It's time to talk more biathlon! Let be honest it's always time to talk more biathlon. We reconvened to discuss: - French, Swiss, Swedish, and Norwegian national championships - A little bit of biathlon news - Was there a connection between ski brand and ski speed this season - Jordan's connection with Tarjei Boe - A preview/overview of some breakthroughs this season

It's time to recap the 2023-2024 Biathlon World Cup season! Here in part 2 we discuss the women including: - Lou Jeanmonnot announcing herself as a contender now and in the future - Lisa Vittozzi finishing off one of the most remarkable career comebacks in biathlon history - Lena Haecki-Gross in year 10 of her career becomes the best Swiss woman in biathlon history - Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold just misses out on the Globe - Justine Braisaz-Bouchet and Julia Simon are in it for the long haul - What happened to Hanna and Elvira this season? - And much more!

It's our 100th Episode! We recap our journey of where we started and everything that has happened over the last 100 episodes. A big THANK YOU! To everybody who has listened and joined us along the way! We also cover 2 pieces of big news: 1) Christian Gow, Biathlon Canada mainstay, announced his retirement 2) Tarjei Boe is back! Please check out my very personal thoughts on this here: https://penaltyloop.com/2024/04/08/tarjei-boe-my-living-memory/

It's time to recap the 2023-2024 Biathlon World Cup season! We broke our recap up in 2 parts rather than giving you one massive nearly 3 hour podcast. Here in part 1 we discuss the men including: - JT Boe's 5th Overall title was better than you may have thought - Some young men showing off including Eric Perrot, Tommaso Giacomel, and Campbell Wright - Tarjei Boe completes the 2nd best season of his illustrious career - Emilien Jacquelin finds himself - Sturla Holm Laegreid with the year's most "interesting" season - The German men were...actually good? - Where is QFM heading - And much more!

We head back to Canmore for one more episode! This time around we do our normal discussion about the racing but this time we have interviews! We discuss: - Exhausted athletes - JT Boe winning the Globe in style - Anna Gandler continues to shine - The French and Italians close out the season very strong - Lisa Vittozzi and Lou Jeanmonnot giving us a preview of next season? - Late season redemption for Hanna Oeberg and Marketa Davidova - And More!

In part 1 of our recap of the conclusion of the World Cup biathlon season in Canmore we have story time with RJ! He shares the tales of his weekend mixing and mingling with fans, athletes and coaches and gives us the sense of what it was like on the ground as the greatest biathletes in the world converged on Canada. In this episode we hear: - His day by day and race by race memories - Hear about some of the athletes that he was able to interview (interviews will be included in part 2).  This episode is far more about the general feel of the weekend and less discussion and analysis of the racing. But it was an absolutely joy to record so I hope you give it a listen!

Biathlon returns to North America and the racing was absolutely electric. It absolutely left us breathless so we had to wait and record a little later so we can recover! This week we discussed: - The epic Men's Pursuit race including JT Boe and the Emilien Jacquelin experience - The Lou Jeanmonnot weekend and what would have to happen for her to win the Overall - US Biathlon on an upswing - Justine Braisaz-Bouchet appreciation  - Eric Perrot is the now of French men's biathlon - Overview of the Women's Overall race especially focused on can Tandrevold hang on by her fingernails? - And more!

It was a rainy and fairly gross weekend in Oslo, but it was another thrilling weekend of racing! This week on the pod we discussed all of the action including: - The really exciting state of the Overall races with it being completely undecided with 2 weekends to go - Did Tandrevold fix her shooting and is she now the prohibitive favorite? If not her who is the top challenger? - Will Tarjei Boe topple his brother? - Christiansen's epic chase down of Sebastian Samuelsson - Finland makes a podium! - A HUGE thank you to all of the fans braving the weather - And more!

Anna Gandler was so kind to grace us with her time this week! We covered many fun topics with the up and coming Austrian biathlete including: - Her spectacular 2024 World Championships in Nove Mesto by every aspect of racing. - Getting a new rifle this season and learning to adapt to it. - A delicious discussion on German/Austrian snacks - Running a successful social media account as an athlete - Discussing new ski technology - What movies do she and Emilien watch when they have time off? - Which woman on the biathlon World Cup is secretly jacked! - And much more fun! -

After a thrilling conclusion to the 2023-2024 Biathlon World Championships in Nove Mesto our heads were absolutely spinning. As we covered the first half of the events on part 1, after covering some big picture take aways we tried to focus on the races and stories from the 2nd half starting with the Individual races. Some of the items discussed included: - JT Boe is still the boss - Julia Simon's lightning shooting gives her a super power - The Germans had a much better 2nd half of Worlds - More diversity with Latvia, USA, Poland, and Estonia showing well - What happened with Tandrevold and the Norwegian women - So so so much more!

The Nove Mesto World Championships are here and we couldn't be more excited. There were already so many stories and things to discussed so this is an absolutely jam packed episode including: - Waxing once again taking center stage - Julia Simon is absolutely unbeatable right now - Sturla Holm Laegreid's emotional gold medal - JT Boe's comeback in the Pursuit - Baiba Bendika!!!!! - Franziska Preuss and the German ski situation - Belgium, Poland, Chauveau, Vittozzi, Christiansen, and so so so much more!

Come take a lap with us on our most unusual (and hopefully fun!) episode to date.  - We start out by discussing the actual racing that occurred this week on the IBU Cup and Junior Cup including Johan-Olav Botn, Simon Kaiser, and the dominant Austrians on the Juniors level. - We discuss the sad news of the Trevor Kiers retirement - We do some preview work on the impending World Championships in Nove Mesto with some really intriguing stats and trends.  - In between all of this we do some "interviews" with people from around the world and get their "thoughts" on biathlon!  This is quite a strange journey so we hope you enjoy it!

During what was supposed to be a bit of a quiet time in biathlon there was simply too much news! We dusted off the mics and got together to discuss the really important news of the week including: - The heartbreaking and infuriating story of Joanne Reid's sexual abuse and harassment by a member of the US Biathlon wax tech team - The Youth Olympic Games and some great Canadian performances - A new ski/binding technology from Madshus and how it might change the game - An exciting European Championships including the introduction of some new exciting talent to a wider audience - More discussions about Madshus!  - Minor predictions for Worlds

Shortly following the completion of the racing in Antholz we got together to chat about all of the action from the week including: - Lena Haecki-Gross getting her first win! - Julia Simon is coming on really strong - But don't lose sight of Lou Jeanmonnot! - Johannes Dale-Skjevdal's insane last lap in the Mass Start - A bit of  Norwegian men's team discussion including JT Boe looking more like JT Boe, Christiansen looking really great, and Laegreid looking...lost? - The state of the Overall Globe races - Some special shout outs to some really good weekends including Baiba Bendika, Otto Invenius, Adam Runnalls and more! **We went on a discussion about who the Norwegians should start in the World Champs races. Turns out we were wrong! Based on new rules from last season they can start all 6 in the Sprint and the Individual and 5 in the Mass Start**

After one of the thrilling complete weekends of biathlon racing in the last several years we of course put together our longest podcast of the season. There was just so much to talk about! Breaking from what has become our normal back and forth we decided to go race by race to make sure we didn't miss any of the big moments incuding: - Simon vs. Elvira in the Women's Relay - The chaotic 3rd leg of the Men's Relay and Jordan's rant about it - Tandrevold's perfect race in the Women's Sprint - Christiansen getting "sweet revenge" in the Men's Sprint - Lisa Vittozzi emerging late in the Women's Pursuit  - A 5 man final lap and Johannes Dale-Skjvedal's punishing sprint in the Men's Pursuit - Plus plenty more including the Canadian women setting personal bests, Campbell Wright soaring to new highs in the Stars and Stripes, Julia Tannheimer's debut, Giacomel's podium, Jacquelin's return, Mona Brorsson, JT Boe and more!  This was without a doubt the most full pod we've down outside of World Championships or the Olympics!

It's 2024 and Biathlon is back! We reconvene to discuss all the action from Oberhof including: - The new Eurovision site - Weather and climate affecting biathlon - Even more success for the Norwegian men including Stroemsheim's victorious weekend and Laegreid is back - Doll gets another win! - The resplendent and dominant French women - The wild women's Pursuit race - The toils of Hanna Oeberg - And more!

Recorded the night before racing started in Lenzerheide, Polish Women's Head Coach Tobias Torgersen very generously granted us far more time than we had any right to expect or a fantastic interview. In this discussion we touched on: - Coach Torgersen's personal history including growing up a fan of cross country and biathlon racing - We discuss his coaching career as he quickly moved up the ranks including his time with the Chinese biathlon federation.  - We get into the successes he's seen over the last two seasons including Kamila Zuk last season, and Anna Maka, Joanna Jakiela, and Natalia Sidorowicz - Finally we do a little discussion on biathlon at large in the 2023-2024 season.

Merry Christmas! We got together just before the holiday weekend to share our thoughts on the first trimester and all of the action from Oestersund, Hochfilzen, and Lenzerheide! We discussed many many things including: - Did wax affect the racing so far this season? - Our favorite moments of the season (so far!) - Our thoughts on some of the top men/women of the season - Athletes who look to have taken a step forward - Athletes who look to have taken a step back - Norwegian men and the fight for the World Cup bibs - How the Simon Fourcade coaching is going for the French men - RJ's analysis of xc women who have made the switch to biathlon - My proposal for a new silly event - And more

The World Cup makes the first ever visit to Lenzerheide and we are here to break it all down! In this episode we discuss - The amazing Justine Braisaz-Bouchet weekend - JT Boe is back on top - Emilien Jacquelin is Emilien Jacquelin - Norwegian men had some adventures with the rifle and RJ gives a breakdown of the rules issues at play and exactly what happened - We finish up with some rapid fire thoughts on some athletes with bright weekends including: Endre Stroemsheim, Deedra Irwin, Marketa Davidova and many many more

Another week of exciting racing down and another new podcast to recap it! We touch on a number or big things that happened in Hochfilzen including: - COVID is causing havoc - Lena Haecki-Gross' HUGE weekend - Tarjei Boe in yellow?!? - Is JT Boe all the way back? - Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold's growing into the Norwegian leader - Elvira Oeberg looks ready to contend again - Knotten, Gandler, Perrot, and more!