Biathlon IBU World Cup 2020 - 2021

[Werloc 3,176]

  On 3/21/2021 at 4:05 PM, Bohemia said:

Yeah they're already bad shooters but add some wind and we become the worst nation in the race  I know the men shoot better but I'm definitely not expecting anything from the French in the men's mass start considering how poorly they did yesterday as well.

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I see you with your TISC black magic 

[Werloc 3,176]

The season has ended and I'm back traditionally with some medal table stats.

 

Norway blew everyone out of the water this year, with 83 podium finishes in all and 38 of them were gold. This is miles better compared to 2019/20 season where Norway had 55 podium finishes with 32 gold medals. It seems that Norway compensated mostly with silvers and bronzes and were met with huge success in both the men's and the women's side with 8 different Norwegian athletes getting on the podium at some point and 7 of them scoring wins as well. 

 

Though where someone is celebrating such huge success, there has to be a country that suffered for it. France is still second in the medal table, but in 2019/20 they've had 51 podium finishes, four away from Norway, but only 15 of them were gold. This year though, the number went down by a lot, 34 podium finishes, but the gold amount stayed relatively the same at 12. Really, this hit can be somewhat explained by Martin Fourcade's retirement and even though the French boys really tried to hold their own, last season there was only one individual race where a French athlete didn't stand on the podium, whilst this year it happened in 12 races on the men's side. The women performed pretty much on par to their expectations, though Braisaz and Bescond didn't find any success this year. 

 

We have a new third place this year and it's the biggest overperformers of the season, nearly trippling their amount of podium finishes. The men's, the women's side and even the relays were filled with podium after podium and in the end five different athletes did it for Sweden. They smashed their 13 (2 gold) podium record from last season with a 31 podium finish this season, with three different race winners, victories in both the men's and the women's relay as well as the mixed too, tallying up to 8 golds. Recording 12 podiums out of 18 relay races this season, the team was led by Hanna Oeberg and Sebastian Samuelsson and it could have been even better, but the Oeberg sisters really shut down in the second half of the season.

 

In fourth place we have what people probably think is an unhappy Germany, but they actually nearly replicated their result from last season, down two podiums and 1 gold, they finished the season with 20 podium finishes and three victories, two of them coming from the relays and one from recently retired Peiffer. He was definitely the shining star on the men's side this year, especially since Doll had an abyssmal season by his standards. On the women's side, Franziska Preuss and her consistency really carried the team with Herrmann stepping up a bit near the end of the season, but not able to replicate her three wins from the last one.

 

In fifth place we have Russia that marginally improved from last season. The podium count is still 7, but this time they exchanged one gold to three and that comes from Loginov and two relay races. Actually, most damage that Russia did this year was on the relays, because they only scored two individual podiums this year and there was nothing promising on the women's side at all.

 

In sixth place we have somewhat of a fall from grace with Italy down from 3rd place last season. Although they didn't win that much gold, they only posted 1 less podium this season and they managed to find success in different places. Dorothea Wierer underperformed by her standards, but Lukas Hofer really stepped it up at the end of the season to put the men on the board with three individual podiums.

 

In seventh place there is another hugely improved team and it's Austria with 9 medals and two golds. In comparison, last season Austria stepped on the podium only three times. Though we should use the term team liberally, because 8 of those podiums were achieved through Hauser that had the season of her life and one was the second place from Leitner, with hopes that perhaps he can keep improving and bring back some pride in the Austrian men team.

 

8th place is our final massive overperformer and it's Belarus with 8 podium finishes. Last season they didn't manage to be top 3 at all, but this year they found a lot of success through their women's team posting some great results in the relays as well as the team's leading stars Alimbekava and Sola getting on the podium a couple of times inidividually. 

 

Lastly, a brief overview of the other teams:

 

In 2019/20 season there were 14 countries in the medal table and this year there's one less at 13.

 

Finland, Estonia and Slovakia didn't manage to get on the podium this season, but there were two new countries, one of which was Belarus and the other was Slovenia with Fak.

 

Out of those countries, Ukraine and USA performed up to their expectations and equaled the amount of podium finishes from last season.

 

On the other hand, Switzerland and Czech Republic didn't have a good time and they both went from 5 medals last year, down to one this season. 

 

Lastly, the numbers this season are a bit inflated since there are 18 more podium winners this year, but the reapers of these rewards are Norway and Sweden with their huge increase in podium finishes this year. 

[Monzanator 4,611]

The fact @Werloc skipped Poland in his lenghty review pretty much indicates the ugly truth - yeah, we have regressed badly. And the reward is Adam Kolodziejczyk is back like Freddy Kruger just before the Olympic season. Quite frankly we can even do worse next season