Soldier Hollow 2023-2024 Preview

The IBU World Cup is back in North America!! This is such a rare thing for us over here in North America that we really have to celebrate it. I initially wanted to do the double Soldier Hollow – Canmore weeks. Unfortunately it didn’t work so I’m missing out this week and I’m exceptionally envious of everybody who will be there. Be loud for me!

Schedule

– Friday March 8: Men’s 4×7.5km Relay + Women’s 7.5km Sprint
– Saturday March 9: Women’s 4x6km Relay + Men’s 10km Sprint
– Sunday March 10: Women’s 10km Pursuit + Men’s 12.5km Pursuit

Course Overview

No Pictures! I have searched to no avail. I did find course maps from Junior Worlds back in 2022 but I have a feeling there will be new maps from those races. I have sent requests and I will update ASAP

– Stadium Altitude: 1695 meters
– Highest Altitude on Course: 1733 meters
– Lowest Altitude on Course: 1689 meters
– Stadium Capacity: 2000 spectators
– Course Capacity: 5000 spectators

Weather

We appear to be leaving the fog, rain, and general grossness of Oslo (pictured above) behind as the weather in Utah looks absolutely gorgeous. Just take a look at a few of the posts from the athletes there right now. There was even some fresh snow earlier today (Tuesday) to add to what is already there. The temperatures look perfect with minimal breeze and no wind. This could be a perfect weekend of racing weather!

Overall Globe Update:

Now we are really coming down to it. Just 5 races left! Every single race could see some pretty wild swings. A win vs. a 3rd place is a net of 30 points and with these narrow margins that is enough to change the whole story. The pressure just gets ratcheted up every race. Every shooting comes with an added intensity knowing it impacts not just that single race, but positioning that is vital for the Overall.

Last year we didn’t have this as the Overall races were pretty much decided well in advance of the last two stages. Dorothea Wierer made a real effort to make it interesting winning both races in Oestersund, but it was just too much ground to make up. Meanwhile JT Bø just steamrolled the field week in and week out. This year though, we get to see if the increased stagger in the margins for the first 6 places begins to make a difference.

Just as reminder here are the point distributions for the first 10 places. After that each subsequent place down is 1 additional point down. The only exception to that rule is the Mass Start where it drops by 2 points from position 21-30.

Women’s Race

Athlete	Points/Margin	Points Per Race
Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold	859	–
Lisa Vittozzi	766/-93	19pts/race
Julia Simon	762/-97	20pts/race
Justine Braisaz-Bouchet	755/-104	21pts/race
Elvira Öberg	709/-150	30pts/race

In one of the real surprises of the season, Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold dramatically expanded her lead from 30 points to 93 points in Oslo. Looking at the season as a whole that might not be surprising, but she looked absolutely befuddled at times just 2 weeks prior in Nove Mesto. She clearly found something, especially with her standing shooting, and won the Individual and 4th in the Mass Start. She is not the only woman to completely control their own destiny.

It’s still a wide open race though. Just 6 races ago here is what the Overall standings looked like:

Athlete	Points/Margin
Justine Braisaz-Bouchet	592
Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold	501/-91
Elvira Öberg	473/-119
Lisa Vittozzi	456/-136
Julia Simon	438/-154

So you can see that in 6 races (yes that’s more than 5 but stick with me) Tandrevold not only made up a 91 point deficit, but built a 93 point lead. That’s a net change of 184 points or 30 points per race compared to the Overall lead over that period. So this race is wide open.

Tandrevold in general does not do as well at altitude and Soldier Hollow is at quite an elevation. She may be able to hang on to this lead but it is going to take everything she has over the next 2 weeks.

Men’s Race

Athlete	Points/Margin	Points Per Race
JT Bø	878
Tarjei Bø	819/-59	12pts/race
Johannes Dale-Skjevdal	769/-109	22pts/race
Sturla Holm Laegreid	728/-150	30pts/race

The men’s race somehow feels more secure for JT Bø, but that’s just because JT Bø has the history of 4 Overall Crystal Globes in his trophy case at home. It also helps that in Nove Mesto he looked as dominant as ever. That’s what makes his slip up in Oslo even more surprising. Now he was sick just before the Oslo races and that undoubtedly affected his preparation. But I’m not sure that racing in cold rain for 3 days, followed by a trans-Atlantic flight and crossing 8 time zones only to end up at 1600 meters is great for the lungs either. We’ll see how good he looks in Soldier Hollow. He may be the classic world crusher JT Bø, but it wouldn’t be stunning if he is still not at 100%

Tarjei Bø is working on a story for the ages. He won the Overall Globe in his first full season on the World Cup all the way back in the 2010-2011 season. Now, at age 35, as he nears the close of his career, he’s as close to another Overall Globe as he has ever been since then. This man has had one of the most wildly consistent great biathlon careers that I can remember. Every single year he puts out almost the same high level performance. This year he increased that just enough. Shooting percentage up about 1.5 points to 89.1% and average course time rank just a couple of positions better. Now, after another highly successful weekend, he cut the deficit down to less than 60 points. The Achille’s heel remains the last shoot. If it comes down to clutch last shootings I have to lean JT Bø over his older brother.

I include Dale-Skjevdal and Laegreid on this list, not because I think they will make up the ground necessary to win the Globe, but because I can’t completely rule them out. Laegreid would be a stunner, but he’s won 3 of his last 6 races and nobody is performing better than him after 2 of those wins coming in Oslo. Dale-Skjevdal hasn’t quite looked up to his top form the last few weeks but he has the speed to really make it happen.

News and Notes

1) Expanded Rosters – This may have not made your radar but we have expanded rosters for the last two events of the season! Normally this is just for the last event of the World Cup season, but with the travel across the Atlantic Ocean it was expanded to 2 weeks this year. This means that any nation with an athlete in the top 10 of the IBU Cup Overall receives an extra start quota in the World Cup for that athlete with a maximum of 2 per nation.

That means this week we get to see some fresh faces including:
– Johan-Olav Botn returns to the World Cup!
– Danilo Riethmueller is back!
– The Swedish women are bringing Anna-Karin Heijdenberg along for her 2nd career and 2nd consecutive World Cup weekend even while keeping Stina Nilsson, Sara Andersson on the roster and bringing back Hanna Öber.
– And the French are…not doing anything. They have decided not to fill the extra quota. Especially considering the depth of the French women they could have really brought in some top tier talent this week.

2) Travel Exuberance – This isn’t so much news or notes but I would encourage all of you to go check out the instagram stories of some of your favorite World Cup athletes right now. Every time we interview an athlete we ask them about what their normal week on the World Cup is like and they talk a lot about just hanging out at the hotel. The athletes, particularly the French it appears, are really enjoying their experience. The French men took in a Utah Jazz basketball game. There has been plenty of sightseeing. It’s been a lot of fun to watch!

3) Travel Sadness – Unfortunately Sophie Chauveau will not be competing this week in Utah due to administrative issues. Apparently there was a difficulty with her travel paperwork and so she will not be racing again until Canmore. This is a major bummer. She raced really well in Oslo. And now with the French not filling their quota they are down an athlete this week.

Recent History

Soldier Hollow isn’t exactly a common stop on the World Cup with the last stops here being 2019 and 2002. And that’s it! 2002 was so long ago not even Simon Eder was racing then! It was a rare time without an Eder racing, but that’s a story for another time. The podium finishers from 2019 included:
– Women’s Sprint: 🥇Marte Olsbu Røiseland🥈Kaisa Makarainen🥉Franziska Hildebrand
– Men’s Sprint: 🥇Vetle Sjåstad Christiansen🥈Simon Desthieux🥉Roman Rees
– Women’s Pursuit: 🥇Denise Herrmann-Wick🥈Franziska Hildebrand🥉Kaisa Makarainen
– Men’s Pursuit: 🥇Quintin Fillon Maillet🥈Vetle Sjåstad Christiansen🥉Simon Desthieux

Here are some of the top performances from 2019 by athletes who are still competing:
– Women’s Sprint: 6) Kamila Zuk 10) Yulia Dzhima 12) Lisa Vittozzi 13) Julia Simon
– Men’s Sprint: 5) JT Bø 6) Quintin Fillon Mailet 7) Lukas Hofer 9) Antonin Guigonnat 10) Johannes Dale-Skjevdal 12) Philipp Nawrath 13) Benedikt Doll 14) Sean Doherty
– Women’s Pursuit: 6) Lisa Vittozzi 8) Kamila Zuk 12) Marketa Davidova 13) Lisa Theresa Hauser 14) Tuuli Tomingas
– Men’s Pursuit: 4) JT Bø 8) Christiansen Gow 9) Benedikt Doll 10) Sean Doherty 11) Johannes Dale-Skjevdal 12) Lukas Hofer 13) Simon Eder