January on the WC: 3 Weeks and 3 Venues
Since January 1st, the biathlon World Cup circuit has given us a tour of central Europe. We started in Oberhof, Germany, a biathlon mecca that attracts over 30,000 fans. Nove Mesto in the Czech Republic, site of the 2013 World Championships, hosted us the following week and treated us to some of the windiest, snowiest and most challenging race conditions we’ve seen. Antholz, Italy welcomed us at the start of this week with mountains, altitude, and the first real sunshine of the season.
Oberhof
Favorite moment:
Cooling down with Sara after the Oberhof sprint. There were so many fans exiting the stadium blocking the sidewalk and road that the only place we could successfully jog was a narrow space in between the 100 or so double parked shuttle buses. We covered about half a mile running between buses. Weaving between the crowd and the buses made me feel like I was on The Knight Bus from Harry Potter.
Sara and Annelies dryfire to warm-up before the sprint.
Racers in the crowded finish pen at Oberhof's women’s mass start. We watched from the sidelines because none of us qualified for the race. It's fun to be part of a crowd of over 25,000 fans and have a front row spot to cheer from. I couldn't help but think it would have been even more fun to be in the race.
Crazy Oberhof fans
Nove Mesto
Favorite moment:
I used to think we had a pirate on our staff, or at least a pirate want-to-be. He is a wax tech from Czech named Gara, and he always greets us with a hearty “ahoy!” When we arrived in Czech, I was surprised to discover that many of Gara’s countrymen were also pirates. Everywhere I went, I heard people hailing each other with “ahoy!” Then I had a revelation: perhaps Gara wasn’t a pirate at all; perhaps Gara was simply Czech.
Banners along the Nove Mesto race course. Nove Mesto is the only venue I’ve raced at every year since I started biathlon (they often host IBU Cups.) This year they introduced a brand new course in preparation for hosting World Championships next year.