for "only" winning a silver a couple days ago so hopefully he can ignore them! Great shooting by Lukas Hofer (Ita) takes him out in the lead from Martin Fourcade, Svendsen and Sumann. In shoot 2 Bergmann has a bad day, missing 3, and Michi drops 2. However Hofer, Martin F, Sumann, Svendsen, Lars Berger (trying to get on the podium like his sister), Tcherezov, Ustyugov and Bø are all clear and leave the stadium in that order, to the delight of the home crowd. In shoot 3, the first of the standing, Lukas Hofer again goes clear - 15/15 so far, but so do the 2 Norwegians and they're right on his tail on the next lap; Ustyugov is 4th with Martin Fourcade in 5th but losing ground. The pace is blistering but Hofer keeps up and comes into the final shoot just in the lead, taking lane 1 - possibly a slight error? Svendsen and Hofer both spoil their record by dropping 1, Bø lets 2 slip away annd they are off to the penalty loop. Meanwhile Evgeny Ustyugov (Rus) goes clear again - 20/20 and he leads into the final lap; crowd go wild as they still don't have a gold medal yet, but Emil Hegle Svendsen is on the case and stalks the Russian. Lukas Hofer is dropped a bit, but finds something else to pull him back into the chase ahead of a fast closing Björndalen and Bø, with Ivan Tcherezov also still in the mix. On the final climb I was wondering if Emil HS actually realised how fast Hofer was closing when he lit up the turbo and went up the steep hill at an awesome rate. Somehow Ustyugov managed to up his tempo too to hold off Hofer until the finish - another gold for Norway, another silver for Russia with Italy getting the bronze. Bø came 4th, Tcherezov 5th and OEB 6th - pretty good work by him!

Longer and more detailed commentary on both races on the BBC 606 by Urlaub in Polen; comments 32 and 35 of the Biathlon WC thread - well worth a read!

Once again I missed the live coverage, but the race sounded so good (see the comments on the BBC 606 Winter Sports pages) that I managed to catch a re-run from leg 2. When I came in Miri Gössner (Ger) was in the lead, having apparently brought Germany back into the top teams with a fast opening lap; Russia were having a bad day with 3 penalty loops done already, but Italy, Ukraine and Belarus were all going well - the latter two teams having opted to put their better biathletes in the early legs. In the prone (shoot 3) Miri missed once but Vita Semerenko (Ukr) and Oberhofer (Ita) both shot clear to lead her onto the middle lap with Domracheva (Blr) still well in touch in 5th. As Russia came in for this shoot the wind got up and as they were down at the less sheltered part of the range they had another rash of misses and 3 more loops - crowd silent except for the noise of people going home early!

Miri set a blistering pace in the middle lap - she's pretty much as fast as Lena Neuner and 4 years younger, but she also has a tendency to melt down in the standing shoots - quite a gamble putting her in the team and the coaches looked very nervous as she came in for shoot 4 level with the leaders. As it turned out they had good reason and Gössner began her 2 penalty loops as Domracheva, Semerenko and Brunet (Fra) all left the stadium having shot well; at that stage Germany was 51.4 seconds behind the leaders and Miri was exhausted by the fast lap and the loops. At the handover Domracheva gave Pisareva a small lead from Ukraine and France, but that was perhaps the Belarus trump played; Germany were about 50 seconds back as Tina Bachmann took over. At shoot 5 the "second string" teams were showing that while they didn't have the raw speed of some, they could certainly shoot - Belarus and Ukraine both clear while France and Germany needed to use spare rounds. Germany now 1:16 behind and the commentators were wondering how anyone could make up such a gap. Shoot 6 was similar - again Pisareva clear, Pidhrushna (Ukr) needed a spare and France and Germany outshot and 1:26 down.

By the final handover, Ukraine had taken the lead with Khovostenko going out ahead of Kalinchik (Blr) - both of these athletes not the highest ranked in the world but good shooting had left them in an enviable position. Tina B had caught up a little and let Lena Neuner take over 7 seconds behind Marie Dorin of France but 1:07 behind the Ukraine. Shoot 7 was going to be a major milestone - Khovostenko was holding up well and shot clear at speed, but Kalinchik was slower and needed a spare - as she left the range Neuner was just settling to shoot; both she and Dorin needed a spare and left the range 59 seconds adrift. At that point Neuner must have realised she had to gamble and turned on the afterburners; at the next time check she was pulling slightly clear of Dorin and just 38 seconds back on the leader; the massive question was whether Lena, sometimes not the most reliable in standing shoots, had put herself under too much pressure in this middle lap. Khovostenko must have nerves of steel - another clear shoot leaving Ukraine using only 4 spares in 8 shoots; best shooting of the day! Kalinchik wasn't so steady and a penalty loop dropped her out of contention; the wind got more variable and Lena came into the range - to the delight (and possibly amazement) of the coaches and the rest of her team she also shot perfectly, as did Dorin. Even so 24.7 seconds to make up and only 2Km to go - afterburners and turbo this time and Khovostenko must have felt the pain of shooting so well but still finding the fastest biathlete in the women's circuit hunting her down. In the end Lena Neuner was on imperious form and swept past to take a gold that she certainly deserved by over 24 seconds; rest of the team happy to have been bailed out (2 penalty loops and 13 spare rounds)! I was delighted to see that Ukraine held on to take silver with France gettiung the bronze.

So, that was Lena's 10th career WC gold medal - that put Germany back on top of the medal table (4 gold, 3 silver) ahead of Norway (4g, 1s, 3b), but it's worth noting how many of Germany's medals Lena either won or contributed to - 3 golds and 2 silvers! See also http://www5.biathlonworld.com/en/press_releases.html/do/detail?presse=1276 and the BBC 606 pages. Great championships and next year it's in Germany.

Addition: Apparently after the race Zaitseva announced that she will retire at the end of the season; the Russian women's coach has been sacked!