The Biathlon23 Awards 2018/19!!!

Hello and welcome to the 6th annual Biathlon23 awards. The alternative awards for biathlon which represent the important things in the sport with best facial hair, best earrings and best ski suit among the most prestigious and most sought after awards. Mirroring the Oscars this season we also had The Favourite, A Star is Born, Incredibles and First Man!(you can decide who is who!)

The awards are of course subject to a rigorous system used to ensure fairness in the nominations and winners – I pick them and it’s totally biased! Read, enjoy and feel free to disagree! 🙂

Most hits on the blog (so most popular):
Technically speaking the most hits this year was Paulina Fialkova again! But seeing as she did the interview in 2017 it is not eligible for this award. Only people interviewed for season 2018/19 are in the running. Coming a close second was the lovely Regina Oja from Estonia but I am very happy to say that this season’s winner is a para biathlete for the first time ever! However I have to questions how many times he has read his own interview himself! 😉
Winner: Derek Zaplotinsky

Strangest search on the blog:
I love people! I love them because they are strange! Here is a selection of some of the strangest searches on the blog this season! I get a lot about gossip, boyfriends/girlfriends of biathletes and people looking for nude pictures! Sorry wrong blog for all that but there is always some gold in between! For example:

“reason for grosch to change from germany to belgium biathalom team” A German beer becoming Belgian because it couldn’t get on the bierhalle drinks list
“anna öberg, tim lahaye, laura vittozzi” How they will be known from now on!
“tiril eckhoff see thru” As far as I know she isn’t!
“paulina fialkova postal address” Just send it to P.Fialkova, Slovakia. It will get there!
“what does marie laure brunet do in her spare time” Same as the rest of us she watches biathlon!
“regina oja friend” I think she has one but it is still to be confirmed
“biathlon knit band” What? Seriously though, what?
“biathlon vladimir russia” Yes I think we can safely say he has a hand in it!
“rene denfeld biathlon” Never heard of him/her. Maybe try tennis? 😉

Winner: “jonas dinges boe biathlon” This made me laugh for a worrying length of time!

Best Facial Hair:
There can only be one winner this season despite valiant efforts from both Max Durtschi and Igor Malinovskii. Right from the very first race this guy was always going get this award. Looking much like I would imagine one of the three muskateers would, with the pointy beard and curled moustache! A facial hair legend!
Winner: Timofey Lapshin

Best earrings:
There have not been many memorable earrings this season. I was tempted to give this award to one of the Norwegian men who was using frost tape on their ears in Canmore when it was so cold but then I remembered one pair in particular. Bold and beautiful just like their wearer you couldn’t really miss these!
Winner: Mona Brorsson

Best fall:
This season’s award does not go to one single faller but to a whole race. It was a cross between Bambi on ice and Armeggedon back in January. With windy and wet snow conditions this race saw at least 7 big falls with most casualties occuring on the Frankfurter cross. Franziska Hildebrand and Johanna Taliharm were the first to go down but the worst falls came from Karoline Knotten and Lisa Teresa Hauser who both broke their rifles. It was terrible for the biathletes but quite fun to watch all the same!!! Oh we are bad people! 😉
Winner: Oberhof Women’s Relay

Best biathlon video:
Usually this award goes to a video that has been carefully planned and filmed. This one was totally spontaneous and a joy to watch. It features Italian Eurosport commentators Dario Puppo and Max Ambesi and their amazing reaction to the final shooting in the mass start at the World Championships in Oestersund. When Dominik Windisch hit 5/5 to take the lead they seemed quite happy about it! It mainly just involves grown men shouting “five”, “five” “crazy”, “he could be in the lead”, “he’s in the lead!” but most things sound better in Italian when shouted very loudly of course! 😉
Watch the video here:

Winner: Italian Eurosport Mass Start commentary

Best GIF:
This season the IBU made some GIFs for biathlon for use on Instagram. There were quite a few – some good some not so good! There was some fancy dance moves from Erik Lesser and Kaisa Makarainen. The less said about Quentin Fillon Maillet the better though!!! The Norwegians have a strong GIF game with Johannes Boe and Erlend Bjoentagaard but I am giving it to another Norwegian mainly for the most pathetic karate kick in the history of the world and his own reaction to it!
Winner: Tarjei Boe

Best rifle design:
With the retirement of the Lord of Rifle Design Anton Shipulin (how could you do that to me Anton?!) rifle design has gone downhill fast. Most are now one solid colour (boring!) or the colours of the national flag (boring!). Some are still super cool like Erik Lesser’s and Marketa Davidova’s but they haven’t changed! Vetle Christiansen has an interesting rifle as it’s the only one without a traditional groove for the left hand but it is a hideous colour which can only be described as puce! Luckily amidst the mediocre appeared one man with an awesome design. He has a white lion carved into the stock at the butt with some red and blue detail and another lion with a crown further up towards the trigger. Děkuji!
Winner: Michal Krcmar

Best ski suit:
The ski suits have been OK this season. Nothing too horrendous but then nothing that stood out as great either. It’s a bit like the rifles really. The Czech Republic had a nice suit as did Slovakia. Norway’s is always decent. France and Germany didn’t even bother changing theirs. I narrowed it down to two and although I really like the Belarus ski suit I chose this one because I like the design and colours even though they say nothing about the country they are from!
Winner: China

Worst ski suit:
Well there weren’t too many bad suits this season. The Swedes took my recommendation on board and added some blue to the yellow suit. The USA changed theirs entirely as did Russia. No more pixels!!! The award this year goes to a suit that basically looks like a human has been skinned alive and you can see all their veins running down their leg (if veins were green that is!)
Winner: Bulgaria

Best Biathlete23:
There was only one win on the World Cup this year in bib23 so this was an easy decision! It was a young Norwegian guy who was first in the sprint race in Nove Mesto. It is his second victory in bib23. He is not very popular and hasn’t done much in biathlon this season so you may not have heard of him! It’s Jonas Dinges Boe.
Winner: Johannes Thingnes Boe

Biggest Improver:
A hard decision this year with so many new winners on the World Cup mainly for the women but also the men. Quentin Fillon Maillet finally got his first win as did Marte Olsbu Roeiseland. However my decision came down to two. Vetle Christiansen won his first race in the Soldier Hollow sprint and went from 54th to 13th in the total score. That was mainly due to him completing a whole World Cup season though. My winner moved from 63rd to 18th in the total score, got lots of top twenty finishes this season and got her first ever podium finishing third in the final race of the season in Oslo.
Winner: Clare Egan

Best Team Performance:
There was only one option for this award after this country totally dominated all the relays in Oestersund at the World Championships. They won the mixed relay, the single mixed relay, the women’s relay and the men’s relay!!! That’s team work!
Winner: Norwegian World Champs relay teams

Biathlon23’s performance of the season:
There can only be one! I mean who comes from so far back to win the World Championship title in the mass start! In a crazy race he held his nerve and shot clean when most of those around him missed to take his first gold medal. It just shows that you should never give up in biathlon no matter where you are in the race because you never know what might happen!!
Winner: Dominik Windisch

IBU Biathlete of the Year:
There are two main contenders this season. The first in Johannes Thingnes Boe. He dominated the men’s tour with a record breaking 16 wins, all the crystal globes and 4 gold medals at the World Championships. He didn’t win this though! The winner was also a history maker becoming the first woman from her country to win the Overall title and the first to win a World Championship gold medal winning the mass start. She also won the small crystal globe in the pursuit and a silver and bronze in the single mixed and mixed relays at World Championships. It was a huge fight all season for the total score and she had to work so, so hard for it competing against the likes of Kaisa Makarainen at the start of the season and then teammate Lisa Vittozzi and Anastasiya Kuzmina at the end.
Winner: Dorothea Wierer

IPC Para-biathlete of the Year:
There were some amazing biathlon performances this season for the para biathletes. The USA’s Kendall Gretsch won the sitting class for the women and Ukraine’s Taras Rad for the men. Oleksandra Kononova took the women’s standing with Clara Klug winning the women’s vision impaired and Yury Holub was a double World Champions in men’s vision impaired. However one person stood out having won the overall title in the men’s standing as well as all three World Championship titles. He hardly missed a target all season and skied really well too. I did interview him this season so that probably explains all his success! 😉
Winner: Benjamin Daviet

Junior Biathlete of the Year:
This award goes to a 21-year-old German woman who had a fantastic year. She won the Junior Cup which shows good consistency across the season. At the Junior World Championships in Orsblie she won three medals; silver in the pursuit, bronze in the sprint and silver in the women’s relay.
Winner: Hanna Kebinger

Youth Biathlete of the Year:
Youth biathlete of the year goes to someone who celebrates their 19th birthday tomorrow. What a great present this must be!!! 😉 This young Slovenian won double gold in the sprint and pursuit at the Youth World Championships in Orsblie as well as helping his teammates to the relay silver medal. He also finished 5th in the Junior Cup total score where he is competing against juniors some of whom are 2 or 3 years older than him.
Winner:Alex Cisar

Bonus award:
Craziest fan:
It’s obvious right? Anyone who dresses in a giant dinosaur costume and runs alongside the tracks deserves recognition! We appreciate the madness!
Winner: T-rex from Soldier Hollow

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