Werloc

Lithuania is in. As is tradition.

Woah, noticed only now... There were only 5 athletes that shot clean today and two of them were Lithuanian The world is ending...

Really good batch of Estonians we have here One is Faster One is a Palm And the other one is a Perv

And here we invite our local @justony to talk with us today and comment on how does it feel when Slovenia gets gold and silver in the sprint race?

Okay, this is historically the most successful Youth & Junior championship for us We have Maksim Fomin 0+0 at 7th! Gytis Mikoliūnas 0+0 at 31st (this is also his first individual ibu race, after a start in the youth relay a couple of days ago) and even Jokūbas Mačkinė snuck into the pursuit race at 57th with 33rd ski speed. This brings me a lot of joy, time to get disappointed by our girls in two hours

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Fomin went out third after shooting 2 for Lithuania. That happened

Really waiting for tomorrow. Another four additional athletes starting for Lithuania that were kept away from the individual race due to their age. So we're starting 4 boys and 2 girls.

In all honesty, Ukraine looks non-existent this season. Apart from Dzhima's win, when did we actually see anyone contend? You couldn't even tell that the Semerenko sisters are both in the world cup, because we haven't heard them and haven't seen them do anything yet. The highest world cup overall athletes from women right now is Olena Pidrushina at 34 with Dzhima, Semerenko's, Merkushina often struggling to even quality to a pursuit race... 2017-18 season after Antholz we had Vita at 10, Valj at 14, Dzhima at 16, Merkushina at 32 They have better luck with men this season at 24 and 29 after Antholz...

Nah, the main reason is focusing on the European Championships, where it's usually the only chance to make money and get government financing for our athletes, so those two stages were planned to be skipped to be at the best form possible for the ECH and then WCH.

Lithuania had mixed plans about the stages in Canada and USA, but at the moment, it seems that we are going to be sending our strongest athletes, simply due to not really having anybody else to send as well as unreliable nation cup positions.

Reminiscing from my recent winner stats, it's actually utterly crazy that there are only 5 women on the tour that have won a world cup race more than twice. So many retirements left a lot of space for new talents to shine and with some of the greats underperforming, we already have five new winners.

She needs two more overall crystal globes and then she's done

Yeah, that's another good question. Perhaps Russia didn't want him to have hobbies anymore after he quit to Belarus

Holy shit, you're right. Birthday April 19th for both. That's some handy detective work, also a bit creepy as well that he had to change his name.

She stated herself that she is not planning to have a long sports career. She was dubbed the new Neuner and is already planning a Neuner-ish exit.

We can also add to the discussion with Dahlmeier having 4 WCH ind. golds + 3 WCH relay gold as well as additional 6 WCH medals, two Olympic golds. With Johannes still at 2 WCH ind. golds + 1 WCH relay hold, additional 6 WCH medals (3 from relay) and 1 Olympic gold. With Dahlmeier always missing 30% of the programme, so I wouldn't put Johannes above her in the talent department, I think they're both equally talented.

You could probably argue that she is, because unlike Boe, she already has an overall crystal globe as well as is dominating every major event that she attends in a highly competitive field of women. On top of that, she would have probably won 2017-18 as well, if she didn't miss Ostersund. She also missed a ton of races in 2014/15, 2015/16 and this season too, her biggest enemy is her health.

Yeah, I edited later to mention that I am not counting Olympics, since it's not a World Cup affair.

Well, I think Dahlmeier is also a major talent, although she's being held back by a lot of illnesses. On the men's side, it's difficult to make a breakthrough when there's only the bronze spot on the podium left for endless amount of years It's nearly two years since a German male biathlete had a victory, the last one in March 2017 by Peiffer, when both Fourcade and Boe missed the podium. (Just in case, I decided to not count Olympics in, since it's not considered world cup status)

I don't think there is a need to announce every single result change after exchanges and shooting, because everybody has the live results available to them.

Wow, thank you, Lind, for trying to enforce my point that I just made

This is pretty much the promoted Swedish youth world champion relay, I wonder if they can repeat the success

Sweden is very strict with their team this year. They gave Hogberg and Andersson one chance this year even though they have been breezing through the ibu cup this season. I still think that Hogberg would be a better bet than Nilsson and perhaps Magnusson as well.

We often forget how many outside factors actually impact the athletes that we see on TV, one of the biggest factors why it is difficult to see a stable progression from junior-to-senior is the unexpected thing that we call life. Some athletes don't have good training conditions (especially in smaller Biathlon nations, it is easier to win with talent when you are younger, but senior level is all about infrastructure) Some athletes are full time government supported athletes, other athletes support themselves or their families with additional jobs, leaving them with less energy or less frequent training Some great athletes are stopped by multiple injuries, they miss seasons of training etc. Some athletes lose motivation, we have to remember that we're talking about young indecisive people. I am 24 and I still sometimes have no idea what I am doing and here we are talking about 20-22 year olds at university. Training staff - some training staff can bring the best out of their athletes, some just have a reputation of not producing the best from their athletes. Best example: Sweden under Pichler and how atrociously bad Sweden was without Pichler. And these are only some of the factors, there are a lot more, because every single journey is different and every single problem affects every individual in different ways.

She was on her way towards good results, but she missed an entire season, I assume to injury? Edit: as for showing talent, it is a positive thing for most athletes, but quite detrimental to some. When you easily beat everyone around your age and are immediately thrust into senior environment with 70th-80th places, some people are motivated through it and some people don't work hard enough and quit.