The Penalty Loop Podcast

This week on the pod Czechia biathlete Jakub Stvrtecky joins us! He was so gracious to share his time from training camp in Finland to share his story! This week we discussed:

- His story coming up alongside his teammates in Czechia biathlon

- His summer of training and how he feels coming into the 2024-2025 season

- Shooting prone vs. standing

- How already having over 100 World Cup races at his young age impacts his biathlon

- Czechia team nickname lesson and uniform designs

In our latest interview in the leadup to the 2024-2025 biathlon season, Hanna Kebinger returns! Always a fun interview this episode involves more laughing than we have done in a bit! It includes:

- Discussion on her unfortunate 23-24 season

- Dealing with health struggles, both physical and mental

- Her road to recovery this summer including finding joy again

- Year 2 under Sverre Røiseland's leadership 

- The importance of dogs and belly rubs

- Travels in Venice

Jacques Jefferies graciously and bravely battled through a sinus infection and a bloody nose to join us for an interview! Jacques is a really valuable mind for the biathlon community as he has a very good grasp of the big issues biathlon will be grappling with in the coming years. As Jacques battled through we discussed:

- His young biathlon career and his plans for the 2024-2025 season including an update on his summer training

- The experience of establishing a position on the national team in such a crowded and competitive biathlon federation

- His thoughts on the future of summer biathlon and what the biathlon calendar may look like in the future

- Professional athlete mental health awareness and his program MindsMelt

- And so much more!

Please check out his personal website https://jacquesjeff.substack.com/

As the 2024-2025 season rapidly approaches Polish Women's Head Coach Tobias Torgersen joined us from team training camp in Lenzerheide! In this interview we discuss:

- Thoughts on Lenzerheide and particularly the potential trickiness on the range

- Coaching anxiety as the season approaches

- What led to the Polish women having a surge in the 2023-2024 season

- How he coaches his team

- Summer progress and looking ahead towards 2024-2025!

Justus Strelow, coming off of a very exciting City Biathlon race in Dresden, joined us from the German training camp in the French Alps for a wonderful interview. He as an amazing guest and gave us tremendous insight into:

- His intro into biathlon and his journey to the top level of the sport

- His lifelong affinity for shooting and how fast and how accurate can biathletes get?

- The one missed shot that sticks with him from last season

- The current status of his training and goals for the upcoming season

- How he met his the love of his life and the secret to the best mattress for a couple. 

The first of our preseason interviews is here and it's Regina Ermits! This was a joy! With Regina we discussed:

- Regina vs. Kalev in the battle of the Ermits

- How is she so good at standing shooting?

- A new training regimen and "finding her voice" leading to 7 of the 9 best finishes of her career in 2023-2024

- Her amazing 2024 Nove Mesto Worlds

- And more!

The IBU has floated changes to how start bibs are allocated for Sprint and Individual races and it's generating some great conversation. We do our best to lay out what the changes would be as well as the perspectives of various athletes, coaches, and media members. We also share our own thoughts. Then we talk about the phenomenal Czechia summer national championships event and the different directions roller biathlon could go. Thank you go Jacques Jefferies for the social media conversation. We hit a few other news pieces before getting into the Italian, German, Czech, and Finnish national championships.

It's a touch late but we needed to catch up about the first half of the summer biathlon racing. We primarily focused on the recently completed 2024 Summer Worlds in Otepää but also briefly discussed Blink, as well as the Swedish, Belgian, and US Summer biathlon National Championships. Tune in soon for interviews and discussions on Martin Fourcade Festival and more national championships!

It is truly a quiet time in the world of biathlon but we still found a few things to chat about including:

- It's wedding season!

- RJ's EXTENSIVE breakdown of Emilien Jacquelin's shooting which is now published: https://biathlonanalytics.com/would-changing-high-risk-high-reward-strategy-pay-off-for-emilien-jacquelin/

- A preview of Jordan's Ultimate Biathlon Timeline which will be up very soon.

- Biathlon story time: Have You Ever Heard of Kari Swenson? 

This one is for the rifle nerds out there! We had on Logan Pletz and after a short discussion on his background in biathlon it turned into a deep deep deeeeeeeeep dive on rifle construction, particularly with 3D printing. Logan was so generous sharing his adventures in rifle construction including the not so successful trials. Even if you're not a rifle nerd, any biathlon fan is really going to have fun with this one! Then we close with a short bit about what next season is going to look like for Canadian biathlon. Enjoy!