When I think biathlon, I think Germany. I think Oberhof and Ruhpolding. I think wild cheering. I think the best fans in the world. I think Sven Fischer and Magdalene Neuner. I think Andrea Henkel and Laura Dahlmeier. Maybe it should be Norway or France or even Sweden. But in spite of the relative lack of recent success I just can’t disconnect Germany and biathlon.
Over the last several years we’ve seen the women continue to fight and compete at the highest levels with Denise Herrmann-Wick leading the way. The men have had a few last laps of great athlete with Arnd Peiffer, Erik Lesser, and now Benedikt Doll having late career surges. However, with Peiffer, Lesser, and Herrmann-Wick also retiring in the last few years, and Doll almost certain to step away in the next year or two the question is, will the Germans continue to hold a place near the top of the leaderboards or are they completely ceding the territory to Norway, France, Sweden, Italy, and others?
Women
While France and Sweden seem to lead the way when it comes to women’s biathlon it seems to be a little too soon to completely discount Germany. They did lose the highest point earner for their team with the retirement of Denise Herrmann-Wick. However Vanessa Voigt seems primed for a bounce back while Kebinger and Schneider look like they are ready to take a step, and on the horizon could Selina Grotian be a star?
Quota: 6 Athletes to Start
World Cup
Vanessa Voigt (26)
Two years ago Vanessa Voigt burst onto the scene and instantly became a fan favorite. Everyone cheered her on as she seemed to get better week by week. When she finished 2nd and 6th in Otepaeae it seemed like she was destined to be a contender. She was pegged to be a breakthrough athlete in 2022-2023. When the year started out with a 4th place right out of the gate, and two top 10’s in the first three races, she seemed to be off! But then she never really got her footing until the end of the season. She was almost always finishing in the teens and 20’s. By the end of the year she cobbled together enough good finishes to finish 11th in the Overall, one place better than 12th in her celebrated debut season. But it never felt like it. The numbers of top 5’s, top 10’s, and top 20’s were roughly even. It felt much more disappointing than 11th place should though, mostly due to the very high expectations.
Looking at her statistics year over year there is basically no change:
| 2021-2022 | 2022-2023 | |
| Ski Rank | 33 | 28 |
| Ski Performance vs. Avg | -1.8% | -1.9% |
| Shooting Rank | 3 | 5 |
| Total%/Prone%/Standing% | 91.8%/91%/92.5% | 91%/93%/89% |
| Shooting Time Rank | 86 | 75f |
| Shooting Time | 35.5 | 32.7 |
That all makes sense. Basically no change in performance and basically no change in results. I think where the disappointment came in was that at the end of 21-22 Voigt was consistently finishing around 10th in course time rank. She immediately started there but then plummeted down. By the end of the season she had built back up towards the top 10 again, but it was a very slow build taking all season. The feeling had been that she was going to be that fast all season, which with her shooting would have allowed her to be competitive every time out like Julia Simon was.
So that’s the next step for Voigt. She’s an all world shooter and she has been for pretty much every season she’s competed. That feels locked in right now. If she can get some consistency for her skiing, and even if she doesn’t race that fast the entire season just doing it more will help out considerably. And if she could find a way to get a little faster on the range without dropping accuracy. I still think she’s a good bet for a finish somewhere around like 7th or 8th in the Overall this year. I would be thrilled to be wrong if she is higher though!
Hanna Kebinger (26)
While Vanessa Voigt was the breakthrough German in 2021-2022, Hanna Kebinger fit that mold in 2022-2023. She began the season on the injured list. She actually was sick when the season started and didn’t start any races over the first trimester except for some relatively smaller races, all non IBU. She started feeling better so she started on the IBU Cup in early 2023 in Pokljuka. In those three races she had a win and two 2nd place finishes. She immediately got the call up to the World Cup in Antholz. For the remainder of the season she had the 9th best average finish position, four top 10s, only one finish outside the top 20, and finished the season with a phenomenal 4th place in the Oslo Mass Start. This is an amazing story, so if you want to hear more, please check out our interview on the podcast that we did in September. Truly inspirational stuff.
Kebinger’s calling card is her grit. Seriously, go listen to that podcast now. She never ever gives up. Unfortunately you can’t put a number on an athlete’s grit. However, for Kebinger it would be sky high. Well other than that she’s overall a really really good biathlete (no kidding right?). She finished 20th in overall skiing with a slick 2.8% faster than average season. Her shooting was really good too finishing the season with an 89.5% total shooting percentage, good enough for 11th. Combine that with an average shooting time of 28.4 seconds, 30th overall, and you have one heck of a debut season.
Looking back to Kebinger’s IBU Cup performances you can clearly see an athlete on the upswing. The skiing and shooting both improving. There is no reason to believe that 2022-2023 was her peak. I can’t emphasize enough how tough Kebinger is. (Seriously, just go listen to that interview, you won’t regret it). There is no doubt in my mind that she’s going to go hard this season. I said above that the 9th best average finish on the World Cup last season. If she can keep that up for a full season then we’ll see her finishing in the top 10 of the Overall. Honestly, if it doesn’t happen next season, it feels like it will be one of the next few years we see her right up there.
Sophia Schneider (26)
I mentioned above how young the German team is, well this is three straight 26 year olds to start off the World Cup roster. Sophia Schneider started the season on the World Cup in Kontiolahti, just her fifth ever World Cup start, and she never looked back. Right out of the gate she finished 11th in the season opening Individual race and then 8th in the Sprint. While it took her awhile to find her way back to the top 10, she only finished outside the top 30 in two races before the World Championships. Then, in front of home fans, she absolutely rocked it, with a 7th place Sprint and 5th place Pursuit, her best two finishes in her World Cup career. She closed out her season in Nove Mesto but she had already made her impression. She ended up 31st Overall and definitely left us wanting more.
Sophia Schneider is definitely much more of a speedster than a shooter. She finished the season ranked 16th in overall skiing and nearly 3% faster than average. That’s in line with how she looked as a Junior Cup biathlete when she was one of the fastest women in her years of racing. The shooting still has a little ways to go though. She shot 79% overall last season which is roughly in line with her shooting on the Junior and IBU Cup. It was, however, the fastest shooting season of her career by nearly three seconds at 30.6 seconds on average.
Can we expect to see Schneider to improve on the same trajectory as a Kebinger and Voigt and potentially give the German women three top 10 athletes? Well that might be a little bit much to expect. However, we can never say never. If she’s going to do it she’s going to do it with a significant shooting improvement. It’s hard to predict that because we’ve never seen it from her in the past. There is always reason for hope! I’m going to keep my fingers crossed that we see it! She certainly has the ski speed to make it happen.
Franziska Preuss (29)
What do we make of Franziska Preuss? When she is at her best she is one of the best. It’s just been so long since we’ve seen her at her best. It feels like forever ago, but in 2020-2021 she finished 3rd in the Overall standings. It was her third straight season in the top 10 and she was getting stronger with every passing season. That year she had four podiums and nine top 10’s. She couldn’t quite get to the top for her second career win but she was all around it. Then in 21-22 she got injured and then got COVID. She seemed to make a recovery around the Olympics and finished with four top 10s late in the season including a 2nd place Mass Start finish in Oslo. Last year she just never got it going. She raced just seven races she shut it down after Antholz.
So now it’s been two full seasons since we saw top form Franziska Preuss. Top form Preuss was a top 10-20 skier and shot at least in the mid 80’s if not higher. Her total shooting is down from a peak of 88.5% to 84.5% it was really her standing shooting that took the biggest hit, dropping to 76.4%. While the shooting has maintained over the last two seasons with just modest deterioration, the skiing took the biggest hit. She dropped from 8th overall in skiing in 20-21 to 35th last season in limited racing.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2017-2018 | 95.5 | 79.4 | 87.4 | 27.9 |
| 2018-2019 | 90.6 | 78.9 | 84.7 | 27.2 |
| 2019-2020 | 90.4 | 86.7 | 88.5 | 26.7 |
| 2020-2021 | 93.8 | 79.1 | 86.4 | 29.2 |
| 2021-2022 | 89.6 | 82.2 | 85.9 | 29 |
| 2022-2023 | 92.7 | 76.4 | 84.5 | 27.3 |
Can Preuss make a comeback? Like a true top form comeback getting herself back to not just the top 10, but top 5 biathletes in the world? That might be asking a lot, but she’s still only 29 years old. She was really really good at her peak. I can’t emphasize this enough. So maybe, just maybe, it’s still in there. I guess with Preuss only time will tell. I’m going to remain optimistic and hopeful. Maybe we don’t see her all the way back to the top this season, but what I want to see more than anything is that her standing shooting makes a little come back, while her ski speed get back to around top 20 range. My hope for her is that she shows sparks of who she was, the occasional top 5, and pushing for the podium. I would be thrilled with her finding a way to an Overall finish in the 8-12 range.
World Cup Potentials
Janina Hettich-Walz (27)
I swear that the entire German team isn’t in their mid to late 20’s, but Janina Hettich-Walz is yet another German woman entering the prime of her athletic career. Last season was yet another solid season for her as she has finished 22nd, 37th, and 30th the last three consecutive years in the Overall. It was also the least races that she’s run on the World Cup over those three seasons as she was on the IBU Cup to start the season. However after opening the IBU Cup season with four top 10’s including a 2nd place Sprint and winning the Individual she returned to the World Cup for the balance of the season. She finished the World Cup with six top 20’s and two top 10’s in her 15 races. Her season peaked twice with a 7th place Sprint in Antholz and an 8th place Sprint in Oslo.
Hettich-Walz has become a pretty well balanced biathlete the last few seasons. Last year she ended up 30th in overall skiing and 32nd in overall shooting and 25th in shooting time. It’s remarkable how well balanced that is. It hasn’t always been that way either. While her skiing has been consistent just a touch faster than the average biathlete, just a few years ago she was struggling on the range shooting just 70.8% overall. And her shooting time continues to get faster just a little bit every year.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2019-2020 | 73.3 | 68.3 | 70.8 | 30.8 |
| 2020-2021 | 93.9 | 83.3 | 88.6 | 31.7 |
| 2021-2022 | 92.5 | 76.7 | 84.6 | 30.1 |
| 2022-2023 | 93.3 | 79.2 | 86.3 | 28.1 |
Hettich-Walz appears to have been right around the same area of performance for the last few seasons. It is possible though that there is a little more improvement to be seen. She could definitely make a small surge and find a way to get back to the top 30 in the Overall standings. It would just take a little improvement in shooting and just a little faster on the skis to get there. It’s definitely possible!
Anna Weidel (27)
Okay, I really promise not every German is in their mid to late 20’s, but once again, here is another one with Anna Weidel sliding into her age 27 season. Last year was the firs tstart to finish season for Anna Weidel on the World Cup and she took advantage of it. She ran 16 total races and collected five top 20’s including her first career top 5 finishing 5th in the Kontiolahti Sprint race. It was a really solid season from top to bottom and she finished 29th Overall.
Weidel, throughout her career, has been a solid shooter, who occasionally pairs it with some good ski form. Last year her shooting was 85% which was actually one of her worse seasons of late. Compare that to 2021-2022 hitting 89% on the IBU Cup and 93.8% on the World Cup. Meanwhile her skiing took a little step in a positive direction. She’s never been a fast biathlete. However last year, she took a step forward going faster than average for the first time in her World Cup career. But the one thing that made a HUGE change last season was she improved her shooting to 23.8 seconds. That made her the fastest woman on the World Cup level! While she’s never been a slow shooter this was by far her fastest shooting. I mean she was fastest on the World Cup!
Two big questions for Anna Weidel as we head into the 2023-2024 season: 1) Will the skiing continue to improve? She’s never been a really fast skier. Last season ranking 52nd on the World Cup was probably one of, if not her best skiing season of her career. While she could of course regress to her average at any time, I want to be optimistic and believe that she’ll continue to move upwards. And 2) Will her standing shooting rebound? It was her standing shooting that took the bigger dip last season. So if she can get her standing shooting moving back towards her career average that would be a huge bonus.
If she can do both of those things then she’s well on her way towards a top 25 if not top 20 Overall finish. That may be a stretch for Weidel but why not, it’s the perfect time for optimism!
Selina Grotian (19)
Okay, you want a young one? Here’s Selina Grotian. I nearly put her in the top category based on her performance to date and her potential. She’s talked about how people are already calling her the next Magdalena Neuner and I have to imagine that after awhile that really begins to weigh on you. So while I know that she has no idea who I am or what this website is, just based on principle I will leave her in the “potential” group.
Really with Grotian potential is the key word. She has all of the potential in the world. There is a real chance that Grotian could some day be a Globe winner. And yes, I mean the big Globe. She’s just 19, and turned 19 after the end of last season. So before she was 19 years old she has had three years of Junior Cup racing and now a full year of IBU Cup. On the Juniors level she’s been nothing short of spectacular. Here is her record: five wins in 14 races. That’s a 35.7% win rate on the Junior Cup. Her podium rate is eight podiums in 14 races which is 57.1%. She podiums in more than half of her Junior races. She has only finished outside the top 10 twice over that span. She has five Youth/Junior Worlds medals including three golds with a back to back Sprint/Pursuit last season.
Last year she made her first starts on the IBU Cup and ended up running 15 races in all. Want to guess how it went? She had two wins including European Championships Pursuit. She also won bronze in the European Championships Individual. She finished top 10 in 9 of 15 races. She was outside of the top 25 just once. She finished 6th in the Overall mostly because she just didn’t hit enough races, missing the last two weeks of the IBU Cup season.
Selina Grotian is a stand out biathlete who is good at everything, but most of all she’s an amazing skier. She was only outside the top 10 in course time rank twice on the Junior Cup. On the IBU Cup she was top 10 in skiing every race but three and finished as the 2nd fastest skier on the IBU Cup. I again, want to stress that she was just 18 years old. She ended the season with a single race on the World Cup and had the 32nd best course time in a Sprint. Just throwing that out there.
The remarkable part of her performance is she has done all of this with still being a good, but not great shooter. Last season on the World Cup she hit 83.6%, which was weighed down by a mediocre 76.4% standing. Throughout her short career standing has really been the only negative aspect of her performance lagging at least 5-10 points behind prone shooting basically every season. She also already has her average shooting time down to 26.8 seconds.
Selina Grotian is the whole package. If she gets her standing shooting up consistently to the mid 80’s she’s going to be so hard to beat. At this point that’s the only thing to work on. The speed is already there. She’s just got to continue on the path she is on. It really is hard not to get over excited. I’ve said it plenty of times but she’s still just 19 years old. So much could still happen. But the path she is on right now puts her aiming towards battling for the crystal globe by the last 2020’s and I am absolutely excited about that!
Juliane Fruewhirt (25)
Okay, back to our regularly scheduled mid to late 20 year old German women! Juliane Frewhirt has the misfortune of being listed behind a once in a generation talent like Grotian. But I don’t want to completely overlook her. She may not be a future Overall Globe contender, but she’s been solid so far.
Last season was already her third full season on the IBU Cup and her first extensive World Cup experience as well. She ended up with 17 IBU Cup races and 6 World Cup. She opened the year on the World Cup and stated out with a 23rd in the season opening Individual in Kontiolahti. After that she never broke 30th and went down to the IBU Cup after some really strong racing by Hanna Kebinger.
On the IBU Cup she ended up finishing 14th Overall for her third straight top 20 Overall IBU Cup finish. She finished in the flowers six times last season which was very solid. Outside of those finishes she was regularly finishing in the teens and 20’s, just twice outside the top 30, and ended the season with an average finish of 17th, her best of her IBU Cup career.
Last year was a solid performance but it wasn’t quite her best. Her skiing has steadily improved and last year she was regularly posting top 20 course time ranks. She even had six top 10 times on the skis. Her time vs the average IBU Cup biathlete was improved just slightly as well but was steady when compared to her 2020-2021 season. Her shooting also trended downward throughout the season. After starting the year mixing in 90% shooting days, by the end of the season she was far more often in the 70% range. Her overall shooting was down to 80.8%, her worst in the last three seasons. At the same time she actually got slower on the range with her average shooting time up to 35.8 seconds.
It’s actually fairly remarkable she had as much success as she did with her statistics seeming to plateau or even regress. In 2023-2024 my only goal for Fruewhirt is to see everything move in a positive direction. A little faster. The shooting bounces back. The shooting is a little faster. That’s all. She’s got the talent. The rest will take care of itself.
IBU Cup Regulars
The women in this group will likely spend the majority of the season on the IBU Cup. That’s not to say that they won’t occasionally push for a World Cup spot. However, there is just so much talent in this German squad I anticipate it will be a little harder for this group to make it regularly on the World Cup lineup. I am more than happy to be wrong though if one of them pops off!
Lisa Marie Spark (23)
Twice the 2nd Overall on the Junior Cup, Lisa Marie Spark has graduated to competition solely on the IBU Cup. Last season, her first full time on the IBU Cup was fairly successful as she finished in 9th in the IBU Cup Overall standings. Along the way she nabbed her first, win, two total podiums, four top 5’s, and seven top 10’s in 17 total races. That one win by the way was gold in the European Championship Individual race. At the time Spark was in the midst of some of the best form of her career when during a four race stretch she won that gold medal as well as a 3rd and a 4th. She then closed out the season nearly as hot with three straight top 10’s in Canmore.
Lisa Marie Spark made her Junior Cup success largely as a result of just flat out being faster than everybody. On the IBU Cup, though, while she’s been fast, she’s had less success skiing away from her opponents. Last season she finished 22nd overall in skiing which was good for just 6th on her own team! She was still 2.8% faster than average and we shouldn’t look down our noses at that. Still pretty good. And based on her Juniors competition she should have a little more room to grow to reach her expected skiing performance on the IBU Cup as well.
Her shooting meanwhile remains largely unchanged over the last 3-4 seasons. Almost every season she finds up in the low to mid 80’s for her total hit rate. Last season was no exception finishing at 82.2% with exactly even splits. And her shooting remains a bit slower than her top competition, averaging 31.8 seconds per shooting only good for 23rd on the IBU Cup.
For Spark to full realize her goals, which are clearly to be a regular World Cup competitors, she’s going to need to continue to grow. As mentioned above she should have a little left in her skis to reach her expected speed. However, to get where she wants to be, she needs to find a success with the rifle that thus far we haven’t seen. She’s not fast enough to have great success with low 80’s shooting. To be a top IBU Cup contender and to push for the World Cup she’s going to need to get that shooting up to 85-86%. Once she gets there we’ll see a few more of those top 20’s turn into top 10’s on the IBU Cup.
Selina Kastl (22)
The 22 year old Selina Marie Kastl has thus far in her career raced only on the Juniors. I have to imagine that changes in the very near future…as in this season. She really hasn’t shown some of the Juniors talent that many of her German compatriots have had. Don’t get me wrong, she’s been good, and she would dust me, but just two top 10’s in 25 races doesn’t really compare with Grotian or Spark or Tannheimer to name a few. To be fair to Kastl, she is nearly always top 25, and quite consistently in the mid teens. She just struggles to break through into the top 10 on a regular basis.
The hard truth is though, that she isn’t showing significant improvement. Her skiing remained flat year over year. While she was significantly faster than the average biathlete, she fell back compared to the top 10. She actually was exactly the same, 33rd, in overall ski ranking both seasons as well. Her shooting percentages remained unchanged over the last two seasons right at 84%.
For us to start to regain some excitement for Kastl’s long term potential we really want to see her start to move in a positive direction with both shooting and skiing this upcoming season. However, with so much talent up and potential up and down the German roster, it would also be easy to see a future where she gets a little squeezed. It’s a tough situation. Hopefully though, and I mean this sinlerely, Kastl comes out this season with a career best year!
Mareike Braun (23)
Another recent Junior cup graduate, Mareike Braun wrapped up her first full time IBU Cup season in 2022-2023 with a very nice 16th place in the Overall IBU Cup rankings. In 17 races she showed good consistency with 12 top 30s and eight top 20’s. This included a career best 2nd place in the Mass 60 in Canmore, her first ever podium. Closer analysis of performance showed a definite upward trend throughout the season, even before the reduced field events in Canada. While she started with most finishes below 25th, after the eight race of the season she finished worse than 25th just once in nine races to finish out the year. A nice positive trend!
Braun’s improvement was related entirely to her skiing growth. Starting in the 2021-2022 season as a Junior she really made a leap as a skier. She continued that improvement this past season moving from 3.2% slower than the median IBU Cup top 10 skier in 21-22 to just 2.6% slower. An easier way to see this…she went from 50th in overall skiing to 34th year over year. Her shooting though remained persistently stuck. Throughout her Juniors career she remained stuck in the mid 70% range for most of her career. Last season was better than that, but she was still just at 80% overall.
For Braun to keep on moving up the IBU Cup she’s going to need to continue to improve in the skiing just as she has. However, we also need to see that shooting move up as well. Low 80’s isn’t going to cut it unless she unlocks some Selina Grotian-like speed in her legs. I don’t think she’s hiding that, but you never know. So we want to see that improve to the mid 80’s for her to start turning some of those mid teens finishes into top 10s.
Marion Wiesensarter (28)
One of the elder stateswomen of the IBU Cup for the German team, you may get the impression because she’s locked into the IBU Cup that she’s bad. That’s really not the case. Her worst asset is just that she’s 28 while so many of these women are younger. Wiesensarter was solid last year, finishing 13 Overall on the IBU Cup. That’s three straight seasons going 11th, 12th, and 13th Overall on the IBU Cup. She raced just 14 races last season but still managed 9 top 20’s and 6 top 10’s. She also just barely missed her 2nd career win on two occasions, settling for third place instead.
Over the last three seasons as she has entered what has thus far been the peak of her career, Wiesensarter has settled in as really just solid all around biathlete. Last year she was exactly 4% faster than the average IBU Cup biathlete, which was good enough for 14th in the ski rankings. She also shot 85.9% which put her at 14th in the shooting rankings. No surprise then that her year end finish was 13th (would have only been better if she had been 14th!). Sometimes though it’s nice when things work out that cleanly!
For Wiesensarter it’s hard to see what else she can do to get herself to the World Cup. At this point she’s going to need to go super nova and get so hot that they can’t ignore her. That would mean just a run of podiums or wins. I don’t think that there is a big plan to block Wiesensarter from the World Cup. It’s just that there are so many really solid choices and just six spots. Hopefully she finds the best racing of her career this season and makes the decisions even harder!
Juniors
These women are, thus far at least, completely Junior racers. However, as we’ll see with some of these women that won’t be the case for very long. I think that we’ll see a few of these move up relatively soon. Regardless, I’m going to try my best to stay brief with most of these women.
Johanna Puff (21)
One of the more experienced Juniors on this list, Johanna Puff is also one of the more experienced of the German Junior Women. So far she has two full seasons with parts of two others for a total of 30 Junior Cup races. She’s seen three wins, five podiums, and 14 top 10’s. So not quite the ratio of Selina Grotian but still pretty decent. If there is one hole in her resume though, she doesn’t yet have Youth or Junior Worlds success yet. So far she has a career best Worlds finish of 12th in Pursuit and just five top 20’s in 11 races.
At this, still quite early, juncture in her career Puff is having her success mostly through her skiing. When not racing at Worlds or Junior European champs she is almost always one of the fastest women around. When championship season comes around though, that’s when she isn’t quite as fast compared to the top women. Her shooting continues to be pretty good. She’s generally been in the mid 80’s, but last season she dipped to 81.5% total hit rate. Looking at her race by race data, she was actually hitting quite well last season until championship season. At Junior European and Junior Worlds she hit just 75%. Also, interestingly enough, three of her four seasons of competition her shooting time has been 31 seconds. Oddly consistent!
Puff’s next step, and this is her last chance on the Junior level, is to go and get that success on the championship level. Let’s see it Johanna! Honestly though, I think that she’ll spend most of the season on the IBU Cup and maybe just race Junior European Championships and Junior World Championships. I’m hopeful that in this last go around she gets those top finishes! If she can keep climbing with the skiing and keep the shooting together, hopefully we’ll see some decent IBU Cup finishes too.
Julia Tannheimer (18)
From a woman with many Juniors races to one with just 11 races, we now get Julia Tannheimer. The differences don’t stop there, while Puff doesn’t have as much success with the championships, Tanneheimer has plenty! In those 11 races she has 7 top 10’s and 5 of those are at Youth Worlds. That includes two gold medals last season at Youth Worlds including the Sprint and the Pursuit.
Tannheimer is very fast. In her 11 races she’s outside the top 5 in course time rank just one time. She’s been top 3 in course time in 9 of 11 races. Easy to see how she’s won so much! However, her shooting is stuck in the low 70’s and her shooting time is around 37 seconds per shooting.
Tannheimer is just 18 years old but you can see the potential is there. She’s not quite Selina Grotian level, but she has potential to be quite good. There is still a LOT of time. She will need to see the ski speed continuing to develop along it’s current trajectory. If she can remain one of the top fastest women that gives her some leeway with the shooting (see Elvira Oeberg). However even Elvira needed to get to at least the low to mid 80’s to be competitive on the World Cup. And of course we’ll need the shooting speed to continue to improve. Let’s be hopeful for her!
Marlene Fichtner (20)
20 year old Marlene Fichtner has two full seasons and 17 races on the Junior Cup over the last two seasons. After only racing Youth Worlds in 21-22 she hit every race that she could in 2022-2023. She ended up with 9 top 10’s in 14 races. She only ended up with one podium and a couple of top 5’s and she only had two top 10’s in her six Junior European and Junior World championships. Overall it was a pretty good first full season.
So far in her early career Fichtner has proven to be a really good shooter and a pretty good skier. Last season she hit 88.6% total shooting with 93.3% prone shooting. Really good stuff. That put her 6th amongst all women who competed in at least three Junior Cup races. Her skiing isn’t bad either. She finished ranked 31st in overall skiing and she was quite a bit faster than average. Her average course time rank was 17th for the season but in the championship season she was more in the teens and 20’s vs the top 10 in the earlier events.
Fichtner is so far a solid biathlete. Not many Juniors shoot as well as she does already. If she can maintain that she’s got a chance. Still, she’ll need to be a little bit faster. At just 20 years old there is plenty of room and opportunity to grow, especially when practicing against Selina Grotian and Julia Tannheimer. But not everybody has to be a top 10 Overall on the World Cup contender. A career like Janina Hettich-Walz is really good too! I’m really hopeful that Fichtner can be another really strong addition to the German squad!
Julia Kink (19)
For Julia Kink, 2022-2023 was her first season of racing on the IBU level. When she started on the Juniors level she didn’t have immediate success. But she sure ended the season on a high! Over the first nine races, hitting all three of the regular Junior Cup starts, she was primarily in the 20’s with a high finish of 8th. Over the last four races, the last race of Junior European championships and Youth Worlds she finished in the top 10 every time. At Youth Worlds she was on a different level finishing with gold in the Individual and back to back Silvers in Sprint and Pursuit.
For Kink her success was a result of her exceptional skiing. She was top three in course time rank at Youth Worlds in every race. Even before Youth Worlds she was top 10 in course time rank seven of ten races. Her shooting wasn’t terrible but definitely could stand some improvement. She was 75.5% for the season with pretty even splits. This is a story similar to Julia Tannheimer. She isn’t quite as fast as Tannheimer but just in that she has some good ski talent and now we just want to see it continue to develop, while we also hope that her shooting catches up!
Lea Zimmerman (18)
Lea Zimmerman has only raced six times over the last three seasons. She raced Youth Worlds in 2021 and then again in 2023. Not surprisingly, racing at just 16 years old at Youth Worlds in 2021 it was more of a learning experience. Last season though, more close in age to her competitors, she finished 10th in Individual, 15th in Sprint, and 7th in Pursuit. All leaps and bounds better than 2021.
Zimmerman, as with most of her German teammates, is a better skier than shooter. Last season with her improved successes she finished 8th, 13th, and 6th in course time rank respectively. Her average course time rank was 9th, which was a touch behind Grotian (1st) and Tannheimer (4th). She’s not quite as fast as Tannheimer and Grotian so she needs to shoot a little better. However, her shooting was decent as well going 80%, 70%, and 85%. Just 80% overall but still better than those two.
For Zimmerman let’s hope to see some improvement on the skis. While we can’t expect her to be dominant, she still is just 18. There is lots of time and room for growth. No reason that she can’t continue to get faster and eventually form a top speed squad with her teammates. She also, already a better shooter, can still grow with her shooting too. 80% is good for right now, but 85%? That would be great. She also made a big jump from 40 seconds to 34 seconds per shooting so a few more seconds per shooting would be big too. Let’s see some more racing and some more improvement!
Iva Moric (19)
Iva Moric, with just five IBU races to her name, is one of the least experienced German women on the team. That doesn’t mean she’s without success though! At the 2022 Youth Worlds in Soldier Hollow she won silver in Individual, bronze in Sprint, and 6th in Pursuit. That’s pretty darn good! Last season she raced two races, just the Individual and Sprint in Obertilliach, and then we didn’t see her again.
It’s hard to say what kind of biathlete Moric is. Her shooting in these five races has been outrageously good. She’s hit 78 of her 80 shots for a 98.75% shooting percentage. I mean that’s just not sustainable right? Right? It would certainly be historic. Her skiing has been a little difficult to pin down. At Youth Worlds in 2022 her course time ranks were 12, 11, and 13 for each race. In her two IBU Junior Cup races last season though she was just 54th and 56th fastest. She was racing some older women, but still it shouldn’t have done that much. Long story short, we’re still waiting to see who she is.
Magdalena Rieger (20)
20 year old Magdalena Rieger made her IBU Career debut last season and ran a full season with 13 races. She comes in bearing a heavy burden with a name like this. Over the three regular Junior Cup stops she had five top 10’s in eight starts including a podium in her first weekend of competition. However on Junior European Championships and Junior Worlds she only had one finish better than 30th.
In her one season of competition she had a even year in regards to her statistics. She shot 80% overall, good for 41st overall, and was decent on the skis finishing 24th in overall skiing. Breaking down the skiing a little further, over the first eight races, prior to Junior European championships, her course time rank averaged about 9th. Over Junior European and World championships it averaged 22nd. So clearly against the more full fields she wasn’t quite as fast. Going forward we’ll want to see across the board continued improvement. However, with just one year of IBU racing I don’t think we’ve nearly seen the best of Magdalena Rieger yet. Here’s to hoping for a season of growth and improvement!
Charlotte Gallbronner (20)
We close out the women’s list with Charlotte Gallbronner. Gallbronner has just four races in her career She raced twice at the 2020 Youth Worlds and then raced twice in Obertilliach. Clearly the time off allowed her to grow up a little bit and get a little stronger. In 2020 her finishes were 46th and 66th. Then last season her finishes were 18th and 10th. She was quite a bit faster but it also helps when you hit 93.3% of your shots. I’m just hoping we don’t have to wait two more years to see her race again!
Men
While the women seem to be filled with a large number of competitive biathletes all in their early to mid 20’s, the men appear to be in the midst of a generational change. Benedikt Doll represents the last vestiges of the old guard, a long string of athletes that competed at the highest levels of biathlon including Sven Fischer, Simon Schemp, and Arnd Peiffer. When he leaves the connection to that will be faded away. Are the pieces there ready to keep German biathlon in the top tier of biathlon nations?
Quota: 6 Athletes to Start
The Clear Leader
Benedikt Doll (33)
Benedikt Doll waited until he was 32 to have the best Overall finish of his career. After six top 10 Overall finishes in eight seasons, in 2022-2023 Doll raced to a 4th place finish. His remarkable season included 22 top 20’s in 25 races, 11 top 10’s which tied for 2nd most in his career, 7 top 5s, the most of his career and his 4th victory ever. It seemed that Doll, following Peiffer and Lesser, might be headed for retirement at the end of the season. We were lucky though, that he decided to come back for at least one more season!
Doll, at his core, is a great skier. He’s been almost always somewhere between 5-10 in the overall ski rankings. The one down season in his skiing, when he finished 13th, was 21-22 when he shot 84%. It seemed he “wasted” his good shooting year on his worst skiing year and he might have completely lost his chance at a really high Overall finish. But last year he put it all together as he finished 8th.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2017-2018 | 87.8 | 79.5 | 83.7 | 27.6 |
| 2018-2019 | 89.3 | 70.2 | 79.8 | 27.7 |
| 2019-2020 | 82.9 | 79.4 | 81.2 | 27.6 |
| 2020-2021 | 84 | 78.1 | 81.4 | 28.4 |
| 2021-2022 | 91 | 77 | 84 | 29.8 |
| 2022-2023 | 87.1 | 82.4 | 84.7 | 27.6 |
It really comes down to Doll’s shooting and last season he hit 84.8%, good enough for the best of his career. This accounts for the improved consistency and his best Overall finish. It also included the first perfect 20/20 race he had ever run, which not surprisingly ended in victory in the Individual in Oestersund. It was part of a great late season run that saw Doll five straight top 10’s, including four top 5’s and vault up to 4th in the Overall.
Bennie Doll has been a remarkably consistent and steady competitor on the World Cup. As noted above he always skis fast. It’s all about can he get his shooting from the low 80% range to the mid 80’s. For Doll that’s the difference between an Overall finish in the lower half of the top 10 vs. the upper half. It is what separates him from being really good from the best. It’s hard to predict Doll being anything other than strong on the skis again. We’ll know how his season is going to unfold by how he shoots. Mid 80’s and he’s aiming for another great season. Low 80’s and we can expect him right around 10th in the Overall. Let’s hope for another career best shooting season!
Likely World Cup Regulars
After we get past Bennie Doll the level of athlete starts to drop off just a little bit. While none of these athletes are exactly bad, they aren’t competing on the same level as Doll. Each of these athletes is capable of jumping up and grabbing a high finish. But also I don’t think any of us expect these athletes to be competing regularly for podiums or even flowers. I have them listed below roughly in my order of confidence.
Roman Rees (30)
Roman Rees has been racing on at least the IBU Cup since 2012 and the 2022-2023 season was his best ever as a professional biathlete. While the prior generation was in full bloom, Rees also hadn’t quite found his footing on the senior IBU levels yet. He’s been a regular on the World Cup the last season and last season was easily his best yet as he finished 9th in the World Cup Overall standings. That was actually his best ever finish at any level. Last season he ran 25 races, achieved his 2nd podium, six top 5’s, and 11 top 10’s. All in all a successful season by any measure.
Think of Rees as the inverse of Benedikt Doll. For year’s he’s been a good shooter but we’ve been waiting for the skiing to come around. Last season it certainly did. He ended up ranked 23rd overall in skiing which was definitely his best ever. By the numbers he improved from a career average around 1% faster than he average biathlete all the way to 2.5% faster. He did this while also holding his shooting not only steady, but near career highs as he hit 90% overall with even splits. He also managed to have his 2nd fastest shooting season of the last five years at 28.7 seconds on average.
At this point it would be hard to see Rees going back to the IBU Cup. First of all there is a lack of other amazing options. But also he was a top 10 on the Overall last season! He’s 30 so he should be in peak physical condition. He’s always been a good shooter and with him being 30 there is no reason to think his skiing will collapse. Sure, he might have a little regression to the average, but there is also at least a small chance that he could get even faster. Right now, let’s remain optimistic that he’s going to continue to fight for an Overall top 10 finish.
Justus Strelow (26)
Speaking of German men having career best seasons we have Justus Strelow. After two consecutive top finishes on the IBU Cup at 6th and 5th Strelow got a full season on the World Cup. He took advantage, showing off his incredible shooting, and finishing 21st Overall. He took part in 24 races and finished top 20 in 15 of them including his first three career top 10’s. This included a career best 8th place finish in the Ruhpolding Mass Start.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2017-2018 | 91.8 | 89.4 | 90.6 | 28.3 |
| 2018-2019 | 89.2 | 84.6 | 86.9 | 32 |
| 2020-2021 | 90 | 84.7 | 87.3 | 30.4 |
| 2021-2022 | 92.5 | 85.5 | 89 | 30.5 |
| 2022-2023 | 91.9 | 88.1 | 90 | 28.7 |
Strelow came to the World Cup as a solid shooter. Over the last several years on the IBU Cup he was regularly in the mid to upper 80% range. This year he was even better. He shot 90% including a stunning 97.5% prone shooting. He shot a ridiculous 195 for 200 laying on the mats behind only Sturla Holm Laegreid and of course Simon Eder. Speaking of Eder, after the elder statesman set the record for most prone hits in a row, Strelow broke that record and as of this writing he’s still rolling. He hasn’t missed a prone shot since the Individual race in Ruhpolding way back on January 11th, 2023. He did all of this while being one of the fastest shooters on the World Cup averaging just 25.3 seconds per shooting, putting him 12th fastest.
For Strelow to be competitive he needs to ski well. While he still isn’t fast, he’s getting better. Last season he finally cracked the average line to be a little faster than average. He ended the season ranked 45th overall. That put him in line with men like Peppe Femling and funny enough the above mentioned Simon Eder (who was still a touch faster than Strelow!).
Justus Strelow had a really nice season last year. I like to think I saw it coming. My prediction was that if he stayed on the IBU Cup he could compete for the #1 Overall spot and if was on the World Cup he would finish around 20th Overall. Well he went to the World Cup and was 21st in the Overall. Now the goal is to break down the door and crash the top 20. The shooting is there. He probably won’t shoot that amazing prone again, but shooting around 88-90 is likely based on his history. So the goal now is to get a little faster. If he can bump up from 45th overall to say….35th fastest that would absolutely put him in top 15-20 range. We know that because SImon Eder 43rd overall in skiing last season and shot 2% better. So that’s the goal, get to 35th fastest on the World Cup and the rest should take care of itself including a couple more top 10s and maybe a top 5?
Johannes Kuehn (31)
While Justus Strelow is a relative newcomer to the World Cup, Johannes Kuehn has been around for a few years. He’s competed there for the last nine seasons including more or less in full for the last six years. During those six years he has Overall finishes of 28th, 28th, 13th, 46th, and 11th and then last season he finished 26th. So more or less what I’m trying to say is Johannes Kuehn is either the most or least consistent biathlete we’ll see. Three different seasons between either 28th or 26th is pretty unique. But then to throw in 13th, 46th, and 11th, it’s just hard to picture.
Really what I think we are seeing is that there are really two Johannes Kuehns. The first is the boom or bust Kuehn. He was either finishing very high or outside the top 20. It evened out to 28th for two straight years. In his two years he was more consistently boom while the 46th was consistently bust. 2022-2023 was similar consistency to his 11th and 13th place seasons, just not as good overall. Or to put a more optimistic spin on it. He was just as consistent as his 46th place season but better. The reason I say this is comparing his 26th place overall to the 28th place overall we see fewer high end finishes and more top 20’s. Obviously not better or worse, just more consistent.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2017-2018 | 81.8 | 68.2 | 74.4 | 34 |
| 2018-2019 | 82.9 | 66.3 | 74.8 | 33.2 |
| 2019-2020 | 93.5 | 62.9 | 78.2 | 30.7 |
| 2020-2021 | 88.2 | 61.8 | 75 | 33 |
| 2021-2022 | 89.4 | 68.2 | 78.8 | 31.9 |
| 2022-2023 | 89.4 | 68.9 | 79.2 | 28.9 |
In general, regardless of the results, the athlete we see is a fast one with significant shooting struggles. Year in and year out he ranks as a top 15 overall skier, just as he did last season slotting in at 15th on the dot. That puts him in the realm of Giacomel and Jacquelin for comparison. The shooting though is where the boom/bust comes in. Last season’s 79.2% overall shooting was the best of his World Cup career outside of five races in 2014-2015. He shoots a really good 89.4% prone. And that’s not fluke because he’s always there. The problem is his standing shooting is just not good, failing to break 70% basically every season.
Having said all of that, does it offer any prediction for which Johannes Kuehn we may seen in 2023-2024? Probably not. Truthfully, any of those three versions of Kuehn could show up and I wouldn’t be surprised. That’s the nature of being a more or less boom or bust guy for most of your career. However, if we can allow ourselves to be hopeful, a slightly more accurate standing shooting would lead to tremendous gains. Even hitting just 75% standing would be phenomenal.
Philipp Nawrath (30)
Philipp Nawrath, at age 30, and with a reasonably successful IBU Cup standpoint, you would expect him to have a little more time spent on the World Cup. Last year though was just his third season of consistent World Cup racing in his career. He did pretty well with three top 10’s and tied his career best with a 4th in the Oestersund Individual race. He ended the season 28th overall just two spots behind Kuehn. Which is appropriate as you’ll see below.
As to what Philipp Nawrath looks like from a statistics standpoint see above under Johannes Kuehn. I’m only half kidding. Being roughly the same age they compete in an incredibly similar manner. Both are fast with inconsistent shooting. Both hit prone significantly better than standing. The difference for Nawrath is really you just round off the edges a little bit. His prone isn’t quite as good and his standing isn’t quite as bad. So while Kuehn struggles to break 80% total shooting Nawrath can at least sneak into the low 80’s.
So can we expect Nawrath to improve. Basically just read what I wrote for Kuehn. If the shooting is more consistent the speed is there and he can get himself into any race. It’s just the shooting, primarily standing, that has to come along.
World Cup vs. Top of the IBU Cup
This next group feels like it is either going to spend considerable time on the World Cup or dominate the IBU Cup. They all feel too good to permanently be on the IBU Cup, but none have run away with their World Cup chances. So we’ll see again what they do!
Lucas Fratzscher (29)
Lucas Fratzscher is the proof point for the above statement. Over the last five season’s he’s crushed it on the IBU Cup. His overall finishes in order are: 2nd, 1st, 15th, 4th, 2nd. So why does he remain on the IBU Cup rather than just bumping up permanently to the World Cup? That’s actually a pretty good question. Each season, like last year, he gets about 3-5 World Cup starts. And while he isn’t dominant he also isn’t horrible. Last year for example, In Oslo he finished 27th and 21st. Not setting the world on fire with that, but not bad at all.
Fratzscher fits more of the Kuehn and Nawrath biathlete profile. Last season on the IBU Cup of everybody that raced at least a trimester he ranked 12th overall in skiing. He’s been consistently in that range for the last several years. He’s basically as fast as anybody who isn’t Norwegian on the IBU Cup…and he’s even as fast as a couple of the younger Norwegians ha! Just as with the other two though, the problem comes on the range. Last season’s 83.3% was a high point (and beat both Nawrath and Kuehn!). Also like those two he dominates the prone, hitting 93.3 while struggling on the standing.
Do I need to say it again? Fix the standing shooting and Fratzscher will fix a lot of his issues. He would become a must start on the World Cup. Leave the standing alone and it feels like Fratzscher falls behind Kuehn and Nawrath because those two are faster. All things being equal, take the faster ones. So what Fratzscher has to do is make them unequal by fixing his standing shooting!
Philip Horn (29)
Philip Horn is another IBU Cup regular who has turned in some really nice IBU Cup Overall finishes the last few seasons. Starting in 2017-2018 and each year afterward sans 2019-2020 he’s gone: 17th, 10th, 18th, 8th, 7th. That one year he wasn’t on the IBU Cup he was on the World Cup and finished 18th Overall. Last season on the IBU Cup he scooped up 11 top 10’s in 17 races including three podiums and a victory. Just like Fratzscher he too got a handful of World Cup starts last season and actually did fairly well. He had a 19th in Annecy and a 24th in Oslo.
Horn is, you guessed it, build just like Kuehn, Nawrath, and Fratzscher. He’s a fast skier and inconsistent shooter. Last season he ranked 11th in overall skiing on the IBU Cup, exactly 1 spot ahead of Fratzscher. And on the range he hit 82.3%, exactly 1% worse than Fratzscher. The two were basically identical last season. And honestly that’s been who Horn has been his entire career. Regular top 10-15 skiing paired with okay shooting. The key difference here, and this is big, he actually has fairly even split hitting 80% prone and 84.6% standing. Celebrate a good standing shooting!
For Horn, it’s not as easy as it was for the prior three. Sure, improve the shooting. However he doesn’t have one really bad shooting that is relatively low hanging fruit. This will require general across the board improvement with his shooting. It’s a tough pull. Really it feels like two of the four of Kuehn, Nawrath, Fratzscher and Horn will be on the World Cup. Traditionally Kuehn and Nawrath have been favored and I think more than likely that happens again barring a sudden improvement from Fratzscher and Horn.
David Zobel (27)
Finally! A German man who isn’t in his late 20’s or early 30’s! Just barely avoiding that distinction is David Zobel who somehow feels relatively youthful even if that isn’t the truth. peaking of his youth, while a Junior he did rank 3rd Overall in the Junior Cup in 2016-2017 so there has been a little excitement about him even if it’s taken him a bit to establish on the World Cup. In the last two seasons though Zobel has received plenty of run on the World Cup and he’s making the most of it. After finishing 33rd in the Overall in his first full World Cup season, Zobel improved that to 24th in 2022-2023 bringing home a career best three top 10’s including a new career best 3rd in the Kontiolahti Individual race.
Unlike nearly all of the men we listed before, Zobel isn’t traditionally a powerful skier who strikes when he shoots hot. Zobel is fairly pedestrian by comparison to some of his teammates, ranking just fifth fastest on the World Cup on his own team. The only one he beat out was the sharp shooting Justus Strelow. Unfortunately, Zobel also hasn’t managed to be a superior shooter either. Last season’s 85.8% with 91.1% prone was definitely solid. However, it was also the 2nd best of his career so it’s not like we can easily expect him to have a positive regression. He’s also not a speedster on the range shooting on average in 29.8 seconds which is pretty middle of the road.
So the news for Zobel is both good and bad. The good news is he has plenty of opportunities to succeed. He can get a little faster, a little better at shooting, and a little faster. Just relatively moderate improvements to all three categories would lead to large gains. However, that also means the bad news, he really does need to get better everywhere. There is no one thing he can simply rely on like the speedsters ahead of him.
Last season he made improvements to his skiing with a little bit worse shooting and still moved up nearly 10 positions in the Overall. Further skiing improvement with a rebound of his shooting would likely land him somewhere between 15-20 in the Overall. I don’t believe what Antonin Guigonnat achieved, 19th Overall while ranking 21st in skiing and shooting 81.5% is out of the question. Of course we would expect Zobel to be a little cloer to maybe 25th in skiing and 86% shooting to replicate that result. But a top 20 Overall is definitely possible!
Dominic Schmuck (27)
Dominic Schmuck last season probably had the best season of anybody I didn’t hear anything about. I’m not sure I heard or read his name a single time all season. But all he did was finish 8th in the IBU Cup which was easily the highest finish of his career at any level, Junior or IBU Cup. He did it with pure grit and consistency. He ran 22 races and was top 20 a whopping 19 times. However he only broke into the top 10 on six occasions. He had two top 5’s and no podiums. Last year he was the opposite of boom or bust. He was low ceiling but ultra high floor which probably explains why we never heard about him. He just plugged along collecting decent finishes but never standing out.
He’s never really stood out anywhere in his career. In his two Juniors seasons he was never amazing and he had just two top 10 finishes. Then prior to this season he had just four top 10’s on the IBU Cup total. It’s no wonder he was flying under the radar. So how did he improve his performance just enough?
It looks like he improved his shooting just enough to keep himself in contention in many races. He ended the season hitting 87.7% total with a prone/standing split of 90.9% and 84.6%. But his skiing remained slow enough so that he couldn’t take advantage and turn those into more top 10’s or better. He ended the year ranked 40th in skiing and was just marginally faster than prior years. Looking at the individual finishes it seems like every other race he’s finishing 14, 15, or 16. A couple of 11ths in there as well.
Schmuck is knocking at the doorstep. If he can learn just a little bit from so many of his teammates, and find just a touch more speed, he’s going to be really good. He doesn’t need to be blazing, he just has to be a little bit faster. Rather than 40th overall being 25th overall would do wonders. I really hope he can do it! And he’s not going under my radar this season!
IBU Cup and Pushing Upward
This mini group consists of three young men who I believe have the potential to be part of the core of the next generation for German biathlon. Nothing against the large number of 27-30 year olds (I’m rooting for all of them!), but it’s these guys that I’m starting to watch more closely.
Simon Kaiser (24)
Simon Kaiser is basically a baby compared to everybody else we’ve talked about so far. Even still he already has three seasons of primarily IBU Cup racing to analyze. Those three years have been a very steady upward trend. From basically not scoring on the IBU Cup, to finishing 42nd, and last season 17th. His season last year was even a microcosm of this. He seemingly got better every single week. He started the season finishing in the 20’s and 30’s. By the time Obertilliach came around he had five top 10’s in seven races.
Finishing 17th Overall on the IBU Cup doesn’t mean he’s on the express to success on the World Cup, but seeing that level of improvement over three years is great. Especially considering he has basically no Juniors success to speak of. As a Junior he ran just six races and had one miracle top 5. The rest of his finishes were between 26th and 43rd.
Thus far Kaiser’s rise has been tied to his improving skiing. On the IBU Cup his average course time rank per season is 55th, 32nd and 20th. Compared to average IBU Cup racer last season he was up to a solid 5.1% faster which was good enough for 15th overall in skiing. His success on the range is more limited as of yet as he hit just 72.3% last year. still he’s improved by 2-3% overall per season the last two years. Still a LONG way to go to be good though. He’s also brought his shooting times down from an average of 34.9 seconds to just over 30 seconds.
From all reports Kaiser has continued to impress over the summer. I believe that he’s in the mix for one of the World Cup spots. Although he probably won’t get it that’s a very encouraging sign to see. Kaiser has made considerable progress skiing, and I would love to see that continue. Assuming he’s on the IBU CUp most of the season, a top 10 season in skiing has to be in his sights. The shooting also needs a ton of work. While I would love to say let’s aim for mid 80s, that is the eventual goal. Right now let’s shoot for 78% or so. That would be his biggest single season improvement. While it wouldn’t be good it would make him much more competitive. It was an improvement in shooting, namely cutting out the number of really bad days that helped his late season surge. Hopefully that’s a sign of more to come!
Hans Koellner (22)
While Hans Koellner has just two IBU Cup races in his career to this point it seems like he’s almost certainly going to spend the majority of the season there this year. Instead he’s spent most of his time on the Juniors were he has 34 races in the past four seasons. In those 34 races he has one win (which came last season at the Junior European Championships), three podiums, 10 top 10’s and a pile of top 20’s. The vast majority of this success came last season when he finished 2nd Overall on the Junior Cup.
Koellner, clearly unlike Kaiser, has plenty of Juniors success and Juniors data to analyze. Koellner has in the last two seasons started to look like a very well rounded biathlete. His skiing started improving markedly about two years ago. His average course time rank last season was up to an average of 13.4 which is the best of his young career. He combines this with his steady shooting. Throughout his career he’s maintained his shooting average between 85% and 89% with last season coming in at 86.8% overall.
Koellner’s progress has been steady, just like Kaiser’s, except happening maybe 1-2 years earlier. I am not saying Koellner will be better than Kaiser. It’s far too early and they are too different. But Kaiser so far has had a much more rapid improvement than Koellner. On the other hand Koellner just started at a higher level. If Koellner spends most of the season on the IBU Cup, and shows decent progression in skiing he should come out around Dominic Schmuck in skiing. We’ve seen what Schmuck did with that skiing and good shooting, the 8th Overall in the IBU Cup. Regardless, these two hold promise and should continue to be followed closely throughout the season.
Benjamin Menz (21)
The youngest of these three, Benamin Menz has had more success on the Junior level than Kaiser or Koellner put together. This includes absolutely shining at Junior Worlds last year, starting with gold in the Individual and then going 6th and 4th in Sprint and Pursuit. In total he has two victories and nine top 10’s in 16 races on the Junior level over the last three years. However he also has no IBU Cup starts to it’s a little more difficult for us to make comparisons. With this success though he feels like he’s deserving of a good run in the IBU Cup next season.
Menz’s success appears to be coming on all fronts right now. He’s showing growth in every area of biathlon. Last year was the fastest of his short career. He was almost always top 8 in course time rank including going 2nd, 7th, and 4th in ski times at Junior Worlds. That was a huge step forward for him year over year. His average course time rank improved from 36th to 9th. At the same time his shooting has been getting better every year. He started out at 80% two years ago and last season was up to 86.7% overall which put him 6th overall on the Junior Cup, one spot behind Koellner. Almost more importantly he’s already averaging 28.5 seconds per shoot. That puts him near the very fastest in the Juniors last year.
I probably am not doing a good enough job expressing it but I’m pretty excited for these three young men. I couldn’t pick just one from this bunch as the obvious best of the group. I’m really quite optimistic for Benjamin Menz. He appears to not only be showing well in every area of biathlon but also that was a substantial skiing improvement he made. If he makes just a little improvement he could go straight in to the IBU Cup and immediately make a move for the top 10 in the Overall. These three definitely have a strong chance to lead the next generation of German men.
Solid IBU Cup Dudes
These four men I really don’t know what to do with. I almost didn’t even write anything for them because quite honestly, while I’m sure they are all good guys, they just aren’t exciting. They all seem to be middle of the road IBU Cup biathletes. They all deserve the opportunity to go out there and compete as they are good enough for that. However, none of them really look like they improving at this point. Some of them only raced a few times last season. There isn’t a whole lot of news about them so it’s hard to track down exactly why some decisions were made. Regardless, I don’t think we’ll see too much of them this season at all. I’m pretty much just going to leave them here as a list. If you want to read more about them go ahead and check out their realbiathlon.com pages.
Marco Gross (26) – Every season I think this is the one where he breaks out. I’ll keep hoping!
Darius Lodl (23) – This is the only one on the list I feel a little weird about. He’s still so young but he raced so infrequently. and I couldn’t see why. I don’t know what to do with him.
Johannes Donhauser (29) – Appeared to be fairly solid once again, finishing in the teens and 20’s with some decent skiing and shooting. However raced just 9 times. No idea why.
Danilo Riethmuller (23) – Also young like Lodl. Consistently finishing in the 30-40s on the IBU Cup. He may just be a late bloomer. We’ll keep an eye out for his name.
Juniors
And finally we come to the Junior German men. If you’ve made it this far good on you! The German men have one of the largest rosters that I reviewed so this was a HUGE effort by you! I’ll try to keep it brief down here! But there are still a couple of men to watch down here
Fabian Kaskel (20)
After racing in the 2019-2020 Youth Worlds we didn’t see Kaskel at all in 20-21. However, over the last two seasons the Kaskel that we have seen is one that is getting a little stronger. After a 21-22 campaign that saw him grab one top 10 in six races, he came back last year and got into the top 10 6 times in 13 races. After a very strong Junior European champs, and coming off a run of five straight top 10’s, he took a bit of a dip on the biggest stage of the season, finishing 23rd, 12th, and 8th in the three Junior World Champs races. Even with that he still finished 6th Overall on the Junior Cup.
Kaskel so far in his young career hasn’t shown a preference for skiing or shooting. Instead he’s just pretty good at both. Not dominant at anything, but just pretty good. His average course time rank was 19th last season and that’s about where he finished against the top competition at Junior Worlds. His shooting decent for the Juniors, finishing at 79.5% with a slight advantage on prone shooting. And his shooting speed is right around 30 seconds.
For Kaskel to take the next step, and be in the Kaiser, Menz, Koellner group he just needs to make a little bit of improvement everywhere. There is no one place where he is really bad. But also no one area where he excels. So just continued broad improvement would be best. That’s our hope for him this season!
Albert Engelmann (18)
Of all of the Junior Germans, I think that Albert Engelmann is so far my favorite of the bunch. First of all whenever I see a German with the name Albert E I think of Einstein, and he’s a bit of a hero to my father so that my play a role. But also, Engelmann is pretty darn good in his own right. Each of the last two seasons he’s excelled at Youth Worlds winning four medals in six races. Last year he even had his best success in the regular Junior Cup races against all u23’s, finishing 12th and 4th in the races in Obertilliach. The only “hole” in his resume is that he doesn’t have a win yet.
As with most of the top Germans, Engelmann, at least at this early juncture of his career. Is a really good skier. His average course time rank last season was 9th. At Youth Worlds his course time ranks were 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. In six Youth Worlds races he’s never been anything worse than 3rd fastest. Pretty pretty good. To have those finishes he can’t be a bad shooter and that’s the case here as Engelmann shot 74.2% last year which was actually down from 82.5% the year prior.
Engelmann has shown some really good top level speed. To compare him to another top Junior German, he’s not quite as fast as Selina Grotian is on the women’s level. Nobody is. However he’s good enough. He has the ski ability that could take him to a career like Benedikt Doll. Seriously, compared to Doll he is racing at a similar speed at a similar age. The key is he needs to continue to develop that skill while also working on his precision with the rifle a little bit. If he can continue this course of development I see a really solid World Cup future on hand.
Erik Hafenmair (19)
We don’t know much about Erik Hafenmair as he has raced just three times total in his Juniors career all of which came at Youth Worlds last year. In those three races he finished 12th in the Individual, 7th in Sprint and 6th in Pursuit. That’s a really solid start to an IBU Career! He measured up pretty well against his cohort finishing with course time ranks of 16, 6, and 10. I mean he wasn’t running away from everybody, but that’s not bad. Hard to learn too much from just three races as shooting can be up and down but he also managed 78% for the week with an average shooting time of 32.8 seconds. I really hope we see more of Hafenmair. It’s so hard to make predictions based on three races, so just more racing…that’s all I want.
Elias Seidl (19)
Elias Seidl has raced a little more than Hafenmair, competing in nine races over the last two seasons on the Junior Cup with all of those occurring at either Youth Worlds or Junior European Championships. Over that time he’s been decent with a high finish of 7th last season in Pursuit, just behind Hafenmair. He also had a 14th in the Junior European Sprint and 12th in the Youth Worlds Sprint. Besides those races though he’s primarily been in the 20’s-30’s. Like I said, decent, but not great.
He’s thus far been unremarkable in either skiing or shooting. He did manage to rank 10th, 9th, and 16th in skiing at Youth Worlds last year which could be sign of improving ski performance on the horizon. Shooting meanwhile has been okay but not great. In 8 of his 9 races he’s shot between 70-80% with the single outlier being a 10/10 at the Junior European Sprint where he finished 14th. For Seidl I’m hoping that his late season speed surge carries over to this year. And let’s hope for those 70%-80%’s to move to 75%-85%. Not a huge jump but it would be significant in showing his future.
Oscar Barchewitz (21)
Oscar Barchewitz has one of the most curious racing patterns over the last few seasons. Most juniors who race only a couple of times per year will focus on Youth/Junior Worlds. Barchewitz, however, seems to avoid them. He started his career at Youth Worlds but since then has only raced regular Junior Cup events all of which have been in Italy. Makes me wonder if travel is an issue here? Not like in a bad or negative way, just a preference.
Regardless of the reason, our Italian loving German Junior, Barchewitz has finished with two top 10’s, one each of the last few seasons. The rest of the time he’s usually mid teens to 20-30’s. Barchewitz is a tremendous shooter at this early point in his career. Last season, his best yet, he hit 90% of his shots. Now it’s just a matter of catching up on the skis where thus far he’s lagged pretty far behind. Let’s hope for Barchewitz two things: 1) improved skiing and 2) we see him race more this year!
Tim Nechwatal (19)
Tim Nechwatal rounds out our enormous overview of the German men. Nechewatal, more the norm than Barchewitz, has raced both Youth Worlds in his two seasons of IBU racing along with Junior European championships and Obertilliach last season. Just 10 races into his career he isn’t swimming in success quite yet, but he did end 2022-2023 on the highest note of his career, getting 8th in the Pursuit at Youth Worlds in Kazakhstan. He actually had the 4th best isolated pursuit so not a bad race at all! Otherwise his finishes are usually in the 20’s or a little lower.
In general Nechewatal is a decent skier with top 10 course time ranks at Youth Worlds both last seasons, but the rifle lets him down a little bit. He’s hit just 74% and 69.1% each of the last two seasons. The best single race of his career he hit 80%. Until he he gets better shooting there will be a pretty hard cap on his career. Here’s the good news though, he’s just 19. Lots of time to figure out how to shoot straight. Let’s start this season!
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