Few teams provided as much of a pleasant surprise last year as the Swiss squad. Both the men and women surpassed expectations to have their best years in well…ever. It certainly wasn’t expected when both Benjamin Weger and Selina Gasparin retired following the 2021-2022 seasons. But as mentioned above surprise was the name of the game for the Swiss last season.
From the men we saw the arrival of a new generation led by u25 globe winner Niklas Hartweg and Sebastian Stalder. For the women it wasn’t so much a new generation pushing their way to the top, though Amy Baserga has flashed intriguing talent. Instead it was the pillars of the team, Lena Haecki-Gross, as well as Aita and Elisa Gasparin all near or surpassing best seasons of their careers. The Swiss took a solid step from an unsure footing to a bright new future.
So what does this portend for the 2023-2024 season which includes the first World Cup stops in Switzerland since 1985? Well, lets take a dive into the teams and try to find out!
Women
Quota: 5 athletes to start
Retirements: Seraina Koenig (22), Ladina Meier-Ruge (31)
Last year the Swiss women marched to a 6th place finish, good for their best finish ever in the Nation’s Cup. After the departure of Selina Gasparin this was no sure thing. However, the established leaders of the team all stepped up to have some of the best seasons of their collective careers. This, combined with just a touch of youth was enough to keep the Swiss in the conversation almost every week of the season. What can we expect from these women this season? And is there more hope on the horizon?
World Cup Level
Lena Haecki-Gross (28)
A year ago we noted that Lena Haecki-Gross was already the strongest active Swiss woman and she did nothing to lose that title during the 2022-2023 season. While she didn’t have the highest finishes of her career, she did have the most consistent year from start to finish. Her best finish of the season was 9th which she accomplished twice including the World Championships Individual. However, she also had 12 top 20s in 24 races, the best top 20 rate of her career.
Haecki-Gross’ recipe for success last year was really more of the same. Her year-end rankings have been remarkably consistent 32nd and 19th for each of the last five years. Each year she continues to be one of the faster women on the World Cup (both skiing and shooting!) but is held back by her shooting. Last season was actually the fastest of her career relative to the field. She was a very solid -2.9% faster than the average biathlete good for 18th fastest woman on the World Cup.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2018-2019 | 75.4 | 79 | 77.2 | 25.3 |
| 2019-2020 | 68.6 | 72.9 | 70.7 | 26.4 |
| 2020-2021 | 81.2 | 78.1 | 79.7 | 25.4 |
| 2021-2022 | 82.3 | 80 | 81.1 | 27.2 |
| 2022-2023 | 80 | 78.5 | 79.3 | 27 |
With Lena Haecki-Gross though it always comes back to the same thing: shooting. She’s made strides in recent years with improvement in both her prone and standing shooting. With her speed it is clearly good enough for her to be competitive. Just not enough to change those top 20s into top 10s.
Our prediction from last year was that she would get into the top 20 of the overall. She made us look good by getting to #19! This year the goal is top 15 overall. I think that if she can maintain her speed again, and get that shooting up to maybe 82-83% overall that is a possibility. At the very least I want to see her pushing for a few more top 10s!
Aita Gasparin (29)
Last year we examined both Aita and Elisa Gasparin together side by side noting that they had remarkably similar careers. It’s possible that we should have done it again as both Aita and Elisa Gasparin has resurgences last season. For Aita she moved all the way up to 24th overall, the best overall finish of her career.
While she did not have any top 10’s last season, and subsequently missed out on a new career best finish, she was, like Haecki-Gross, more consistent than she has ever been in her career. Her seven top 20s last year were not only the most of her career, it matched her career total prior to last season. Those included five top 15 finishes.
The only aspect of her performance that made a significant leap forward was in her shooting. Her skiing was just about the same as it has been the prior three seasons, finishing ranked 68th overall. Her shooting time rank was actually a little bit slower.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2018-2019 | 76.3 | 80 | 78.1 | 27.7 |
| 2019-2020 | 87.9 | 82.1 | 85 | 28.2 |
| 2020-2021 | 85 | 82.1 | 83.6 | 28.2 |
| 2021-2022 | 91.8 | 80 | 85.9 | 29 |
| 2022-2023 | 88.9 | 83.7 | 86.3 | 27.9 |
There was a little improvement in standing shooting, her best of her career. It wasn’t a huge leap but it was just enough. Her total shooting reached the best of her career as well, and that was with a slight year over year regression in her prone shooting. It might be hard to expect her prone shooting to continue to be over 90% but we can still hope that she will stay in this realm.
As we look ahead to the upcoming season another season in the mid-20s overall would be more than acceptable. Keep the ski speed right steady and maybe with some continued improvement in standing shooting she can get even better. Really though the key for Aita Gasparin is continued consistency. It was consistency that got her into position for her improved finishes last season and it will be consistency that carries her there again. She should be right in the same range once again.
Elisa Gasparin (31)
I considered just going “copy & Paste” from Aita Gasparin to Elisa Gasparin. But that wouldn’t be fair. Not would it actually be accurate. They both had very good seasons, finishing 24th and 26th respectively. For Elisa Gasparin it wasn’t quite a career best, but it was darn close. And just like her sister it was remarkable consistency with seven top 20s, the 2nd most of her career. She also didn’t have any top 10’s or quite threaten her career best finish of 8th, managing a pair of 14th place finishes. However, they both got there in slightly different ways.
For Elisa Gasparin her skiing wasn’t remarkably different at all. She’s been steady in the same range of skiing for the last five years. The real change was in her shooting time, not her shooting accuracy. In fact her total shooting percentage was actually down a couple of points while the overall shooting of the field as a whole got better. She ended up sliding down the rankings to 86th overall, one of the worst shooting years of her career.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2018-2019 | 84.8 | 79.3 | 82.1 | 31.7 |
| 2019-2020 | 87 | 75 | 81 | 30.7 |
| 2020-2021 | 91.9 | 70 | 80.9 | 30.8 |
| 2021-2022 | 93.3 | 71.1 | 82.2 | 30.6 |
| 2022-2023 | 86.8 | 75.3 | 81.1 | 28.5 |
Just a brief glance above shows that overall there wasn’t a significant change in shooting. Her prone shooting was a little bit worse while her standing shooting was a little bit better. Overall though she has maintained right around 80-83% for the last five years. She did shoot faster though. There has been a slight change over the last few yeras. But this year her shooting was a full two seconds faster than prior. That was enough to give her the 2nd best season of her career.
Looking ahead to 2023-2024 what does this mean for Elisa Gasparin? Well I’m a little less optimistic about her having the same success as Aita Gasparin this season. I think that It is a little more likely to see Aita Gasparin continue her shooting improvement. The best hope for Elisa Gasparin to have continued improvement would be to see the prone shooting moving back towards 90% as it was previously. If she can do that, continue her ski speed and keep the new shooting speed then a top 25 finish is certainly a possibility.
Amy Baserga (23)
Amy Baserga represents the intro to the next generation of Swiss women in biathlon. Last year I said that she is part of the future for Swiss biathlon. Well in reality she’s part of the now. She really does look like she’s going to be a good one too. The 2022-2023 season was already her second full season on the World Cup and she had a solid jump up the standings from 71st overall to 35th. This included her first top 20’s, five in all, and a new career best finish of 12th in the Pokljuka Pursuit race.
Baserga’s strength is easily her shooting. Her entire career, from Juniors to her one IBU Cup season, and now on the World Cup, she was solid if not tremendous on the range. Last season though she used her shooting to power her to her new success. She ended the season as the 10th most accurate shooter on the World Cup putting her amongst well known sharp shooters such as Lou Jeanmonnot, Marte Olsbu Roeiseland, and Lotte Lie. She’s very well balanced too hitting 90.5% of her prone shots and 88.6% of her standing. This was the best shooting of her career but if you look back she’s been progressively improving each year.
She also improved her shooting times as well. Last year her average shooting time was a very swift 26.9 seconds. This was good for 15th fastest on the World Cup. It was a smooth 4.3 seconds faster per shooting year over year. It was a solid 3 seconds faster than her prior fastest shooting.
The next big step for Baserga is to find her skiing speed. So far she’s been okay. To reach her career aspirations she’s going to need to be much better. Last year she was exactly the average skier. No faster but also no slower. It’s a good starting place. Looking back at her Juniors level racing she was consistently faster than average. She was able to finish as the 23rd fastest skier on the Junior levels in 2019-2020. If she wants to be in the top 15 of the Overall standings eventually then that is what she is going to have to aim for. For example, last season Vanessa Voigt was 12th overall. She is of course a phenomenal shooter hitting 91% last season. She finished ranked 28th in skiing.
Amy Baserga has that kind of potential. She can already shoot in that range as she did last season. She has shown that she can ski in the same range as Voigt. In the 2019-2020 Juniors season they were fairly close in overall ski rank. Now it’s time to see if she can match that on the World Cup. I’ll certainly be rooting for her.
Lea Meier (22)
While Amy Baserga is one part of the future for the Swiss women, Lea Meier appears to be as well. Last season was a true mixed bag for her. She raced on every level with 9 World Cup races, 5 IBU Cup, and 3 Juniors races. She saw varying degrees of success on every level. The top finishes included her first top 25 on the World Cup with a 24th in the Pulkljuka Pursuit. She also had a 9th in the Obertilliach Sprint on the IBU Cup, her 2nd best IBU Cup finish of her career. And she had an 11th in the Individual at the Junior Worlds in Kazakhstan.
It was probably a bit of a learning experience for her with all of the travel and racing on different levels. In the process she was able to finish with the 50th best ski performance on the World Cup. This is consistent with other tp 25 athletes like her teammates Elisa and Aita Gasparin or fellow youngster Hanna Auchentaller. Her World Cup shooting was 82.1% with 85.7% prone and 78.6% standing. Her shooting was pretty consistent across all levels except for significant drop off in Kazakhstan. Similarly her shooting time was around 29-30 seconds across all levels as well.
Okay, so what can we expect from Lea Meier this year and in the future? First let’s look back. On the Junior level she has had a decent level of success including a Youth Worlds Individual Gold and 4 other Youth/Junior level World top 10s. In general on the Junior level she’s relied on top 10-15 ski speed to overcome middle of the road shooting. In her age 20 season on Juniors she was 19th fastest overall which is decent. If you look back to other women who were similarly ranked in the same range at the same time you can find names like Ingrid Tandrevold, Julia Simon, and Vanessa Voigt. All good company.
Meanwhile shooting was as we discussed, mediocre. She has ranged from upper 70’s to low 80s in her total shooting regardless of level of competition. Every year her prone shooting is significantly better than her standing shooting, often by 4-5%. There has been some slow but steady progress though. She has managed to improve her shooting times though, lowering them across all levels from the low 30s to 29ish seconds.
Looking forward the how she may perform in the future, being only 22, we can hope that there is continued progression on all fronts. We should expect to see her ski speed come a long a little faster as that has been her strength throughout her career. The shooting will hopefully continue to progress both with accuracy and shooting speed. My guess is that if we are going to see a breakthrough we’ll know either by a significant jump in ski speed, or her standing shooting making a leap. Fingers crossed for both!
IBU Cup and World Cup Fill Ins
Irene Cadurisch (32)
The last time we saw Irene Cadurisch there was a scary moment at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. She has been training this summer and working towards a comeback so I’m going to proceed as if she will be racing.
Irene Cadurisch has been a solid if not spectacular member of the Swiss women’s World Cup team for the last several seasons. Outside of the 2020-2021 season where she had the best ski season of her career she has almost always split time between the World Cup and IBU Cup every year. That’s held down her overall season rankings. However it speaks a little to the liminal biathlon space in which she operates. Right on the edges of the World Cup.
If there is one distinguishing characteristic for Cadurisch, one thing that keeps her hanging around the World Cup more than anything else, its her shooting speed. In the 2017-2018 season she averaged a wild 23.2 seconds per trip to the range. Last season that time had increased all the way to nearly 27 seconds but was still good enough for 12th fastest on the World Cup. That always makes her useful on relays.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2017-2018 | 80.7 | 74.8 | 77.8 | 23.2 |
| 2019-2020 | 80 | 74 | 77 | 24.7 |
| 2020-2021 | 86.1 | 73 | 79.7 | 25.8 |
| 2021-2022 | 85 | 65 | 75 | 26.9 |
Her skiing and shooting have always been fairly middle of the road. Her shooting is usually in the mid 70s but could be better if she worked on her standing shooting. As you can see from the table it’s gotten a little worse every year but last year took a huge drop off.
Let’s assume that Cadurisch is able to maintain her skiing level where it has been. If that’s the case what’s the best we can hope for? Well if she can boost that standing shooting back to the mid 70s at least while maintaining her prone shooting in the mid 80s, and no further deterioration of shooting speed… That would leave her as probably still on the lower end of the overall rankings. It would make her a more valuable relay member though and that might be her best ability to contribute at this stage in her career.
Flurina Volken (30)
I started to type out my thoughts about Flurina Voken and I started out by typing “At age 30 Flurina Volken has become a stalwart of the Swiss IBU Cup team.” Then I went back and looked at what I wrote for her last year and I literally typed almost the exact same opening line. But there is a reason for that! She has 11 year of IBU racing and 9 full IBU Cup seasons. During that time she has just 6 starts on the World Cup. I don’t say this to demean or put down Volken, its just the numbers. She’s been solid but never quite good enough to break through for consistent World Cup time. It looks like now, with her age and qualities, unless there is an injury, she’s going to continue to be blocked out as the younger Amy Baserga and Lea Meir have moved up.
As an IBU Cup biathlete Volken has been quite consistent. For the last decade her average finish per race has ranged anywhere between 56th to 39rd. Half of those seasons she averages a finish from 41st to 46th. If you look very closely at the numbers you can see that there is a slight improvement in her skiing over the last two seasons. Not tremendous but she’s moved from an average course time rank in the high 30s to the low 30s. The limiting factor for Volken though is her shooting. Her best season she had a total hit rate of 77%. She hasn’t broken 75% in the last five seasons. At this point, unless she can find an shooting accuracy she’s never had in her career then she’ll continue to be a mid range IBU Cup athlete. I will be pulling for her though!
Susanna Meinen (31)
As with Flurina Volken, Susanna Meinen has been a Swiss standard bearer on the IBU Cup for the last decade. She’s has seen a little bit more success that Volken, including last year when she finished 27th overall in the IBU Cup standings, her 2nd best finish of her career behind a 23rd in the 19-20 season. Like Volken though, she’s continued to be blocked from the World Cup team. She has made several more WC starts but none in the last three seasons and again, barring injury or poor performance, it looks like it could be a tough path for Meinen to make it back to the World Cup team.
Meinen has similar qualities to Volken: good skiing and limited shooting. The difference is when she’s at her peaks her skiing is just a little bit better than Volken at everything. At times, particularly during her peak 18-19 and 19-20 seasons, but also at the end of last season, her top skiing can get her into the top 10-15 in course time ranks. Unfortunately though her shooting is actually worse. Over the last 10 seasons she has never cracked 75% total shooting on the IBU Cup. So while her skiing time makes her competitive it is a rare day when she can really take advantage of it and break into the top 10. The proof is in the pudding so to speak with one top 10 and nine top 20s in the last 54 races. It’s hard to expect anything much different at this point in her career. As always though, I’ll be pulling for her to find that accuracy!
Lydia Hiernickel (26)
On the surface Lydia Hiernickel appears to be a little similar to Flurina Volken and Surina Meinen. She’s fast and not all that accurate. However, she’s actually fairly intriguing. A recent addition to the Swiss roster, she made her debut just last season after transferring over from cross country skiing. In her first full season as a biathlete she managed a podium, 2 total top 10s, 7 top 20s, and the #24 overall ranking on the IBU Cup. Not too shabby.
Not surprisingly, Hiernickel showed good speed last year. She was roughly in the same ski speed realm as Tuuli Tomingas, Marieke Braun, Mona Brorsson, and Sara Andersson. Frequently in the top 10 in course time except for a couple of weekends per season. Not the fastest women in the world but certainly fast enough. Of course she’s a former cross country skier, so speed wasn’t the question.
Also not surprising, shooting was the weak point in the performances. She was frequently shooting around 60-70% and ended the season with a total shooting of 68.2%. Her prone shooting was slightly better than standing but hardly a strength. Shooting times were quite slow as well, averaging 42 seconds per shooting.
So with Hiernickel the story is the same as it is for other cross country skiers turned biathletes. The ski speed is decent. Not exactly Denise Herrmann-Wick territory but it’s okay. Now we’ll see what another summer of shooting practice brings. Let’s hope we see some incremental improvements. If that occurs it wouldn’t be outrageous to think that she could find her way to a top 20 overall finish on the IBU Cup.
Juniors
Chiara Arnet (20)
While last year we were generally optimistic at Chiara Arnet’s prospects, she had a bit of a disappointing season. During her first years on the Junior level she was having regular finishes in the 20-30 range. Unfortunately last year she had a bit of a set back. After three top 25 finishes in her first four races of the season. After that though she failed to do better than 33rd over her final eight races. In general she performed worse throughout the season. Her ski performance slid back from an average course time rank of 39 back to 48th. Even that makes it look better than it really was. Her course time ranks the last eight races of the year were usualy in the 50-60s. Meanwhile her shooting slipped a couple of points from 81.9% to 79.4% driven mainly by her prone shooting falling 5 points. Optimistically it’s a new season and there is hope that she can make a resurgence.
Slessia Laager (18)
Conversely Slessia Laager has shown steady improvement over the last 3 seasons. She was my favorite of the young Swiss women last year and she remains so this season. Last year she never finished worse than 25th. This included four top 10’s and a silver medal in the Youth Worlds Individual. Even in the regular IBU Junior races racing against women that were a couple of years older and more seasoned than her she was finishing in the top 15 including two top 10s.
Laager is a solid good shooter. She has finished above 80% shooting in two of her three seasons. Last year was her best season yet hitting 86.4% of her shots with a whopping 95.7% prone shooting percentage. Meanwhile her shooting time ranks were generally top 10-15 and an average shooting time of 31.6 seconds. Last year that would have been 64th on the World Cup putting her with the same time as Lou Jeanmonnot and Tuuli Tominags. Her skiing was solid as well. She was 37th in overall skiing on the Juniors level and had a top 20 course time rank in almost every single race. She’s just 18 so needless to say I’m very optimistic about her future performance and I can’t wait to see how she does this season.
Lena Baumann (17)
Lena Baumann is the youngest and likely the least experienced of all of the Swiss women. She has just three races on the IBU levels in her career, all three of them at Youth Worlds last season. Last season she finished 20th in the Individual, 33rd in the Sprint, and 23rd in the Pursuit. It is hard to make too many takeaways from such a small sample size. In those three races though she finished 11th or 12th in course time while shooting anywhere from 50-80%. It’s fair to say that she relies more on her skiing than her shooting. Hopefully this season well see some further racing from her and even more success!
Men
Quota: 6 athletes to start
Led by Niklas Hartweg’s u25 globe the Swiss men, like their women teammates, scored their best finish ever, 5th place in the Nation’s Cup. Along the way they had some successes that no Swiss men’s team had ever had before. Should we expect the youth movement to remain strong in Switzerland? Are they primed for a regression?
Future Contender?
Niklas Hartweg (23)
While the Overall Globe race was a bit anticlimactic (as JT Boe raced away with an all time great season) the u25 Globe was esciting down the last race of the season. In the end Niklas Hartweg overcame a late season dip in form to have the two of the best races of his career and capture the season ending Blue Bib. So what does Niklas Hartweg have in store for us this season? Was his u25 Globe win a sign of future success or just a one time very exciting blip?
It’s pretty easy to see that Hartweg had across the board massive improvement. Pick a category and you can be assured that it got better. The end result was almost every race in the top 20, 8 top 10s, and two 2nd place finishes. Hartweg ended up with the u25 GLobe and 11th place in the Overall. At 23 years old by any means it was a remarkably successful season.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting TIme | |
| 2020-2021 | 83.6 | 74.5 | 79.1 | 26 |
| 2021-2022 | 82.5 | 78.8 | 80.6 | 28.3 |
| 2022-2023 | 95.6 | 91.1 | 93.3 | 25.1 |
Hartweg had just a phenomenal improvement in his shooting last season. Look at that jump of nearly 13% from 21-22 to 22-23. And it was clearly an improvement i both prone and standing He went from being a mediocre shooter to being absolutely elite in the realm of Sturla Holm Laegreid and Simon Eder. It wasn’t just accuracy either as the shooting time is the fastest of his career as well. Put that together with a substantial improvement in skiing (from 88th overall to 28th overall) and you’ve got yourself a most improved athlete, u25 winner, and possibly aimed at future Overall Globe competition.
Do we think that Hartweg has more room to grow or was this the peak of his powers? Well he is only 23 so there should always be room to grow at age 23. It’s hard to get too much better at shooting when you’re the 2nd shooter on the World Cup. He’s also already the 10th fastest shooter on the World Cup. Now the trend is always toward faster shooting so I’m sure he’ll aim for more improvement there, but there really is a limit to shooting time.
So it will really be all about how much more he can improve skiing. That’s really it. The best comparison for Hartweg would be Laegreid. he’s the most recent u25 Globe winner, he’s a superb shooter, and he’s competing for the Overall Globe. The difference between Laegreid and Hartweg is just skiing. Laegreid was ranked 6th fastest last year and -3.53% vs. the average biathlete. Hartweg was 28th and -1.27%. He’s just 23 so there should be improvement still. If he can close that gap Hartweg can go from being a top 10 athlete to competing for crystal globes, the first in the history of Swiss biathlon. Nobody will be rooting harder for him than me to see this happen. Maybe it won’t be this year, but there is certainly time for it to happen.
World Cup Level
Sebastian Stalder
Dramatically overshadowed by his teammate, there were actually two breakthrough young Swiss men last season. Sebastian Stalder, 2 years older than Hartweg, saw a similar leap in overall performance. His overall finish leapt from 40th last year, and 102nd just two seasons ago up to 17th in the Overall and 3rd in the u25 race. Last season was an across the board success including seven top 10s and a new career best of 5th in the Ostersund Mass Start.
Looking at the numbers, Stalder saw improvements like Hartweg, in every category. It’s hard to say what aspect took the most dramatic leap. His skiing rose from 97th overall to 34th. He moved from 1.63% slower than the average biathlete to .53% faster than average. That may not sound like a lot but look again, he rose from 97th to 34th. That improvement was about 2% total. That’s the difference between where Stalder is currently and 15th ranked Johannes Kuehn or Tommaso Giacomel.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2020-2021 | 88% | 80% | 84% | 28.2 |
| 2021-2022 | 87% | 80% | 83.5% | 27.8 |
| 2022-2023 | 92.5% | 90% | 91.3% | 26.1 |
Stalder, like Hartweg, also had a nice improvement in his shooting as well. While it wasn’t as dramatic as Niklas Hartweg’s it was still a very solid improvement. Particularly in his standing shooting. It took him from the 57th best shooter to the 5th on the World Cup. As we’ve seen when you have an elite talent like that you’re going to be able to compete. The result, like we saw, he goes from 0 career top 10’s to have seven in a single season. At the same time he saw some improvement in his shooting time by nearly two seconds last year. Again, he improved this time from 34th to 16th overall.
The story for Stalder is a lot like that for Hartweg. He’s got the shooting to a level that is nearly unmatched on the World Cup. Once you have that elite skill set, that’s a HUGE step. He’s made the initial improvements in ski time. Last season we saw some glimpses of that. He did have three races where he secured a top 15 course time rank. The goal for next season is more of that. He may not have the same high ceiling as Hartweg but he still has the potential to be very good. There is no reason why Stalder cannot be competitive and aim for something close to 10th in the Overall. We already know what he has to do to get there, do exactly what Hartweg did last season.
Jeremy Finello (31)
Jeremy Finello entered last season as the nominal leader of the Swiss men’s team. He’d been running as the 2nd best Swiss male for several seasons behind Benjamin Weger. With Weger’s retirement it appeared that Finello would be the new leader. I’m sure he’s not complaining that he had two great young teammates rise to the occasion. It’s fair to say now though that he’s no longer the top of the Swiss team, but that doesn’t mean he’s not an asset to the squad.
As you look at Finellos’ performances over the last few seasons you can see only one consistent aspect, his ski speed. Last season he somehow became even faster. He went from 3% faster than average to nearly 4% faster than the average biathlete. That made him faster than every man in biathlon except for JT Boe and Martin Ponsiluoma. Of course, if you’re that fast and you finish only 59th in the Overall standings there has to be a problem with the shooting.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2018-2019 | 85.6% | 76% | 80.8% | 31.4 |
| 2019-2020 | 94.3% | 65.7% | 80% | 31.1 |
| 2020-2021 | 82.1% | 58.6% | 70.4% | 28.7 |
| 2021-2022 | 100% | 50% | 75% | 31 |
| 2022-2023 | 81% | 56% | 68.5% | 30.3 |
Yep, there is a struggle with the shooting. It’s unfortunate to see that as he’s gotten even faster skiing his shooting has really fallen off a cliff. His total shooting last year was the absolute worst of his career. There really is only one answer for him right now and that is to improve the shooting. If he can’t get back towards his career average then he’s going to continue to chase from behind. If he can get closer to 75-80% then maybe, just maybe, he can have one or two good days and find the best finishes of his career.
Joscha Burkhalter (27)
Coming in to last season it looked like Burkhalter might be prepared to join Hartweg and Stalder in the leap up in form. However, last year was a mild step backward rather than the same sort of incredible jump his teammates had. After securing his first career top 10 in the 2021-2022 season he had just one top 30 all of last year. So, what can Burkhalter do to get back on the right track and join his young teammates in forming a new generation of leaders for the Swiss team?
Looking at Burkhalter’s performance over his last few seasons his shooting was fairly steady. No significant changes with his overall hit rate staying between 80% (22-23) and 81.5% (21-22). His shooting time was fairly stable moving from 25.6 seconds back to 27 seconds. Meanwhile his skiing was actually just a little bit better. So what changed?
Well, truthfully not much. The biggest reason that Burkhalter slipped in the rankings was inconsistency and just a little bit of bad luck. He just missed on qualifying for the Pursuits on multiple occasions, finishing 61st and 63rd in Sprints. When he did qualify for the Pursuits he did fairly well scoring a 23rd and 40th. Burkhalter is right on the edge of a major improvement. He basically sits on the edge of being able to qualify for more Pursuit races and score more points. It won’t take a monumental improvement for him to be able to do that. Just a little bit faster and a little bit better shooting. That will allow him to qualify for just a few more races and will actually make it look like a bigger improvement.
Looking at his Juniors or IBU Cup performances he has never really been a solid shooter. But to be fair Stalder and Hartweg both made major improvements in shooting lately. Fingers crossed he can make it happen. I would love to see a strong 1-3 for the Swiss men!
IBU Cup
Gion Stalder (24)
Sebastian Stalder’s (slightly) younger brother, Gion, has been developing on the IBU Cup for the last few seasons. As of yet he has not quite had the same success as Sebastian. His IBU Cup Overall finishes the last two seasons were 32nd and 59th. Over those 31 races he’s had ten top 30s, six top 20s, and one top 10 which was in the 21-22 season. In general though he’s usually finishing in the 30s to 50s.
Thus far in his career he’s been pretty close to a middle of the road IBU Cup biathlete. His skiing has moved from just below average to just a little faster than average. His shooting has bounced around the upper 70s to low 80s in total hit rate. His total shooting time is usually in the high 20’s and low 30s giving him a middle of the road shooting time.
The negative spin would be that he doesn’t seem to have any areas of biathlon that he can rely on week in and week out. Howevere there is also the optimistic spin that he can still get better across the board. Even just mild improvement to skiing, shooting, and shooting speed could lead to fairly decent jump in finishes. I guess we’ll see how this season goes!
Dajan Danuser (27)
Now two seasons removed from his transition from cross country skiing to biathlon Dajan Danuser is fairly well established as a biathlete and is showing some nice improvement. Last year he moved up from 109th in the IBU Cup rankings to 24th. He still had some lower finishes in the 50-70s. But he also had 11 top 30s, four top 20s, and his first career biathlon top 10.
As he becomes more comfortable with biathlon it is not surprising that he saw most of his improvement with shooting and not as much skiing. Don’t get be wrong his skiing wasn’t bad. He finished the year 14th overall skiing on the IBU Cup which is solid. His shooting though was where he actually improved. His total shooting was up from 63.6% to 69.7%. That was mostly on the rise in his prone shooting from 60 to 82%.
Danuser’s goal is going to be to make a similar improvement in his standing shooting. If he can get his overall shooting up to the low 80% range, his combination of ski speed and shooting would be roughly similar to Lucas Fratzscher. Is Lucas Fratzscher the greatest biathlete in the world? No of course not. But last year he was 2nd in the Overall on the IBU Cup. Do I expect that from Danuser this season? Absolutely not. But hope springs eternal and we can be optimistic that he makes a leap!
Sandro Bovisi (26)
Sandro Bovisi is the kind of biathlete without whom the IBU would not exist. There wouldn’t be an IBU Cup or even a World Cup. He’s out there week in and week out plugging away and trying his best to continue to get better and compete. Every year out there he’s had a handful of top 30-40’s with the occasional top 20. His best Overall finish was a 59th in 2021-2022 and last year he dipped a touch to 70th.
Bovisi is usually fairly decent as a skier. Each year on the IBU Cup spare one he’s been slightly better than average. Unfortunately he’s also been a fairly mediocre shooter. He’s never hit more than 80% of his targets in a season. So for Bovisi, while he can stand to improve everywhere, he’s going to have to see those shooting percentages start to rise. Let’s hope that we see that right out of the gate.
Juniors
Felix Ullman (20)
Of the primary Juniors Swiss men we have seen so far, Ullman is the one we have seen the most success out of. It hasn’t been an overwhelming a lot of success he has had two top 10s including a 5th place finish last year. Last was his best of his career so far. He started out with five straight top 15 finishes. After that though he had a bit of a regression with the remainder of his finishes all between 20-57th. That includes Junior World Finishes of 24th, 43rd, and 57th.
Last year he started out doing everything right. His ski ranks in the first few races were all in the top 15 range. He was shooting very well too shooting from 80-90%. After that hot start though her only shot better than 80% twice in nine races while she never had a course time rank better than 22nd with most being in the 30-50s. So which was the true Felix Ullman, the first five races or the final nine races? Hopefully that early stretch was the one that we’ll see this year!
Yanis Keller (21)
Yanis Keller did not race last season, but on the other hand I’ve seen no indication that he has retired from biathlon, so I’ll assume that we’ll see him for at least a handful of races this year. In the past what we saw from Keller was actually fairly consistent. In 13 career races he was top 30 in nine of them. He even had 2 top 10’s in 21-22. Usually he was pretty good shooting averaging 88% the last 12 races. This included a very strong 96.9% prone shooting over the last nine races. We talk about having a strength and Keller certainly has that. He just needs to find the ski speed to go along with it. There is certainly a path to follow to being a solid biathlete.
Silvano Demarmels (19)
Silvano Demarmels profiles fairly similarly to Yanis Keller except the complete opposite. His skiing is actually half decent, but the shooting is a bit of a weaker spot. Over the last year he was able to ski around the top 15 when compared to his same ages, particularly at the Youth Worlds. He looks a little bit slower vs. the Juniors though. Unfortunately, the shooting has only been in the 72-73% range. The result has been nine top 30s, six top 20s and one 2nd place finish. If he can keep up the ski speed and get the shooting, particularly the prone shooting, to match the skis then we’ll see what he can do.
Mathis Profit (20)
Another Swiss Junior with two years of racing under his belt, Mathis Profit has had a wide range of finishes. In 2021-2022 at the Youth Champs he has the two best finishes of his career when he finished 5th in the Individual and 6th in the Sprint. There was some pretty decent talent in those races too with Jakob Kulbin (EST), Albert Engelmann (GER), Konrad Badacz (POL), and Arttu Heikkinen (FIN) just ahead of him. Besides that he has just 2 top 20’s in his other 17 races.
It looks like he has okay ski speed with inconsistent shooting. In those Youth Wolds races he put together the two best shooting days of his IBU racing career. So it’s likely that those two Youth Worlds races were an outlier. But maybe, just maybe, he can recapture that again.
James Pacal (20)
Finally we have James Pacal, the only of these Juniors level athletes who has actually raced on the IBU Cup. He didn’t have massive success there finishing 59, 50, 61, but it does speak to something that he at least got the opportunity. While on the Juniors level he hasn’t had great finishes with just two top 20’s in 12 races. Course time ranks on the Juniors level are usually teens to 20s which is solid. Shooting is actually fairly consistent with only four races with a hit rate worse than 7 of his 12 races hitting 80% or better. The problem is he also had a couple of very bad days dragging his average down to 76% overall. I guess the Swiss have some faith in him if they gave him the IBU Cup starts, but we’ll see how this season goes.
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