5th Place for Leif Nordgren in Biathlon Pursuit

Junior World Ski Championships

Thu, Feb  4, 2010 - By Viktoria Franke

If it would be Leif Norgren's decision he sure would want some more individual competitions at the Junior WCHs in Torsby, Sweden as he continously moved up the result list over the last three races.

He started with an 11th place in the Individual just to move up five places in the sprint competition. The pursuit was the last individual race for the juniors and once again Nordgren took one step forward in the result list and finished 5th. With the 2nd best skiing time much more could have been possible, but then again Nordgren knows that his time will come: "I know that race is out there, and with more training I'll be ready. I'm still very young for biathlon and I don't have much experience so I should get better the longer I go on!"

Overall - he admits - it has been a pretty good week for him. He left many favorites from Norway or Germany behind him - nations that have a wide range of juniors and young talents to chose from. But Nordgren was there, right in front of most of their athletes and proved that the US talents are not just there to race. For the future the competitors know: They'll be there to win!

As for the pursuit race Nordgren had some trouble with his shooting which kept him from going for a spot on the podium. But to gain that much needed experience probably will help him in the future to become exactly that kind of world class athlete he wants to be. It's always small mistakes you make, but you learn from them: "The second prone I had a little problem with my clip, I accidentaly ejected a round so I had to hand load the last round! It only took a few extra seconds, and it would have been nice to hit that one. But of course I can say that for all the missed shots today", Nordgren analyzed after the race. 

Although the shooting was not at his best today with five misses, his skiing was amazing. "It might have helped that it was so cold. I think some of the others may have not been used to the cold, but I'm pretty used to it being from Minnesota! It also helped that I had some super fast skiis. The waxtechs have been using a special wax created by Brandon Ostroot from Minnesota. The last two days my skis have been super so that helped a lot!" The 2nd best course time proved that Nordgren had no problem with the temperatures hitting 5°F.

Looking back on the World Champs Nordgren is happy with his achievements but he also tasted blood: "I had some very good results but of course I am hungry for more! I managed to have good results without having overly satisfying races. I'm not sure I've ever had a satisfying race with both super skiing and shooting"

When the time is right, that race will come. And as Norwegian biathlon legend Ole Einar Bjoerndalen put it: "If you ski super and shoot super - you win!"