Biathlon 2015 - 2016 Discussion Thread

[ahjfcshfghb 288]

On 3/13/2016 at 3:45 AM, heywoodu said:

Does anyone know why Belgium could compete in the men's relay yesterday? Is it because Michael Rösch got a sub-150 points and qualified or are there more additional rules?

I believe it's because Belgium, having been ranked above 30th in the Nations cup last year, were eligible to start 2 and register 4 athletes. The World Champs level for qualifying points must be much lower (we saw Turkey and Greece, for example) so they managed to find 4 athletes who qualified, probably by virtue of last year's results or this year's IBU cups. The wildcard allocation for the championships really confused me though. China did pretty well in the early IBU Cups, yet they get no spots. Turkey, however, gets two. 

[heywoodu 15,174]

4 hours ago, ahjfcshfghb said:

I believe it's because Belgium, having been ranked above 30th in the Nations cup last year, were eligible to start 2 and register 4 athletes. The World Champs level for qualifying points must be much lower (we saw Turkey and Greece, for example) so they managed to find 4 athletes who qualified, probably by virtue of last year's results or this year's IBU cups. The wildcard allocation for the championships really confused me though. China did pretty well in the early IBU Cups, yet they get no spots. Turkey, however, gets two. 

I very strongly disagree that the required points must be lower (ie the standards must be stricter), I very much like it to see athletes we don't normally see in World Cups

 

Thanks for the explanation, I hadn't thought about the Nations Cup yet. 

[ahjfcshfghb 288]

12 hours ago, heywoodu said:

I very strongly disagree that the required points must be lower (ie the standards must be stricter), I very much like it to see athletes we don't normally see in World Cups

 

Thanks for the explanation, I hadn't thought about the Nations Cup yet. 

I don't disagree with you on that at all. In fact I prefer it when each nation can send 4 athletes. But the wildcard system did confuse me in how it's allocated- again the IBU is not transparent in its lists for qualifying points or how it determines these things.

[heywoodu 15,174]

Just now, ahjfcshfghb said:

I don't disagree with you on that at all. In fact I prefer it when each nation can send 4 athletes. But the wildcard system did confuse me in how it's allocated- again the IBU is not transparent in its lists for qualifying points or how it determines these things.

True...especially about the list for qualifying points. I mean, how many points you get is determined, amongst others, by the number of points of the other competitors in the race, but it's like this list of points is "secret"..

 

To take my Brazilians as example once more: in order to know whether or not they're on track to reach the individual requirements to qualify for WCh/Olympics, I have to manually keep track of their IBU points for every competition and manually work out the averages and then hope I did it right and IBU doesn't suddenly come up with a much higher number.

[ahjfcshfghb 288]

11 hours ago, heywoodu said:

True...especially about the list for qualifying points. I mean, how many points you get is determined, amongst others, by the number of points of the other competitors in the race, but it's like this list of points is "secret"..

 

To take my Brazilians as example once more: in order to know whether or not they're on track to reach the individual requirements to qualify for WCh/Olympics, I have to manually keep track of their IBU points for every competition and manually work out the averages and then hope I did it right and IBU doesn't suddenly come up with a much higher number.

Oh IBU  You're better than this..

Speaking of which. I'd love to sponsor them. Except I don't have money or a company. So I guess pass on to them that they have my support? (Come on Pyongchang! ! !)

[heywoodu 15,174]

Just now, ahjfcshfghb said:

Oh IBU  You're better than this..

Speaking of which. I'd love to sponsor them. Except I don't have money or a company. So I guess pass on to them that they have my support? (Come on Pyongchang! ! !)

Considering they absolutely love any support, I have no doubt they'll be happy to hear they have support from the Czech Republic

 

Yeah, money is a real issue, but the Brazilian snow sports federation is (according to the 2 biathletes I know) one of the best sports federations in South America, so they're helping as much as they can. By the way, for years I had the thought in my mind of "One day I will spend some of the money I won with sports betting to help some athletes from small nations"

Now I know Brazil is not small, but of course in biathlon they are. Considering that (and mostly the fact that they are close friends of mine by now) I'm sponsoring some relatively smaller things. For example, I'm paying the gym membership for one of them so for the first time she can train in the gym all off-season instead of only in the few weeks in European training camps. This leads to a summer of 2 trainings per day (one rollerski training + one gym training session), which doubles last summer's training effort and should very much increase next season's results. 

Nevertheless it's still a real issue, mostly because finding sponsors in Brazil for biathlon is nearly impossible (I mean...biathlon? Snow? What?  ).

[heywoodu 15,174]

Results of the men's individual at the Open European Junior Championships today:

http://biathlon.com.ua/results.php?lang=eng&id=2300

 

Pay attention to the last place finisher, Kyriakos Kiouras of Greece. He literally missed every single of his 20 shots and finished 38 minutes behind the winner 

Edited March 17, 2016 by heywoodu

[heywoodu 15,174]

Eberhard shoots clean for the first time since a little over 5 years

 

Awesome to see him do that and finally win a big race!

[Finnator123 292]

Mäkäräinen rules in  Khanty-Mansiysk ! 

[heywoodu 15,174]

That's the end of the season. There's a strong storm in Khanty, which already moved the women's mass start to later in the day. However, now a flood light has even simply fallen down and the tracks are covered in crap from the trees.