Breakthrough Seasons

It’s time for one my favorite exercises of the first trimester…celebrating biathletes in the midst of breakthrough seasons! There is almost nothing in biathlon that I love more than watching athletes reach new levels of success. Sometimes it is finally reaching potential that was seen in Juniors/IBU Cup. Sometimes it is the result of putting in a really hard summer to push to a new level. And sometimes it is the culmination of work that has been years and years in the making. For us as fans, each of these is so much fun to see!

I had meant to write an article before before the season started of my candidates for breakthrough biathletes of the year. I ran out of time but for posterity I wanted to make sure that I had those listed here for anybody to see. I got some right. I missed on some others.

Men:
– Justus Strelow
– Eric Perrot
– Jakub Stvrtecky
– Otto Invenius

Women:
– Vanessa Voigt
– Lou Jeanmonnot
– Janina Hettich-Walz
– Tereza Vobornikova
– Anna Gandler
– Samuela Comola

As you already noted just from a quick review of that list there were some hits and some misses. Probably more misses than hits. And I definitely didn’t call several of the athletes having the biggest breakthroughs! The lesson as always, I’m a dummy a lot of the time. But I do love this sport!

Before we get started the most important thing I want to point out is that there are different levels of breakthroughs. Sometimes it is an athlete who shoots up to the top. Sometimes it’s an athlete who goes from middle of the pack to borderline contention. Or maybe it’s an athlete who just starts scoring points for the first time on a regular basis. These are all breakthroughs worthy of being celebrated. I will mention a handful here that I’ve really enjoyed watching. If there is anybody that you want to shout out please comment below or send me a note on Twitter/Instagram!

Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold

Age	27
Current Rank	2nd
Career Best Rank	6th (22-23)
Total Career Races	149
Key Stat	Average Finish: 5.5

It might seem a little strange to put a woman on this list who has had career finishes of 7th and 6th Overall prior to this year. However, we mentioned above that one of the ways a biathlete can “make the leap” is to take the final, and in many ways hardest leap, and go from being really good to being a contender in the Overall. That’s the move that Tandrevold has made. At least in the first trimester.

It’s hard to put it exactly into words, or even numbers, what she’s done. It almost feels like more of an attitude than anything else. She’s in the fight every race. She is acting like she belongs when she’s on the range at the end with a chance to win. She has already doubled her career win total by winning the Sprint in Hochfilzen. She also showed off this new attitude with an absolutely steely performance in the final leg of the Relay in Hochfilzen. She has a tendency at times to get a little shaky with the standing shooting, particularly the final shoot of a race. In that race though she never let Elvira have a chance.

Instead I chose to focus on her average finishing place of 5.5. I think this goes to show that she has been in the mix almost every single race. Here are her finishes for this season: 7, 6, 5, 1, 3, 2, 15, 5. The only one that stands out in a negative light is that 15th place Pursuit from Lenzerheide where she had a really bad day on the range hitting 15/20. Every other day she’s battling for the victory, or at least the podium. There was a big opening at the top of the Norwegian team to start the season: Was anybody going to be able to fill the hole left by Eckhoff and Roeiseland and be able to battle for wins and the Overall? So far that answer is yes: Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold.

Endre Stroemsheim

Age	28
Current Rank	4th
Career Best Rank	36th (22-23)
Total Career Races	25
Key Stat	Ski Ranking: 5th

It is quite unusual that I have an athlete on this list and yet in an article posted just this week I also discuss why he’s at risk of losing his spot on the Norwegian World Cup team. Such is life as a Norwegian man who wants to be a biathlete in 2023. The truth is that he really is worthy of discussion here. He also really does need to watch his back and keep performing or else he might lose his bib.

You don’t get to be ranked #4 in the Overall without having a very good all around season. So far he’s had five top 10’s in eight races including a well known podium in Lenzerheide. That race in particular was a perfect example of how his skiing has taken him to a new level. While he was having his adventure on the range, Sturla Holm Laegreid built an 18 second advantage on Stroemsheim. Stroemsheim set off at a torrid pace passed Laegreid on his way to 2nd place.

Endre Stroemsheim took the hard path to the World Cup. He won the IBU Cup and then performed so well they couldn’t send him back down when he no longer had his “extra” bib. Not much more substantial leaps that you’ll see this season. We’ll see how the rest of the season plays out but this has been a great start to the season!

Philip Nawrath

Age	30
Current Rank	6th (Best non-Norwegian)
Career Best Rank	18th (21-22)
Total Career Races	79
Key Stat	Shooting Time 27.8 seconds

Philip Nawrath is one of the true surprises of the 2023-2024 seasons. While he’s a name that we are all familiar with I think for most of us he’s become someone we’re comfortable seeing but never expecting a whole lot from. At 30 years old there was really no way to see this coming. Yet, eight races in he’s running better than literally anybody who isn’t from Germany. Before Lenzerheide it would have been easy to dismiss it as just one amazing race that boosted his points. However, the 3rd place in Lenzerheide reinforced the idea that he can, on any given day, compete at the highest level.

Nawrath has always been a boom or bust type athlete. Fast enough that he could find the top 10. Shaky enough on the range that he could fall apart at any time. In particular his standing shooting always seemed to let him down when he was in contention. I was tempted to set his standing shooting percentage of 80%, his best since a brief stint in 2019-2020, as the key stat for this season. However I think his shooting time of 27.8 seconds is actually even more indicative of the improved confidence and shooting. This is nearly 3 seconds faster than any other season he has had. It’s a fairly remarkable improvement and has allowed him to pick up a few extra key seconds. On top of that he’s also skiing at the highest level of his career.

At the end of the day Nawrath is still boom or bust. It’s just that his ceiling is a little higher including his first career win in the Oestersund Sprint. I would be pretty surprised to see Nawrath still 6th Overall by the end of the season. However, I won’t be surprised at all to see Nawrath continue to contend, particularly in Sprints. Is that a contradiction? Probably. But I don’t care.

Karoline Knotten

Age	28
Current Rank	7th
Career Best Rank	18th (22-23)
Total Career Races	91
Key Stat	Ski Rank: 15th

Karoline Knotten is my pick for the breakthrough athlete of the season. There are a lot of really good options but Knotten completely knocked me off my feet in the first trimester. I had come to expect something pretty standard from Knotten: Really good shooting around 90% but pedestrian ski speed. She catches up on the range but loses ground the entire way around the course. It set a pretty hard ceiling on her career that she was only rarely able to break through. As a result just seven top 10’s prior to this season. This year, through just eight races, she already has five!

So what was the big change? Well pretty clearly skiing. Her career best ski ranking prior to this season was last year at 47th. Right now she’s ranked 15th. Prior to this season she was never running faster than average. As of right now she’s 2.9% faster than median. That’s a HUGE jump. Even more impressive because she’s currently 28 and had shown no big improvement in skiing over the last few seasons. Here we are though and she’s made just tremendous improvement. She’s had four of the five best course time ranks of her career this season including her first two top 10’s. In the Hochfilzen Sprint she ranked 5th!

The really great thing is that she’s done this without any big sacrifice to her shooting. Last season was the best of her career as she his 92.1% of her shots. So far this season she’s hitting on 90% total with a career high 93.8% standing shooting. Meanwhile she continues to shoot at a good clip averaging 26 seconds. If Karoline Knotten can keep up this type of speed she takes her ceiling to a whole new level. She’s 7th in the Overall right now and that’s a very accurate reflection of her performance. I would love to see her keep it up!

Lena Haecki-Gross

Age	28
Current Rank	9th
Career Best Rank	19th (22-23)
Total Career Races	183
Key Stat	Podiums: 1

Last season the Swiss biathlon team was one of the feel good stories of the season. They were more or less universally beloved as their athletes, both men and women, continued to surprise with high performances week in and week out. One of the most popular amongst them was Lena Haecki-Gross as she continued to put herself in position with high finishes. However she couldn’t break down the final walls and find the podium. This season though, she has come out performing even better than last season. She’s skiing faster, shooting more accurately, and racing like a top 10 athlete. In the process she found the podium in spectacular fashion.

We covered her weekend at length in the Hochfilzen recap but it’s worth mentioning at least briefly. She missed out on the podium in the Sprint by a heartbreaking 0.1 seconds. It seemed like she was cursed and just couldn’t close the gap. She came out the next day in the Pursuit, though, and she was NOT going to be denied. She shot a beautiful 5/5 for her last shooting and outran Tandrevold at the end to finish 2nd and get just the 2nd podium of her career, and her first since 2019. It also marked the best finish of her career.

It was mentioned above that Haecki-Gross is performing better in just about every metric and that’s plain to see in the graph above. Really her performance has been on the upward trajectory over the last three full seasons. Slowly at first but with an even better improvement over the last year. Her shooting percentage is up to 84.6% which is easily the best of her career and just the second time she’s ever been above 80%. And she’s done this while skiing at the best level of her career. Will she be able to keep this up? Well that’s the question for all of these women. It’s hard to know but with the season about 1/3 done she’s looking like she belongs in the battle for the top 10.

Lou Jeanmonnot

Age	25
Current Rank	10th
Career Best Rank	11th (22-23)
Total Career Races	38
Key Stat	Wins: 2

I really feel like Lou Jeanmonnot 10th place should come with an *asterisk because of missing two races due to COVID. It dropped her down from 2nd in the Overall to 10th. That looks a whole lot different. However, to make up for this I selected a key stat which I think accurately reflects her improvement. Prior to this season Lou Jeanmonnot had just two career top 5’s. In the first trimester Jeanmonnot had two WINS.

So how did she do it? Well that’s actually a bit harder to quantify. She is skiing a little bit faster this season than last as she’s moved from 2.2% faster than median to 3.1% faster which corresponds with an improvement from 19th to 14th in the ski rankings. Shooting is also just a touch better. However, she’s basically one of the best shooters in biathlon and has been for some time now, so moving from 90.3% last season to 92% this season isn’t a HUGE improvement. Really the only hole in her performance is she averages 30.4 seconds in her shooting. Bumping up that and getting into the top 10 in ski speed and she’s one of the favorites for the Overall.

That’s getting ahead of ourselves though! That’s talking about future improvements. What Jeanmonnot did more than anything this first trimester was find a way to finish off great races. She’s done it twice already. Let’s see if she can do it a few more times this season!

Juni Arnekleiv

Age	24
Current Rank	12th
Career Best Rank	Rookie Season
Total Career Races	16
Key Stat	Average Course Time Rank: 14th

Juni Arnekleiv is part of a new generation of Norwegian women that has been moving on the World Cup squad over the last few years including Marthe Krakstad Johansen, Marit Skogan, and at some point Maren Kirkeeide. Arnekleiv, Johansen, and Skogan all got first crack at the World Cup roster to start the season and all three, to varying degrees, have shown why the belong.

Arnekleiv has had just a touch of an up and down season, which isn’t too unusual for younger athletes. She started out the season with her first career podium, a 3rd place in the Oestersund Sprint. She backed that up with a 4th in the Pursuit. However the next weekend she only was able to manage a 42nd in the Sprint in Hochfilzen. She showed major grit coming back with a 21st in the Pursuit. Then in Lenzerheide she grabbed two more top 10’s including an 8th in the Mass Start with a 19th place Pursuit in between. Pretty much the definition of up and down.

So far this season it’s been her skiing that’s been her strength. While she was never slow, she made a really nice leap this year. Her average course time rank has improved from 34th to 14th. A leap of 20 spots is no joke! Overall she ranks 12th in skiing this season putting her alongside Lisa Vittozzi, Marketa Davidova, Vanessa Voigt, and Lou Jeanmonnot. If you’re in the same sentence as those women, then you’re doing something right. She’s also made a nice improvement in her shooting to go from 83.3% to 86.9%. If she keeps that up it would be the best shooting season of her career.

While Arnekleiv has had an up and down season, the ups have been high enough to be really intriguing. It’s been a far better season that I anticipated. I had fairly low expectations as she wasn’t dominant in previous stops. I’ll just say that I’ve been pleasantly surprised by what has been a fairly impressive rookie campaign. A 50% top 10 rate is a heck of a start. If she keeps that up it’s one hell of a season!

Marit Skogan

Age	25
Current Rank	14th
Career Best Rank	Rookie Season
Total Career Races	8
Key Stat	Career Best: 3rd

There is no way to really put it into words or numbers what Marit Skogan has done this season, and why it has been so surprising. Before this season Skogan had 11 total races on the IBU level with her last three coming for one week in 2022. Other than that since the Junior European Championships in 2019 she’s struggled to get run outside of the Norwegian national circuit. She started to show some improvement over the summer when she had some good finishes at Norwegian Summer Nationals. Then in Sjusjeon she had some pretty stunning performances, especially for those of us who hadn’t been following her that closely.

She looked absolutely thrilled to get announced as a member of the women’s World Cup team. She then went straight out and got 10th in the first race of the season. Since then she had two top 20’s in Hochfilzen, 6th in the Lenzerheide Sprint and 3rd in the Pursuit. Yes, she went from struggling to find any time on the senior level teams and this seasos has reached the podium. What a journey.

Each time she has the most genuine look of absolute joy. Go back and rewatch. Or go check out her Instagram page. She is just loving living in the moment. I love it. How has she done it? Who the heck knows. It’s incredible! I just hope this is the start of a really long run of great racing for Skogan.

Eric Perrot

Age	22
Current Rank	16th
Career Best Rank	34th
Total Career Races	38
Key Stat	Top 10s: 3

Just last week I posted that one of my favorite developments of the year has been Eric Perrot quietly becoming a regular figure in the top 10. Prior to this season he had just three total top 10’s. This season in eight races he has three top 10 with them coming in three straight races between the Hochfilzen Sprint and the Lenzerheide Sprint. And he just missed another with 11th in the Lenzerheide Pursuit. For a bit there he was the highest ranked French man. While QFM has regained that title, Perrot continues to look like the obvious future of the team.

The biggest improvement in terms of rankings is his shooting time improving 1.5 seconds over the last year and 4.5 seconds over the last two seasons. That’s moved him from 134th on the World Cup to 16th this season. Over a four shooting race that adds up to 18 seconds which is not shabby. However, it’s almost more impressive that he currently is ranked 17th in skiing, just behind Emilien Jacquelin and just ahead of Fabien Claude. He’s running almost exactly 3% faster than median while last season he was at 1.5% faster than the median biathlete and ranked 26th. That’s an impressive jump!

The young man clearly has a bright future. He’s moved from being an exciting prospect to the point where he’s really becoming a veteran. As I said he’s quietly becoming an almost expected member of the top 10. It’s certainly no longer a surprise or remarkable at all to see him there and that’s all you need to know he’s made a jump.

Tuuli Tomingas

Age	28
Current Rank	17
Career Best Rank	46th (22-23)
Total Career Races	97
Key Stat	Ski Rank: 17th

Tuuli Tomingas was a bit of a fun story last season. She finished 6th in the Individual at the World Championships and really turned a lot of heads. She ended up with three more top 20’s over the rest of the season. So from the World Championships through the 3rd trimester she accumulated four of her eleven top 20 finishes and was a hot pick as one to watch in 2023-2024. Then she immediately had surgery on her shoulder after the season and she stated it took about 6 months to be fully recovered. While obviously a setback in her preparation she’s actually come out of the gate at the start of the season looking better than ever! There were definitely signs that this might happen when she absolutely dominated at Summer Worlds. Obviously a different level of competition but you can’t ignore when somebody goes 2nd in Super Sprint, 1st in the Sprint and 2nd in the Mass Start.

Through the first eight races she has finished outside the top 25 just three times including narrowly missing the 12th and 13th top 10s of her career with two 11th place finishes in Lenzerheide. Her six top 30’s already tie the most of her career in a season. And the three top 20’s are 2nd most in a season behind only last year. You obviously can’t compare points directly from the last two years to years prior. However, in her five full seasons on the World Cup she finished 49th, failed to score points, 50th, 47th, and last year 46th. Last year with that 46th place (and under the same points system) she scored 101 points. This year she already has 148. So she’s basically already assured of a career best finish if she score 0 points the rest of the season.

I really don’t think that’s going to happen though because Tomingas is easily on the best form of her career. Let’s look primarily at her ski form. Right now she ranks 17th overall in ski form. Before this season her prior best was 31st. That’s with a summer of recovering from shoulder surgery which can obviously affect ski form. Last season she was 1% faster than average. This year she’s 2.6% faster. Every metric shows her having the best skiing of her career. And I don’t think it’s all due to those amazing Estonian wax techs I love so much.

She’s also shooting the best of her career but let’s not go crazy and call her a sharp shooter. Hitting just 84.6% and averaging 33 seconds per shooting leaves a lot of room to grow. So while going from regularly ranking in the mid to high 40’s Overall all the way to 17th with regular finishes in the top 30 is a HUGE jump, there is still another attainable level for her to go up. I really hope it happens!

Tereza Vobornikova

Age	23
Current Rank	18th
Career Best Rank	43rd (22-23)
Total Career Races	39
Key Stat	Ski Average Back: -1.5%

Tereza Vobornikova is a little bit of a sneaky addition to this list. Almost everybody else has done something truly spectacular or has been noticeable in one way or another throughout the season. What Vobornikova has done is just consistently raise her level to a point rather than competing for the occasional top 20, she’s now almost ways in the top 20. In the 2022-2023 season she had four top 20’s in 18 races. This year she already has five top 20’s in just seven races. While she still isn’t really challenging for top 5’s or podiums, she’s gone from not even being on the back edge of the competition to being right on the edge of being in those battles!

She’s really done that through improvements in her ski speed. This is the first time in her (very young) career that she has been faster than the average biathlete. On the IBU Cup or the Juniors level she’s always been decently fast but never one of the absolute speedsters. I wouldn’t say that she’s at that level at all, however, moving up to 34th overall in skiing is a nice move up. She’s also seen just the slightest improvement in shooting bumping her total shooting percentage up from 85% to 86.7%.

Tereza Vobornikova finished last season with a 6th place in the Sprint in Oslo for the best finish in her World Cup career. To start off this year she has finishes of 11th and 16th in Hochfilzen and 9th, 18th, and 20th in Lenzerheide which are good for her 2nd through 5th best finishes of her World Cup career. the only other finishes that are in the mix are her phenomenal World Championship finishes. Long story short, what are we seeing? A really solid improvement. It’s what we hope to see from a talented young woman in her 2nd season in the World Cup and it’s worth celebrating!

Dider Bionaz

Age	23
Current Rank	19th
Career Best Rank	46th (22-23)
Total Career Races	61
Key Stat	Ski Rank: 20th

Dider Bionaz was one of the first to really turn my head as an athlete that was ready to take a jump this season. From the very start he was clearly running faster than ever. He’s used that improved speed to dramatically improve. He has two finishes of 30th and 32nd Every other finish is between 13th and 19th this season. Before this season he had just four top 20’s in his entire career. He has six so far this season. So no incredibly high finishes, but certainly better than he has ever been before.

Bionaz’s ski rank currently sits at 20. Last season was his previous fastest year where he finished the season ranked 38th on the World Cup. His average course time rank has gone from 45th to 20th. That large jump in ski speed has meant that even with just a marginal improvement in total shooting he has had a substantial improvement in finishing place. He’s not a legitimate 2nd man for the Italian team should Lukas Hofer retire after this season. And with Hofer they are one man away from a solid relay team.

What’s the next step? Well of course continuing to improve in ski speed. And moving his shooting percentage from the mid-lower 80’s (83.8% last year and 84.6% this season) to the mid-upper 80’s would be big. But even bigger would be going from an average shooting time in the early 30’s to upper 20’s. He has never been faster than the 32 seconds he’s averaging this season. A little faster and a little more accurate would take him from the mid teens to around 10th.

Deedra Irwin

Age	31
Current Rank	27th
Career Best Rank	58th (21-22 & 22-23)
Total Career Races	57
Key Stat	8th Place

Deedra Irwin had one of the most magnificent celebrations after she finished 8th in the Sprint at Lenzerheide. That finish was the 2nd best of her career behind only her amazing 7th place in the Individual at the Beijing Winter Olympics. It was part of a really special weekend that saw her also finish 21st in the Pursuit and 13th in the Mass Start while she shot 48/50.

Deedra Irwin is in the midst of a career season. She has six top 40’s which is already more than last season. Her best is nine. She has three top 30’s (all in Lenzheride) which is just two back from her career high. Two top 20’s is already the most of her career. And her one top 10 we’ve already covered was nearly the best of her career.

Irwin is doing this with just all around better performance. Her ski rank is up from 56th to 43rd. Her shooting is up from 81.2% to 89.2% which is a HUGE jump. If she can keep this up she has a very real chance to finish in the top 25 of the Overall. This isn’t unheard of territory for Team USA as Susan Dunklee had four such finishes and Clare Egan another. However, it’s certainly a special thing for Irwin to be able to do! Oh yeah, she’s also from very near where my parents grew up. Needless to say I’m a fan!

Lovro Planko

Age	22
Current Rank	30th
Career Best Rank	84th (22-23)
Total Career Races	31
Key Stat	Average finish: 28th

There have been fewer biathletes who have been more consistent this season than Lovro Planko. Here are his finishes this season: 31, 39, 32, 32, 33, 9, 21, 30. Check that out…six of his finishes between 31 and 39 and five of eight between 30 and 33. Wild. The only two that weren’t in 30’s he only managed to finish 9th and 21st in the Sprint and Pursuit in Lenzerheide. Before this season he had four top 40’s in 23 races. Right now he has eight in eight races.

Slovenia has a collection of young talents that we have all be hopeful would make the jump. I was expecting to see Alex Cisar on this list this season but he’s had some health issues this season. However, Slovenia still managed to get a man here with Lovro Planko’s unexpected and completely splendid finishes. This isn’t a trick. Look, you don’t have finishes that consistent without a true improvement in form. Lovro Planko is here to stay.

How’s he doing it? A little bit of everything really. His ski rank is up from 66th to 44th. His shooting is up from 78.6% to 82.3% including a very good 89.2% prone shooting. His shooting time has improved from 33.3 seconds to 30.1 seconds. It’s an across the board improvement. What do we see next? Well with these improvements it wouldn’t surprise me to see him have a few more top 20’s this season. Regardless, Planko shows all the signs of continued improvement. He’s looking like he might be ready to take the mantle of best Slovenian from Jacov Fak.

Valentina Dimitrova

Age	20
Current Rank	41st
Career Best Rank	Rookie Season
Total Career Races	14
Key Stat	Pursuits Run: 2

Okay so I’m getting a little creative and silly with the key stats as I get further into this. It’ pretty difficult with someone with as little history as Valentina Dimitrova. However, this season has been spectacular for her. She came in as a 20 year old with fairly moderate expectations. Prior to this year she had run eight career races, finished above 60th just one time, and had never qualified for a Pursuit race. This season she’s had six races with four finishes of 31st or above, and subsequently ran the Pursuit in Oestersund and Hochfilzen.

This was definitely a surprise to me. I think even fans of the Bulgarian squad and young talent in general had to be a little surprised with some of these finishes. It certainly helps that she’s always been a good shooter, usually hitting around 90% of her shots. Right now she’s at 88.9% which is right around where she usually is. And she shoots fast. This season is easily her slowest as she’s averaging 29.6 seconds per shooting which is still pretty darn good. However, she is starting to develop some speed to go along with it. Last season she was at 6.2% slower than average. This season 1.8% slower than average. I mean that doesn’t sound that great. But here’s another way to look at it: her average course time rank has gone from 85th to 54th. Now that’s a bit jump.

What’s the potential for Dimitrova this year and next? Well she’s only 20 years old so who knows. She might keep this up all season or she might wear down as the season goes along. Or who knows, maybe she finds even more speed? Regardless, we should expect that shooting to continue and maybe even back towards her normal shooting speed. The rest depends on her legs. If she keep this up there is no reason we should expect anything other than continued pushes for top 30’s or even top 20’s this season. I’m really excited to watch her over the next few seasons!

Johan-Olav Botn

Age	24
Current Rank	1st (IBU Cup)
Career Best Rank	14th (IBU Cup 22-23)
Total Career Races	18
Key Stat	He’s Freaking Fast

Okay this one is a bit of a cheat. But Johan-Olav Botn is insanely fast and he’s made it impossible to keep him off the World Cup squad. He’s won five of the eight races. Prior to this season he had ten total IBU Cup races in which he had a win and three total podiums. So definitely a good close to the 22-23 IBU Cup season but nothing that would have portended total domination. Really couldn’t make a list like this without Botn on it.