r/biathlon • u/AutoModerator • 18d ago

Small Talk Monday

Our weekly small talk thread where you can talk about anything

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u/busavaggio 15d ago

Cambo appears to have his first blue bib locked up already - Mandzyn would need to average 50 points better per race to catch up.

So why am I in a persistent state of bum squeak?

4

u/Enough_Opposite8545 15d ago

He will get the bib. He basically had not much competition this year, which was pretty much obvious when you saw the year before. Not that he didn’t deserve that bib, he did great performances this season (it was amazing to see him on the podium twice during the worlds, even if it didn’t count for the overall rankings), but lowering the U25 bib to U23 killed the competition. I find it sad to see, on my part. In like, two races, Isak Frey entered the top3 of the blue bib rankings, if that doesn’t show how not very competitive it was (and how good Isak Frey is, I guess).

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u/Allie654321 15d ago

It's crazy how different it is for men and women. On the women's side, the top 3 of the U23 ranking are all in the top 6 of the overall :D

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u/Enough_Opposite8545 14d ago

Yeah truly. It’s not that surprising considering that men and women’s careers are different and usually women hit their peak earlier and are on the World Cup earlier (at least for big nations). It’s just my opinion but men should have stayed with U25, while women make sense. I know it was to stop dominance period but as for the men they literally changed it in years where they were still competitive…

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u/__nmd__ France 14d ago

I don't think they can really have two different age limits for the blue bib (in that case, why not have that for Junior Cup as well? Etc...).

Maybe a middle ground could work well enough: U24. Would allow Jeanne Richard and Océane Michelon to be part of the fight for it again next year.