Summer Biathlon 2024 Part 2: Summer World Championships

Dates: August 22-26
Location: Otepää, Estonia

The 2024 IBU Summer World Championships was full of thrilling races with races decided by the smallest fractions of a second and massively emotional Mass Start victories on Sunday. While maybe not packed with the absolute A-list stars, and certainly not as prestigious as the Winter World Championships, these Summer Worlds were plenty of fun and we have a lot to talk about.

Final Numbers: 16 nations with top 10 finishes
– Ukraine: 21 top 10’s and 6 podiums
– Czechia: 17 top 10’s and 8 podiums
– Norway: 13 top 10’s and 5 podiums
– Bulgaria: 9 top 10’s and 4 podiums
– Slovakia: 9 top 10’s and 2 podiums
– Estonia: 9 top 10’s and 1 podium
– Poland: 9 top 10’s and 0 podiums
– Finland: 8 top 10’s and 3 podiums
– Latvia: 6 top 10’s and 2 podiums
– Belgium: 4 top 10’s and 2 podiums
– France: 4 top 10’s and 2 podiums
– Romania: 3 top 10’s
– Sweden: 2 top 10’s and 1 podium
– Moldova: 2 top 10’s
– Croatia: 1 top 10 and 1 podium

My Top Moments/Takeaways from Otepää 2024

1.Mass Start Glory: While maybe this wasn’t the “biggest” story of the weekend, for me it was certainly the most emotional. Isn’t that why we watch sports? To get caught up in the emotion and the fun of the sport? Well that was what impacted me on Sunday.

First up was the Men’s Mass Start won by Rene Zahkna. Up until that point the Estonian fans had been magnificent in cheering on all of the great performances of the week, but up until that point there hadn’t yet been a podium for one of the Estonian athletes. Well that changed at the very end in a HUGE way. From the gun Zahkna was up in the front of the pack. He was perfect shooting through three shoots and built a 25 second lead.

As Zahkna came onto the range you could feel the anticpation and the tension. And then… Miss. Miss. Miss. Oh no… Cmon Rene. He rallied together and got the last two targets down. In total it was a 39 second shoot. Thankfully for Zahkna though the rest of the top competitors had multiple misses in the last shoot. Zahkna left the range with a 6 second lead and held off Jonas Marecek the rest of the way. He crossed the line to the roar of the home crowd with Estonian flags waving and it was absolutely magnificent.

It seemed like that might be the emotional high point for me but there was one more surprise to come. Anybody who has listened to the podcast or followed me on social media that I am a big fan of Baiba Bendika. She’s done a tremendous job of bringing the sport of biathlon to the fans with her videos and she’s seemingly willing and available to answer questions any time and anywhere. She is always endearing herself to fans by chiming in on social medial conversations. Furthermore, I’m in awe of her ability to both compete while pregnant during the 2022-2023 season and return for the start of the 2023-2024 season just 2 months after giving birth to her son.

Baiba Bendika can now call herself a World Champion. The Latvian woman who continues to impress with her ski speed once again showed her speed. At the start of the race, though, this didn’t look like it was going to be a great race. She stated off with 3 misses in the first shooting and fell 1:14 seconds behind the lead. She went 14/15 over the next three shootings with an immensely impressive final shoot. Bendika had already climbed from a nadir of 27th place up to 3rd and was just 20 seconds back. That included the fatest laps on the course for laps 3 and 4. Still, at that point you have to do something special to win.

Special was exactly what Baiba Bendika had ready. She finished off the race with another 5/5 standing shoot in 23.5 seconds allowing her to get off the range in first. She slammed the door emphatically with the fastest final lap in the field. It was so much fun. One of my favorite summer biathlon memories ever.

Okay now on to the real take aways that are worth noting for the general world of biathlon and not just my own emotional connections:

2. Strong Czech Performances: Overall the Czech team had a very solid Summer World Champs. This was an important marker for the Czech team as both the men and women have new coaching staffs and from the sound of things the have had a bit of a new training philosophy and schedule. Interestingly the coaching staff hinted that from this Michal Krcmar might have a bit of a more rough performance at Summer Worlds as his body was taking more time to recover from the hard training than his younger teammates. Also, Marketa Davidova was held out of Summer Worlds as she has a bit of a busy summer schedule.

The rest of the team absolutely showed up though:
– Tereza Vobornikova: 5th in Super Sprint, 🥇in Sprint, 🥉 in Mass Start
– Lucie Charvatova: 🥉 in Super Sprint, 8th in Sprint, 4th in Mass Start
– Ilona Plechacova: 9th in Junior Sprint, 🥉 in Pursuit
– Jakub Stvrtecky: 🥇in Sprint
– Tomas Mikyska: 🥉in Super Sprint, 5th in Mass Start
– Jonas Marecek: 6th in Super Sprint, 🥈 in Mass Start
– David Elias: 🥇in Junior Super Sprint, 8th in Sprint, 7th in Pursuit

Not a bad week! Vobornikova and Charvatova were constantly in the mix taking home three medals between the two of them. Vobornikova shot 90% for the weekend. She’s always been a very good shooter, and this was only one weekend, but if she shoots near 90% for the season we’re going to be seeing her in the top 10 A LOT this winter. Meanwhile, Lucie Charvatova was just a speed demon. She ran fastest in the Super Sprint and the Sprint and was only behind Baiba Bendika in the Mass Start. It was also really nice to see Tomas Mikyska flash in the same event (different venue of course) where he was looking so good last summer before injuring his knee and missing a large portion of the season. It looks like he’s more than ready for the 24-25 season!

3. Bulgarian Women: If there was a woman’s race in Otepää at Summer Worlds you can be assured that a Bulgarian woman was a factor. Lora Hristova and Valetina Dimitrova, who even at just 21 years old we have already come to know quite well, were dominant in the Juniors races. Hristova won the Super Sprint with Dimitrova in 4th. In the Sprint the swapped places. Then in the Pursuit Dimitrova won again and Hristova worked her way up so that they went 1-2.

Meanwhile Milena Todorova was returning after missing last season on maternity leave and joined the growing cadre of racing moms in the biathlon family. She marked her return with an 8th place finish in the Super Sprint. She nearly had a podium, entering the final shoot in 2nd place, but 4 misses saw her fall down the pack. She followed that with 13th in the Sprint and 21st in the Mass Start where she unfortunately hit just 10/20. Overall though it was a successful return to competition!

4. Welcome Back Paulina Batovska Fialkova: Speaking of moms, Paulina Batovska Fialkova returned to competition at the Summer World Championships as well. Just as we’ve seen with so many mothers returning to competition recently, Batovska Fialkova looked very very good in her return. She won the Super Sprint, won bronze in the Sprint, and finished 7th in the Mass Start. She showed good speed too, never finishing worse than 4th in course time. It will be great to have her back in the competition in Kontiolahti and it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see her getting back into the fight for flowers at some point later this season.

5. Battle of the Claudes: The Claude brothers had a little family reunion in Otepää joining together in competition. In the battle of the Claudes, the Summer Worlds title goes to Emilien Claude. Here were their respective finishes:
– Emilien Claude: 11th in Super Sprint heat, 🥈in Sprint, 7th in Mass Start
– Fabien Claude: 11th in Super Sprint, 8th in Sprint, 9th in Mass Start
– Florent Claude: 12th in Super Sprint heat, 39th in Sprint

6. Finnish Women Looking Strong: It was a really nice weekend for Suvi Minkkinen who won 🥈 with excellent showings in both the Super Sprint and the Mass Start. While she was mostly buoyed by her usual strong shooting she had some nice racing on the roller skis too finishing 9th, 7th, and 7th in course time. Pair that with crisp 90% shooting and you’re in for some strong results. The senior Finnish women also saw Venla Lehtonen grab 6th in the Super Sprint and 8th in the Mass Start.

For the Junior Finns Inka Hamalainen won 🥈 in the Super Sprint and followed that up with 7th and 6th. She was top 5 in course time each race. Not bad for the 18 year old!

7. Polish Woman: While we’re celebrating the women it’s worth mentioning a strong showing for the Polish women. We saw really good races from Joanna Jakiela (17th, 4th, and 5th) who is looking to show some improvement on the 23-24 season where she had 5 top 30’s and the first two top 20’s of her career. Kamila Zuk who missed most of last season after an injury in the fall finished 4th, 6th, and 12th. Anna Maka and Natalia Sidorowicz were more than respectable as well.

8. Ukrainian Strength: There were so many Ukrainian top 10’s it’s almost too much to single out any particularly good performances. Over 12 races Ukraine secured 21 top 10 finishes including six medals. In fact there was only one race without a Ukrainian in the top 10. This was headlined by Dmytro Pidruchnyi and Artem Tyschenko going 1-2 in the Senior Men’s Super Sprint and Vikotoriia Khvostenko and Olena Horodna going 2-3 in the Junior Women’s Sprint along with Vitalii Mandzyn winning 🥇 in both the Junior Men’s Sprint and Pursuit!