Well here we are. How did we get it here already? It’s February and it is time for the World Championships! This year we are in for a treat as it is being hosted in Nové Město.
Traditionally positioned the week after the World Championships, Nové Město, home to one of the most phenomenal stadiums in all of biathlon, is now playing host to the World Championships. Just look at that majestic stadium (that just underwent a big renovation)! The fans are packed in there cheering their hearts out with flags waving. Every shot by the home athletes is accompanied by a raucous cheer or a heart broken groan. No matter who is in contention for the win, though, Czech or otherwise, the appreciation for the competition is genuine. Add to that the World Championship atmosphere and emotion and this place is sure to be in an absolute frenzy.
Schedule:
- Wednesday February 7: Mixed Relay (M+W)
- Friday February 9: Women’s 7.5km Sprint
- Saturday February 10: Men’s 10km Sprint
- Sunday February 11: Women’s 10km Pursuit + Men’s 12.5km Pursuit
- Tuesday February 13: Women’s 15km Individual
- Wednesday February 14: Men’s 20km Individual
- Thursday February 15: Single Mixed Relay (M+W)
- Saturday February 17: Women’s 4x6km Relay + Men’s 4×7.5km Relay
- Sunday February 18: Women’s 12.5km Mass Start + Men’s 15km Mass Start
Course Overview:
-Stadium altitude: 620 meters
– Highest Altitude on Course: 655 meter
– Lowest Altitude on the Course 620 meters
– Stadium capacity: 20,000 spectators
Courses listed above by first appearance during World Championships. Also, I couldn’t find the altitude gain/loss profiles. I tried!
- 1.5km – Single Mixed Relay
- 2.5km – Women’s 7.5km Sprint + Men’s 12.5km Pursuit + Men’s 4×7.5km Relay + Women’s 12.5km Mass Start
- 3.3km – Men’s 10km Sprint
- 2km – Women’s 10km Pursuit + Mixed Relay + Women’s 4x6km Relay
- 3km – Women’s 15km Individual + Men’s 15km Mass Start
- 4km – Men’s 20km Individual
Interesting note about the Nové Město course is that at least the 7.5km course is a little shorter than 7.5km. Interesting analysis by RJ Weise of Biathlon Analytics here.
Weather
The weather for Nové Město na Morave looks much more like springtime than it does winter. It’s been this way in much of Central and Western Europe for the large stretches of the winter. We got pretty luck with how things turned out in Ruhpolding and took advantage of the altitude of Antholz. Nové Město could very much look like Oberhof has the last two seasons…warm and sloppy. Just a total mess. It’s even worse after a very large storm did some damage around the course this past weekend.
The good new is Nové Město, like Oberhof, has a robust snow making team and they have been putting in huge hours getting things prepped. They are going to be working nearly 24 hours per day during these Championships keeping things okay.
And even more good news is after some truly alarmingly warm temperatures during the Sprints and Pursuits on the first weekend it gets just a little bit cooler. Still above freezing during the day but actually getting below freezing at night and that makes a HUGE difference. With the cold front coming through on Monday/Tuesday the 2nd half of the Championships could have significantly improved snow conditions. That means everything from the Individuals through the end of the Championships should look more like “real” winter. This could really make a difference with waxing and ski prep.
News and Notes
1)Starting Quotas: Remember last year how the rules for who can start at the World Championships caused so much confusion? Well I’ve provided a screenshot of the rules above. Absolutely worth a look to remind yourself why some nations have 4, 5, or 6 athletes starting in different races because it’s different than the normal World Cup start quotas.
2) Norwegian Women Make the Winning Move: Going into the European Championships the Norwegian coaches stated that they had already made a determination that four women were locked into the World Champs roster: Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold, Karoline Knotten, Juni Arnekleiv, and Marit Skogan. While the first three make total sense, you might be surprised to see Marit Skogan on that list. She made the “lock” list because she had the podium finish in Lenzerheide. The federation I made the decision to respect that, even though her 2nd trimester performance was not terrific, she had met the qualifications.
The result was that at European Championships it came down to Maren Kirkeeide and Ida Lien. Both performed exceptionally well.
– Individual: Maren Kirkeeide = 1st; Ida Lien = 4th
– Sprint: Maren Kirkeeide = 2nd; Ida Lien = 1st
– Pursuit: Maren Kirkeeide = 1st; Ida Lien = 4th
– Mixed Relay: Maren Kirkeeide + Ida Lien both on relay for 1st
At the end of the day Ida Lien got the nod to join the team over Maren Kirkeeide. Ultimately, I think it came down to the relay spot. Ida Lien probably had the advantage all along and they wanted to see it from her one more time before putting her on the roster. The truth is Ida Lien has experience in the relays and she has recently performed very well on them. In the European Championships in particular she was phenomenal. Botn handed off to her with a 7 second lead. She handed Kirkeeide off a 46 second lead. Lien was perfect shooting and swift on the skis. Kirkeeide held on the for the win but it was a real hold on as she used three extra rounds on the standing shooting.
While Kirkeeide was absolutely amazing at European Championships I believe that the coaches were leaning towards Lien all along. Lien performed very well in the solo races and was a HUGE reason why Norway took home gold in the Mixed relay. The end result Lien goes to Nové Město and Kirkeeide to Arber. I agree with the decision but if they had gone with Kirkeeide I wouldn’t have argued about it. Both were good choices!
Why this matters: I think that Lien is the “go for glory” choice. Her selection has to be all about the relay. Her speed when added to the Norwegian’s relay team means that if she hits in relays like she has been the Norwegians immediately are in contention for the gold medal regardless of what any other team does. That’s a really big deal. They can control their own fate now for better or worse. With that in mind I think they go with a relay team of Knotten-Lien-Arnekleiv-Tandrevold.
A quick note on Skogan’s spot, personally I think that they made the correct decision. She met the qualifications as laid out before the season. However, I also think that they may want to change their “automatic qualification” standards.
3) Illness and Injury – Justine Braisaz-Bouchet, currently #2 Overall and owner of four victories this season, would naturally be a top choice for medals at the World Championships. Last we saw her, though, she didn’t look much like the super woman who was nearly untouchable in Lenzerheide and Oberhof. She did later say that she was feeling sick in Antholz. She’ll have had plenty of time to recover fully but just something worth noting. It mostly likely won’t matter at all.
Speaking of women not quite looking like themselves, Hanna Öberg has been dealing with a knee injury of late. Just reported this week though she’s feeling like it is near completely healed. We know she loves Championships. Lets see if she can have her best racing of the season!
4) New Ski Technology – During the European Championships one of the big stories was that Madshus has developed along with Rottofella. This has been under development for nearly a decade. It changes pressure point for pushing off with the skis and per reports requires significantly less energy. The results are that the fast get even faster. Just look at the results from the Individual at European Championships to get a feel for how it helped. And if you don’t want to take my word for it, listen to Ole Einar Bjoerndalen who called it revolutionary.
It sounds like these new skis/bindings will be appearing at Worlds. Now will this just be with select Madshus athletes or all Madshus athletes? If it’s all Madshus athletes then there are some really interesting names to keep in mind:
– Sturla Holm Lægreid 🇳🇴
– Endre Strømsheim 🇳🇴
– Benedikt Doll 🇩🇪
– Roman Rees 🇩🇪
– Tuuli Tomingas 🇪🇪
– Lotte Lie 🇧🇪
– Emma Lunder 🇨🇦
– Ukaleq Slettemark 🇬🇱
Nové Město Recent History
These are the active athletes who have had podiums finishes in the last five weeks of competition in Nové Město na Moravě. This doesn’t include retired athletes or ineligible athletes.
Men’s Podium Finishers Last 5 Competitions in Nové Město
– 2 weeks of competition in 2021
| Athlete | Finishes |
| JT Bø | 🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥈🥈 |
| Tarjei Bø | 🥇🥈🥈🥈🥉🥉 |
| Quintin Fillon Maillet | 🥇🥇🥈🥈 |
| Emilien Jacquelin | 🥈🥉 |
| Martin Ponsiluoma | 🥉🥉 |
| Sebastian Samuelsson | 🥈 |
| Lukas Hofer | 🥉 |
| Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen | 🥉 |
JT Bø- It really shouldn’t be a surprise that he leads the group in podiums as he really does in all locations. It made me curious about what his best podium rate is at each of the main venues. Here is what I found:
– Annecy-le Grand Bornand: 78.6% (8 wins in 14 races)
– Antholz: 62.5% (10 victories)
– Nové Město na Moravě: 56.3% (1st or 2nd in 9 of last 11 races)
– Hochfilzen: 56% (“Only” 5 podiums in last 11 races)
– Kontiolahti: 55% (Won his first 4 ever races in Kontiolahti)
– Oslo: 50% (Active streak of 8 straight podiums and 6 straight victories)
– Oberhof: 47.6% (Nobody will ever forget his 2023 Worlds with 3 wins and a 3rd in 4 races)
– Ruhpolding: 47.4% (7 podiums in last 8 races really helped boost this!)
– Pokljuka: 38% (No finishes worse than 8th since 2015 Mass Start)
– Oestersund: 30% (4 of 9 podiums here occurred in the 6 Oestersund races held in March)
Women’s Podium Finishers Last 5 Competitions in Nové Město
– 2 weeks of competition in 2021
| Athlete | Finishes |
| Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold | 🥈🥈 |
| Dorothea Wierer | 🥈🥉 |
| Hanna Öberg | 🥈🥉 |
| Franziska Preuss | 🥉🥉 |
| Yulia Dzhima | 🥈 |
| Marketa Davidova | 🥉 |
| Lisa Vittozzi | 🥉 |
Holy cow…there really aren’t that many active athletes with podiums in Nové Město na Moravě.
World Championships Recent History
I also wanted to include recent Worlds history. There is the thought that some athletes/federations are more successful in the aim to peak at Worlds sometimes at the expense of other parts of the schedule. So, who does best at Worlds? And does it look like the same athletes who are always doing the best? Just a reminder these are only active athletes, not retired athletes or athletes that aren’t eligible for these World Championships.
Men’s Podium Finishers Last 5 World Championships
| Athlete | Finishes |
| JT Bø | 🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥈🥈🥈🥈🥈🥈🥉🥉 |
| Sturla Holm Lægreid | 🥇🥇🥈🥈🥉 |
| Quintin Fillon Maillet | 🥈🥈🥉🥉🥉 |
| Emilien Jacquelin | 🥇🥇🥉🥉 |
| Sebastian Samuelsson | 🥈🥈🥉🥉 |
| Martin Ponsiluoma | 🥇🥈 |
| Tarjei Bø | 🥈🥉 |
| Johannes Dale-Skjevdal | 🥈🥉 |
| Dmitryo Pidruchnyi | 🥇 |
| Benedikt Doll | 🥇 |
| Vladmir Iliev | 🥈 |
| Antonin Guigonnat | 🥈 |
| Simon Eder | 🥉 |
JT Bøhas participated in 7 World Championships and has a total of 15 solo medals with 13 in the last five occasions. He’s just 3 solo medals shy of Fourcade for 2nd most all time. He’ll have to get all the way to 26 to take the top spot from Bjoerndalen. That might be a lot to ask but tying or even passing Fourcade could happen next week.
Women’s Podium Finishers Last 5 World Championships
| Athlete | Finishes |
| Hanna Öberg | 🥇🥇🥇🥈🥈🥉 |
| Dorothea Wierer | 🥇🥇🥇🥈 |
| Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold | 🥈🥈🥈🥉 |
| Lisa Theresa Hauser | 🥇🥈 |
| Julia Simon | 🥇🥉 |
| Linn Persson | 🥈🥉 |
| Lisa Vittozzi | 🥈🥉 |
| Marketa Davidova | 🥇 |
| Anastasiya Kuzmina | 🥇 |
| Justine Braisaz-Bouchet | 🥉 |
| Lucie Charvatova | 🥉 |
Would you have guessed that Hanna Öberg has the most solo medals of any active woman over the last five Worlds? I probably would have guessed Doro which would have been close. Tandrevold in third was interesting too!
Peaking for Championships:
Do certain athletes/nations aim to peak for Championships? I just wanted to take a brief look. This is not deep. It’s just a look at 10 men and women. I want to reiterate again that it is not a deep look and I did this in just a few minutes on a Friday night. However, I thought the results were interesting.
In the first set of columns it’s pretty clear. This is each athlete’s podium percentage first in the World Cup, second in Worlds, and third in Worlds + Olympics.
| Athlete | World Cup | Worlds | Worlds + Olympics |
| JT Bø | 49.3% | 53.6% | 47.5% |
| Sturla Holm Lægreid | 41.3% | 62.5% | 41.7% |
| Tarjei Bø | 21.9% | 23.1% | 21.6% |
| Quintin Fillon Maillet | 21% | 18.5% | 23.5% |
| Emilien Jacquelin | 17.1% | 33.3% | 23.5% |
| Vetle Sjåstad Christiansen | 13.3% | 0% | 5.4% |
| Sebastian Samuelsson | 10.1% | 22.7% | 19.2% |
| Martin Ponsiluoma | 8.8% | 15.4% | 16.7% |
| Benedikt Doll | 7.8% | 3.7% | 5.8% |
| Lukas Hofer | 3.7% | 2.9% | 2% |
| Athlete | World Cup | Worlds | Worlds + Olympics |
| Hanna Öberg | 20.7% | 31.6% | 25.9% |
| Elvira Öberg | 20% | 0% | 16.7% |
| Julia Simon | 18.5% | 14.3% | 11.1% |
| Dorothea Wierer | 17.6% | 13.9% | 12.8% |
| Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold | 13.8% | 25% | 18.2% |
| Lisa Vittozzi | 12.8% | 8.3% | 5.8% |
| Justine Braisaz-Bouchet | 10.6% | 4.5% | 6.9% |
| Marketa Davidova | 8.4% | 6.3% | 4.2% |
| Franziska Preuss | 8.4% | 5.6% | 3.7% |
| Lisa Theresa Hauser | 5.7% | 7.7% | 5.7% |
I think this set of data is just pretty straight forward. It’s hard to draw much from JT Bø because he’s just great no matter when the race is. I’m looking at people like Sebastian Samuelsson, Martin Ponsiluoma, Emilien Jacquelin, Hanna Öberg, and Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold as examples of significantly better podium percentages in Championships.
The 2nd set is a little more complicated. Column 1 – what percentage of an athletes podiums take place at Worlds. Column 2 – what percentage of an athletes podiums take place at Worlds + Olympics (all championships). These do NOT include relay medals.
| Athlete | World Championships Podiums as % of Total Career Podiums | Worlds + Olympics Podiums as % of Total Career Podiums |
| Sebastian Samuelsson | 22.2% | 27.8% |
| Emilien Jacquelin | 18.2% | 18.2% |
| Martin Ponsiluoma | 16.7% | 25% |
| Tarjei Bø | 14.1% | 17.2% |
| Sturla Holm Lægreid | 13.9% | 13.9% |
| Johannes Thingnes Bø | 12.5% | 15.8% |
| Quintin Fillon Maillet | 9.6% | 15.3% |
| Lukas Hofer | 9.1% | 9.1% |
| Benedikt Doll | 5.3% | 10.5% |
| Vetle Sjåstad Christiansen | 0% | 4.5% |
| Athlete | World Championships Podiums as % of Total Career Podiums | Worlds + Olympics Podiums as % of Total Career Podiums |
| Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold | 19% | 19% |
| Hanna Öberg | 18.2% | 21.2% |
| Lisa Theresa Hauser | 16.7% | 16.7% |
| Dorothea Wierer | 10% | 12% |
| Marketa Davidova | 9.1% | 9.1% |
| Lisa Vittozzi | 8% | 8% |
| Julia Simon | 7.4% | 7.4% |
| Franziska Preuss | 6.7% | 6.7% |
| Justine Braisaz-Bouchet | 5% | 10% |
| Elvira Öberg | 0% | 9.5% |
I think looking at this data you get an idea of who really stands out at Championships vs. their normal performances. However it’s a little skewed against athletes like Bø who are just awesome all the time so the ratio doesn’t look too crazy. But we know he’s awesome at Worlds because he has the 3rd most Worlds medals of any man ever. However, I do think it confirms the above data that Samuelsson, Jacquelin, Ponsiluoma, Tandrevold, and Hanna Öberg are all good at Championship level events.
Recent Memorable Moments/Performances (Nové Město)
2022-2023 Men’s Races: The Double Bødium: Nearing the end of Johannes Thingnes Bø’s overwhelming dominance he swept the Sprint and Pursuit in Nové Město with relative ease. What made it amazing was that he got to share the podium both times with his brother Tarjei Bø who finished 2nd in both races. The capper is that both brothers had COVID for at least the Pursuit race and ended up missing the following week in Östersund.
2022-2023 Women’s Races: Last Bow for Marte Olsbu Røiseland: Marte Olsbu Røiseland, the 2021-2022 Overall Crystal Globe winner, ended her decorated career at the end of the 2022-2023 season. It turns out that the last two wins of her career came a couple of weeks earlier in Nové Městowhen she, like JT Bø, swept the Sprint and the Pursuit.
2020-2021 Men’s Sprint: This Sprint came down to one of the closest podium finishes in recent memory. Standing at the top of the podium was Simon Desthieux who, in the 2nd to last season of his career, won the first race of his career. He won his 2nd, and last, career races two weeks later in Oslo. Coming in second, just 2.2 seconds back was Sebastian Samuelsson. Then in third, just 2 seconds back of Samuelsson, was Arnd Peiffer, who that day climbed on to the last podium of his career. The following day in the Pursuit Desthieux held on to the podium, Peiffer finished 10th and Samuelsson finished 12th. You’ll be stunned to learn that 1-2 that day were Tarjei Bø and JT Bø.
2018-2019 Women’s Pursuit: When you want to introduce somebody to biathlon, you want to be able to show them a race like this. If you want to re-live it you can find it on youtube with the Russian commentary. (Hopefully we don’t draw so much attention to it that it gets taken down!). The set up to the Pursuit was the Sprint where Marte Olsbu Røiseland shot a perfect 10/10 and survived against Laura Dahlmeier who was 9/10 by a slim 4.5 seconds. Meanwhile Paulina Batovska-Fialkova was just 6.2 seconds back. It looked like this was going to be an absolutely awesome Pursuit. However, only one of these three women would survive the first two shootings and remain in the mix.
By the midpoint of the Pursuit the major players of the race had moved to the front. Marte Olsbu Røiseland was hanging on to a lead as Dorothea Wiere, the Overall Globe winner, had used perfect shooting and solid skiing to move from 9th to 2nd. Hanna Öberg meanwhile had followed her lead from 6th to 3rd. Unfortunately Dahlmeier and Batovska-Fialkova had tumbled out of contention.
After Røiseland suffered her first miss of the race on the 3rd shooting Wierer pounced and went into the lead. Hanna Öberg was just 6 seconds back and Røiseland was hanging just under 20 seconds back. After Wierer put in some solid work on lap 4 she held 11 seconds on Öberg and 25 seconds on Røiseland. That’s when things got really wild. If you want to see it click on the youtube link above and go to 1:23:20.
On the last shooting Wierer and Hanna Öberg, two of the fastest shooters in biathlon, froze. To be fair this was a very windy day. There was a heck of a crosswind at the start of the shooting that sagged and turned around in the middle of the shooting. Wierer and Öberg each went 4/5 with Wierer taking 49 seconds and Öberg 43 seconds. Røiseland meanwhile came in and let it fly. She went 4/5 as well but in just 20 seconds. Remarkably Røiseland, after coming on to the range down by 25 seconds, was actually the first one off the loop.R
Røiseland managed to fend off Dorothea Wierer at the very end winning by just 0.2 seconds in a thrilling race that came down to the very end. Hanna Öberg came home in a very respectable 3rd place.
Recent Memorable Moments/Performances (World Championships)
2023 JT Bø: I don’t think I’ll ever forget the effort of JT Bø at the 2023 World Championships. He is one of the greatest of all time and was having the greatest season in biathlon history. He won medals in all 7 races including gold medals in the Sprint, Pursuit, Individual, Mixed Relay, and Single Mixed.
2023 Men’s Individual: This isn’t memorable because it was a close race, it’s memorable because it is one of the most impressive shows of force by a single athlete in a race. JT Bø was on a different planet from anybody else. It was just a year ago so we don’t need to go blow by blow but Bø went 18/20 and won the Individual by 1:10 over Sturla Holm Lægreid who was 19/20. He won by more than a penalty over Lægreid who was an incredibly strong #2 in the Overall that season. He was 1:46 seconds faster on the course than Jeremy Finello was was 2nd fastest. That was the same gap as between Finello and Adam Vaclavik who was 13th fastest. It was the peak performance of the greatest season we may ever see in biathlon.
2023 Women’s Sprint: In the farewell campaign for Denise Herrman-Wick she got one last crack at Worlds in front of her home fans in Oberhof. In the race she had the best chance at winning a medal she won gold by a slim 2.2 seconds over Hanna Öberg. The fans were wild and her teammates celebrated like wild. Even from a few thousand miles away you could feel how happy everybody was for her!
2021 Women’s Relay: I will be honest, this one slipped my mind until I went back and looked at the results. That made me go back and watch it. Norway ended up winning but this was a seriously tight race. Behind Tandrevold and Eckhoff they had a 25 second lead at the 2nd exchange. While Ida Lien held onto the lead, by the time Røiseland took the course the lead was down to just nine seconds over Belarus with Poland (!?!) only one more second back. Røiseland hit the course hard but after needing all three extra rounds on the prone shooting she left the range in a tie with Olena Bilosiuk of Ukraine with Germany, Belarus, and Sweden were all within 26 seconds. Røiseland needed just one extra round to leave the range with a solid lead that she would carry to the finish. Behind her though Preuss was 11.5 back with Bilosiuk +13.3 and Kruchynkina +17.9. In the end Preuss would just hold off Bilosiuk for 2nd with Ukraine coming home with the bronze medal. Whenever you have a relay with four teams fighting for three positions after an hour of racing, especially at Worlds, that’s a hell of a race.
2020 Women’s Sprint: This race may be remembered as the second of Marte Olsbu Røiseland’s seven medals at the Antholz and her first solo medal of those Championships. The whole Championships was an absolutely majestic performance for Røiseland as she made a massive effort towards cementing her place in biathlon history. However, for me it was Susan Dunklee that made this a race that I’ll never forget. As an American we don’t get many of these moments. We interviewed Clare Egan this past summer for the podcast and she identified this as one of, if not the best moment of her career. It’s just something that’s hard to explain. Perfect 10/10 shooting and she finishes just 6.8 seconds away from gold. Thank you Susan Dunklee and the whole group that made that performance possible!
2020 Men’s Pursuit: All you need to know about this race was the last lap. Coming in for the last shooting Alexandr Loginov, coming off a gold in the Sprint, led the field. JT Bø and Jacquelin were 13 seconds back (that’s some power!) with Fourcade at +21. So while Loginov held the lead the chasers were exceptional. It was a wild last shoot. Loginov and Jacquelin shot in 20 seconds, JT Bø in 22, and Fourcade in 26. Jacquelin and Bø went clean while Loginov and Fourcade each had a miss. While Fourcade fell out of the race for the podium Loginov was just 8 seconds back. If Jacquelin and Bø played games he was still there to pounce. That wasn’t going to happen though ad Loginov immediately fell back off the pace. Every time JT Bø tried to make him hurt Jacquelin had the answer. In the end the race came down to a final sprint and who came out on top? Emilien Jacquelin.