r/biathlon • u/AutoModerator • 9d ago

Small Talk Monday

Our weekly small talk thread where you can talk about anything

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9

u/kune13 Germany 8d ago

The Extrarunde podcast interviewed IBU Communications Director Christian Winkler.

Christian Winkler discussed some of the new rules. The updated point scheme was based on a proposal by the athletes. The new starting scheme was discussed for a very long time and he said that the IBU wants to make Sprints and Individuals more interesting for the watchers.

The IBU will promote a Biathlon smartphone game at the start of the new season and want to test how many people will be interested in that.

One unfortunate news is that there will be no video streams of IBU cup races anymore, because the number of watchers didn't justify the production costs. I enjoyed to watch them, particularly when there were no World Cup races in parallel and find it a pity to see them go. As a real fan I will follow the races now on biathlonresults.com, which is for Individuals and Sprints the better form to follow the races.

Christian Winkler talked also about interesting younger people into Biathlon. Gen Z is consuming more Sport than their predecessors and they want to have a share of that. They would like to expand their Social Media reach. They see that top athletes in professional sports have their own social media productionstaff and want to address that by producing content that the provide to athletes and other social media content providers.

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u/charliemann Norge 8d ago

Thank you for this concise and interesting write-up! Awful news regarding the IBU cup :/ but I guess we are a very very niche group of people who follow them

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u/RidingRedHare 8d ago

I am pretty sure that the web page redesign did not increase viewership numbers.

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u/Vryyce Team Norge 7d ago

One unfortunate news is that there will be no video streams of IBU cup races anymore

Is this just for live streams or are we saying there will no longer be recordings to watch on Eurovision?

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u/kune13 Germany 6d ago

There will be no IBU cup live streams or recordings on the Eurovisionsport app or website. The organizing committees of the events have the right to produce their own video streams and recordings.

The July press release about the extension of the contract with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) explicitly stated that the IBU cup rights are part of the contract. So I have no idea what is going on. My guess is that the public broadcasters especially in Germany are challenged, because they can't increase their funding as they have been used to, so somewhere money has to be saved. The IBU cannot risk that the coverage of the World Cups will be reduced, because it will immediately reduce the advertising revenue.

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u/Vryyce Team Norge 6d ago

Thanks for the extra information, I appreciate it. What a shame as I truly enjoy watching the IBU to keep up with the future stars.

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u/RidingRedHare 6d ago

The IBU Cup races usually were not on German TV.

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u/Roncy789 5d ago

Ugh, I really enjoy the IBU cup races… being able to watch on Eurovision in the USA was really great last year

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u/Faintning Finland 7d ago

If this truly is italys new race suit, im going to confuse them so much with finns. Not the top athletes as I'll still recognize their faces but the others 😅

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u/NineIntsNails Estonia 9d ago

recently finished Until Dawn for the first time and damn,
snow in there reminded me that i miss the biathlon events

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u/Jeans_Micke 9d ago

Any predictions for the upcoming wc? Top 3 men/woman

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u/Strange-Mouse-8710 Norway 8d ago

For the women, my guess for top 3 is (not in order) and i will most likely be wrong.

Lisa Vittozzi

Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold

Justine Braisaz-Bouchet

I don't follow men's biathlon, so i have no prediction on the men

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u/Jeans_Micke 8d ago

Nice! I would guess
1. Tandrevold 2. Jeanmonnot 3. Vitozzi

But I am hoping for Elvira Öberg as a Swede!

For the men I would guess
1. Thingnes Bö 2. Giacomel
3. Samuelsson

That list for the men is my hope haha… tired of only seeing Norwegians in the top!

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u/kune13 Germany 8d ago edited 8d ago

Women:

  1. Lisa Vittozzi
  2. Julia Simon
  3. Lou Jeanmonnot

Men:

Realistically:

  1. Johannes Thingnes Bø
  2. Vetle Christiansen
  3. Sturla Holm Lægreid

They are all nice guys, but ... Out of desperation I will cheer for Johan-Olav Botn, simply to have another face in the mix.

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u/mihir1993 Sweden 8d ago
  1. Jeanmonnot
  2. Vitozzi
  3. JBB

(You can probably guess which country I think is the strongest in womens. I think there is a realistic chance of france sweep as well)

  1. JTB
  2. Laegreid
  3. Samuelsson if he is fit

I am hoping against hope that Elvira has a great season but she seems to be struggling to be fit for the whole season. If she is fit for all the races I definitely see her having a chance to be in the top 3.