Rookies of the Year

We’ve celebrated the Overall Champions, the Breakthrough Athletes of the Year, and now it’s time to talk about some rookies! We had a ton of good rookie stories this season including some young athletes who went quickly from making their debut to their first podiums. We had some others who came in and got some good experience on the World Cup level while flashing just a touch of the potential to come. Lots of good stories here!

Before we get started a few things:

• We have a relatively loose definition of “rookie.” In this instance I am usually defining this as somebody who had previously competed in just sporadic races and this season they mad a more continuous experience on the World Cup level.
• In general if an athlete only ran in 2-3 races they didn’t qualify for this list.
• While the top athlete is the “Rookie of the Year” after that they are listed by their final ranking in the Overall standings so don’t try to read too much into it.
• For the Key Statistic I kept it positive and mentioned something they did well rather than what they need to be working on.

🇳🇴 Johan Olav-Botn

Age	24
Total Races	7
Total Races this Season	7
Overall Rank	29
Average Finish	12.7
Best Finish	3rd
Key Statistic	Overall Ski Rank = 5

Normally I would like to have somebody as the “Rookie of the Year” who actually participated for a full season, or half a season, or even a consecutive trimester. Johan-Olav Botn meets none of those criteria. It’s also a unique situation. Botn was blocked from the World Cup not because of his performance but because the current Norwegian senior team is absolutely loaded with talent. There are probably 10-12 Norwegian men who could be top 20 on the World Cup. Botn, long known as one of the fastest men in biathlon, was blocked behind Endre Stroemsheim and Vebjoern Soerum who had earned their spots and weren’t giving them up.

Once Botn got the call up to the World Cup, only because Christiansen was given an extended holiday break (against his wishes really), he showed speed if nothing else. Nobody could doubt his skiing in Oberhof as he finished 1st and 6th fastest in his first two races. He had some mishaps though as he skied an extra penalty loop in the Sprint and gave himself a 30 second penalty when he started the Pursuit too early. As a result his finishes there were just 26th and 24th.

He didn’t make it back to the World Cup until he closed the season on the racing on the top level in Soldier Hollow and Canmore. Once back he finished 3, 10, 5, 7, and 14. By the end of the season he had an average finish of 12.7 and he was the established as the 5th fastest man on the World Cup. An average finish of 12.7 prorated over the course of a full season would be good enough for 7th in the Overall.

So yeah, normally I would like to have somebody who raced a little more on the World Cup level this season, but how can you argue that Johan Olav-Botn wasn’t the best rookie we saw this season?

🇫🇷 Gilonne Guigonnat

Age	25
Total Races	16
Total Races this Season	15
Overall Rank	22
Average Finish	22.3
Best Finish	3rd
Key Statistic	Total Hit Rate: 89.6%

While Johan-Olav Botn may have been the Rookie of the Year for the men but Gilonne Guigonnat is the Rookie of the Year for the women. Prior to this season she had run just one race on the World Cup. Within two races she had her first top 10. She finished the season with the best racing of her career going 11th, 5th, and 3rd in the three races in Canmore. In between those weekends in Oestersund and Canmore she was incredibly solid. For the whole year she finished outside the top 40 just twice in 15 races with one of those being the first race of the season.

Guigonnat came into the season after just missing out on the IBU Cup Overall title in the 2022-2023 season. She was joining a team that was absolutely loaded. Not only was there defending World Cup Champion Julia Simon alongside returning Justine Braisaz-Bouchet and rising start Lou Jeanmonnot. That’s not even to mention Sophie Chauveau. Guigonnat had to perform and perform well to keep her spot on what was very competitive team.

Gilonne Guigonnat’s avenue to holding her place on the World Cup roster was through her shooting. She hit at 89.6% which was good for the second highest rate amongst all of the French women. That was also the best of her career. And that’s not to say that she was slow. She finished the season ranked 27th overall in skiing. Want to know how good the French women’s team is? That was “worst” amongst all French women with more than nine races on the World Cup.

It was a great first full season on the World Cup. Hopefully, on a fantastically talented French roster, she’s able to secure a full time spot on the World Cup next season. She already finished 22nd Overall while missing the races in Oberhof and Ruhpolding. Adding those races into the mix would put her close to the top 15. That’s without any improvement. She’s trending upward in ski speed She’s already a tremendous shooter. There is a good chance, that with a full season, she can give the French another woman in the top 15.

🇳🇴 Vebjoern Soerum

Age	25
Total Races	16
Total Races this Season	13
Overall Rank	26
Average Finish	21.8
Best Finish	3rd x2
Key Statistic	Podiums = 2

Vebjoern Soerum was a victim of the Norwegian men’s team depth this season. As a result of Endre Stroemsheim’s IBU Cup Overall win in 2022-2023 the Norwegian men started out the season with seven bibs for the first two weeks of the season. That allowed Soerum and Stroemsheim to start the season on the World Cup and battle it out for who would keep the 6th bib and continue on the top level for the rest of the season.

At the end of two weeks Stroemsheim was the better of the two and stayed on the top level, but it’s hard to say that Soerum wasn’t good. In fact he was so good that he qualified for the Mass Starts in Lenzerheide, Antholz and Oslo even though he didn’t run the any other World Cup races over that stretch. Then when the Norwegian squad again expanded for the last two weeks of the season (the normal one week expansion was extended to two weeks due to the North American finish) Soerum rejoined the squad for each of the last five races.

In total Soerum was limited to just 13 races for the year. If he was of any other nationality he would have run even race of the year including the World Championships. Unfortunately for him Norway is limited to just six bibs (for most races). He ended the season with two podium finishes which was the most of any rookie, man or woman. His average finish of 21.8 was good for 22nd best of all men.

While Soerum clearly had some degradation of form late in the season, he started the year as one of the fastest men in biathlon. Over the first trimester he raced six times and was top in skiing four of those races. The shooting, though, has a ways to go. He shot just 80.5% this season. For Soerum to permanently breakthrough this logjam of talent of Norwegian men, including Stroemsheim, Botn, Frey, etc, he’s going to have to shoot significantly better. It’s unfortunately because Soerum is quite talented, but this very well might have been the most consistent World Cup racing we see from him. Or maybe he rises to the challenge and comes back next season so good Norway has no choice but to keep him around!

🇩🇪 Selina Grotian

Age	20
Total Races	18
Total Races this Season	17
Overall Rank	29
Average Finish	27.5
Best Finish	4th
Key Statistic	Shooting Percentage Last 8 Races: 87.1%

It feels like we have been hearing about Selina Grotian for years now, but at just 19 years old she made her full season debut on the World Cup this season. For as much publicity and attention as her debut had at the end of the 2022-2023 season, Grotian floated mostly under the radar for the majority of the 23-24 campaign. Instead more of the focus was aimed at the other young German women who made their first races on the World Cup including Julia Tannheimer, Julia Kink, and Johanna Puff.

The 2023-2024 season was a nice year of growth for Grotian. The young German started out the season well under the radar. Through the first four weeks of the season, nine races for her, her average finishing place was just 37.4. Over that stretch her course time rank was 26.9 to go along with a shooting percentage of just 75.7%. For a woman who was regularly one of, if not the fastest woman during her Juniors and IBU Cup racing, that wasn’t quite what we were expecting on the skis. Meanwhile, while not to be confused for a sharp shooter, prior to this season she had always shot in the mid to low 80’s. That performance for the first few weeks was definitely a learning phase.

Once the World Championships came around her season really took off. After sitting out the Sprint and Pursuit races, Grotian took the starting line for the Individual. She raced to 4th on the day, just missing a medal in her first career World Championships race, with perfect 20/20 shooting and the 17th best course time in difficult conditions. This was the woman we had all been dreaming of! From that moment through the end of the season she raced in eight races and had an average finish of 16.4. That significant improvement came about with an average course time rank of 22.8 and a shooting percentage of 87.1%.

I just want to really zero in on that shooting. Over her first nine races of the season she had 140 shots and hit 106 of them for a 75.7%. Over her final eight races of the season she had exactly 140 shots and hit 122 of them for 87.1% shooting. With just slightly improved skiing that massive shooting improvement led to a significant leap in performance.

She ended her year with six top 20’s all of which came in the last eight races of the season. It’s a big assumption, but assuming we see more of that Selina Grotian next season we’re looking at a woman who will be finishing much higher than the 29th.

🇩🇪 Danilo Riethmueller

Age	24
Total Races	7
Total Races this Season	7
Overall Rank	37
Average Finish	18.3
Best Finish	7th
Key Statistic	Worst Finish = 26

Danilo Riethmueller holds the double distinction this season as both being one of the World Cup rookies of the year and also the top non-Norwegian man on the IBU Cup. Being the top non-Norwegian on the IBU Cup is a bit of a joke but it’s still a very impressive thing to accomplish. He only ran seven races on the World Cup, racing in Antholz as well as Soldier Hollow and Canmore, but he made an immediate impact with two top 10’s and an average finish of 18.6. This includes the Sprint in Canmore where both and Johan-Olav Botn started in the last handful of starters for the day, and finished in the top 10.

The most impressive thing for me was that Riethmueller’s worst finish was 26th. That was a really nice floor indicating no significant weak spots in his racing. Everything about his performance makes me think that he will be able to replicate this next season.

He shot a very nice 86.7% with near even splits of 85% prone and 88.3% standing. That tracks nicely with how he was shooting on the IBU Cup so it wasn’t like he just hit a hot streak with shooting at the end of the season. The bigger thing for Riethmueller was that he had a bit of a breakthrough in his skiing. On the IBU Cup he was the third fastest man slotting him ahead of several Norwegian men. Then he came to the World Cup and his average course time rank was 18th.

With Benedikt Doll’s retirement comes the opportunity for Riethmueller to join the World Cup full time next season. Already, in just seven races, he finished 34th in the Overall. If, and it’s a big if, he is able to replicate his World Cup performance for a full year there is a good opportunity for him to jump into the top 20 if not the top 15. If he’s able to further improve his ski speed he may be able to get to the edge of the top 10. Just to be totally open I’m very optimistic about his future!

🇫🇷 Jeanne Richard

Age	22
Total Races	12
Total Races this Season	12
Overall Rank	39
Average Finish	24.2
Best Finish	8th
Key Statistic	Skiing vs. Median Biathlete: -2.7%

Easily one of the most anticipated rookies this season was Jeanne Richard. She started out the season on the IBU CUp and through the first eight races of the IBU Cup season she had seven top 10’s and just one finish outside the top 8. It was a wildly dominant start to the IBU Cup season and no surprise that she was able to fight her way to the World Cup roster.

Richard joined the French World Cup women beginning with the racing in Oberhof and immediately made an impression. Her very first World Cup race she finished in 8th. She followed that up with a 9th in the Pursuit. Welcome to the World Cup!

She finished the rest of the season on the World Cup, and while she never made it back to the World Cup, she never seemed to be in over her head. She only finished outside the top 40 just one time on her way to an Overall finish of 39th. Her median finish was 20th.

To me, the most impressive part of her performance, was her skiing. In her first year on the World Cup, at age 21, she was the 15th fastest woman on the World Cup. Just a handful of women that she was faster than this season: Juni Arnekleiv, Vanessa Voigt, Tuuli Tomingas, and Karoline Knotten. She was already running 2.7% faster than the median biathlete. At just 21! Think of where she can get to?

The big hole, and it is a pretty big hole, in her performance is the standing shooting. This has always been the case for her. Every season of her career she has a very very good prone shooting and a very average standing shooting. That was once again the case this season on the World Cup as she hit 94.7% prone and just 73.7% standing. On the IBU Cup she went 88.3% prone and 75% standing.

Standing shooting has been a problem that Jeanne Richard hasn’t quite been able to solve…yet. If she does we all need to watch closely because she’s going to be amazing. She’s got two women on her team, Julia Simon and Justine Braisaz-Bouchet, who have conquered shooting difficulties and risen to the top of the sport. Jeanne Richard could very well be another one. We just have to be patient. She will start next season just 22 years old. It may be 3-4 years before she gets to that level, but the potential is there and that’s very exciting.

🇸🇪 Sara Andersson

Age	21
Total Races	12
Total Races this Season	11
Overall Rank	49
Average Finish	44.4
Best Finish	16th
Key Statistic	Pursuit Races = 4

A couple of years ago I, like most of us, got really excited about the talent the Swedish women were amassing. I went ahead and looked at the up and coming talent for the Swedish women to see how well they would be able to replenish the well and keep the train rolling. I saw Sara Andersson and it was immediate star eyes emoji. 🤩 Her Juniors career is just so enticing. She only races Youth/Junior Worlds and but over her last 12 Youth/Junior Worlds races she has two gold medals 🥇, four podiums, seven top 5’s, and just one finish outside the top 10.

This season Andersson had a very busy travel schedule:
– She started the year on the IBU Cup finishing 10th and 2nd
– Then she went to the World Cup where she raced Hochfilzen through Antholz
– She went to the European Championships
– Missed the World Championship roster but went to Otepaa for the Junior Worlds
– Back to the World Cup for Soldier Hollow and Canmore

It was not surprising, to me at least, was that as the season went on her performance started to suffer. All in all though, for a first run on the World Cup as a 20-21 year old, it wasn’t bad at all. She scored a first career top 20 in the Ruhpolding Sprint race and finished in the points six times to finish 49th Overall.

While she has been very fast on the Juniors level, and moderately fast on the IBU Cup, that really didn’t carry over well to the World Cup this season. Her average course time rank was 48.5 and she was 1.5% slower than median biathlete. Also, as a fairly solid shooter who consistently hit mid 80’s on the Junior and IBU Cup level, she hit just 79.4% last season on the World Cup level.

What does that tell me? She didn’t nearly hit her potential last season and that’s not even accounting for any offseason improvement that will hopefully happen. Sara Andersson still has a bright future and I’ll continue to be high on her. I’m hopeful that next season she can have some stability without jumping back and forth between levels as she did last year. The Swedish team will have six starting bibs so hopefully she can lock one of those down early and not worry about it. If she can shoot in the mid 80’s, as she has for most of her career, and improve her ski speed as you would expect a 21-22 year old to do, then hopefully next season we see her fighting for a few more top 20’s, qualifying for all of the Pursuits, and maybe just around the top 10 a few times.

🇩🇪 Johanna Puff

Age	21
Total Races	7
Total Races this Season	7
Overall Rank	53
Average Finish	37.4
Best Finish	18th
Key Statistic	Prone shooting: 92.7%

Another of the young German women who made their World Cup debut in 2023-2024 was Johanna Puff. She came up for the Sprint race in Lenzerheide and finished 61 to miss the Pursuit. She returned to the World Cup in Antholz and raced the rest of the season there excluding the World Cup. In those final six races she finished outside the top 40 just once. Unfortunately that was the Sprint in Soldier Hollow so she missed the Pursuit there as well. Otherwise she was consistently top 30 including setting a career best of 18th in the Oslo Individual and qualifying for the Oslo Mass Start.

Johanna Puff’s season was actually better than her World Cup finishing places indicate. First of all, she was brilliant on the IBU Cup. She raced nine times on the IBU Cup and had six top 10’s and two wins. That alone was a very good season. However there was even more that was intriguing.

If you look at her profile as a Juniors athlete she was an all around type biathlete. She wasn’t a burner and she wasn’t a sharpshooter, but she was good enough at both to have plenty of Junior level success and give us some hope for her future. This season, though, she turned herself into a tremendous shooter. It wasn’t just a brief moment of amazing shooter either. No matter where she was racing she was hitting her targets. Overall, on the IBU Cup she hit 90.8% and on the World Cup she hit 87.3%.

Looking just at her shooting on the World Cup she was 92.7% pone and 81.8% standing while on the IBU Cup she was 93.8% prone and 87.7% standing. While the overall hit rate was much better for Puff this season, that prone preference over standing shooting has been present in her entire career. The difference is that she raised her floor of her standing shooting a little this season.

Puff’s skiing is where she is going to need to make up the most ground. In her World Cup racing her average course time rank was just 50th and she was 2.1% slower than the median biathlete. She ended the season ranked 71st in skiing on the World Cup vs. 16th on the IBU Cup. As noted above she’s never been a speedster. However, even with her newly improved shooting she’s going to need to get a little faster as well to reach her full potential. That’s what we’re going to be watching for next season: Can she hold on to her shooting and continue to improve her skiing.

🇳🇴 Maren Kirkeeide

Age	21
Total Races	11
Total Races this Season	9
Overall Rank	54
Average Finish	37.3
Best Finish	12th
Key Statistic	Overall Ski Rank = 40

Maren Kirkeeide’s most memorable moment from the past year will likely be her amazing European Championship battle with Ida Lien for the final spot on the Norwegian World Championship squad. Kirkeeide won the head to head battle finishing 🥇 🥈 🥇 in the non-relay races. Ida Lien ultimately won the final spot with her relay performance to go along with her win in the Sprint to pair two 4th place finishes in the Individual and Pursuit.

Kirkeeide had a very strong IBU Cup season to pair with her European Championship performance. She raced in Kontiolahti, Martell-Val Martello, and Arber and had four top 10’s including a win and a second in those seven races. Her “worst” finishes in that stretch were 14th and 15th in the Arber. Her World Cup success wasn’t quite as abundant. She raced the World Cup from Ruhpolding through the end of the year. She did finish with a career best 12th in the Individual in Oslo and followed that with a 24th in the Oslo Mass start. Other than that she had just two top 40’s in the remaining seven races she participated in.

The big difficulty for Kirkeeide was that her shooting didn’t translate from the IBU Cup to the World Cup. In her IBU Cup starts she hit at an 89.3% clip with near even splits. On the World Cup she was hitting just 83.3% overall with 77.3% prone and 89.3% standing. That’s over near equal shots on each level.

At the same time her skiing was actually pretty good. After running as one of the fastest women on the IBU Cup, ranking 9th in overall skiing and with an average course time rank of 7.5, she came to the World Cup and showed well. She had an average course time rank of 34.6 and ranked 40th on the World Cup in skiing. Kirkeeide’s overall skiing ranked around Mona Bronson, Deedra Irwin, and just a little bit behind Tereza Vobornikova. That’s not bad company to keep.

The ceiling remains high for Maren Kirkeeide. If she had just hit at her IBU Cup level on the World Cup she would have had a much better season. Easily said than done, sure, but with another offseason of training under her belt, and the prior experience on the World Cup, I’m pretty excited to see what she can do in 24-25.

🇺🇦 Khrystyna Dmytrenko

Age	24
Total Races	16
Total Races this Season	16
Overall Rank	57
Average Finish	33.9
Best Finish	8th
Key Statistic	Avg Shooting Time = 27.5 sec

When I started the research for this exercise Khrystyna Dmytrenko was not a name I initially had on my list. After looking at all of the rookies though, you really have to tack her on to the back end of this list. For the most part she had a pretty high floor even if a fairly low ceiling.

I said for the most part. She showed off a very high ceiling in the World Championships of all places in the Individual race. She was a very good shooter all season, hitting 87.7% all season and she went 20/20 in that Worlds Individual. Even with one of her worst ski days of the entire season, with a course time rank of 50th, she still managed to finish 8th. That was her first career top 10 and will stand as her career best entering the 2024-2025 season.

She ended the season with just the one top 10 and two total top 20’s. However, in 16 races she had 11 top 40’s which is where that high floor comes in. It was all about that steady shooting that meant she was able to make up some ground on the range and avoid losing time on the penalty loop.

Dmytrenko, like many of the Ukrainian athletes, is a very good shooter as documented above. She hit 87.7% for the season with 93.1% prone and 82.3% standing. And she did it all with pretty good shooting times with an average of 27.5 seconds per shooting which was good enough for 17th best on the World Cup.

For her to reach a new level next season and beyond she has two major things to work on. First she needs to do better on the skis. She was 59th overall in skiing last season. If she can work her way towards Yulia Dzhima, who finished as the median biathlete for the season, that will significantly improve her from finishing in the 30’s to the teens and 20’s. Then, if she can fix her standing shooting, which she has been able to do on the Junior and IBU Cup levels, that will give her another little boost.

🇸🇪 Viktor Brandt

Age	24
Total Races	12
Total Races this Season	11
Overall Rank	62
Average Finish	57.2
Best Finish	24th
Key Statistic	Sweden World Champion Relay

Viktor Brandt primarily makes this list not because of his individual races but because of his relay performance. The Swedish men’s team, in spite of having Sebastian Samuelsson and Martin Ponsiluoma, struggled in the early part of the season. They would put Ponsi and Sebbe in the 3rd and 4th legs but they just couldn’t overcome the holes that were dug by the first two legs. They tried Emil Nykvist, Oskar Brandt, Peppe Femling, and Malte Stefanson, but they couldn’t find the right combination that got them to the podium. Then along came Viktor Brandt.

They first added Viktor Brandt to the relay team at the World Championships which is quite a time to make your relay debut. Worked pretty well! Viktor Brandt needed just 2 extra rounds on his leg. Rather than digging a hole for Ponsi and Sebbe to dig the Swedish men out of he kept them in contact. At the end of his leadoff leg the Swedish men were just 23.5 seconds back which was much much better than they’ve done in the past. And with Laegreid needing a penalty loop the door was open to a podium finish for the Swedish men. They did indeed get a podium. They won the Gold medal at the World Championships for their only podium of the season.

Viktor Brandt had a solid individual season as well. He ran 11 races with an average finish of just 57.2. But he was able to six top 40’s including 24th in the Sprint at the Worlds and 24th in the Individual in Oslo. Maybe he doesn’t have the most amazing solo career but if he can be a solid relay member, keep the Swedish men close to the lead, and give Ponsi and Samuelsson a chance to sprint to the podium, then he could have a long and successful World Cup career.

Coming Soon

🇩🇪Julia Tannheimer, 🇫🇷Oceane Michelon, 🇩🇪Julia Kink, 🇸🇪Anna-Karin Heijdenberg and more!