JonPhi

Oberstdorf is out of the Tour de Ski. Next year the stages will be in Davos, Toblach and Val Di Fiemme.

Individual will be on the 4K, they could made enough snow

Diggins probably already crash out in the Qualification!

The Tour de Ski finally starts the day after tomorrow. Weather is supposed to be pretty catastrophic. In Oberstdorf it is not at all clear what can be skied. Currently there are double-digit plus straight and also heavy rain is announced. The two stages could also be quite interesting in terms of waxing. In Val Mustair, the Pursuit has already been replaced by a mass start, which means that the weak sprinters will hardly have a chance to catch up.

Has anyone actually noticed this? Siegfried Mazet said that from this year on 5 athletes per nation (6 with the defending champion) will be allowed to start at World Championships if they are all in the top 15 in the overall World Cup. I haven't read that yet. This is also a reason why Tarjej Bö may continue to compete in the World Cup and not Endre Stroemsheim. https://www.nordicmag.info/biathlon-pokljuka-pourquoi-tarjei-boe-a-t-il-ete-selectionne-en-coupe-du-monde-plutot-quendre-stroemsheim-la-reponse-de-siegfried-mazet-a-nordic-magazine-1220/

In addition, a catastrophic ski form at Fillon Maillet. Claude was by far the best this weekend. In the women's race, of course, a tremendous team performance, even if Colombo didn't look good at all, hopefully she is ok. Chevalier-Bouchet in particular has not yet delivered anything this season. Unfortunately, she had a broken stick on the first lap and was directly at the end of the field.

So whoever has Fischer skis was simply without a chance today . It was impressive that Simon had already caught up almost 45 seconds to the first shooting. If the conditions are not better tomorrow, it will be a very far apart mass start.

Women rescheduled to 14:30

Men's pursuit about 1km shorter, as the hill at the first intermediate time is omitted. It is too icy and dangerous there.

Men‘s Sprint could be quite tricky, could be raining … Memories of the 2019 mass start are awakened

Currently, it has also snowed a little in Le Grand Bornand. The weather is supposed to be good at the weekend, only the men's sprint on Thursday could be a bit critical. The forecast is for 5 degrees and rain.

Nevertheless the 'big' weak point remains Chloe Chevalier, her shooting times in the standing position are a disaster. She lost more than 20 seconds to Voigt with the same number of reloads. It would be nice if Colombo would get a place, she has never been allowed to run a relay in the World Cup. In the men's event, Bö is of course a force to be reckoned with and he can only beat himself at the moment.

Another domination by Sweden tomorrow? Preuss is back in the German Team, Lien is out: https://ibu.blob.core.windows.net/docs/2223/BT/SWRL/CP02/SWRL/C51B2_v1.pdf

It was already highly questionable in Kontiolahti why he was allowed to finish, but even more so today. He has absolutely no chance against the top runners. Apart from that, he wasn't good as a tail runner last season either. Why Jacquelin is not running there is extremely questionable, France's last relay victories always came with him as the tail runner, he is good in it. In tomorrow's women's race Chloe Chevalier has been entered again, although Caroline Colombo is clearly the better option. One has the feeling that in France the relay teams are chosen more according to sympathy than performance.

Last year it worked excellently under pressure. If she had not delivered there, she would have had to enter the IBU Cup. And then she became 2x second. She has not made a single mistake this year.

Chevalier Bouchet 17.1s in prone? New Record should be.

Men‘s Sprint will be on a 2.5k Loop due to the lack of snow. So the athletes have to ski two laps between prone and standing shooting.

For the Germans it didn't work at all today in terms of running. The Swedish and French skaters were compactly ahead. Lampic was outstanding, of course.

German team will also start in Beitostolen only strongly decimated. The mixed relay will be contested only by the B team, the women and men around Hennig, Carl and Moch will then already prepare for the Tour de Ski. So probably smaller starting fields are to be expected.

So many athletes will be missing: Andersson, Klaebo, Ostberg, Fossesholm, Roethe, Pellegrino, complete French Distance Team.

But there is other good news today. Le Grand Bornand got the green light from the IBU thanks to numerous truckloads of snow from the mountains. Nevertheless, there is still a lot of work ahead of the organizers. Thus, there should be quite a folk festival again, even if it should be a bit more wintry outside .

World Team Challenge will be back at "Schalke" this year in Gelsenkirchen on 28.12: Denise Herrmann-Wick / Benedikt Doll Vanessa Voigt / Philipp Nawrath Julia Simon / Fabien Claude Dorothea Wierer / Lukas Hofer Lisa Theresa Hauser / Felix Leitner Mari Eder / Tero Seppala Marketa Davidova / Michal Krcmar Lena Häcki-Gross / Joshua Burkhalter Julia Dzhima / Dmytro Pidruchniy One team is still missing!

Roeiseland will not come back before Pokljuka, at least!

Definitely an exciting race until the last runner at the front. Of course, I was particularly thrilled by Eric Perrot, rapid fire all away . The Swedes again with big shooting problems in a relay. Especially great, of course, that such small nations as Lithuania and Finland have achieved such top results here and even ended up ahead of Sweden.

France with somewhat strange squads tomorrow. Fillon Maillet runs instead of Jacquelin in the end, although not in form and in the women's race Jeanmonnot runs instead of Colombo, who is a lot weaker in terms of skiing.