Road to Sochi : Pre-Olympics World Championships.

[Lara]

Svindal almost had that Super G and made a mistake two gates from home, doh. The French guy was actually a substitute for the team due to injury. Unexpected results!

This Swiss men have been poor without Couche and Feuz, but if Austria gets no downhill medal either they will not be happy (Italy seems to have had the most success after Svindal this season though). Of course Hirscher will be a major favorite for the technical events - I really hope his rivalry with Ted Ligety in the giant slalom continues through Sochi.

In other winter sports - biathlon world champs start today with the mixed relay!

[Domshabfan]

Skeleton and Bobsleigh World Championships : St.Mortiz

4 Men : Bobsleigh
Gold : Germany (Pilot : Andt )
Silver : Russia (Zubkov)
Bronze : USA (Holcomb)


2 Men : Bobsleigh
Gold : Germany (Pilot : Freidrich)
Silver : Switzerland (Hefti)
Bronze : Germany (Florschelutz)


2 women : Bobsleigh
Gold : Canada (Pilot : Humphries )
Silver : USA (Meyers)
Bronze : Germany (Kiriasis)

Skeleton Men
Gold : Alexander Tetiankov (RUS)
Silver : Martins Dukurs (LAT)
Bronze : Sergei Chudinov (RUS)

Skeleton Women
Gold : Shelley Rudman (GBR)
Silver : Noelle Pikas-Pace (USA)
Bronze : Sarah Reid (CAN)

TEAM (not an Olympic event)
Gold : GERMANY
Silver : CANADA
Bronze : USA

[Ozzisk8tr]

On the note of special olympics. I taught a special needs skater for the last two - three years and it has been the most rewarding experience of my life. She is in her 40's and has been working on the Glide Waltz (first dance on roller) for all that time. It is such a joy to see her achieve something it warms my heart. Sadly when she does something wrong she covers her head, as her mother used to beat her when she did something wrong as a child. She is now married and I have met her family and they are so very supportive of her skating. My life has been enriched for being given the opportunity to teach this beautiful soul.

[Vash01]

Just saw in our local newspaper these pictures of preparation for the Sochi Olympics. I love those Olympic rings.

http://www.azcentral.com/photo/24670

[Lara]

Mixed relay biathlon - 1) Norway 2) France 3) Czech Rep (home medal at Novo Mesto, fantastic holding under pressure by Moravec).

Russia finished 6th and was in the medal hunt until a disastrous shoot by Malyshko. Germany had a total disaster finishing 13th with poor performance by Myriam Gussner, one of the women's favorites. Norway overall looks great including Tora Berger and Svensen, not bad from Martin Fourcade of France but he had too much to catch up by his leg.

[Braulio]

Right now it´s like a mini-olympics preview with biathlon world championships getting underway

Norway was just in a class of their own in the mixed relay, first time I have seen this competition format and it was fun to watch

Poor russians, Malyshko had a total catastrophe! missed 4 times the target and took the penalty lap, so out of the medals.

The home crowd at Nove Mesto is very cheerful! great atmosphere indeed.

[Vash01]

Just saw in our local newspaper these pictures of preparation for the Sochi Olympics. I love those Olympic rings.

http://www.azcentral.com/photo/24670

ETA: Wrong thread

[ballettmaus]

Maria Höfl-Riesch of Germany won the super combined, Tina Maze came in second and Nicole Hosp, Austria, was third.

[Braulio]

Men's Downhill, Aksel Lund Svindal (NOR) just super, almost a second faster than the second place Dominik Paris (ITA) and bronze for Poisson from France.

Austrian skiers again out of the medals, glad they have Marcel Hirsher who is the favourite in Slalom and the main rival in the GS to Ted Ligety

[Domshabfan]

Svendsen won the sprint biathlon over Martin Fourcade (FRA) and jacko Fak (SLO) bronze medal. In the women's race Ukraine won 1-3 in the sprints, with Olga Pidhrushina and Vita Semerenko wining gold and bronze respectively, Tora Berger (NOR) won the silver. Interestingly two huge market for biathlon Germany and Russia are yet to win any medals .


On a side note, the president of Russian Biathlon Federation (and multi billionaire ), Mikhail Prokhorov has vowed to resign his post unless russia win 2 gold medal at the Olympics. no pressure on the coaches at this world championships what so ever.

[ballettmaus]

Men's Downhill, Aksel Lund Svindal (NOR) just super, almost a second faster than the second place Dominik Paris (ITA) and bronze for Poisson from France.

Austrian skiers again out of the medals, glad they have Marcel Hirsher who is the favourite in Slalom and the main rival in the GS to Ted Ligety

Well, in Germany and Austria, when it comes to skiing, the fourth place is known as the "Austrians place". So far, they've lived up to their reputation (even if Hosp won bronze, there was still an Austrian lady who finished 4th).
I kind of feel sorry for them! Hopefully their luck changes in the next competitions.

[AragornElessar]

On the note of special olympics. I taught a special needs skater for the last two - three years and it has been the most rewarding experience of my life. She is in her 40's and has been working on the Glide Waltz (first dance on roller) for all that time. It is such a joy to see her achieve something it warms my heart. Sadly when she does something wrong she covers her head, as her mother used to beat her when she did something wrong as a child. She is now married and I have met her family and they are so very supportive of her skating. My life has been enriched for being given the opportunity to teach this beautiful soul.

Thanks for telling us about your Student Ozzisk8tr. While I've never volunteered, as our area is rather far from the town where the Special Olympics programs are, I have attended a few events over the years. I truly and honestly believe that if you ever need a pick me up of any kind? Go to a Special Olympics event. You'll be feeling much better w/in minutes of the event starting.

On a far different note...

Dear CTV Toronto,

When showing Lindsay Vonn's crash earlier this week from the World Championships, was it really necessary to not only not mute the volume, but to then not have Lance Brown not say anything for several seconds? Because, thanks to that, we were able to not only hear Lindsay screaming in agony, but also to hear her screaming for someone to come out and help her.

That was something I would much rather not have experienced Thank You so very much!!

One ticked off Sports Fan!!!!

It took the better part of two days before I could get Lindsay's screams out of my head and I'm an adult!! Can you imagine what a little one would have thought if they'd heard that and I'm guessing a few did. I couldn't believe it either, as usually when a Downhill crash gets shown, the volume's muted for that very reason. Couldn't believe it the other night and still can't today.

[Lara]

Surprise medal for France in women's downhill with Marion Rolland taking gold. Nadia Fanchini of Italy was second and Maria Hoefl-Riesch third. Favorite Tina Maze finished seventh. A tough course with a fair amount of crashes from the early racers.

Exciting biathlon pursuits - it literally was a photo finish in men with Svendsen winning a third gold over Martin Fourcade. Tora Berger won the women's with K. Palka (Poland) second and Pidrushina (Ukraine) third.

[judgejudy27]

Another gold for Ligety! He is a great GS and slalom skiier, and those events are still left. It will be interesting to see if he can possibly even end Worlds with 4 golds. Would that be historic if he did it.

[Braulio]

The biathlon world championships after 5 events has plenty of gold for Norway, silvers for France and ZERO medals for Germany!!!

Russia was lucky to grab a bronze medal in the men´s pursuit, I wonder what is happening with them? specially the germans, at least the russians have been in the top 10 and have a medal, but Germany??? just a couple of athletes sneaking in the top 10

Men´s Super Combined: Ted Ligety was the best, what a downhill run he had and a superb slalom run on a tough course that claimed many of the top skiers after the downhill, including Aksel Lund Svindal who was going for a thir medal and possibly retaining his gold medal at the event as he was world champion in 2011.

Silver for the usual second place finisher in the super combined at olympics or worlds, Ivica Kostelic (CRO) and bronze just narrowly for Rommed Baumann (AUT) who gives austrians their second medal of the championships, another bronze. The crowd was excstatic as if he just won the tittle!!!

Good for Ted, his fourth world championships medal overall (third gold) now he is the favourite for the Giant Slalom that will be a great battle between him and Marcel Hirsher. A medal in slalom is not very clear as he has not produced solid results in the last seasons but hey, he definitively has great momentum and confidence, so he could threat for a medal in Slalom too.

[Lara]

Did Hirscher go for the super combined at all?

He's certainly more favored for the slalom over Ligety, but the GS will be tight and there's going to be a lot more pressure on him to deliver gold for Austria. He's handled it very well so far this season, hopefully he can stay steady. Should be a great race!

[Domshabfan]

The biathlon world championships after 5 events has plenty of gold for Norway, silvers for France and ZERO medals for Germany!!!

Russia was lucky to grab a bronze medal in the men´s pursuit, I wonder what is happening with them? specially the germans, at least the russians have been in the top 10 and have a medal, but Germany??? just a couple of athletes sneaking in the top 10

Men´s Super Combined: Ted Ligety was the best, what a downhill run he had and a superb slalom run on a tough course that claimed many of the top skiers after the downhill, including Aksel Lund Svindal who was going for a thir medal and possibly retaining his gold medal at the event as he was world champion in 2011.

Silver for the usual second place finisher in the super combined at olympics or worlds, Ivica Kostelic (CRO) and bronze just narrowly for Rommed Baumann (AUT) who gives austrians their second medal of the championships, another bronze. The crowd was excstatic as if he just won the tittle!!!

Good for Ted, his fourth world championships medal overall (third gold) now he is the favourite for the Giant Slalom that will be a great battle between him and Marcel Hirsher. A medal in slalom is not very clear as he has not produced solid results in the last seasons but hey, he definitively has great momentum and confidence, so he could threat for a medal in Slalom too.

I don't agree with you on biathlon, Russia has been extremely unlucky. Their men finished 3rd and 4th and their women 4th and 5th.. Even jn the sprit they where just outside the medals. They seem to lack ski speed against Norway and fourcade. Russia men are relatively young team so they are improving, but zaitseva lack of speed is very worrying. Olga was leading going to last shooting, she hesitated in the shooting, then missed the shoot. It meant she got passed by Palka at the shooting (she too misseda shoot) and Berger who went clean. Worrying Olga lost a lot of time after that and got passed by the Ukrainian athlete. The 5th place athlete from russia climbed from 27th with the help if clean shooting. She came into the event with almost a 1.5 mins deficit ( the time deficit from sprit is carried over to the pursuit), so she did well to finish 5 th.

As for men svensen had a very small lead over fourcade, shopulin and malysko. Sevenson slowed down allowed other to catch, this would have he opened never the less but by doing so made it a sprint and won the sprint by one hundredth of a second. I felt sorry for Malyshko, since he was the work horse for the group. Anyway this world championships are of two halves with a break now and competition re starting on Wednesday and finishing on sunday with relays, individual score and mass start.

[Braulio]

Did Hirscher go for the super combined at all?

No, Hirsher did not compete at the super combined. Still and all the pressure they have (austrian skiers) I think he will be in the podium in the GS and will win the Slalom, but who knows the french are having a good meet and they have certain slalom specialist who could spoil the party. Also I count on some italian skier to be in the hunt for the Giant Slalom.

I don't agree with you on biathlon, Russia has been extremely unlucky. Their men finished 3rd and 4th and their women 4th and 5th.. Even jn the sprit they where just outside the medals. They seem to lack ski speed against Norway and fourcade. Russia men are relatively young team so they are improving, but zaitseva lack of speed is very worrying. Olga was leading going to last shooting, she hesitated in the shooting, then missed the shoot. It meant she got passed by Palka at the shooting (she too misseda shoot) and Berger who went clean. Worrying Olga lost a lot of time after that and got passed by the Ukrainian athlete. The 5th place athlete from russia climbed from 27th with the help if clean shooting. She came into the event with almost a 1.5 mins deficit ( the time deficit from sprit is carried over to the pursuit), so she did well to finish 5 th.

And I do agree on that, my reference for ´bad championships´ was more to the germans than the russians as I pointed out that Russia has had many of their competitors in the top 10 (Zaitseva, Glazirina, Vilukhina, Shipulin, Ustyugov) in contast to the germans who if i recall only have a top 10 with Andrea Henkel in the women´s sprint.

Surely Russia had a bad luck in the mixed relay on the opening day, and given they are a young team as you mentioned, this break will give them perspective on that and most likely medals will come in the next events and of course all the valuable experience for Sochi they will get.

[Braulio]

World Biathlon championships resume

Women´s 15Km Individual, Third gold medal for Tora Berger (NOR) she was the class of the field, zero penalties and very fast, demolished the competition, 3 golds, 1 silver thus far. Silver medal for Germany!! Andrea Henkel going clean also but was slower than Berger, finally a medal for the germans. Bronze for Semerenko of Ukraine that is having a good championships.

Tomorrow, Men´s 20Km Individual, and in the alpine skiing worlds Women´s Giant Slalom with the overwhelming favourite Tina Maze (SLO) going for her second gold medal and third of this championships

[Lara]

Tora Berger was definitely amazing. Providing she stays healthy she can look forward to much success in Sochi!

Martin Fourcade finally got his gold today in the Individual. Not the domination of Berger, but so many men shot excellently to start and then gave it away at the fourth standing. Tim Burke of the United States(!) took silver, and Fredrik Lindstrom of Sweden bronze. Sadly the Czech Republic finished just off the medals this time with Moravec fourth. Svendsen didn't compete in order to be healthy enough for the later races.

Women's Giant Slalom saw Tessa Worley of France take gold with two excellent runs. Tina Maze had a poor first run but rallied for silver. Austria got another bronze, from Anna Fenninger (Katherine Zettel was fourth).