Salomon på bred front

Perfect Anna Carin Olofsson- Zidek Win’s on Salomon in Season Opening Biathlon WorldCup

Anna Carin Olofsson Zidek gave the Swedish crowd and Salomon fans something to cheer about a cold evening by capturing the Women’s 15K Individual competition in 45:26.1 at the E.ON IBU World Cup biathlon here in Östersund. The 2006 Olympic Gold medallist overcame the icy minus 12 temperatures, shooting clean to take the victory in the first competition of the new season.

Anna Carin Zidek is a Salomon Complete Athlete. She raced on Salomon Equipe 10 Slab cold skis, SNS Pilot binding with wedge, and Salomon Vitane boots.

Zidek literally iced the competition on this cold evening, but warmed the crowd with her stirring performance. From the outset, she was well but being deliberate on the shooting range. She admitted to shooting slowly, “I never have been a fast shooter.” After two clean stages, she took control of the competition and never looked back, extending her lead after each trip to the shooting range, as virtually all of her closest competitors missed at least one shot in the final stage. When her 20th shot dropped the 20th target, she cracked a small smile, almost a sign of relief as she left the shooting range, knowing that victory was within reach. About that final shooting, she said, “I was not really nervous, but I wanted to hit them all and I had to work for it.”

Despite her convincing win, Zidek came into the competition lacking confidence. “I did not have much in the way of expectations today. My shape has not felt the best, nor has my shooting been very good. So I went into the race to do what I could; do my best. My shooting felt incredibly good today though. I have been missing a lot in training. I missed about seven or eight shots in test race last Friday; today was a big difference from that. I was very surprised that the shooting felt so good. When it feels so good, then it is easy.” Zidek was quite nonchalant about a mistake near the finish that could have cost her the victory. “I went the way we usually go in training (which was wrong), so I had to turn around and go the right way.”

01.12.2010 Content from (from BiathlonWorld.com) images from Nordic Focus.
http://www.salomonracing.com/us/insiders/nordic/article.html?id=2028