Biathlon IBU World Championships 2021

[OlympicsFan 860]

57 minutes ago, Werloc said:

Braunhofer, Bionaz, Giacomel, Trabucchi, Lardschneider, Carrara are going to be wrecking kids soon.

 

They are all so young and fresh, Italy's development is looking extremely good for the near future. 

 

I think they're only losing to Norway right now in regards to development of capable junior athletes.

Cool ... junior results don’t mean anything. Right now Italy has one world class athlete in Wierer and she will soon be gone. Germany also produced tons of promising juniors who never turned into anything. Until someone proves himself at World Cup level it is absolutely pointless to make predictions. Of all the female athletes you mentioned none seems remotely special. Öberg is younger than Lardschneider and Carrara and only 1 year older than Trabucchi and is already World class. At that age Neuner and Dahlmeier were already close to retirement. 

[OlympicsFan 860]

1 hour ago, Werloc said:

Athletes like Hettich are getting a chance because the depth of the German team is absolutely gone. Right now you have a neverending stream of average athletes.

 

Hettich is nr. 3 German this season, Hammerschmidt is struggling to regain her old form, Hinz was really underperforming the entire season and young talent is at such a bad spot that Hildebrand might fight her way back into the World Cup team.

 

I'd say the men's side is still salvagable at the moment, compared to the huge hole that the Germans need to climb out of on the women's side.

First of all: Hettich is only one year older than Carrara and 2 years older than Lardschneider and is having far better results, but for you the Italian girls seem to be some sort of generational talents while Hettich is a scrub.

 

Obviously you haven’t really followed German biathlon for the past decade, otherwise you would know that Germany basically always had the problem (remember the 2014 olympics?) and it only got covered up shortly by Dahlmeier and Preuß. I think every nation would have massive problems when two generational talents (Neuner and Dahlmeier) both retire within a couple of years, despite easily being capable of dominating for another 5+ years. At this point I wouldn’t even blame German coaches if they would have given up. What’s the point of developing transcendental talents when they retire as soon as possible?

 

In the end anything but a Swedish and Norwegian dominance for many years would be extremely shocking. It is only logical that the nations that dominate cross-country also dominate biathlon. I think you can for example compare it with Jamaica or the US in athletics 400 m/400 m hurdles/100 m hurdles. They have an abundance of great athletes in the 100 m (cross-country), so those who aren’t good enough to make the team there will switch to an other event/sport (biathlon). I think only Russia could break/out-dope their dominance. The solution seems really simple and maybe some day the other nations will realize it: You can’t beat Norway/Sweden at their own game (cross-country), so put all your best talents into biathlon. Herrmann has shown that a decent cross-country athlete with minimal talent for shooting can dominate biathlon pretty quickly. Even Gössner used to be almost unbeatable when she had a good day. Sadly Germany seems to prefer producing snails who are good at shooting and then the coaches are surprised when the Norwegian and Swedish girls completely dominate them. 

 

 

[OlympicsFan 860]

1 hour ago, Monzanator said:

Yeah, I have no idea why Germany has such huge depth issues in biathlon. Other than Army cutting down fundings which would be strange since biathlon is like very popular in Germany. The Horchlers becoming full-time World Cup starters at age 30 was the first strike, they're gone and we have Anna Weidel shooting 10/10 and finishing 49th in Oberhof which is basement level tbh. Hammerschmidt was always #5 or 6 at best, below relay-worthy but without the top performers she's like a stable number 4 now. Herrmann will turn 33 IIRC, Hinz keeps blowing hot & cold and there's only Preuss that has improved after Dahlmeier's retirement. It doesn't look good at all.

 

Over on the men's side there are Doll and Peiffer and well, Kuehn tends to do well from time to time and that would be it. What's up with Nawrath is anyone's guess and Schempp has succumbed to age.

You clearly have no clue about Hammerschmidt. There was a time when she was world class and in that shape she would currently be number 2 or 3 for every nation except Norway. I also have no idea what people are expecting in terms of depth. Currently there are at best 2 nations with at least 2 athletes who are able to win on any given day (Norway and Sweden). It makes no sense to compare this German team to the days of Henkel/Disl/Glagow/Wilhelm. Germany dominating like that was a complete anomaly and mainly down to Sweden and Norway completely wasting their potential. If all nations would reach their potential, then Germany should be 4th at best behind Norway, Sweden and Russia (maybe also behind Finland, the US and Canada). Biathlon in the end is just a version of cross-country, so it is difficult to have a lot of depth when cross-country is pretty much nonexistent in your country, which is the case in Germany since basically no one gives a shit about cross-country and I don’t remember it ever being much different (even when Germany dominated men’s cross-country)

[Werloc 3,171]

@OlympicsFan arguing with you has no absolute point, because you only nitpick one thing from the whole message and then try to drive your point into the ground.

 

 

[RobtheAggie 340]

Jake Brown was awesome today!  He has quietly become steady for the US as Sean Doherty has not had a good season at all.  If the US men will ever crack the 10 ten, to get that 5th start spot, Brown will need to continue his rise.  

 

All 4 US biathletes only missed 7 shots, but 4 were for Doherty.  He has just been off this season.

 

I would love to see all 4 US women in the Pursuit.  That would be awesome! 

 

 

[JonPhi 250]

And it is not only Biathlon where something goes really wrong in Germany. There are no young people in ski jumping, Nordic combined and alpine skiing. The women’s alpine skiing team is a disaster and also no medals at juniors in Nordic combined and Ski jumping. Something goes really wrong in the federation there.

 

But I would not even say that the Norwegian women’s team have such a great depth. In the men’s field yes, but not in the women. Norway has two great women at The Moment with Eckhoff and Roeiseland, but surely both will retire in the near future (2022/2023). After them comes Tandrevold, who could take there step, but she also isn‘t that strong then last season. And after these three there is a big gap ... the only Girl is Knotten, but she is far to slow on her skiis. And then comes not really much ...

 

 

[De_Gambassi 1,225]

Anyway, we shouldn't read to much in youngsters results. Past junior and youth world championships medals tables are filled with people who didn't had any success at senior level (and from every nation).

 

By their results at a young age, Simon Fourcade should have dominated the world of biathlon, not Martin. 

[OlympicsFan 860]

2 hours ago, JonPhi said:

And it is not only Biathlon where something goes really wrong in Germany. There are no young people in ski jumping, Nordic combined and alpine skiing. The women’s alpine skiing team is a disaster and also no medals at juniors in Nordic combined and Ski jumping. Something goes really wrong in the federation there.

 

But I would not even say that the Norwegian women’s team have such a great depth. In the men’s field yes, but not in the women. Norway has two great women at The Moment with Eckhoff and Roeiseland, but surely both will retire in the near future (2022/2023). After them comes Tandrevold, who could take there step, but she also isn‘t that strong then last season. And after these three there is a big gap ... the only Girl is Knotten, but she is far to slow on her skiis. And then comes not really much ...

 

 

Ski jumping: Germany has had extremely successful years and both Althaus and Wellinger are still young. On the men’s side you also have Constantin Schmid and Luca Roth (Silver in the individual competition and gold in the team at 2019 junior worlds). The women’s team also won silver at 2019 junior worlds.

 

Nordic combined: Geiger is still very young and for example Julian Schmid won 2 golds and 1 silver at 2019 junior worlds.

 

Alpine skiing: It has been like this for at least a decade. In the past decade Germany never had any depth, but this current men’s team might be the best team Germany ever had. Both Weidle and Dreßen are still young (compared to most of the athletes who dominate their events). You seem to forget that for example Germany always used to be nonexistent in speed events on the men’s side.
 

You need to do one of the following 3 things:

a) Stop trolling or 

b) Educate yourself or 

c) Check you expectations

 

Germany just had fantastic winter Olympic Games, despite not really being a winter sport country. I don’t really know what your expectations are, but clearly they are completely absurd. How do you see the situation of the US? They have 4 times the population but won 8 medals less at the last Winter Olympics. By your standards this must be the biggest failure in the history of human kind. Also what about Russia? A traditional winter sport country with a 50 % bigger population but 14 medals less at the last Olympics ... ?

[OlympicsFan 860]

9 hours ago, Werloc said:

@OlympicsFan arguing with you has no absolute point, because you only nitpick one thing from the whole message and then try to drive your point into the ground.

 

 

Just say that you don’t have any arguments and have to make up fake reasons for escaping the discussion and then we can all live happily ever after.

[phelps 7,712]

the true raising stars in Italy are Linda Zingerle (she's gonna be even better than the best Wierer one day, as she's a better natural skier) among the girls and Bionaz and Giacomel among the men (they are the only 2 guys born in 2000 and beyond to have already got WC points so far)...

 

Giacomel is one of the only 3 guys in the recent history of the world cup to get WC points in his very first race (J. Boe and Dale are the only other 2) last year...and he's always been among the top skiers in the youth/junior ranks...give him some more time to develop (this year he had covid until just before Christmas, he didn't have the chance to make a proper pre-season training and he's already among the top 30/40 in most of the races he run) and you'll see...

 

other great prospects are Rebecca Passler and Hanna Auchentaller among the girls (but we have to admit that Lardschneider, Trabucchi and the same Auchentaller will never be good enough in the ski section to become serial winners)...

 

but with one of them and Vittozzi (if she gets back to her best shape of 2 years ago), Zingerle and Passler we're going to have a very good team for years among the girls...

 

p.s. and don't take for granted that Wierer is going to retire after Beijing's Olympics...the next Games will be in her own garden, Anterselva/Antholz...our NF/NOC would do all it takes to keep her within their ranks until 2026...