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I awoke to brilliant blue skis outside this morning on the mountain top in Sochi, Russia.  Yesterday was cloudy and foggy so today was the first time I was able to see what else is out there.  It is one of the most beautiful vistas I’ve seen with mountains surrounding the entire mountaintop village where we are living.  When you look closer though, within the confines of the Biathlon and Cross-Country Venues, the Sochi Organizing Committee has a TON of work left to do!  The chalet’s which will house some (but not all) of the cross-country and biathlon athletes are fairly complete, but the rest of the structures – additional housing, dining facilities, roads, walkways, etc. – are largely unfinished.  The trek to the venue consists of navigating on and around a bunch of semi-finished paths and buildings.  But the actual stadium and venue are just about finished.

The tracks are brutal.  The course climbs about 300m right out of the stadium and then descends almost 600m before another 600m climb, the longest sustained climb I’ve witnessed on a modern biathlon course.  From there, it’s a few hundred meters of undulating terrain and then a fast downhill back into the stadium.  All of the courses, from 2km up to 4km incorporate the major climbs I just discussed.

The stadium itself is by far, the biggest, most expansive stadium I’ve ever seen.  The Timing and Press building is about ten stories high.  I’m not sure what they plan on doing with all that space, especially considering that they are planning to cap the spectators at a total of 5,000! This is perhaps the most disappointing part about the Sochi venue.  They built one of the most expensive venues in the world, destroyed a huge swath of untouched mountaintop, and they’re only going to bring 5,000 spectators up to see it?  If that’s the case, this will be one of the smallest crowds assembled for a biathlon World Cup-calibre event.  Kind of strange when you think about how big biathlon is as a sport in Russia.

From a competitor’s standpoint, I’m excited to race on the new venue.  I think they’ve done a great job with the tracks and the venue preparations.  It will definitely be a great World Cup!

Cheers,

Lowell

Once again, I find myself in beautiful Oslo, ready to race the 10km Sprint at IBU World Cup #7.  It has been a whirlwind season yet again and I can’t believe we only have three more world cups to go.  It seems like we were just in Ostersund awaiting the start of the season. 

That being said, it has been a great season, albeit full of ups and downs, but I’m happy with my overall performance and I’m looking forward to the final leg of the tour.  World Champs was a success for the whole team, the highpoint being Tim’s silver medal performance in the Individual – the first American WCH medal since Josh Thompson’s silver in 1987.  

For me, Nove Mesto was a solid World Champs and I think it’s important to look at the positive side of my races there.  With two 13th places, it represents my most successful World Champs to date.  I shot clean in the Pursuit, my first clean four-stage World Cup race, and moved up from 32nd to 13th with the 4th fastest split time of the day.  Nevertherless, I did come away wanting more.  I suppose that is a good thing.  If I was satisfied, I think that would signal that perhaps my career was nearing the end.  Instead, I came away from Nove Mesto with a bittersweet mix of emotions, and a burning desire to make that tiny, yet excruciatingly difficult, last step to the podium.  

It’s one thing to execute a perfect race in training.  It’s another to do that in a World Cup environment.  At this day and age, with the depth of the international World Cup field, it requires nothing short of perfection.  In the Nove Mesto Mass Start, I raced a perfect race until the final stage.  Other than that brief point where two targets didn’t go down, I had the perfect race.  I was at the front, in third, within striking distance of the podium.  But so were about fifteen other biathletes – and perfection is a tough thing to attain in biathlon.  I missed two and raced to 13th, a great result… but not perfect.

And so here I am in Oslo.  I’ve replayed that race, that stage, about a thousand times over the last week, and those targets are a lot easier to hit when they are in your mind!  But, I can say this: I have never been more motivated, more hungry, more decided about where I am and where I want my career to go.  Now I must put my faith in hard work, patience, and of course, as is always the case with biathlon, a little bit of luck!  

I’ll finish with this: Part of the individual athlete’s motivation, drive, and focus arise from the environment he or she is placed in.  We, as US biathletes, are fortunate in this regard, extremely so.  From ski selection to wax, coaching to logistics, stonegrinding to apparel, we are given everything we need to succeed.  Thanks to all of my coaches, sponsors, and teammates for making this past World Champs truly the best WCH experience of my career!

Here’s to the rest of the season!

LB

After a nerve-racking start, we ended up in 5th Place when Leif (Nordgren) crossed the finish line. The first loop started with an all-out sprint up the Birgsteig (the famous first climb on the Oberhof biathlon course) but then the pace fell off to a near stand-still toward the end of that loop. No one seemed to want to take the lead heading into the stadium. It’s definitely true that there was a big advantage to draft behind on this range entrance. Because of this, the pace slowed significantly and I think we were all pretty fresh coming in for the first prone. Because of this, and the fact that the wind didn’t seem strong enough to effect the zero. But, in the end, I needed all of my extra rounds to hit the last prone shot and this set me back a bit from the leaders. Fortunately, the rest of the field struggled with prone as well and the race was still very close heading in for the second shooting.

After cleaning with one extra round, I left the range in 7th and tagged off to Tim with 12 seconds to 2nd place. Tim had a great leg and shot well, tagging to Russ in 2nd place. After that, Russ and Leif held there ground and avoided the penalty loop, leaving us in 5th place at the end.

I’m really happy to see the team finally show what we are capable of. We have struggled over the past couple of years in the relays and it’s been a while since we’ve been in a flower ceremony. Now, it’s on to the Sprint!

The first Individual race of the season took place last night under the lights in Ostersund.  The weather turned more wintry over the past days leaving the tracks in good shape under clear skies and -6 degrees Celsius temps.  I went into the race with the hopes of a top twenty but also the knowledge that this is the just first of many world cups to come.

This particular 20km course is infamous for its monster uninterrupted climb at the back of each 4km loop.  In years past, I’ve overpaced at the beginning and not left enough stamina for the final few laps.  This year, I wanted to ski even loops throughout and so I went out fairly conservative.  I sacrificed more than I would have like on the first loop but the rest of the race went pretty well on the skis.  In the range, I hit 17 of 20, an average day but not good enough to get me into the top 30.

I’m satisfied with the result and feel confident in my preparation for the season moving towards world champs.  My coaches and I have structured the training a little less aggressively as last year in the hopes of building into the season and maintaining a longer stretch of high-level skiing than I achieved last year.  With that in mind, I’m ready to build on this start and I’m ready for the Sprint and Pursuit this weekend.

-LB

Hi All,

Just finished the first race of the ’12/’13 season, The Ostersund, Sweden Mixed Relay Event.  After an hour or so of heavy fog, the stadium cleared up just in time and the field was able to zero and get ready for the race start.  Although it definitely wasn’t the US’s best Mixed Relay performance, I think it was a solid start to the season and a good way to prep for the upcoming races starting with the Individual on Wednesday.

The course was fast, transformed, corn snow, which broke up a little bit as the race went on but which held up reasonably well considering the warm wet conditions that have prevailed here over the past two weeks.  Today was really the first time I felt anything close to winter weather as I skied around this course.

Cheers,

LB

After arriving in Ostersund, Sweden yesterday evening, we were able to get out for the first combo session this morning. There is no natural snow to speak of right now, but there is an ample 2 to 3-ft layer of artificial snow on a 4km loop. The weather looks warm but only in the high thirties for the rest of the week so I doubt they will have trouble keeping the snow that they do have. I’ve still got my fingers crossed for a cold snap so it will start looking a little more like winter around here!