Athletes Retirements Thread

Werloc · March 19, 2022

On 3/18/2022 at 1:19 AM, rybak said:

At this rate half of biathletes competing at this season will retire

It's always like this after an Olympic season.

In my opinion, women's biathlon is the weakest right now its ever been, so seeing 20+ women retiring from countries that need athletes, it's going to look rough next cycle.

rybak · March 19, 2022

34 minutes ago, Werloc said:

It's always like this after an Olympic season.

In my opinion, women's biathlon is the weakest right now its ever been, so seeing 20+ women retiring from countries that need athletes, it's going to look rough next cycle.

Thats true, but for me it would be better that there might not be dominating biathlete and the podiuk would be "open" for everybody who are in both form at the time.

:EST Kalev Ermits just joined to retiring list

Monzanator · March 19, 2022

:GER Richard Freitag (ski jumping, 8 wins in World Cup)

Werloc · March 19, 2022

1 hour ago, rybak said:

Thats true, but for me it would be better that there might not be dominating biathlete and the podiuk would be "open" for everybody who are in both form at the time.

Kalev Ermits just joined to retiring list

You misinterpreted my point. In women's biathlon, from countries that improved this year was probably only Sweden and Belarus. France and Norway pretty much on the same level, whilst all other teams have been dropping in quality every single year. With Japan, United States, Ukraine retirements, those countries are taking huge hits, Lithuania and Poland falling off hard, Finland hanging on till Mari Eder is going, Canada going down, Estonia is 13th in nation's cup, but they don't really have any good contenders apart from rare performances from Tomingas, Russia has been falling off for years now, Germany as well. Austria is carried by Hauser mostly, Switzerland lacks a leader as well. Korea is deleted just as their Russian athletes decided to quit, Romania and Moldova propped up by their Russian athletes. Less and less countries becoming competitive, I'm seeing a real cc-skiing problem developing in biathlon if nothing is done in the next couple of years to make biathlon more accessible.

Edit: there was a point in time where you would have to fear the Czech Republic, Italian women relays, German women relay used to be nearly unstoppable, every country apart from Norway, Sweden and France are really falling off.

rybak · March 19, 2022

1 hour ago, Werloc said:

You misinterpreted my point. In women's biathlon, from countries that improved this year was probably only Sweden and Belarus. France and Norway pretty much on the same level, whilst all other teams have been dropping in quality every single year. With Japan, United States, Ukraine retirements, those countries are taking huge hits, Lithuania and Poland falling off hard, Finland hanging on till Mari Eder is going, Canada going down, Estonia is 13th in nation's cup, but they don't really have any good contenders apart from rare performances from Tomingas, Russia has been falling off for years now, Germany as well. Austria is carried by Hauser mostly, Switzerland lacks a leader as well. Korea is deleted just as their Russian athletes decided to quit, Romania and Moldova propped up by their Russian athletes. Less and less countries becoming competitive, I'm seeing a real cc-skiing problem developing in biathlon if nothing is done in the next couple of years to make biathlon more accessible.

Edit: there was a point in time where you would have to fear the Czech Republic, Italian women relays, German women relay used to be nearly unstoppable, every country apart from Norway, Sweden and France are really falling off.

Ah ok, I got it now, you're right.

I'm hoping that countries which you mentioned above will improve, at least little bit, in next season, but it will be difficult.