Werloc

Well, first pursuit for Tomas Kaukėnas this season, so I guess we have that. Vytautas Strolia didn't cope with the shooting and now he'll be 61st with 0.1s away from tomorrow's pursuit. Pretty nice to see Svendsen doing well, would be fun if he could take down Fourcade tomorrow. Both Boes and Hofer in very good positions for the pursuit, but a pretty bad performance for the Germans again. Both Gow brothers in points as well. And lastly, Beatrix just punched a ticket to the IBU cup probably.

Woah, that's some super fast shooting by Tomas Kaukėnas. Got like 5 seconds off Tarjei Boe just from his range time and the time itself is very competitive for points, if he does not miss of course.

I've shot from a rifle once, but never in my life had I ever been on skis. Heck, if 2022 doesn't work out, we can always try Curling for Africa. There has been more than several occasions in which I held a broom

I think that with our unfathomable skills, we would definitely need to find a different, even more desperate country. On the other hand, if you put on a pair of skis and get yourself a rifle, the IBU cup doors are open for The Netherlands and you don't even need to change your nationality. Now if I moved to The Netherlands and we also grabbed @dezbee2008 and @Bohemia , wholla, we have ourselves a mixed relay for the 2022 Olympics.

I heard that team Belgium is recruiting anyone who finds the qualification to World Cup teams fairly difficult

Well, I'm not going to stop watching my favourite sport simply because some random guy from Germany claims that Kuzmina is doped.

Thanks, that's very interesting. I was following some of Simon's results and had a feeling that he might get relegated from World Cup, but that must be a detrimental blow to his confidence yet again. As for Team USA, women's nation cup score looks very worrying for them, especially since they'll be losing a handful of points to their competition after the relay as well, they might lose 1-2 starting quota's for next season if they focus on the Olympics too much. And finally, welcome to the forum, always nice to see the biathlon family growing here.

Back with the "biathlon news" and men's sprint already starts off very interesting with Dominik Landertinger back in the world cup for his first WC race for Austria. Although Eder is missing as well as Grossegger, who is most likely replaced by Mesotitch. Chepelin and Bocharnikov back for Belarus, starting 4, unlike only three in Annecy. As @stefanbg already mentioned, Anev is missing from tomorrow's race. Canada starts Campbell instead of Smith. Estonia brings back Lessing. France missing Simon Fourcade and brings in Jacquellin. Germany is missing Erik Lesser and Nawrath, bringing in only Rees and starting with 5 Italy is moving up from 4 to 5 starters adding Montello. Kazakhstan bringing back their men's A team. Korea changes one starter, whilst Latvia is missing Rastorgujevs. SVENDSEN IS BACK!!! for Norway and Bjoerndalen is starting too, so Gjesbakk and Bjoentegaard are let go. One switch for Poland, as well as Russia bringing back Volkov, whilst dropping Garanichev. Switzerland goes up from 4 to 5 starters, adding Tambornino and Jaeger, Dolder missing. Otcenas and Kazar going back home to participate in the local IBU cup. Whole Ukraine's A Team is back and ready to start tomorrow. And seems that Team USA is really having some struggles (perhaps it's financial ones?) as they've only sent two men for tomorrows race (they've only sent two women as well) and it's Burke and Doherty, dropping Bailley, Nordgren and Schrommer, so it's fair to assume there'll be no relays on Sunday for Team USA.

Few months later "I said that I will quit biathlon if she wins a medal at the Olympics, I never said anything about quitting if she won two medals".

Woah, Team Norway was completely non-existant today On the other hand, brilliant team performances for Canada, Japan, Sweden and Poland! Nice to see the Czech Republic being relevant for the first time in this season. And lastly, very excited that Makarainen got a podium again as well as Laukkanen with a pretty decent place for the pursuit and of course Lehtonen with a career best in world cup and a qualification to tomorrow's pursuit.

But what if Gontier or Oberhofer, for example, outperform her during Oberhof/Rupholding/Antholz? Or is Runggaldier's spot for OG completely safe?

Well, I got a bit lazy there, because there's an addition in the Belarus team as well

Ooh, I looked up that 2014/15 Oberhof is actually the only podium that Nicole Gontier has ever had. Favourable venues sometimes work magic.

You know that we're both waiting for Oberhofer

Some news about Oberhof (Whose in and whose out) So, for women's sprint we see that Austrian women seem to be healthy now as they are starting with 4 athletes instead of 1 in Annecy. Belarus, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Czech Republic starting with their full teams with no real changes. Estonia swaps out Talihaerm and Lethla for Oja and Gaim (This is going to be the 1st world cup race for Gaim this season) Lehtonen back for Finland and Chloe Chevalier swapped out with Simon for France. Seems that Alexia Runggaldier is still having issues (perhaps @Gianlu33 can elaborate?) as she is not on the start list, but Italy decided to bring in Nicole Gontier. Kazakhstan's A team is back in Oberhof. 1 swap for Korea and 1 swap for Lithuania, whilst Latvia is not starting with Bendika. Norway, probably the country that has started the most athletes this season, keeps Eckhoff from Annecy and then brings back Solemdal, Fenne, Tandrevold from earlier world cups as well as introducing Kalkenberg. Hojnisz is back for Poland, whilst Starykh is swapped out with Virolainen for Russia. Slovenia starting only with Erzen as Switzerland brings back Elisa Gasparin. As @hckosice already mentioned, only Kuzmina starting for Slovakia tomorrow and for Sweden, Oeberg is swapped out with Hoegberg. And fhe final change is that USA is starting only with Dunklee and Egan tomorrow. So, dear biathlon fans, let's hope for a fun and entertaining race tomorrow, Oberhof usually delivers

Well, I think everyone saw this coming, but 1. Biathlon (It's a sport that I follow religiously for half of my life, skipped school on multiple occasions just to run home fast enough to watch the Biathlon races) Then, when you take away the guns, with a very big margin below we have: 2. Cross-country skiing (I remember being invested in CC a lot more a few years back. I'd use to watch pretty much every race and never skipped a Tour De Ski, but nowadays, I don't really care for it, I sometimes look up the results, but I don't remember the last time I actually sat down and watched it, I guess it'll happen during Olympics) 3. Shot-Track Speed Skating (I remember enjoying it when I was younger, but it's usually a sport that doesn't get too much media coverage, so not that easy to be very invested in the sport, but it still beats other sports for me)

Selina Gasparin is in too

I thought Kuzmina would help raise this up to at least "bad"

Well, I decided that I have to vote 'good' for Lithuania. Even though we got a world champion in Athletics and one world champion in indoor Athletics, a decent amount of medals from Swimming and a gold from Rowing, there were just some disciplines that did not go too well for us and I'd say that they outsway the good results, so I couldn't vote for 'very good'.

OMG, the snowflakes are cuuuute af

I think it's a national winter sport criteria back in Norway (for cc-skiing and biathlon), or so I've heard rumours By that I mean that nearly all of them claim they suffer from it.

So, three world cups are completed and it's time for the Christmas break. I think it's the right time for some minor stats to see how the Olympic season is shaping up compared to 2016-17 season. Men's tour already a little bit more interesting, since in the first 8 races, 7 of them were won by Martin Fourcade and 1 went to Anton Babikov, whilst this year, we have 5 for Johannes, 2 for Martin and 1 for Tarjei. During the 8 races, Norway (in 2016/17) went on the podium four times, two for Johannes and two for Svendsen, this season is ruled by the Boes only. Unlike this season, where Shipulin managed to land on the podium once, in 2016-17 season Shipulin had four podiums by now, with Babikov's 2 and Tsetkov's 1, seeing that this season is not that great for the Russians at the moment. Germany had two podiums: 1 for Peiffer and 1 for Schempp, compared to this years' two for Erik Lesser and three 4th places for Schempp (it's only a matter of time, hopefully). Lastly, in 2017/18 we also have Quentin (2), Guigonnat and Fak (3) on the podium, whilst last year we had Chepelin, Quentin and Lindstrom. The peculiar thing on the women's tour, which partly might be caused by Dahlmeier's absence during Ostersund, the Yellow bib has already went through 5 different owners, compared to Dahlmeier and Koukalova sharing it throughout the whole season last year. There were 5 different winners during those 8 races - 3 went to Dahlmeier, 2 to Koukalova, whilst 2017/18 already has 6 different winners (Herrmann and Kuzmina - 2) and three of them are first time winners. Biggest national improvement, in my opinion, goes to Belarus that already have 3 different athletes on the podium on 4 occasions, whilst they only had 1 from Yurkevich in the very first race and one by Domracheva at the end of the season. Dorothea had three podiums for Italy, whilst this season it's only 1 by her and 1 by Vittozzi. France had 4 different ladies on the podium before Oberhof and this season it's only Braisaz on three different occasions. Slovakia and Ukraine have struck luck this year to get on the podium combined 7 times (4SVK and 3UKR), but when someone wins, there's also someone whose losing and that's Russia, United States and Czech Republic that have not gotten on the podium just yet in the women's field. Anyways, to summarise, Norway HAVE ALREADY surpassed their gold medal quota from last season (6) as they already have 8 now. Germany and France seem to be on track for a good performance on the medal table. Disaster for the Czech Republic, that finished the 2016/17 season with 21 podiums, they haven't even claimed one just yet, they desperately need Koukalova back. Slovakia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Slovenia are already having a better season just after these three world cups. Ukraine has the same 0-1-3 medal score by now as they've had in 2016/17, so anything more is already an improvement. Countries that could still use some work, Russia definitely stands out, cause they're far behind schedule. The Makarainen country (ok, that's unfair, since Laukkanen is top tier now as well) is slightly behind schedule after the three world cups and Austria still has a lot of work to do, whilst Italy seems to be on track. Props to anyone that read this.

7th place on the medal table, I'm pretty satisfied Of course, better performances from Titenis, Šidlauskas and Bilis would have been welcome.

The way Kryuko fought for that was beautiful to watch. You could see how much it mattered for her.

I'm excited to finally see Croatia back in the biathlon game. It's still a long way to go, but having enough athletes for both mixed relays is the first step in the right direction.