Biathlon IBU World Championships 2023

[heywoodu 15,144]

1 hour ago, Monzanator said:

It could be worse, Schweiz-German is somewhat strange on the ear and I say this as someone living in Oberschlesien

The variation of Schweiz-German spoken in the Adelboden/Wengen/Spiez area of the Berner Oberland is absolutely fantastic. Impossible* to understand, but absolutely fantastic  

 

Spoiler

*ok that's an exaggeration, but it's not easy  

 

[OlympicsFan 858]

Italy winning gold (And Germany winning silver) shows how poor the overall level currently is. Italy and Germany combined only have 2 world class athletes (Vitozzi and Hermann). Norway/Sweden/France at 50 % of their best would have sleepwalked to gold in this competition. Italy used their once in a generation chance, don't see them winning another gold any time soon. Wierer should become even worse and Auchentaller is shockingly slow. With Preuß instead of Voigt and Grotian instead of Kebinger, Germany could have done a lot better. Without Denise Hermann, a cross-country skier that absolutely wasn't a product of the german biathlon system, Germany would still have ZERO medals. It will never cease to amaze me to see how little german officials have to do to keep their jobs. If some foreign country would actively try to manipulate the german sports system, they couldn't do it more efficiently than the german coaches. The last two weeks have been mindblowing from an italian perspective, they won at least twice as many medals in alpine skiing/biathlon than anyone could have expected.

Edited February 18, 2023 by OlympicsFan

[phelps 7,677]

18 minutes ago, OlympicsFan said:

Italy winning gold (And Germany winning silver) shows how poor the overall level currently is. Italy and Germany combined only have 2 world class athletes (Vitozzi and Hermann). Norway/Sweden/France at 50 % of their best would have sleepwalked to gold in this competition. Italy used their once in a generation chance, don't see them winning another gold any time soon. Wierer should become even worse and Auchentaller is shockingly slow. With Preuß instead of Voigt and Grotian instead of Kebinger, Germany could have done a lot better. Without Denise Hermann, a cross-country skier that absolutely wasn't a product of the german biathlon system, Germany would still have ZERO medals. It will never cease to amaze me to see how little german officials have to do to keep their jobs. If some foreign country would actively try to manipulate the german sports system, they couldn't do it more efficiently than the german coaches. The last two weeks have been mindblowing from an italian perspective, they won at least twice as many medals in alpine skiing/biathlon than anyone could have expected.

tbh, in alpine skiing we've won way less precious metal than expected...

 

and also in Biathlon, it's not that the mixed relays and Vittozzi in her individual events weren't out of any prediction.

 

the only true surprise is today's gold medal in the biathlon women's relay.

[OlympicsFan 858]

2 hours ago, phelps said:

tbh, in alpine skiing we've won way less precious metal than expected...

 

and also in Biathlon, it's not that the mixed relays and Vittozzi in her individual events weren't out of any prediction.

 

the only true surprise is today's gold medal in the biathlon women's relay.

That definitely can't be true. The only event where Italy "lost" a medal is women's downhill. Gold for Bassino was a giant surprise and Brignone winning silver also was pretty much the best case. Maybe you didn't win more medals than expected, but you certainly won more gold medals than expected.

[Matteo92 98]

2 hours ago, OlympicsFan said:

That definitely can't be true. The only event where Italy "lost" a medal is women's downhill. Gold for Bassino was a giant surprise and Brignone winning silver also was pretty much the best case. Maybe you didn't win more medals than expected, but you certainly won more gold medals than expected.

Gold for Bassino was a surprise, but gold for Italy was not. Brignone winning wouldn't have been a surprise at all (a lot of people considered her the pre-race favourite after she dominated the SG in the combined just a couple of days earlier), Curtoni and Goggia were also contenders for the podium.

 

The only surprise gold was in the combined (though Brignone has multiple WC wins in the discipline and was probably the 3rd favourite after Shiffrin and Holdener), which makes up (just in terms of numbers, of course) for Goggia's disaster in the downhill.

 

 

Edited February 18, 2023 by Matteo92

[phelps 7,677]

13 hours ago, OlympicsFan said:

That definitely can't be true. The only event where Italy "lost" a medal is women's downhill. Gold for Bassino was a giant surprise and Brignone winning silver also was pretty much the best case. Maybe you didn't win more medals than expected, but you certainly won more gold medals than expected.

tbh, I expected Goggia destroying the field in DH, Brignone and Curtoni going 1-2 (or 1-3 at max) in Super-G, Bassino retaining her Parallel Slalom gold (especially after having a half-sized starting field in terms of big names) and winning also the GS (with Brignone also on the podium) after Shiffrin's choke in the combined event (where Brignone's gold is the obvious and direct consequence of Shiffrin's fault).

 

so, yes...it's absolutely true that more gold medals were expected in alpine skiing.

[phelps 7,677]

Dzhima is not starting Today in the women's Mass Start, therefore yesterday's Italian hero Hannah Auchentaller is going to replace her. 

[hckošice 14,834]

It´s all and nice and I really enjoy your stimulating discussions but can you guys stop spoiling alpine skiing results in the biathlon thread

[JonPhi 250]

12 minutes ago, phelps said:

Dzhima is not starting Today in the women's Mass Start, therefore yesterday's Italian hero Hannah Auchentaller is going to replace her. 

Öberg Elvira will also not Start.

[rafalgorka 1,531]

How’s the weather in oberhof today?