US Biathlon in Europe #11 – Lowell Bailey’s Gold Medal in the BWC Individual

Morning Everyone-

We are in the midst of the Senior World Championships in Hochfilzen, Austria. The biggest news, of course, is Lowell Bailey’s Gold Medal in the Individual race. As you might recall, that is 20km long for the Senior Men, and carries a 1 minute add-on penalty for each miss of the 20 shots. Shooting was rough with few shooting clean—Lowell being one of them. He came out of the range after the last shooing in 1st place by 7 sec ahead of Moravec’s time of the Czech Republic, a really strong skier……that lead dropped to 0.6 sec 1.5 km from the finish. Lowell dug deep..and won by 3.3 sec. Moravec also shot clean, third went to Fourcade of France who had 2 misses. Wow! That is a first for the US. We have been on the podium a few times, but never in that spot in the Senior World Cup or Senior Championships!! [Sean Dougherty owns the international record for wins at the Youth and Junior Worlds.]

Lowell, Lake Placid, was part of Cory Salmela’s Junior National team back in the late 90’s, where he was one of the US top Juniors. He then skied for the U of Vermont for 4 years and came back to biathlon without missing a beat…

Leif Norgren from Marine on the St Croix was 23rd in that race with 2 misses, Tim Burke was 36th with 4 and Sean Dougherty was 58th with 4. All came up through the US Junior programs.

The past two days have seen the relay races. Women’s 4 x 6 km yesterday and Men’s 4 x 7.5 km today. The US, undoubtedly inspired by Lowell, improved considerably over their past results indicated by their bib numbers. In the Women’s race, Germany won with no penalties and 9 extra rounds. [Recall that in the relay, each shooter must handload up to 3 extra rounds if their target is not clean..after that comes the 150 meter penalty loop for any targets not hit with the total of 8 shots. Each extra loading, aiming and firing takes about 8-10 sec—so kind of a double penalty] The US Women finished 14th moving up from 22nd in the last relay. They were 3:37 back of Germany, used 13 extra rounds and no penalties. 23 Nations had teams in the race.

In the Men’s race this am, the US started with bib #18 putting Lowell out first. He shot clean with no extras and stuck close to the leaders handing off to Leif. Leif used one extra and handed off to Tim Burke in about 6th place. Tim shot clean using 4 extras, and also losing time on skis to the leaders. Sean went out last, with the US holding behind the second pack—and finishing in 7th place using 8 extras and no penalty loops….1:50 behind winner Russia who only used 3 extra rounds. France was 2nd, Austria was 3rd with Germany unable to catch Landertinger of Austria. 26 Nations had teams in this race.

Tomorrow are the Mass Starts. If you are an insomniac, the Women’ 12,5 km race will be on live at 4:30 am CST and the Men’s 15 km much better at 7:45. All will be posted later for viewing at your convenience online, hard to avoid the results beforehand if you watch them later. The coverage has been awesome with much of the course covered by the cameras along with the normal range graphics and splits from the course. In the Individual race the electronic tie-in is so tight the 1 minute penalty for a miss will jump the shooters running time while he is in the process of shooting. All the shooting times, and results and course splits are posted after the races on the IBU Data webpage.

Only the top 30 in the World Cup Rankings will race in the Mass Start races. So Susan Dunkley in the first race and Lowell Bailey in the second for the US. Shooting is PPSS with the first shoot on their bib number than filling in from the right for the remainder of the range visits.

Our MN Youth and Juniors are still in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic, where they have been for the past couple of weeks, training with Coach Travis Voyer of the National Guard. Tomorrow they will move to the venue for the YJr Worlds at Brezno-Osrblie, Slovakia. Monday will be ski test and course familiarzation, Tues Official Training. Then the Youth Men and Women do the Individual event on Wed, followed by the Junior Men and Women on Thurs. The Start lists will be posted the night before on IBU’s webpage. It will be interesting to see how many Nations are represented. Normally it is close to 30. It will also be interesting to see what is televised by Eurosport. That should show up on their website after the senior Champs are done tomorrow. If not, you can usually find that someone has posted most or all of each race on UTube.

Our MN Youth are Amanda and Vasek; the Juniors are Siena and Cam. Jakob Ellingson, a Senior now, is back in the US doing NorAm races and trying to qualify for the final IBU events. Lot of traveling if he makes it!! Raleigh Goessling has tossed his hat into the ring also for those races.

For the YJrWorld Championships, the order of the events is Individual Youth Wed, Ind. Jr’s Thurs; Sprint Youth Fri, Spt. Jr’s Sat; All Pursuits [top 60 from the Sprints] Sunday; Youth Relays on Monday and finishing up with the Junior Relays on Tues. So lot of racing coming up!!

More soon!
B