More Random Biathlon musings!
Canada should be very happy with their results this year. They had some country-best finishes in the Olympics this year, and they looked really solid in some difficult conditions. Their shooting was fast and accurate, keeping them in lots of races. In today's 15 km Mass Start, The Gow brothers were perfect after the first prone shooting and managed to be in 1st and 2nd place for a while. They probably aren't happy with how the race ended up (Christian was the best in 13th) but I was super impressed with their ability to stay with the big players for long stretches. Hopefully they can find that next gear to use the course to gain on people, since right now it feels like that's where teams like France, Norway and the Republic of Cheaters can gain the advantage.
In my previous post I mentioned that Roeiseland of Norway was the one to watch, and could keep her team in medal contention regardless of what happened before. I don't think you could have predicted what happened in the second leg, where Eckhoff had some of the worst standing shooting I've seen of all the Biathlon events this Olympics. She was shaking and couldn't settle herself. Even after using all her spares she had to do 2 penalty loops. Eckhoff went from being 14 seconds off the lead to just under 2 minutes back. To Norway's credit, they ended up 4th place in the race through some decent shooting and incredible skiing from the rest of the team. Eckhoff redeemed herself in the Mass Start by getting Silver, and Roeiseland got Bronze, just shy of being the first Bialthete to win 6 medals in one Olympics.
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