Biathlon IBU Junior & Youth World Championships 2023

[RobtheAggie 340]

Great championships.  I enjoyed watching the races without commentary.  Looking at this level is always hard.  The way they develop from the youth to junior to IBU Cup to IBU WC can be a long and winding path.  

[OlympicsFan 860]

  On 3/11/2023 at 9:40 PM, SalamAkhi said:

That's the point. 

You seem bewildered about Repinc's evolution just to praise to the skies the most precocious athlete immediately after.

Sometimes I think "OK this one is particularly mature. Maybe his/her progression will be hampered by whatever, but if he/she only manages to have a constant curve he/she will be one of the best in a few years time" ... and it just doesn't happen. 

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You don’t have a Point. Your „criticism“ has two dimensions and both don’t really have anything to do with what I said.

1) I don’t put any pressure on Tanglander. At this point her never amounting to anything is still the most likely outcome. Whatever I write here will have zero influence on her career.

2) Objectively her skiing performances here have been the most impressive if you take age into consideration. Usually you don’t See junior level athletes having elite cross-country times when they are 3 years younger than their competitors, especially not at youth level (usually age gets less relevant the older you get). Tanglander was already close to Tannheimer in terms of skiing speed and Tannheimer already has IBU Cup level skiing speed.
 

About Repinc: 

1) As you Said she had some injury setbacks.

2) I didn’t take into calculation that Slovenia doesn’t really have the track record/infrastructure to develop world class biathletes. Sweden on the other hand already has multiple world class athletes.

 

I am optimistic that Tanglander will have a better career than Repinc and I wouldn’t be surprised if she would make the 2026 Olympics, but all of that doesn’t mean that I am not aware that there are still a ton of things that could prevent her from fulfilling my predictions.

Edited March 12, 2023 by OlympicsFan

[OlympicsFan 860]

I believe that Germany set an all-time record by winning 9 gold medals, no nation ever won more than 8 golds at a single edition. The surprising thing is that it could/should have been even more golds for Germany. All of their golds, except for that of Menz in men’s junior individual, were pretty much uncontested + they could/should have won 4 more golds in men’s youth relay/men’s junior relay/mixed youth relay and women’s junior individual (given Grotian‘s overall dominance). 12 golds absolutely would have been achievable. Nevertheless great results for Germany, although the men still seem to be lightyears behind Norway (in terms of skiing speed).

Edited March 12, 2023 by OlympicsFan