While the Czech Republic may not be one of the traditional powers in the biathlon world they seem to never be far behind. While the Norwegians, French, Germans, and Swedes are powering through the season battling for the top positions in the Nations Cup there is always a small group of nations pushing and fighting just behind them. One of the chief members of this group for several years now has been the Czech Republic. While the Czech squad has occasionally risen to a top 3 finishing position it is much more of a rare thing.
Outside of Marketa Davidova the current Czech Republic teams don’t have any super stars. It’s been a few years since the Czech women had their golden generation including Gabriela Koukalova finishing 2nd in the Overall. Even so, they have a number of high quality athletes who are capable of pushing for top 10s (or better). And the relay teams especially have made some noise in the last few seasons. The question for this season is are they ready to take another step forward?
If you listen to the coaching staffs they are saying all of the right things. Coming out of summer training there was near universal excitement about the cohesion of the team and the high level they were able to achieve in their training. Of course maybe that was just offseason excitement, but maybe it was also a sign that there has been a new step taken by the Czech squad. In 2021-2022 the women secured 5th Overall in the Nations Cup. Just last season the men were 6th. Maybe 2022-2023 could be the year they both push into the top 5?
Women
Quota to start: 5 athletes
The Unicorn
Marketa Davidova (26)
Marketa Davidova isn’t the greatest Czech biathlete of all time (not yet at least!) but with her love of animals, and spectacular, how can we call her anything but a unicorn? After the sudden worry about her retirement following the 2022 Olympics, now every offseason I will get worried that maybe she won’t be back. Now she’s certainly back for the 2023-2024 season (and hopefully many more!). And she’ll be coming off what was actually her best season her career. It didn’t always feel like it as she didn’t add anymore wins to her tally. She did have two podiums as well as five top 5’s (career best) and 12 top 10’s (also career best). So while she didn’t have the wins it was the most consistent really high level racing that we have seen from her.
What improved for Davidova last season was her shooting in really every possible way. She set new career highs in both prone shooting and standing shooting. Even though her 89.5% prone and 84.5% standing were just 0.5% each above her respective highs in each, she was able to match them up together for 87% total shooting easily her best of her career. She vaulted all the way up to 25th overall in shooting. She did all of that while dropping her average shooting time by a full five seconds. Five seconds!
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2017-2018 | 79.4 | 71.7 | 72.4 | 36.1 |
| 2018-2019 | 81.2 | 77 | 79.4 | 37.9 |
| 2019-2020 | 86.9 | 73.1 | 80 | 35.6 |
| 2020-2021 | 89 | 76.5 | 82.8 | 32.8 |
| 2021-2022 | 85.5 | 84 | 84.8 | 32.6 |
| 2022-2023 | 89.5 | 84.5 | 87 | 27.6 |
So even though she was “slower” than she had been at any point in the last five years she still performed at a consistently high level. And by slower she was 12th fastest overall so not exactly a snail out there. All in all she was 9th Overall last season, her 2nd straight top 10 Overall finish and once again a career best finish as she continues to move up little by little each season.
At 25 years old what is next for Marketa Davidova? Well since she’s improved in some way every single season it’s a fair bet that she’s aiming for further improvement this year. And being just 25 she’s still a couple of years away from what should be her peak performance. Can she regain that top 5-10 overall speed? Can she continue to build on her shooting and maybe get her overall hit rate to 88% or even 89%? If she does that she almost perfectly replicates what Lisa Vittozzi and Dorothea Wierer did last season. And all they did was finish 2nd and 3rd in the Overall. Why not?
World Cup – While the Czech women have 5 total spots to fill each week on the World Cup roster, these 3 women feel like they will be locked in every week and will likely make up, along with Davidova, the relay team for every week they are healthy.
Tereza Vobornikova (23)
Before last season Tereza Vobornikova was one of the most popular picks for a breakout campaign. The reason for the excitement is plain to see. Just aging out of the Juniors she had already shown great potential with five Youth and Junior Worlds medals, including Gold in the last two Junior Worlds events she raced. Then on the IBU Cup in her first full season in 21-22 she steadily improved before capturing eight top 15 finishes in the last twelve races. Now, after a full season on the World Cup in which the then 22 year old secured two top 10s, a 7th in the Worlds Pursuit and 6th in the Oslo Sprint, she is once again an athlete to watch to turn heads in the upcoming year.
Looking into her statistics there is an interesting pattern that has emerged. She is slowly but surely getting faster every single year. Looking at her World Cup skiing she went from being much slower than average up to right around average last year. Remember, she’s only 23 so plenty of time for that to continue to improve.
Meanwhile, her shooting has been a little erratic. Don’t get me wrong, it’s always solid and sometimes really good, but there isn’t a consistent pattern with her shooting. She’s always in the mid to high 80s, and sometimes even right around 90% overall shooting. However, some years she is significantly better with her standing shooting and other years her prone is the strength. Last season was actually her worst shooting in the last several years. She ended up at 84.1% overall. On the Juniors and her prior World Cup starts over the last two seasons she was a near 90% standing shooter, but hit just 85% last season. Meanwhile the last 2-3 years she had been closer to 88% prone shooting before hitting 82.8% last season.
Right here is why I think that she is primed for another solid improvement this season. As mentioned above she is just 23 and has continued showing improved skiing every single year. There is little doubt that she’s going to have an even better skiing season in 2022-2023. She also is a solid candidate for a positive shooting regression. Would it be shocking to see her move from average to maybe 1% faster than average? I don’t think so. Would it be surprising to see her return to form a little bit with shooting and get her total shooting back towards 86-87%? Again, I don’t think so. Put those together and when you get is what Anna Magnusson did last season (.98% faster than average and 86.5% overall). Magnusson was 14th in the Overall rankings. Maybe it’s a little too early to see that from Vobornikova but I think that it’s within reach in the next year or two. I don’t know if you can tell but I’m definitely a fan!
Jessica Jislova (29)
Jessica Jislova was one of my favorite stories in the 2021-2022 seasons when she had a breakthrough season to, a little bit out of nowhere, surge forward and have a career season. She ended up that year finishing 17th in the Overall, easily her best ever, and had 12 top 20s, 3 top 10s, and a career best 5th place. Last season she regressed a little bit back to her career average. She still finished 36th Overall, which would have been her best prior to 21-22. So what happened?
What powered her to her 17th in 21-22 was an amazing surge in skiing combined with a near miraculous improvement in her shooting. Her ski ranking peaked in 21-22 at 25th overall just right around the average. Last season it regressed back to her average around 1.5% slower than average and 62nd overall in ski ranking. That was just about where she was the rest of her career.
She was, however, able to maintain her shooting improvement. In the 21-22 season she leapt from career shooting in the upper 70s/low 80s to a spectacular 91% overall. Last year she didn’t fall back at all shooting 96% prone (the best of her career), 85.6% standing, and 90.8% overall. Clearly she found something that she’s been able to maintain. Maybe it was new contact lenses, or new techniques, but over two full seasons it’s clearly legitimate improvement. This was all while improving her shooting speed from 31.9 seconds in 20-21 to 30 seconds in 21-22 and a very nice 28.3 seconds last season.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2017-2018 | 91.8 | 77.3 | 84.6 | 30 |
| 2018-2019 | 84 | 78 | 81 | 31.7 |
| 2019-2020 | 82.5 | 78.8 | 80.6 | 32.5 |
| 2020-2021 | 79.2 | 75 | 77.1 | 31.9 |
| 2021-2022 | 92.5 | 89.5 | 91 | 30 |
| 2022-2023 | 96 | 85.6 | 90.8 | 28.3 |
How does she recapture the magic of her career year? Well it’s easy to identify, and easy to see what needs to improve, it’s her skiing. Much more difficult though, is actually putting that into practice. But that’s going to be Jislova’s goal this season. The shooting is at a place where it really can’t get much better. If she can get that skiing back though, again much easier said than done, there is no reason that we can’t expect to see her grabbing a few more top 10’s and aiming for the top 20-25 in the Overall once again.
Lucie Charvatova (30)
Lucie Charvatova has a really interesting career to take a close look at. Over the last five seasons she went from an Overall rank of 81, up to a career best of 27th in 2019-2020 before sliding back down the last three seasons. Last season her Overall ended up back at 75th overall, almost exactly back where she started. Even in her career year she didn’t pile up a huge collection of high finishes, but she did put it all together in one amazing race at the 2020 World Championships, winning the bronze medal in the Sprint. That plus another top 10 and fairly consistent top 30 finishes got her to 27th Overall. Since then though just one top 10 and four top 20s.
The reason her career is so fascinating though is when you look at her statistics there is no obvious reason why the had the career surge a couple of seasons ago. Her skiing, always fairly solid, actually peaked the year after she finished 27th in the Overall. Her shooting though, has always been her Achille’s heel. She’s never gotten above 73.5% in the last five seasons.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2017-2018 | 75 | 52.5 | 63.8 | 28.1 |
| 2018-2019 | 73.8 | 71.3 | 72.5 | 29.7 |
| 2019-2020 | 71.9 | 68.8 | 70.3 | 27.9 |
| 2020-2021 | 73.6 | 58.2 | 65.9 | 29.6 |
| 2021-2022 | 81.4 | 64.3 | 72.9 | 30.2 |
| 2022-2023 | 79.2 | 67.7 | 73.5 | 28.3 |
What do we make of this? Well it looks like she really put everything together for a few magical days in the the 2019-2020 season. But it wasn’t really a consistent change that she was able to make which is clear as there was no staying power. It does look like her shooting was improving just a little bit last year. She’s a little faster than average so maybe if she can do what Jislova did, and find that one perfect shooting change that will work for her, she can have a late career surge? I’ll remain hopeful!
IBU Cup and Pushing
Tereza Vinklarkova (24)
The 2nd of three Terezas on the Czech team, Tereza Vinklarkova has been a solid member of the IBU Cup team for the last several seasons. She started out her career with a decent amount of Juniors success. She wasn’t just collecting a ton of wins but in her last full season on the Juniors, 2019-2020, she had three top 10s in nine races including 5th and 6th in the Junior Worlds Individual and Sprint. At age 21 there she was competing alongside some of the really solid young women in her cohort and finishing around Marthe Krakstad Johansen, Sameula Comola, and Amy Baserga. However as all of those women have moved along towards the World Cup over the last three seasons, Vinklarkova remains on the IBU Cup.
She is still young, at just 24 years old now, but success has been a little slower to come for Vinklarkova. Over the last three seasons she has just three total top 20s and last year finished with her best Overall finish of 54th. She’s never been an outstanding shooter. Even during her best moments of her career her season long shooting was never spectacular. Her best on the Juniors was 81.2% and her best full year on the IBU Cup was just last season with a 79.5% total hit rate. However, her skiing hasn’t quite translated over.
Those successful times on the Juniors level were generally powered by her skiing. Unfortunately we just haven’t seen that translate to the IBU Cup much less the World Cup. When she was at her peak Juniors performance she was a top 15 skier. On the IBU Cup though she’s never been better than 40th. Combined with the below average shooting and she just hasn’t been able to replicate the Juniors success.
Should we still be optimistic for Vinklarkova? Absolutely. I mean why wouldn’t you be? There is always the chance that she can start to move the skiing up a little bit. And while she hasn’t yet had the shooting success, there is an example on her very own team (Jessica Jislova) of how you can find shooting at any time. In case you skipped right down to Vinklarkova, Jessica Jislova went from a career of shooting in the upper 70s/low 80s and leapt all the way up to 90%. She’s maintained that as well. So let’s keep the lights on for Tereza Vinklarkova. She’s had the success before and I believe she can get there again.
Eliska Vaclavikova (24)
Eliska Vaclavikova came out of her Juniors career without nearly having the same success that Tereza Vinklarkova had. However, at the end of last season there they were finishing 53rd (Vaclavikova) and 54th (Vinklarkova). For Vaclavikova you actually can see some slow and steady improvement over the last several years. She’s primarily been on the IBU Cup for the last three seasons.
While Vaclavikova made a pretty substantial jump from 2020-2021 to 2021-2022 season she plateaued a little bit last season. She made a pretty nice improvement across the board to skiing, shooting, and shooting speed from 20-21 to 21-22. As a result her average finish went from 74th to 39th and her Overall rank went from 113th to 43rd. Then from 2021-2022 there was actually a tiny bit of regression. Shooting went back to 73.3% overall after peaking at 80%. Her skiing after reaching a peak of 1.1% faster than average slid back to basically right at average. And of course, as discussed, there was the regression of her Overall rank back to 53rd.
So then, should we be equally optimistic about Vaclavikova as we are about Vinklarkova? Well we’ve already seen the Vinklarkova be highly competitive while we haven’t seen that yet from Vaclavikova. On the other hand, we’ve already seen Vaclavikova have one season of big improvements while we haven’t yet seen it from Vinklarkova. I’ll remain hopeful for both. As pointed out above, Jislova has shown that it’s never too late to make some big improvements. Vaclavikova has shown that she can make gains. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for her!
Tereza Jandova (22)
Finally we come to our last, and youngest, of the young Terezas on the Czech Republic team, Tereza Jandova. Even while still competing to a decent level on the Junior Cup Jandova started racing on the IBU Cup in the 2020-2021 season. While on the Juniors she was able to capture five top 10s including a victory in the Super Sprint during the 21-22 season.
Success on the IBU Cup has not come as quickly but there are definite signs of progress happening. Prior to last season she had raced 15 times on the IBU Cup and had a career best of 43rd. In 22-23 She finished higher than 40th 6 times in 7 races which included a career best 16th in the Individual in Idre Fjall. Her last IBU Cup races at the end of the first Trimester and she did not return to the IBU Cup for the remainder of the year. She did continue to have biathlon success though, winning two bronze medals in Sprint and Individual as well as Single Mixed Relay gold at the World University Games.
Jandova’s performance has relied most heavily on her shooting prowess. In nine of her last 15 IBU Cup races she’s shot 90% or better and if not for two disastrous days managed an 88% overall shooting percentage during that time. Meanwhile her skiing, while not at this moment a strength, is certainly improving. Over the last three seasons her average course time rank has improved from 88th to 44th. Looking back to her Juniors level performance as a guide toward the future, this is not entirely surprising. She was well rounded, equally good on the skis and on the range. At just 22 it is not surprising that it is taking a moment for Jandova to acclimate to the IBU Cup. Hopefully 2023-2024 is a full season for her and she can build on the success that she was showing last season. Projected out over a full season she might aim for a top 30 Overall position on the IBU Cup this year.
Kristyna Otcovska (23)
Kristyna Otcovska is an interesting one. She’s 23 and we have so little information about her as she has competed just one full Junior Cup season and now about 1.5 IBU Cup seasons. So what do we know about her?
Well on the Junior Cup she competed in 10 events including regular events, Junior European Championships and Junior Worlds. During those events she was primarily finishing in the teens and 20s with a career best Juniors finish of 13th in the Worlds Individual race. Her Juniors performances were generally pretty even. She was a little faster than average, running about 1.5% faster than the average Junior biathlete that season. Meanwhile she shot 75% which was a little worse than average.
She has now completed 16 IBU Cup races across 21-22 and full time in 22-23 and she’s had a rather rapid ascension in her performances. At the start she was mired in the 50-70s nearly every finish. However she closed 22-23 strong and nearly equaled her Juniors Career best with a finish of 14th at one of the Sprints in Canmore. While yes, the competition was much less at those events, that would have likely been her IBU Cup career best regardless. Even before Canmore she was showing signs of improvement finishing in the 40’s in both solo races in Obertilliach. In fact the turn in her performance may have happened at the aforementioned World University Games where she secured Gold in the Mass Start just missed medaling in the Pursuit, finishing 4th. She was top 10 every race.
The key to her turn around was really her skiing. Her shooting has not moved very much since her Junior Cup days as she finished last season at 72.4% overall and was quite inconsistent throughout. The skiing though was where she started to move up. She started the season being roughly 3% slower than the average biathlete per race. By the end of the year that was just 1-1.5% slower than average and she was even faster than average one race. And it wasn’t just the Canmore races with the smaller fields. Her first race <0.5% slower than average was just before Canmore.
That’s a lot to write about the 23 year old with just 26 total races to her name. Long story short: she’s got potential and a lot of room to grow. It looks like we started seeing that growth in the 2nd half of last season. I’m optimistic that we’re going to continue to see it!
Juniors
Katerina Pavlu (20)
20 year old Katerina Pavlu is a relatively “old” lady compared to some of the young women on this list. However with that “age” means that we have a few more data points as she has competed for three seasons on the Juniors level. Over that time, and especially in 2022-2023 we’ve seen some nice improvement. In her first seasons she was regularly finishing in the 30-60s almost every time out until Youth Worlds 21-22 when she scored a career best 16th in the Individual. Then 22-23 turned into by far her best season with a podium finish and three top 10s including a 7th at European Junior Championships in Pursuit. Unfortunately she wasn’t able to replicate her Worlds success with a best finish of just 25th last year in Kazakhstan.
For Pavlu it’s really all about the shooting right now. She averaged 84.7% total shooting percentage last season but she was 90% or above in 7 of 12 races. The ski speed is starting to come along as well. Her average course time ranked improved last season from 47th to 30th. In six of her 12 races she had a course time rank better than 25th which she had only done one time prior to last season.
I’m anticipating that we see mostly Juniors racing from Pavlu this season. At age 20 she should hopefully show some continued improvement in skiing where those top 25’s become the norm. Also would love to see a touch more consistency. She has potential to be an outstanding shooter.
Ilona Plechacova (16)
Ilona Plechacova is just 16 years old and won’t be 17 until the day after Christmas. Last season she raced 11 times on the Juniors Cup. That’s just crazy to me. She was a kid and she’s out there competing against…well older kids. The crazy thing? She’s actually really good. Last year at Youth Worlds she finished 18th in the Individual, 6th in the Sprint and 4th in the Pursuit. Granted Youth is u20 so it’s not the top Juniors. But still these are young women a couple of years older than her. Even on the regular Junior Cup races she was solid too, finishing 10th in Super Sprint qualifying and 7th in the Sprint at Junior European Championships.
With those finishes not surprisingly Plechacova is fast. At Youth Worlds she was top 10 every race. Even against the “older” Juniors she was usually in the 20’s but reached as high as 6th fastest in one race. Meanwhile she only hit 73% of her targets going 85% or higher just three times in those 11 races. Basically if she hit her targets she was a top 10 finish even against the older kids. She’s a half decade away from the World Cup so still a LOT of time before then and anything could happen. Maybe she’ll find another passion, who knows. But right now she’s just one to keep an eye on for future success.
Valerie Krizova (17)
On most teams Valerie Krizova would be the youngest woman on the squad. Not for the Czech women! Heck, Krizova hasn’t even raced as many Junior Cup races as Plechacova, with just seven Juniors races, all of them last season. While not quite as successful as Plechacova it was still a really solid season. At Youth Worlds she closed with a 19th in Individual and then 11th/12th in Sprint/Pursuit. While Krizova thus far hasn’t shown as much speed as Plechacova, she’s been a bit more steady with the rifle. Her course time ranks are almost all 20-30s but her shooting is also almost all 80-90% and she hit nearly 83% of her shots for the season. Let’s hope for another season of solid development! This could be a nice 1-2 duo coming up in a few seasons!
Katerina Gotvaldova (20)
Katerina Gotvaldova has been a regular on the Junior Cup for the Czech team for four full seasons now. In that time she certainly hasn’t been bad but we haven’t seen any stand out performances as of yet. Until this last year she was basically only racing Youth Worlds where she had her best finish in her very last Youth Worlds competition, a 22nd at the 21-22 Pursuit in Soldier Hollow. She obviously decided to take a different tact in 22-23 and raced basically a full slate with 12 races. For the most part her finishes remained in the 30s but she did set a new career best with a 14th in the Super Sprint to open the season.
Gotvaldova is a slightly above average skier with below average shooting. Thus far in her career she is regularly hitting around 72% of her shots. In the earlier races this past season she was significantly faster than average. However in the championships with the highly talented youngsters were sent back from the IBU Cup to complete at Worlds she fell to around 1% slower. Hopefully she puts in another full Juniors year and we see some steps forward across the board.
Anna Kulhankova (19)
While this was just the first year of racing on the IBU level for Anna Kulhankova she got some good experience, going for 11 Junior Cup races and even 3 IBU Cup races. It was a bit of an up and down year for Kulhankova, but the ups were pretty decent including a 19th place in a Mass 60 in the opening weekend of the Junior Cup and 11th in the Youth Worlds Individual. The rest of Youth Worlds wasn’t bad either with Sprint/Pursuit finishes of 23rd and 18th.
Interesting side note about Anna Kulhankova’s season that has nothing to do with Kulhankova at all. She went to the IBU Cup for the 5th week of the season in Pokljuka. While there she was actually fairly strong finishing 53, 54, and 65. Not bad at all considering. But the interesting part is those races were won by the likes of Hanna Auchentaller, Hanna Kebinger, and Paula Botet. The rest of the top 6 included Selina Grotian, Lisa Maria Spark, Junni Arnekleiv, Tilda Johansson, and Camille Bened. There is just a lot of young talent for the women right now.
Back to Kulhankova, she’s already established a strength in her performance. Over 12 races on the Juniors Cup she hit 88.8% of her shots which was good for 5th on the Juniors level of any woman who raced at least three races. On her three IBU Cup races she hit 95%. There is no doubt that she’s high quality on the range. Now its time to bring along the skiing. She was about 1% slower than average which was 107th amongst the same cohort on the Juniors level. If she can bring that up though then we’re working something really promising!
Men
Quota to Start: 5 Athletes
The World Cup
Michal Krcmar (32)
It’s never too late to have a career year, and 2022-2023 was really a good year for that on the men’s side. One example of this was Michal Krcmar surging to 13th in the Overall standings, easily his best ever finish. Along the way he also had his best finish in the Sprint, Mass Start, and Individual disciplines finishing 9th in each of those. While he just missed adding a third podium to his palmares, finishing a season’s best 4th in the Mass Start in Oestersund and 5th in the Pokljuka Sprint he was relentlessly consistent from start to finish. He collected 19 top 20’s which was BY FAR a career best. Before 22-23 his best top 20 rate was 48% (12/25) in 2016-2017. Really, the entire season it just felt like we were hearing his name and seeing Michal Krcmar more than any time in recent memory.
So how does a 32 year old have not just a resurgence but the best year of his career? Well but adding some serious speed. Don’t get me wrong, Krcmar has never been a slug. For the last 7 years he was always around 1% faster than the average World Cup male which usually resulted in a season ending ski ranking around the 30-40s. Last season though he surged to 2.2% faster than average and was the 22nd fastest man on the World Cup last season, just a touch faster than Roman Rees and Filip Fjeld Andersen.
But don’t think for a second that his shooting was bad. He’s not quite Niklas Hartweg but Krcmar ended the season hitting 86.4% of his total shots and a very nice 89.5% of his prone attempts. I guess the only area in which he was subpar was his shooting speed. It’s not really that he’s getting slower, as he usually is around this seasons 30.3 seconds, it is just that everybody else is speeding up. In the end he finished ranked 69th fastest.
Should we really expect that to continue for Krcmar next season? Is he going to have a late career peak? Well it’s certainly possible. Krcmar’s shooting was right around his career averages, always in the mid 80’s. His shooting didn’t move at all. It was just a really good leap in his skiing. I will say though that when I see somebody in this age have a sudden improvement in one aspect red flags usually go up. Just to be clear, not because I think there was something dirty or nefarious. It’s just a sign that there is a chance for a regression upcoming. In this case there was some good skiing improvement amongst several of the top men on the Czech squad so it may very well have been something they found in their training. Let’s just say I am quite hopeful that he maintains this speed but I won’t be shocked if he slips just a little bit back towards his career averages.
Jakub Stvrtecky (24)
In finishing 44th on in the Ovearll on the World Cup this year, Jakub Stvrtecky made a nice improvement and set a new career best finish. However, when I think about him and his performance this season, the picture that immediately comes to mind actually isn’t related to his solo racing but rather a relay race. It was the World Championships in Oberhof and the Czech squad got off to a really good start with Krcmar and Tomas Miksyka both avoiding the penalty loop. Stvrtecky went head to head with Emilien Jacquelin and beat him by a solid 10 seconds on leg 3. When Stvrtecky tapped off to Jonas Marecek, with the Czech squad in first, it was with a look of pure elation and he let out a well deserved scream. More than anything else about his 2022-2023 season, that’s what makes me the most hopeful for Stvrtecky’s future.
Even at just 24 years old Stvrtecky has already spent most of the last five seasons on the World Cup. This was his first big step forward in a couple of years as he leapt out of the mid 50s and finished 44th Overall. He had seven top 30s, three top 20’s and his first career top 10, an 8th in the Sprint at Hochfilzen. He still had a couple of stinker races, but in general he raised the level of his performance which allowed him to accumulate those extra points and also allowed him to reach just a bit higher with his peak performances.
Stvrtecky is quite a quick young man, finishing the season ranked 13th overall in skiing and averaging a cool 2.7% faster than average. This puts him in the range of the above noted Emilien Jacquelin and just faster than Tommaso Giacomel, the 2nd place in the u25. Pretty good company to be keeping! It is the shooting that has been holding him back. This season he shot 74.3% overall. That was quite nearly the best of his career. That’s…not great. Breaking it down he hit 85% of his prone shots. That means he hit just 63.6% standing which is rough. Let’s put it another way, he was the 5th worst standing shooter last year.
Okay that’s enough negativity. How’s this: Jakub Stvretecky is a very fast young man who clearly has a tenacious attitude and loves to get into the fight. He has a pretty clear way to get better and quite quickly. This may be aspirational, but bringing that standing percentage up to 80% and overall shooting to 82% would be just tremendous. Skiing just outside the top 10 and shooting 82% would roughly make him a touch worse than Fabien Claude (10th fastest and shot 83.6% overall). Claude finished the year 10th in the Overall. It’s definitely a goal. I don’t think he’ll be there this year, but if he can really work on the standing shooting, top 15 could be a good five year goal.
Adam Vaclavik (29)
To be honest a couple of months ago I might have put Mikyska in this spot and Vaclavik in the next group. You could even make the argument for Marecek. I’ll stick with this though. Adam Vaclavik is a bit of a veteran going on his ninth season on the World Cup. He’s been solid if not spectacular throughout. He’s usually good about a couple of top 30’s every year. His year end ranking anywhere from the 50’s down to the bottom of the rankings. Last year he ended up 90th Overall out of 95 men who score points. The high point of the year was undoubtedly the 24th place Sprint at the World Championships. Other than that he had just two top 40s.
In the midst of what might otherwise have been a disappointing season there were some signs for hope for Vaclavik. As with Krcmar and Stvrtecky there was a nice improvement in his skiing. Vaclavik’s overall ski ranking was up to 24th on the World Cup and he ended the year about 2.5% faster than average. That was by far his best performance in terms of skiing on the World Cup. This is what I meant when discussing Krcmar and his improved skiing. Clearly if he was skiing that fast though shooting has to be the problem right?
Right. Hitting just 67.1% of his total shots this season really limits the possibilities for the kind of success that I’m sure he was looking for this season. This isn’t completely off from where he normally is, but the last several years he was at least able to reach the low 70% range. Not that any of his shooting is good, but at least he was able to keep his prone shooting above 75% this season.
Not much to say here. There is some nice young talent coming up. If Adam Vaclavik wants to keep racing on the World Cup he’s got to find the shooting, particularly the standing shooting. Otherwise these young guys are going to jump right over him.
World Cup and IBU Cup Go Betweens
Tomas Mikyska (23)
Around August of this year I was really excited for what Tomas Mikyska might show off this season. He was coming off a really nice debut season on the World Cup with a couple of top 20s, including his career best 14th in both the Individual AND the Mass Start at Worlds! He closed out the season with a 24th in the Pursuit at Oslo. Racing most of the season at just 22 years old he finished 52nd Overall. Throw in there a really great relay leg at Worlds and it was great first year.
This summer he was starting off looking solid at Summer Worlds as well. He won the silver medal in the Super Sprint and followed that up with a decent 23rd in the Sprint. Then disaster struck. He was racing really strong in the Mass Start when he went down in a crash. It ended up being a torn ACL and meniscus. In all likelihood he won’t race at all this season.
It’s hard to see. Mikyska has a really bright future if he can come back from this strong. And there is no reason to believe that he can’t. He had fairly extensive Junior Cup racing and over his last few seasons on the Juniors he was rarely outside the top 20. He ended his first and only primarily IBU Cup season very strong. Then at 22 years old he had the season noted above.
Mikyska profiles a little different than the “average” Czech biathlete. While most of the men on this list are fast but with shaky shooting, Mikyska is a solid shooter. Last year he ended the World Cup season ranked 26th in overall shooting percentage hitting 86.7% of his shots. As you can see above it was a very even split between his standing and prone as well. So he’s just a steady and solid shooter. And not just steady but he’s already decently fast averaging just 26.8 seconds per shot.
The skiing is coming along as well. If you look at the race by race data his skiing time compared to the median skier went from being a bit slower than median to being a bit above faster than median. If you look at his first seven races of 22-23 he was faster than median just one time. The last seven races, though, he was faster than the median biathlete five times. That includes one Sprint race being 2.1% faster.
Fingers crossed for a full recovery. It’s going to take a lot and will be a setback to his skiing right as he was appearing to make some good gains. Hopefully though he’s able to replicate that improvement all over again.
Jonas Marecek (22)
Somehow Jonas Marecek is even younger than Tomas Mikyska. However, with Mikyska’s injury (and Vaclavik’s shaky shooting) there is a serious opening for Marecek to get some further World Cup experience this winter. Already with 14 races to his credit I would expect that to grow substantially this season. In the 12 races that Marecek ran in 22-23 it was a bit of a bumpy introduction to the World Cup. There were some high points including 32nd in the Individual in Oestersund and 33rd in the Sprint at Pokljuka. Unfortunately though that was one of only two Pursuits for which he qualified as the remainder of his finishes were primarily in the 50s and 60s. He did end up 77th Overall though.
It’s really not bad though. You might guess, considering that two of his best three finishes last season were Individuals, that he succeeds more with the rifle than with his skis. And early on his career that is indeed the case. The young man finished 79th in overall skiing and 2.7% slower than average. Looking at the race by race data he did seem to have a mid season peak where he was more in the 1.5% back range. In general though, throughout his young career, skiing runs behind the shooting. (More on this in just a minute).
That’s okay though when you are a decent shooter! During his time on the Junior Cup he saw a fairly solid increase in his shooting abilities almost by the year. Last year, his first on the World Cup, he ended up shooting 85.9% total shooting. That was good enough for 30th in shooting amongst men on the World Cup putting him a little ahead of Benedikt Doll and just right behind Michal Krcmar and Tomas Mikyska and Sebastian Samuelsson. In an odd quirk the final shooting rankings were Mikyska (27), Krcmar (29), and Marecek (30) with just Miha Dovzan sneaking in between at 28th. Add in that he averaged shooting 26.3 seconds last season, a nice 20th in shooting speed, then yeah, I feel good about that shooting from Marecek.
Now one thing that Doll and Samuelsson (and Krcmar!) have the Marecek doesn’t is the previously referenced ski speed. He’s a young man, hopefully that’s the next thing that we see coming from him. And to be honest, it really wouldn’t be that big of a surprise. Do you know what he ranked his last season on Juniors? 4th overall in skiing amongst anyone who raced 3 or more races. Yeah, I think he’s going to be just fine. Give this kid a little time and he’s got a chance to be a good one. Let’s just see how much better he gets on the course this season.
Vitezslav Hornig (24)
Compared to Marecek and Mikyska, Vitezslav Hornig feels like an establish veteran. In truth though he’s just one more of a huge cohort of young Czech men that are all pushing for these World Cup slots. As a Junior he was consistently strong with top 10-15 finishes being a regular occurrence and even grabbing one win at the 19-20 Junior European Champs. Thus far in his post-Juniors career Hornig has spent most of his time on the IBU Cup including a fairly successful 2022-2023 campaign. Last season he collected 10 top 20s and 4 top 10’s. At the end of the year that was good enough for 13th Overall on the IBU Cup which was actually his best year end finish at any IBU level.
Hornig is a fairly well balanced biathlete. He does shoot just a little better than he skis but overall he’s more of an all around guy. Unfortunately sometimes that means “jack of all trades and master and none.” Hopefully though what we’re seeing with Hornig is moving toward “master of all!” Last year was an interesting season for Hornig on the skis. He started out the season looking very solid with 4 top 11 course time ranks in the first 5 races. Then he had a bit of a midseason dip where he routinely finished in the 20-30s in course time before he rallied again starting in Obertilliach. I don’t know exactly what happened but the man from the start and close to the season had the ability to ski at a top 10 level.
The shooting, meanwhile, continues to be solid. Last year he was 9th overall in shooting on the IBU Cup hitting 85.2% overall. Interesting to note how that was 9th on the IBU Cup but would have been significantly lower on the World Cup. The good news is that every year on the IBU Cup, dating back to the 19-20 season, he’s been between 84-86%. I guess that could also be a little disappointing that we aren’t seeing those numbers improve really at all. He’s also a little on the slower side with his shooting, averaging just 31.8 seconds per shooting.
For Hornig, with the Mikyska injury, there is definitely an opening to receive some more World Cup experience. If he can capture that speed from the start and close to last season he may actually have a chance to be relatively competitive. He’s just 24 so we would only expect him to find a little more speed as he continues to mature. His shooting doesn’t have to go crazy, just even 1-2% total improvement would be great. There is the start of something here. I’m not saying that Hornig is a future top 10-15 World Cup level biathlete but he could be a decent starter on the World Cup for several years.
Mikulus Karlik (24)
Yet another Czech man in his mid to early 20s is Mikulus Karlik. Karlik has been given plenty of chances on the World Cup over the last few years, but last season settled into a role primarily on the IBU Cup. It’s easy to see why they want to keep giving Karlik chances. On the Juniors level he was very successful. Maybe as much or more than any of the other men on this list collecting 10 top 10’s over his time on the Junior Cup level. So far though that level of success has (mostly) eluded him on the IBU Cup or World Cup. More on this at the bottom. Last year he ended up 77th on the IBU Cup with almost every finish coming in the 20s or 30s.
Karlik is build like Strvtecky in that he is a good skier but the shooting can really be hit or miss (please forgive the pun, I’m deeeep into writing these and starting to get a little punch). But really, it’s true. On the Juniors level he was nearly always top 10 in ski speed. Even in his World Cup races he’s running about 1% faster than average. On the IBU Cup that’s even better finishing about 5% faster on the skis than the average IBU Cup racer. Last year that got him 17th overall in skiing.
It’s just the shooting that is holding him back. Just one season on the IBU Cup (out of 4) has he broken 70% shooting. Last year his splits were 76% prone, 53.3% standing, and 64.7% total. That’s just not very good. And that’s while being a little slower with the shooting, averaging over 32 seconds per trip to the range.
Karlik has potential. His skiing can keep him competitive. And on the rare occurence when he actually hits the targets he’s suddenly very competitive. The most glaring example of this is the 2021-2022 Beijing Olympics when he came out of nowhere to finish 7th in the Sprint. It remains his best finish on either the World Cup or the IBU Cup. Until he can find any consistent shooting he’ll continue to just be potential. But let me tell you if he starts out shooting somewhere near 80% on the first weekend I’ll be so happy to see it.
Up and Comers
Josef Kabrda (22)
Josef Kabrda enters the 2022-2023 season with just one year left of Junior Cup eligibility but it’s unclear if he’ll use it as he was already up to the IBU Cup as of last season. Kabrda didn’t have the most heralded Juniors career with a career best finish there of 10th and most of his finishes in the 30-50s range. He started making IBU Cup starts a couple years ago, peaking with eight starts there last season. So far he’s finishing primarily in the 40-60 range.
As a biathlete Kabrda is a bit stronger with his shooting than his skiing. However it’s hard to say that either is a strength at this early point of his career. However, last year he did hit 80% of his shots which was the best for him at any level. He usually runs at least 10 points better on his prone than his standing including last season hitting 87.3% prone (the best of any type of shooting at any level of his career) and 72.7% standing. So that’s certainly something to build off of. Last year he finished 88th on the IBU Cup in skiing. So his two obvious areas to work on: Standing shooting getting closer to prone shooting, and a tad bit faster. Those are his next two check points to meet!
Ludek Abraham (21)
As with Kabrda, Abraham, while primarily a Junior, has started to get some IBU Cup experience over the last several years. So far, Abraham has been a very solid Junior Cup biathlete. Over his four seasons of racing he’s collected three top 10s. Last year in his most extensive racing he was top 20 in half of his 10 starts including 9th in the Individual at Junior Worlds.
Based on him having his best performance in an Individual you might expect that he’s a good shooter but maybe slower on the skis. You would be wrong. Abraham is actually quite a swift skier, averaging 8.1% faster than the average Junior Cup biathlete and finishing the season 13th in skiing on the Juniors level. He was actually pretty close to the top skiers on the Junior level that included Campbell Wright (USA) and Martin Nevland (NOR). His shooting is just not that great. He hit just 70% total last season.
Abraham is a pretty intriguing young biathlete for the Czech team. He’s a little younger than a few of the other Czech men who profile similar to him (Stvrtecky, Hornig, Karlik, etc) that is a good skier and a poor shooter. But Abraham is actually maybe a little faster than they were as Juniors. Also being a couple of years younger it gives him a little more time to find his comfort on the shooting range. We’ll leave the light on for him and his chances at becoming a solid overall biathlete at a high level.
Ondrej Manek (22)
Copy and paste from Abraham and Kabdra, Ondrej Manek right now he is still primarily a pretty successful Junior Cup athlete trying to find his way on the IBU Cup. He is actually the most successful of the three elder “up and comers” having seven top 5’s in his last three seasons of Junior Cup racing. This includes a very successful Junior Worlds last year in Kazakhstan with two top 10’s with a peak finish of 5th in the Individual.
Looking at his performances it is pretty easy to see why he’s been so successful. Manek is the inverse of Abraham. He’s a sharpshooter plain and simple. The last two seasons he’s shot 89.5% and 88.5% overall. That was good enough for 9th and 4th on the Juniors in the last two seasons. Not surprisingly with such a high overall hit rate he’s a balanced shooter, almost equally good prone and standing. Now don’t get me wrong, he’s not a sloth on the course. He was still over 4% faster than average last season. However, that was only good enough for 72nd overall in skiing amongst the Juniors. Just like with Abraham, when you have a strength already present, and you only have to focus on improving one aspect, it seems like there is a path to success. Maybe Abraham and Manek can work together? Manek can gain a little speed from Abraham while Abraham picks up a few shooting tips from Manek?
Petr Hak (20)
With Petr Hak we move to the true Juniors of the Czech men’s squad. Hak has only raced on the Junior Cup level but he does already have 14 solo races to his name. Thus far he has primarily been in the middle of the pack. However, at the European Junior Championships this past season he did capture a silver in the Sprint race finishing behind only highly regarded Italian youngster Nicolo’ Betemps. At this early stage in his career Hak is a speedster and he’ll need to find some balance with his shooting. For example, in that silver medal run he was the 2nd fastest man on the course and shot 9/10. And at Youth Worlds in 20-21 he was top 3 in course time rank every race. Unfortunately in his 14 races though, he’s only his more than 80% just twice. So hopefully he finds some shooting consistency!
Daniel Malusek (19)
In his age 18 season Daniel Malusek made his debut on Junior Cup and went on to race a total of 13 races. In his very solid debut campaign Malusek ended on a high note racing to 12th in the Individual at European Junior Champs and then 4th in the Individual at Youth World Champs. For the rest of the season he was primarily finishing in the 20-30s. Malusek appears to be in the solid shooter, working on the ski speed category. He shot 86.3% last season. When skiing solely against his age cohort his course times were teens and 20s. However the rest of the season in the 40s. For the 2023-2024 season we would love to see just a little it better on the skis and from there we’ll surely see some very nice finishes.
Ferdinand Jansa (18)
Ferdinand Jansa made his entry to IBU racing with eight races in the 2022-2023 season. He raced in Haanja and then at Junior European Championships and Youth Worlds. In those races he was very consistently in the 20’s. In fact he finished 23rd three separate times in eight races, which is just kind of odd. Last year he was a bit better than average on the skis, finishing with course time ranks of 22, 24, and 28 at Youth Worlds. Meanwhile his shooting was consistent between 70-80, finishing in that range five of eight races, and ending the year with a total shooting percentage of 72.5%. Hopefully we’ll see a a little bit of growth everywhere for the upcoming campaign!
Ondrej Jiranek (19)
Last but not least is Ondrej Jiranek who has raced seven total times on the IBU Junior Cup over the last two seasons. He ended on a high note last season finishing 14th in the Individual at his season ending race in Obertilliach. It’s a little hard to get a feel for him with the small racing numbers and performances that are a little all over the map. Most of his races he shoots between 70-80%. He skis well enough though that when he was able to hit 90% of his targets he grabbed that 14th place finish. Hopefully he’ll have a solid year of growth!
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