RobtheAggie

Good shooting by Clair Egan, 0+0 but 1:34 behind. She normally gets faster as the season progresses. Reid Missed 3, and so did Dunklee. That makes 8 misses for Dunklee in 6 shooting rounds. Not a great way to start the season. She has had some of her best results in Finland so this is disappointing. Swiss do much better overall. Selina Gasparin with one miss for 17th, her sister in 20th shooting clean. Elisa misses one and 47th with Haecki missing 2 to finish 47th and last for the Swiss women, because their 5th start, Irene Cadurisch, who spends most of her time on the IBU Cup, missed 1, and finished in 30th. She was 1:42 behind while Haecki was 2:09. Ski speed was about the same. So frustrating. Much better day overall for the Swiss women. Great to see an Estonian in the top 10.

Ouch, when Jake Brown (normally 4th or 5th) is first for the US, it is not a strong day. Doherty and Nordgren both with 2 misses and in the mid 40s, Schommer with 4 misses, 3 in the stand and finished 75th. This is shaping up to be a really challenging season for the US. If Doherty and Nordgren are in the top 30 at the end of the season, I would be ecstatic, but I am realistically looking for top 40, but that may be a stretch. If the relay's break into the top 10, that would be a good result. The Swiss men do slightly better than the US. Weger misses one, but even if he made it, he would have been about 15th or so. Finello and Tamborino missed 5, Stalder only missed two, but he is still learning. I am optimistic for he and Hartwig, who will get faster as they get older, (early 20s and late teens), but it may take a while. Alex Cisar is also learning for Slovakia this season. He only missed 2 and finished 87th, 4:17 back. It takes a menially strong person, to make the jump from winning all the time, to moving up essentially two levels. He is only 20 as well. Damir Rastic from Servia finished in 80th. He improved 17 spots from the individual. I wonder if he will be able to keep the WC spot.

@Werloc Thanks for compiling this list!

I think the Swiss switch to Tamborino instead of Hartwig was more about getting Hartwig a start and was planned. Stadler did worse that Hartwig, 54 vs 60, but he is still in the sprint. To me, that seems like it was a planned switch.

Just find someone from this area: It may be a little older of a map, but still good.

Look towards the Swedish instead! Maybe Stina Nilsson could be persuaded.

US with a mixed day. Dunklee missed 3 in the first prone, and 5 overall, but Joanne Reid missed 1 in the final stand and finished 29th. Egan in 35th. I will take it, Dunklee will rebound. Innerhoffer missed 11 shots, looks like LT Hauser's spot is secure! Jill Colebourn missed only 5, and did not get last. Two Koreans (who are actually Korean) finished in the last two spots. My choice of Eckhoff looks pretty bad right now, 7 misses, ouch. On the men's side, Leif Nordgren did pretty well for him, with only 1 miss and ending 25th. Dougherty would have done top 15, but two misses in the 2nd prone are not the best. Eder with only 1 miss, but skied pretty slow. Hartweg only had one miss, but finished almost 6 min behind. Rastic from Serbia missed 7, but did not finish last.

[hide] Nation Captains FRA FIllion Maillet GER Herrmann Nation Women SWE Brosson SUI Haecki BEL L. Lie NOR T. Eckhoff Nation Men NOR J. Dale UKR D. Pidruchnyi AUT S. Eder BEL F. Claude I think I did it correct. [/hide] My only goal is to not come in last.

I am on the road. I will do it tonight.

SUI Men are putting Hartweg right into the fire. I look forward to seeing his transition. No surprise on the USA men. Rastic from Serbia gets the start. SUI women get 5 starters. Interesting seeing Maddie Phaneuf on the start list for USA. This is her first start on the WC since the 16/17 season. Jill Colebourn gets the start for Australia. I forgot that Lotta Lie was racing for Belgium.

I read that China is having some issues, COVID and military related to getting biathletes out of the country. I know some Romanians tested positive for COVID, so that might be why they are not there. Glad to see that Greece and Serbia are there.

Maybe it was just wishful thinking! Somehow if they get the start list out, it means that the race will actually happen!

I thought it was 24 hours ahead of time. My mistake. Thanks for the correction.

Some how, I feel that this will become normal this season. We are less than 24 hours before the first race, and the startlist has not been published yet. Also, despite plans, there will be no spectators for this weekends events.

It is now only Anton Babikov, who has a positive test, and Evgeniy Garanichev, who lives with him in the room that can not race. Russians are unhappy with the decision of the Finnish. They don't understand, why Finnish health authorities can't doing a second test. The chief coach Yuri Kaminskij outraged: «Babikov passed the tests four times before departure, within eight days. It all is negative. Now we have only one positive test, and we can't reach an agreement to retake it.»

Lesser in but Schempp out. Maybe the rumor that he has or was exposed to someone who has/had COVID is correct.

Belgium team: Lotte Lie Florent Claude Thierry Langer Tom Lahaye-Goffart

We could see some unusual names in the WC race. I wonder if quotas will be adjusted as well.

I so hope not. I have really been looking forward to biathlon season. If the races happen, the start lists might be a bit smaller than normal.

Italy has announced their team, it is an interesting one: Men: Lukas Hofer Didier Bionaz Patrick Braunhofer. Women: Dorothea Wierer Lisa Vittozzi Irene Lardschneider Federica Sanfilippo Nicole Gontier No Windisch and one three on the men's side out of 5. I wonder what is going on?

Will another team help with waxing, on course instructions, or will they really be all alone? Also is it both weekends or just the first one?

If you have not seen this music video for Biathlon yet, it is worth it. The Norwegian biathlon teams explain all there is to know about the sport. They even explain why Norwegians like the sport so much. Good vocals a well.

One more thing from this past weekend's training races in Norway, JT Boe did not shoot well: Sprint: Mass Start: He missed 4 shots in the mass start, but only was 12 seconds behind Christiansen who missed two. Looks like the ski speed is there.

More confirmation of that she will start her World Cup career in Austria. She raced with the Norwegian team this past weekend (she has been training with them for a while now) Here are her results: Sprint: Mass Start: