Dates: January 1, 2024 – January 7, 2024
Schedule:
– Thursday January 4: Men’s Sprint
– Friday January 5: Women’s Sprint
– Saturday January 6: Men’s Pursuit + Women’s Pursuit
– Sunday January 7: Men’s 4×7.5km Relay + Women’s 4x6km Relay
Course Overview:
Above you’ll see the entire complex with all of the courses overlaid on each other. Below I’m going to put each course and the corresponding race. You’ll note that several of these races use the same courses. I struggled to decide if I should just put the 3 individual course or if I should lay them out by race like I have in the past. I’m opted to put repeat images and lay them out by race like I have in the past and they’ll all be identified when you click on the images. They are listed in chronological order so the top left corner is the Men’s Sprint followed by Women’s Sprint followed by Men’s Pursuit etc.
– Stadium altitude: 814 meters
– Maximum altitude on course: 844 meters
– Lowest altitude on course: 787 meters
– Stadium capacity: 16,500 spectators
Historically based on climbing or technical skill this has not been a particularly challenging course. Especially in the recent past this history comes in due to weather which can be all over the place. After being a winter sports haven for years you actually have to wonder if within the next 20-30 years Oberhof is still able to host events. Climate change has made it so that we can’t really count on snow here. It’s just not that far north nor is it at the same elevation as Hochfilzen.
Weather:
– Average Temperature for mid December: High 0C and Low -4C.
– In general cloudier with precipitation on about 1/2 of days in January
– Winds can be variable and quite strong at times
The crew at Oberhof is able to work wonders and make the course usable even in much worse conditions that what is expected this year. And boy do they have experience with it. Just look at the weather from last year during the World Championships. We had snow. We had fog. We had sun and warmth and mashed potatoes snow. And did I mention we had fog and rain? We even almost lost a whole relay (or rather would have awarded medals for the relay run in Oestersund) due to wind.
The weather this year in Oberhof appears to be a bit sloppy at least at the outset. So far this season we’ve tended to see that warmer conditions benefit the Norwegians a bit. Will that hold true? We’ll see. You would expect the Germans to have good skis as well, and outside the Norwegians they have had the highest highs with their skis. By contrast they’ve also had some very bad days on the skis. Again, I would expect the Norwegians to be on the front foot here.
News and Notes:
1.Norwegian men make the first move: Vebjoern Soerum is down on the IBU Cup while Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen is taking the week at home to get fully ready to finish the season. He’ll be back on the World Cup in Ruhpolding (it’s already been confirmed). In the meantime Johan-Olav Botn, who has been winning at an absurd pace on the IBU Cup, joins the top Norwegian men in Oberhof. Botn is very very fast. However, his shooting is not at the same level yet. Right now he’s hitting just 80%. That he’s still won five times in eight races even with that shooting should tell you how fast he is. However, 80% would right now be the worst of the Norwegian men on the World Cup by a fairly substantial amount. He’s speed, while awesome, obviously won’t be as enormous of a tool on the World Cup as vs. IBU Cup competition. I still think he’s going to be very good but we should at least mildly temper expectations. As far as Ruhpolding goes it looks like Botn vs. Stroemsheim for final position. If you want my long thoughts on it you can read more here in The Norwegian Six.
2. Dorothea Wierer remains away from the team for at least another weekend. She’s been struggling with respiratory illness since well before the season started. She struggled through the first two weeks of competition with a major emphasis on struggled. She just didn’t look good. She skipped Lenzerheide and is going to take another week to get back to full strength. I think her goal right now is to be at the best possible level for Worlds next month. Fingers crossed she can get there!
Recent History
Men’s Multiple Podium Finishers Last 5 Competitions (Includes 2 weeks in 2020-2021 and World Championships in 2022-2023)
– Does not include retired or ineligible athletes
| Athlete | Finishes |
| Sturla Holm Lægreid | 🥇🥈🥈🥈🥉🥉🥉 |
| JT Bø | 🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥉 |
| Tarjei Bø | 🥇🥈🥈🥉🥉 |
| Sebastian Samuelsson | 🥇🥈🥉🥉 |
| Emilien Jacquelin | 🥈🥈 |
| Quintin Fillon Maillet | 🥇 |
| Johannes Dale-Skjvedal | 🥈 |
| Felix Leitner | 🥈 |
| Martin Ponsiluoma | 🥈 |
| Johannes Kuehn | 🥉 |
This is why I love doing this exercise. Sturla Holm Lægreid with more medals than JT Bø in one less year of competition. Not only that but Tarjei Bø is right on JT Bø’s heels. Over the last five competitions at Oberhof we all remember JT Bø absolutely crushing Worlds, but from 2020-2022 (two competition weekends in 2021) JT Bø had just two medals.
Women’s Repeat Podium Finishers Last 5 Competitions (Includes 2 weeks in 2020-2021)
– Does not include retired or ineligible athletes
| Athlete | Finishes |
| Hanna Öberg | 🥇🥇🥈🥈🥈🥉 |
| Julia Simon | 🥇🥇🥈🥉🥉 |
| Lisa Hauser | 🥉🥉🥉 |
| Linn Persson | 🥈🥉 |
| Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold | 🥈 |
| Dorothea Wierer | 🥈 |
| Franziska Preuss | 🥈 |
| Lisa Vittozzi | 🥉 |
Hanna Öberg, like JT Bø, absolutely crushed Worlds last season. However, she still had three medals in the four weeks of competition prior to last season. Also Julia Simon was good last year, but she’s been really solid in Oberhof for years.
Recent Memorable Moments/Performances
Oberhof holds an interesting place in my memory. It is one of the most famous biathlon arenas and always has great fans. However, other than that I just don’t have many memories of Oberhof. It’s just a hole in my memory. I’ll have to revisit some races in my spare time this week!
2023 JT Bø Worlds: I think it’s fair to lump these all together as one. In a season that was the greatest season we have ever seen from any male biathlete ever the Oberhof Worlds stood out as the peak of his year. He was absolutely dominant winning gold in the Sprint, Pursuit, and the Indiviual with a bronze in the Mass Start. The Individual was particularly awe inspiring as he was just a machine on the course. In sunny and warm conditions he absolutely chewed up the track. He ended up going 18/20 while Sturla Holm Lægreid went 19/20. However JT Bø won the race by 1:10. Yes, Bø could have had two more misses than Lægreid and still won. Remember Lægreid was an incredible 2nd Overall last season. When you consider an Individual is a 1 minute penalty per miss that’s just mind blowing stuff. He was 1:46 faster than Jeremy Finello who was 2nd fastest on the day. There were 12 men within 1:46 of Jeremy Finello including Lægreid. Oh yeah, and we also saw the celebration of the season pictured above.
22-23 Hanna Öberg Worlds: I don’t want to forget to mention that Hanna Öberg had a pretty special World Championships last season too. She scored silver in the Sprint and gold in the Individual and the Mass Start. The Mass Start gold in particular was special Having been known as a an athlete who can struggle with the last shooting she came into the last shooting 16 seconds back of Julia Simon who was on the way to winning the Overall Globe. Öberg went 5/5 in 21.5 seconds and skied off the range with a 4.5 second lead on Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold. After some tense moments on the course Öberg was able to hold off Tandrevold and skate home for another gold. After having a little bit of a slow start to the season it was an absolutely top notch moment for her.
2023 Worlds Women’s Mass Start: See how I said the 2023 Worlds are plastered in my memory? Okay this will be the last thing I promise. Just take a look at the top 15 at the Mass Start for Worlds. I love it.
Knotten in 6th
Lunder in 7th
Comola 10th
Haecki-Gross 11th
Kebinger 12th
Jeanmonnot 15th
It was a great moment for both some top career races for Comola and Lunder and a sign of things to come from Knotten, Haecki-Gross, and Jeanmonnot. A nice encapsulation of this era of women’s biathlon.
2022 Single Mixed Relay: Kind of an odd one to put in here but Lotte Lie and Florent laude managed a 6th place finish to put Belgium in the flowers! I will never forget Lotte Lie absolutely pulling as hard as she could down the stretch to keep Belgium in the top 6 and the pure joy and exahustion when she crossed the finish line. Really a fun race!
2021 Oberhof Week 1 Pursuit: JT Bø, as will surprise nobody, won the Sprint on this weekend with a solid 10 seconds over his older brother Tarjei. Lægreid finished 3rd 21 seconds further back with Hofer 4th and Dale-Skjvedal 5th all within 35 seconds. That’s some top talent but the money was definitely on JT Bø completing the sweep. At the very least you would expect that he would be able to finish on the podium. I mean this is JT Bø we are talking about, and he was wearing Yellow on the way to a (very narrow) Overall Globe over Sturla Holm Lægreid. But he didn’t win or finish on the podium. He wasn’t even top 5. He finished 8th with seven, yes seven, penalty loops. He missed 1 each on the prone shootings. Then on the first standing shooting he went 1/5. Really bizarro world. And we may never see anything quite like that again.
2020 Martin Fourcade: Over the last stretch of dominance by Martin Fourcade, he pulled off the double win in the Sprint and Mass Start for the first two victories of four straight wins on German snow. He was taking advantage of JT Bø’s paternity leave but he still went out and won the races. After leaving Ruhpolding he had just two more wins in his career: The World Championships Individual in Antholz and the season ending Pursuit.
Random Notes:
– Sturla Holm Lægreid has run 10 races in Oberhof. He’s finished outside the top 4 just once when he finished 12th. This is kind of an odd stat but it’s his best top 4 percentage of any course comparable only to Oslo (6/6 on top 5’s with 4 podiums).
– Julia Simon has seven straight top 10’s in Oberhof with six being top 5’s. She has had very good success here.
– Hanna Öberg: In 14 races she’s been outside the top 8 just twice.
– Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold with just one podium and three top 5’s in 17 races in Oberhof not to mention having to abandon the Sprint race in Oberhof in 2021
– Hoping for a return to form for QFM? History doesn’t suggest it. Just one podium and two top 5’s in 22 career races in Oberhof.
– Elvira has a career best finish of 7th in Oberhof.
Predictions:
– Sloppy conditions lead to a more irregular ski patterns. In general I think Norway benefits here
– JT Bø certainly looked to be taking control of the men’s field at the end of the first trimester. While he doesn’t have a huge record of success here over the last four years, last season’s Worlds certainly stand out. It wouldn’t be a shock to see him once again go back to back.
– On the other hand this seems to really be a good spot to see Lægreid look like Lægreid again. He loves this course. If he was able to use the last few weeks to help find his form again this would be a perfect showcase.
– On the women’s side Elvira has absolutely no history of success here. I think that changes but we’ll see if she’s able to actually win the Sprint.
– Julia Simon’s last six races: 7th, 7th, 5th, 4th, 2nd, 6th. She looked great in Auf Schalke. I think we may be looking at her first win of the season in the Pursuit.