Biathlon 2016 - 2017 Discussion Thread

[heywoodu 15,135]

The range allocation for Friday's IBU Cup sprints in Beitostoelen has been published, which gives an interesting insight in the participating nations. For the women, here is the list:

http://ibu.blob.core.windows.net/docs/1617/BT/SIBU/CP01/SWSP/BT_C45C2_1.0.pdf

 

I see Moldova is on it, which would be cool, because last year there were no Moldovan women in any competition that gives IBU points

 

Some other interesting nations are for example Turkey (Büsra Günes I guess), Bosnia & Herzegovina (Tanja Karisik, Dejana Kosarac, Sanja Kusmuk), Greece (Maria Tsakiri who seems to have improved a lot) and Georgia. That last one can almost only mean Angela Bandur will compete again, which is cool  Last year she competed in the single mixed in Ridnaun but a full-on shooting drama meant her partner barely even skied. 

Edited November 23, 2016 by heywoodu

[heywoodu 15,135]

Yep, just heard it is indeed Angela Bandur/Banduri who is back, that's awesome 

[ahjfcshfghb 287]

12 hours ago, heywoodu said:

The range allocation for Friday's IBU Cup sprints in Beitostoelen has been published, which gives an interesting insight in the participating nations. For the women, here is the list:

http://ibu.blob.core.windows.net/docs/1617/BT/SIBU/CP01/SWSP/BT_C45C2_1.0.pdf

 

I see Moldova is on it, which would be cool, because last year there were no Moldovan women in any competition that gives IBU points

 

Some other interesting nations are for example Turkey (Büsra Günes I guess), Bosnia & Herzegovina (Tanja Karisik, Dejana Kosarac, Sanja Kusmuk), Greece (Maria Tsakiri who seems to have improved a lot) and Georgia. That last one can almost only mean Angela Bandur will compete again, which is cool  Last year she competed in the single mixed in Ridnaun but a full-on shooting drama meant her partner barely even skied. 

Maybe for Moldova it will be Alexandra Camensic? She competed at Sochi 2014 and at the WCH in 2015. 

What's interesting for me is that Britain has another female, as does Croatia. That hasn't happened for awhile. Both used to field relay teams occasionally but have since kind of faded.

But yeah it will be a very interesting group of races for sure. We could have a single mixed relay with Hungary, Bosnia, Spain, Georgia, Turkey, Macedonia, Greece, Croatia...Shame about the lack of Serbian women.

Whatever happened to Brazil, by the way? Are they planning to do any IBU cups this year?

 

Edited November 24, 2016 by ahjfcshfghb

[ahjfcshfghb 287]

Also I wonder who the woman is for Macedonia. Kiroska?

[heywoodu 15,135]

2 hours ago, ahjfcshfghb said:

Maybe for Moldova it will be Alexandra Camensic? She competed at Sochi 2014 and at the WCH in 2015. 

What's interesting for me is that Britain has another female, as does Croatia. That hasn't happened for awhile. Both used to field relay teams occasionally but have since kind of faded.

But yeah it will be a very interesting group of races for sure. We could have a single mixed relay with Hungary, Bosnia, Spain, Georgia, Turkey, Macedonia, Greece, Croatia...Shame about the lack of Serbian women.

Whatever happened to Brazil, by the way? Are they planning to do any IBU cups this year?

 

Croatia already did have Nika Blazenic last season, but she was not very impressive yet (278th and last position on the IBU Qualifying Points List actually). Yeah, Serbia had Sara Lucic last season, but with all due respect...she was shooting rather bad and when I saw her ski in Obertilliach..let's just say there was not a whole lot of speed in it. It'd be nice if they find someone who can ski at a decent pace and shoot alright

 

Brazil is absolutely going to be seen again this winter! Bruna Moura has been training like crazy all summer, increasing the intensity enormously compared to last summer and more than doubling the number of training hours (she's now at the same kind of weekly training hours as teams like Germany), apart from moving to another city to live in an appartment paid by the national federation so she can be a full-time athlete

 

Brazil won't compete in the 1st IBU Cup semester this time, mostly because of the locations. Starting the season in Beitostoelen, then travelling to Ridnaun and Obertilliach would be too expensive, so they'll start in Martell in January, then go to Arber (both of which I am planning to visit to stay and travel with the team for 2 weeks) and the Open European Championships in Poland. That doesn't mean there's no Brazilian biathlon next month, because Gabi Neres, Caio Moreira and (new name!) Lucas Martins will compete in the IBU Junior Cup starting in Lenzerheide  Bruna is too old for the Junior Cup, so she'll practice her skills as staff member there  

 

 

 

 

[ahjfcshfghb 287]

3 hours ago, heywoodu said:

Croatia already did have Nika Blazenic last season, but she was not very impressive yet (278th and last position on the IBU Qualifying Points List actually). Yeah, Serbia had Sara Lucic last season, but with all due respect...she was shooting rather bad and when I saw her ski in Obertilliach..let's just say there was not a whole lot of speed in it. It'd be nice if they find someone who can ski at a decent pace and shoot alright

 

Brazil is absolutely going to be seen again this winter! Bruna Moura has been training like crazy all summer, increasing the intensity enormously compared to last summer and more than doubling the number of training hours (she's now at the same kind of weekly training hours as teams like Germany), apart from moving to another city to live in an appartment paid by the national federation so she can be a full-time athlete

 

Brazil won't compete in the 1st IBU Cup semester this time, mostly because of the locations. Starting the season in Beitostoelen, then travelling to Ridnaun and Obertilliach would be too expensive, so they'll start in Martell in January, then go to Arber (both of which I am planning to visit to stay and travel with the team for 2 weeks) and the Open European Championships in Poland. That doesn't mean there's no Brazilian biathlon next month, because Gabi Neres, Caio Moreira and (new name!) Lucas Martins will compete in the IBU Junior Cup starting in Lenzerheide  Bruna is too old for the Junior Cup, so she'll practice her skills as staff member there  

 

 

 

 

Yeah I do remember Serbia had a bunch of junior females at some point, all of whom were quite weak. I guess it just needs development over there. 

Wow, really?! That's awesome! I've been out of touch, sorry, haha. So she does plan to try and make the Olympics??

I will be cheering for them

[ahjfcshfghb 287]

Just now, ahjfcshfghb said:

Yeah I do remember Serbia had a bunch of junior females at some point, all of whom were quite weak. I guess it just needs development over there. 

Wow, really?! That's awesome! I've been out of touch, sorry, haha. So she does plan to try and make the Olympics??

I will be cheering for them

Also where did you manage to find a list of IBU Qualifying points?

[heywoodu 15,135]

Just now, ahjfcshfghb said:

Yeah I do remember Serbia had a bunch of junior females at some point, all of whom were quite weak. I guess it just needs development over there. 

Wow, really?! That's awesome! I've been out of touch, sorry, haha. So she does plan to try and make the Olympics??

I will be cheering for them

Last season there was a young Serbian girl who competed in somewhere between 5-10 competitions and had a shooting hit rate of 12% if I'm not mistaken...she made Slovakia's athletes look like sharp shooters  

Ah, found her, young Inesa Zekic: http://biathlon.com.ua/profile.php?lang=eng&id=4774

I remember a Serbian user here on Totallympics saying that it's all a bunch of "who is friends with the boss" in Serbian biathlon..obviously it's hard to judge for me as outsider, but maybe @dareza or @DaniSRB knows more about that

 

Bruna is definitely giving everything she's got for the 2018 Olympics, she's fully focussed on making that instead of the original plan of 2022. The only "negative" thing is that it seems a little more likely that she'll qualify in cross-country, because the qualification for biathlon has been made extremely hard for small nations. The document still says "not applicable" under "Reallocation of unused quota", so if unused quota places aren't reallocated, that would make it incredibly hard. I know biathlon is her big love though and she will try everything she can to qualify for the Olympic biathlon next season..which I think she can do if she keeps focussed  

 

By the way, I'm still hoping Lucas Lima and/or Rhaick Bonfim (you can look them up on the FIS website if you want to see their results) will try biathlon within a couple of years..in recent months they have been growing so much and even though they're only from 2001 and 2002, they are very quickly becoming Brazil's best XC skiers, which is amazing! 

 

[heywoodu 15,135]

8 minutes ago, ahjfcshfghb said:

Also where did you manage to find a list of IBU Qualifying points?

A very smart dude on Twitter made some sort of magical Excel thing for me  

 

I can import IBU's documents with IBU Qualifying Points for every race and it automatically converts it, makes the calculations and presents the current list. Qualification quota depend on it, yet IBU never even publishes it...so we had to find another way  

 

If I'm not mistaken, the 5 or 6 highest ranked athletes from countries that didn't already qualify (e.g. countries that are outside the Nations Cup top-22) will earn a quota for their country, with a maximum of 2 per NOC. After last season, the ranking of athletes from non-top-22-countries looks like this for the women:

 

 

 

 

[heywoodu 15,135]

12 hours ago, ahjfcshfghb said:

Maybe for Moldova it will be Alexandra Camensic? She competed at Sochi 2014 and at the WCH in 2015. 

 

 

Turns out it's Snejana Tiseeva, 21st at last year's JWCH sprint and individual...for Ukraine 

 

http://ibu.blob.core.windows.net/docs/1617/BT/SIBU/CP01/SWSP/BT_C51A_1.0.pdf

Edited November 24, 2016 by heywoodu