Biathlon IBU World Cup 2022 - 2023

OlympicsFan · March 18, 2023

Good lesson for Grotian today. I think starting that late didn't help her + she probably didn't have great material + all the traveling probably didn't help either, but she saw that she still has ways to go. I think even at her peak she probably would have been 40-50 seconds behind the best. She made a big step forward from last season to this season. If she does that again before the start of the next season, she will hopefully be able to regularly fight for top 10 spots. Kebinger, Schneider, Preuß, Voigt are all unpredictable at this point. Somehow Germany always has the problem of a "youngish" athlete improving one year and then regressing the next year. For example i still didn't hear any explanation for what happened to Voigt this season. Schneider and Kebinger improved this season, but i wouldn't bet on them continuing to improve next season. I fear that Grotian might need to carry the german team already from next season onwards. Grotian and Kirkeeide are probably the most interesting talents going into next season. The progression of Vorobnikova and the young french women will also be interesting to follow.

Edited March 18, 2023 by OlympicsFan

JonPhi · March 18, 2023

11 minutes ago, OlympicsFan said:

Good lesson for Grotian today. I think starting that late didn't help her + she probably didn't have great material + all the traveling probably didn't help either, but she saw that she still has ways to go. I think even at her peak she probably would have been 40-50 seconds behind the best. She made a big step forward from last season to this season. If she does that again before the start of the next season, she will hopefully be able to regularly fight for top 10 spots. Kebinger, Schneider, Preuß, Voigt are all unpredictable at this point. Somehow Germany always has the problem of a "youngish" athlete improving one year and then regressing the next year. For example i still didn't hear any explanation for what happened to Voigt this season. Schneider and Kebinger improved this season, but i wouldn't bet on them continuing to improve next season. I fear that Grotian might need to carry the german team already from next season onwards. Grotian and Kirkeeide are probably the most interesting talents going into next season. The progression of Vorobnikova and the young french women will also be interesting to follow.

In a way, Voigt confirms my thesis that it is a disadvantage for the German girls to train in the national team. You also say that most of the time there is no more step out of the junior level and this stagnation often happened recently with the transition to the national team with the training under Mehringer. Of the women who trained completely under him this season (Voigt, Hinz, Hettich, Weidel), it has to be said that the season was not that great and there was no hoped-for improvement. Denise Herrmann-Wick is officially part of the team, but she went her own way for a large part of the season's preparation and during the season she often did her training camps alone.
Kebinger and Schneider, who were the only convincing athletes this season besides Denise, trained under Peter Sendel and Andreas Birnbacher. That's why I have hope, in a way, that Grotian won't be sent to the national team right away, but can continue to develop independently under Kröll.
The second really successful lady of the last few years, Preuss, also often trained away from the national team.

And also on the men's side, the development under Kirchner is not really positive.

Werloc · March 18, 2023

7 hours ago, Biathlonfan said:

Happy to see Strolia did very well in the pursuit,a good ending to a pretty unfortunate second half of the season,i'm assuming this was his last race in oslo since i'm not seeing him in the mass start list.

He will be in the mass start tomorrow, because Jacquelin and Samuelsson have ended their seasons already, pushing Vytautas up to 25th position overall.

Biathlonfan · March 18, 2023

13 minutes ago, Werloc said:

He will be in the mass start tomorrow, because Jacquelin and Samuelsson have ended their seasons already, pushing Vytautas up to 25th position overall.

Yeah,heard that from facebook,i think if he could repeat the rupholding performance or really what he did today with the shooting,there's pretty good chances of finishing the season off on a high note.

Werloc · March 18, 2023

18 minutes ago, Biathlonfan said:

Yeah,heard that from facebook,i think if he could repeat the rupholding performance or really what he did today with the shooting,there's pretty good chances of finishing the season off on a high note.

I think that even with shooting 0+0+0+0, we're not looking at anything better than a 21st place.

Seems tired and not well accustomed to this track this year. Other skiers that miss will catch up to him before the shooting.