Biathlon IBU World Cup 2022 - 2023

[RobtheAggie 340]

One of the things with summer biathlon is that the technological advantage is much less.  All rollerskis are simply handed out 30 min prior to the race.  This cuts way back on that side of things.  You are right, ski waxing is something that is a science and an art, and can make a massive difference. 

 

One other thought that has been thrown around is teams instead of nations.  That would really change things up.

 

The problem with new venues is that the WC stops have become such large events, the logistics become very challenging for smaller venues.  Hotels, volunteers, etc.  Now I love to see new venues, and that is one of the reason why I like that the IBU Cup races will be streamed.

 

 

[Monzanator 4,502]

Teams replacing nations wouldn't solve anything since the richest entries would still dominate. It's the case in endurance cross country races already. Plus which of these wealthy sponsors would take on an athlete from Lithuania or Poland to "spice things up"? Nobody. They would also choose as many athletes from the dominating nations.

[Swewi 382]

I don't understand why the interest would be lower for biathlon now than before, it is still many nations competing for the top positions compared to XC skiing. For the other nations behind the absolute best, they should even have better chances now when Russia and Belarus are gone.

 

And there will always be power houses. Germany has a dip now (compared to before). Now Sweden has the best womens team but 2014 we had 0 female participants in the olympics, and even 2018 a top 10 place was a sensation, so even the power houses are not always the same even if they are not changing as often.

And even if sometimes the expected ones often win, there is still a chance for MANY competitors in every race.

Edited December 1, 2022 by Swewi

[Monzanator 4,502]

The days of Ukraine having the most competitive women's relay are over. The days of Poland leading the Olympic relay after three legs are over. Italy without Wierer & Vittozzi are dog shit. Canada & USA on the men's side are in noticeable decline IMO. I don't know where @Swewifinds evidence the depth behind power houses is actually better than it was in 2010s? I don't even mention Slovenia or random on-off nations coming with ahtletes like Fialkova for Slovakia or Shumei Yu for China. Biathlon has gotten more top-heavy in the last few years despite Germany having a lean period by their historical standards.

[dcro 10,210]

17 minutes ago, Monzanator said:

The days of Ukraine having the most competitive women's relay are over. The days of Poland leading the Olympic relay after three legs are over. Italy without Wierer & Vittozzi are dog shit. Canada & USA on the men's side are in noticeable decline IMO. I don't know where @Swewifinds evidence the depth behind power houses is actually better than it was in 2010s? I don't even mention Slovenia or random on-off nations coming with ahtletes like Fialkova for Slovakia or Shumei Yu for China. Biathlon has gotten more top-heavy in the last few years despite Germany having a lean period by their historical standards.

Gone are the likes of Liu Xianying and Eveli Saue too, not to mention Dafovska and Nikulchina or even Tofalvi and Khrustaleva.

 

It's really a sad decline of diversity...

[hckošice 14,829]

Young athletes leaving the sport in Slovakia because they see no future in this, Why would they doing fools from themselves and end around 80th places just because they do not have the same service and possibilities as have their rivals race after races, There no point for that, even if they love the sport as much as they can.

 

Our biathletes are de facto all members of the Slovak army (under Military Sports club) and they will not have their contract extained if they will never gain a single point in the WC in all their life. It is how it, this is the words of the guys who retired from this sport after the Olympics this summer, they are around 23 years old and says there no future in Biathlon at all..

 

I know that it is hard to understand in SWE, NOR, FRA or GER but it is how it is. I see biathlon attention and general interest falling to Nordic Skiing level in a couple of years maybe even after the next Olympics, but I hope I am wrong and IBU will realize that and try to rescue the sport

Edited December 1, 2022 by hckošice

[Werloc 3,164]

Yup, finances are really the thing that makes the world go round, especially if you're on a smaller team.

 

If our men didn't clutch a top 16 relay at the Olympics, we might have seen Strolia, Kaukėnas and Dombrovski retired, but because they clutched it, now we can celebrate a wonderful 8th place, whilst some other team falls apart.

 

Over the last 10 years we lost like 14 women biathletes with 11 of them never going any further than the IBU cup or junior competitions.

 

People want to advance further in life, but if you don't get good results, you get no money and if there's no money, good luck finding an athlete over 21 years old that will fly around the world for 7-8 months and train brutally. There will never be that many that do, but only because there are such people - we still have smaller teams.

 

20 years ago, Lithuanian biathlon was absolutely dead, Diana Rasimovičiūtė was one of three active athletes that went to the world cup from time to time. She had good results, attracted attention and sponsors, suddenly junior athletes were inspired to do something and LT biathlon had funding to take care of more than a single athlete.

 

This is where Kaukėnas and Dombrovski comes in, they showed decent junior results, quickly integrated themselves and became the mainstay of team A. The team is growing even faster, we have relays of men and women, which at an earlier point in time seemed like an absolute impossibility. 

 

Kaukėnas' great results at the Olympics gave enough funding to send the entire team to training camps. It also helped fund junior programmes and then we have Leščinskaitė (and her peers that quit) and slightly later a very promising young men's team of Banys, Mačkinė, Fomin, Romanov, Aleksandrov (only Aleksandrov is innactive now). 

 

For all of this to happen and for Lithuania to be a talking point in biathlon, Diana Rasimovičiūtė kept extending her career year by year by year, convinced by the federation to keep coming back, because without her, there was no women's team, no women's relay, no world cup spots, which we had three of. 

 

Rasimovičiūtė in her late 30s decided to retire and the women's team fell apart in seconds.

 

Now it's Kočergina and Leščinskaitė keeping the team alive, Kočergina is soon 37, Leščinskaitė - the only active female athlete that saw every single person she trained with retire to pursue other things.

 

Now if they keep going until the Olympics, we finally attracted enough women to continue the legacy, but they still need time to get better and there's no guarantee that they won't decide to quit in a year or two.

 

There's no good male juniors coming up either, but luckily we have 5 young men that hopefully will continue for at least another 10 years and give enough time for other talent to be born and developed.

 

Every single year, Lithuanian biathlon is hanging on by a thread and one unfortunate incident would make the dominos tumble one by one.

 

Right now our biathlon is probably at the best place that it ever was, but we still don't have a women's team and everything is so fragile.

 

I can only imagine that Estonia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, Kazachstan all suffer from these very same problems, USA and Canada struggles to find athletes that are willing to spend half of their year on a different continent every single year. But I can't imagine biathlon without all of these nations, but so many sacrifices have to be made for this sport to continue and even though IBU is trying to help the smaller nations, they are approaching it from a different viewpoint. 

 

For example, if you don't want to run weaker athletes in the World Cup and you don't want nations like Lithuania to field a women's relay with unqualified athletes, the least that you could do is get additional quotas for the Olympics to disperse them amongst the weaker nations, so that if those teams don't have the money, at least they can work towards a dream. Give them something at least once in four years, because a dream can be strong enough to change everything. Rasimovičiūtė's dream and all of the people that helped her rebuilt Lithuanian biathlon.

 

Help Croatia, Hungary, Iceland, Denmark, Turkey, Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Spain, Greece, Netherlands, Oceania, South American countries, Asian countries. You will only win if the sport is available to a wider array of countries.

 

Of course, the fact that the planet struggles to produce snow more and more with every single year, winter sport is in a whole heap of trouble that the IBU can't fix. 

Edited December 1, 2022 by Werloc

[Werloc 3,164]

1 hour ago, dcro said:

Gone are the likes of Liu Xianying and Eveli Saue too, not to mention Dafovska and Nikulchina or even Tofalvi and Khrustaleva.

 

It's really a sad decline of diversity...

The level of women's biathlon fell off of the face of the earth.

 

I've been seeing it for years, since I had close insight into the Lithuanian women's team falling apart, I had the time to focus on many other smaller nation developments.

 

24 countries at the world cup, only 17 fielded relays. Our women might regain three world cup quotas, but it's a question if someone is going to use them.

 

A year ago, only women's teams that weren't stagnating, but quite the opposite - improving, were Sweden and Latvia that went from a single Bendika a few years ago to three world cup spots and they can field a women's relay now.

 

There are more hopes for the likes of Slovenia and Finland that have some promising names coming up.

 

Right now very many of these biathlon countries are suffering from rebuilding and this is why biathlon looks so meh compared to what it was a couple of years ago.

 

Switzerland - the women's team molded around Gasparin sisters, most of the men were old faces as well. Now they have Stalder bros, Hartweg, Baserga, Meier.

Bulgaria - their women were ancient, men were led by Anev and Iliev that are ancient as well. Now they're relying on Todorova, Hristova, Dimitrova.

Austria - had a legendary men's team of Summann, Eder, Landertinger. Now they are slowly a team on the slow rise since they had time to develop their younger athletes. 

Poland lost their legendary women's team to age, Slovenia recovering from losing Mali, Gregorin, Bauer and they'll need to replace Fak soon. Ukraine is struggling, because their younger athletes are not Pidrushina or the Semerenko twins just yet, Slovakia really missing Kuzmina and Gerekova and rushing to improve their juniors to have a future after Fialkovas. Germany lost Gossner, Henkel, Neuner, Dahlmeier, Schempp, Lesser, Birnbacher, Peiffer and since they didn't let many of their juniors run world cup races, of course it took a lot of time for them to stop being bad by their standards. 

 

The entire main team of Japan were all ancient as well, Kazachstan had a lot of old names, Estonia in full rebuild mode, United States and Canada said goodbye to their biggest names in recent years, everybody is stuck in rebuild phase and biathlon is going to peak again in performance after like 4-5 years.

 

The team can only remain strong if there's a balance of seasoned athletes and younger prospects, France, Norway, Italy seem to be doing this job the best.

 

Lithuania is only as good right now, because we don't need to replace our veterans yet, but nearly every other team right now is in their most vulnerable transitional years.

Edited December 1, 2022 by Werloc

[RobtheAggie 340]

I am actually optimistic about US biathlon.  Their 2nd best man is injured and will be out for the 1st trimester.  Three of the women are essentially brand new.  Lots of work in youth and junior development.  Yes the losses of Burke, Bailey, Nordgren, Dunklee and Egan hurt.  But I still have hope for this cycle.

[Swewi 382]

I would not be against having rollerski events included in the world cup for both biathlon and cross country skiing. It would be natural when the snow season gets shorter and especially in the smaller winter sport nations. Even in a ski nation as Sweden, it is a minority of the people who lives in areas with good winter sport conditions. It would also partially solve the inequality with skis.