Norway 2024-2025 Team Preview

Be honest. When you think of biathlon you think of Norway. How can you not? Okay fine, maybe you first think of Lisa Vittozzi or the legion of French women, or the historical successes of Germany. But inevitably you come to think of the berserker Viking horde that has descended on biathlon over the last couple of decades.

One of the top stories of the last several seasons has been the absolutely crushing dominance of the Norwegian men and the stranglehold they have put on biathlon. From JT Boe making a push to be the greatest biathlete of all time, to regular Norwegian podium sweeps, to the chokehold they put on the IBU Cup. It’s not just the men though, as Tiril Eckhoff and Marte Olsbu Roeiseland recently won Overall Globes and Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold nearly added her name to that list last season.

Norway is the historical and spiritual home of biathlon. The Oslo-Holmenkollen venue and race weekend is regarded as a pilgramage for some biathlon fans (myself included). It’s such a big deal that the Kind of Norway makes regular appearances at the races. Where else does royalty come to bless the biathlon?

The Norwegian biathlon rosters ultimately become absolutely giagantic. Simply put, the number of men and women who may ultimately race in an IBU level event next season is enormous. So what I’ve tried to do is summarize the men and women who make up the official National Team rosters for the 2024-2025 season as well as a few other familiar names that, while not officially on the roster, we are more than likely to see this season as well. The sheer number of athletes, and very high levels of talent, makes it difficult to predict which athletes will spend the most time on which levels. I’ve done my best though!

Men

The current iteration of the Norwegian men’s biathlon team is the strongest biathlon team in modern biathlon history. Last season they went 1-5 in the Overall on the World Cup. The only reason they didn’t go 1-6 is because Emilien Jacquelin put in a late surge and just pipped Endre Stroemsheim at the very very very end. The Norwegian domination extends beyond merely the World Cup. The men on the IBU Cup also swept the top five positions along with 9th and 13th. Meanwhile Kasper Kalkenberg, still a Junior, has run six career races on the Juniors level and he’s won three of them. It’s beyond ridiculous how much talent is on the Norwegian team. How many could they put in the top 20 of the World Cup Overall if they were to have unlimited starting positions?

Quota: 6 Athletes to Start (+1 for Kontiolahti and Hochfilzen)

World Cup: The Norwegian team had one of the most difficult decisions to make. Which man will accompany their top five to the World Cup on a regular basis and which would join for the first two weeks. The top five are locked in…at least to start. As we’ve seen with Johannes Dale-Skjevdal a couple of years back though, these guys have to perform to stay on top. Any slip in form could lead to them not racing. However, truth be told, most of them wouldn’t go to the IBU Cup, rather they would just take some time to recover and train at home before returning to the team when ready. With that said, here are the returning top 5 men in the biathlon world:

Johannes Thingnes Boe (31)

The 2023-2024 season took Johannes Thingnes Boe to new heights. Somehow, while not looking like he was at his best for the first half of the season, he still managed 11 victories, the third most in his career, seven more World Championship medals, three discipline globes and another Overall Globe. At this point you can make the argument that JT Boe is the best biathlete there has ever been and is on his way to accumulating the greatest resume in biathlon history.

We could probably go on about him for the an entire article…and I’ve done it many times before! We all know who Boe is. He’s routinely the fastest man on the World Cup, with shooting that is better even than his pretty good shooting percentages indicate. He races with a swagger that is incredibly enjoyable to watch (unless I guess if you’re a French or Swedish fan). The bravado he displays with some of his final shoots is probably what I’ll remember the most about him when he’s gone. That and the blazing speed.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2017-2018	84.7	87.9	86.3	27.6
2018-2019	93.1	78.1	85.6	29.2
2019-2020	92.1	92.1	92.1	28.3
2020-2021	87.1	83.3	85.2	29.4
2021-2022	82.9	81.4	82.1	30.3
2022-2023	92.6	87.4	90	26.5
2023-2024	87.6	86.7	87.1	27.8

Boe has made it absolutely clear that he won’t be competing well into his 30’s. These next two seasons very well might be the last opportunities that we have to see the man who, until now anyway, is the best biathlete we’ve ever seen. At this point it’s all about solidifying his place in history at the very top of the sport. He’s going to be competing for another Overall Globe as he takes aim at Martin Fourcade’s seven and collecting as many wins along the way as possible as he aims for Ole Einar Bjoerndalen’s career victories record. Both of those are quite possible. Anything less than competing for the Overall is going to be a disappointment to this man.

Tarjei Boe (36)

For a couple seasons now we’ve discussed both how long Tarjei Boe might continue to compete as well as what level of deterioration in his performance might result in Coach Mazet and the Norwegian federation gently nudging him towards the sidelines. Tarjei Boe clearly isn’t ready for that. In the first trimester of the 2022-2023 season it actually looked like we were headed that drection as he had just a single top 10 finish in the first eight races.

He turned it around quickly and managed to end the season once again in 6th in the Overall. Last year there was never a hint of slip in performance. He had a very good start to the season and even managed to wear the yellow bib for a couple of races early on. After his younger brother took over the Overall lead Tarjei was the only man who could come closely to challenging for the Overall lead. He got to within 47 points after the Sprint in Soldier Hollow. After that JT Boe won the last four races of the season to end the suspense, but Tarjei Boe still finished the year in 2nd Overall, his best Overall finish behind only his 2010-2011 Overall Globe.

Tarjei got all the way to 2nd in the Overall mostly due to a small revival in his skiing. He’s never slipped below 10th best in skiing in the last six years, but he rebounded all the way up to 4th in the rankings in the 23-24 season. Meanwhile hiw shooting stayed just as solid and stead as it has always been. For the last decade he has hit between 85.5% and 88.6% of his shots which is an absolutely astonishing level of consistency.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2017-2018	92.2	82	87.1	29.2
2018-2019	93.9	78.3	86.1	28.9
2019-2020	94.7	81.8	88.2	29.4
2020-2021	91.9	79.5	85.7	29.5
2021-2022	90	82.7	86.4	30.6
2022-2023	94.2	81.1	87.6	28
2023-2024	94.3	82.9	88.6	28.5

I’m beyond predicting the demise of Tarjei Boe. I’ve shared before that Tarjei is sentimental for me. I want him to continue to be great for as long as he possibly can. I know the end will come eventually. I just don’t want to see it happen.

Sturla Holm Laegreid (27)

The 2023-2024 World Cup season was the worst full season of Sturla Holm Laegreid’s career. That’s an absolutely preposterous statement that also is somehow true. He finished 4th in the Overall and that’s the worst he’s ever done. He finished 2nd in the Overall the first three seasons of his career, part of a blistering opening to his career that puts him alongside some of the greats of all time, even at this young age. If it weren’t for JT Boe imagine where he would be? He already has 13 career victories which matches Tarjei Boe’s distinguished career. It seems like just a matter of time before he matches Tarjei’s podiums numbers as well.

Laegreid’s reputation is as a great shooter who is fast enough but not out of this world fast like some of his teammates. That reputation is probably a little overstated. He is an excellent shooter there is no doubting that. He has hit at least 86.2% in each of his four full seasons on the World Cup, including 93.5% to lead the field in the 2023-2024 season. However, last year his 88.3% was just 17th on the World Cup. His skiing, though is definitely under rated. He has ranked in the top 10 in every season except for last year when he finished the year 16th in skiing.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2019-2020	100	96.7	98.3	29.8
2020-2021	96.2	89.1	92.6	26.5
2021-2022	87	85.4	86.2	28.6
2022-2023	97.8	89.2	93.5	25.1
2023-2024	88	88.5	88.3	26.5

It feels inevitable that Sturla Holm Laegreid will eventually get his hands on the Overall Globe. He’s just been so close so many times. But maybe those were the best chances he’ll ever have? I find that hard to believe. He just has too much talent. Any year could be the year he breaks through for the big season. It’s not like he needs to get dramatically better at anything. And it remains to be seen if the new Madshus bindings will bring him even more ski success.

Johannes Dale-Skjevdal (27)

Johannes Dale-Skjevdal is the case point for the notion that nobody’s position is secured by past results on the Norwegian men’s World Cup team. He finished 9th in the 2019-2020 season and then improved to finish 5th in the Overall in 2020-2021. He started out the following year with poor races in the first trimester and was demoted to the IBU Cup for the remainder of the season. Fortunately he’s not averse to some hard work and he boucned back to finish 7th in the 22-23 season and all the way up to 3rd Overall last year.

Last year was easily Dale-Skjevdal’s career year as he added a second win to his resume along six podiums and 12 top 5’s which were both easily by far and away career bests. While he was never truly in the conversation for competing for the Overall Globe he did finish in 3rd behind only the Boe brothers. For a good part of the year he did have a big separation between on 4th place, who ended up being Sturla Holm Laegreid.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2019-2020	93.8	77.5	85.6	30.4
2020-2021	89.5	78.1	83.8	31.3
2022-2023	84.8	81.9	84.3	28.7
2023-2024	87.5	81	84.3	29.5

By this point we’re all familiar with Johannes Dale-Skjevdal’s game. He is very very fast, last season second only to JT Boe. When he’s at his best he is shooting in the low to mid 80’s. Last season that 84.3% with very good prone shooting. He actually has relatively slow shooting, though, as he averaged just 29.5 seconds per trip to the range which was very much in the middle of the pack.

Johannes Dale-Skjevdal doesn’t really need to add anything else to his biathlon performance. He’s very very good. If he wants to make it to the very top of the sport he likely will need to his at just a slightly higher clip which will mean that he needs to get his standing shooting up from 81% to closer to 85%. If he can do that then who knows? Regardless, we know that we’ll see Dale-Skjevdal come out blazing fast and racing for top 5’s!

Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen (32)

For me Vetle Sjaastad’s Christiansen’s last three seasons are one of my favorite runs of the last decade. Coming into his age 28 season he had kind of settled into a point where he was consistently right on the edge of the top 10. Based on everything that we had seen it felt like he had reached his potential. To be fair that was a very high potential! Then, Christiansen unlocked a whole new level of performance.

Heading into that pivotal season Christiansen had settled in as a biathlete who was really good at everything but just wasn’t great at anything. He was running top 15 in skiing and hitting in the mid 80’s with his shooting. That was good enough to regularly find the top 10 and occasional climb the podium, but it kept him outside the conversation of the best biathletes of the era. He was another of a long lineage of really really good Norwegian biathletes who overshadowed by the dominant ones they race alongside.

Since the start of the 2021-2022 season we’ve seen a different Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen. He’s gotten just a little bit faster in that time peaking with finishing 4th in skiing in the 2022-2023 season. He was able to make himself much more accurate though. His shooting leapt from 86% to 89% in the 21-22 season and then 87.1% the last two years. That came from improvement in both prone and standing shooting. He was even able to get a couple of seconds faster with his shooting as well.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2018-2019	91.8	84.1	88	28
2019-2020	88.8	82.9	85.9	28.1
2020-2021	85.1	86.9	86	28.6
2021-2022	90.3	87.7	89	29.4
2022-2023	91.9	82.4	87.1	27.9
2023-2024	88.7	86.7	87.7	26.7

As he’s racing Christiansen looks like an absolute tank compared to some of the lean athletes he’s up against. When he’s in full charge it’s really something to see. Especially in warmer conditions with sloppy snow that we see flying up all around him it’s quite a sight. Will Christiansen be able to have yet another top 5 season? The competition is only getting stronger around him, not only coming from the French and Swedes as well as his own teammates! I sure hope he’s got at least one more top 5 Overall in him though!

Top 10 World Cup or Top 5 IBU Cup: The top five Norwegians are locked in for seemingly the whole season. After the races in Sjusjoen we now know that joining them for the first two weekends of the season (at least) will be, just like last season, Endre Stroemsheim and Vebjoen Soerum. That means that super speedster Johan-Olav Botn, rising start and seemingly future Overall Contender Isak Frey, and last season’s IBU Cup Overall Champion Mats Oeverby, are all on the outside looking in to start. In fact, Mats Oeverby didn’t even make the IBU Cup roster. That’s how much talent there is, and how much competition there is for these few positions.

These men below are in an unenviable position. They all, if given the opportunity, could race to a top 10-15 in the World Cup Overall. However, will they get that opportunity? Stroemsheim and Soerum are first up and will be given every opportunity to prove over the first weeks that they deserve to hold their position. Should they slip though, there is an a veritable army of men waiting for their big chance.

Endre Stroemsheim (27)

Over the last several years Endre Stroemsheim has followed what we would consider to be the normal progression of a biathlete. He advanced from decent Junior, steady improvement on the IBU Cup culminating in an IBU Cup Overall title in the 2022-2023 season, and then on to the World Cup last season. With many of the Norwegian biathletes, like Botn, they are so good they just make a sprint to the top. Stroemsheim was just a steady climber.

It is fair to say that Endre Stroemsheim wasn’t gifted anything. He only earned his position on the World Cup last season by winning the IBU Cup Overall which got him the extra bib to start the year. From there he done what he’s always done which is race hard and get the results to keep him there. He started right out with three straight finishes in the flowers. He earned his first podium in the Lenzerheide Pursuit. He won his first race in the Oberhof Pursuit. By the end of the season he had three podiums, ten top 10’s, and he finished 7th in the Overall race after just being beaten out by Emilien Jacquelin at the very last race.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2022-2023	80	81.2	80.6	22.8
2023-2024	89.5	80.5	85	24.6

Stroemsheim has proven himself to be a very good skier. The last two seasons he was 18th and 16th overall in skiing. While maybe not as fast as some of the other men on the team, that’s still very very good. He also has good if not great shooting as he hit 85% last season with an average shooting time of 24.6 seconds. You should clean and you shoot that fast and you make up a lot of ground in a hurry. The key though is actually shooting clean!

Will Stroemsheim remain with the World Cup team when the Norwegian cuts down from seven bibs to six? That’s a difficult question. He is on the top level Elite National Team which in theory should give him a leg up. But as we’ve seen with the Norwegian team he has to have the results to earn it. If there is one thing we know about Stroemsheim it’s that he is going to give it everything he has to overcome the odds.

Vebjoern Soerum (26)

The other young(ish) Norwegian who began running omore consistently on the World Cup last season was Vebjoern Soerum. He and Endre Stroemsheim were the 6th and 7th men on the World Cup team, so when the rosters cut down to 6 then Soerum was the odd man out. Interestingly, because he raced so well early in the season he ensured himself starts in the Mass Starts in Lenzerheide, Antholz, and Oslo. Then when rosters expanded again he was back on the World Cup for Soldier Hollow and Canmore. All told he ran 13 races and still was able to finish 26th Overall in that limited time. In addition he ran eight races on the IBU Cup.

In his more limited racing Soerum looked a lot like Endre Stroemsheim, except not quite as good. He ended the season ranked 34th in skiing and he hit 80.5% of his shots with an average shooting time of 27.2 seconds per shoot. All totaled if he had raced like that for a full season he would have ended up somewhere around 15th Overall. Not bad at all! But when you’re competing with the the other men on this list, it just isn’t going to be good enough.

For Soerum to hold on to a permanent spot on the World Cup roster he just has to be better. He has it in him. In the 2022-2023 season he was one of the fastest men on the IBU Cup. However, last season in his IBU Cup racing he was just a touch slower. I’m hopeful that means that he can find another gear next season. He also has previously shot a few percent better as well. Just a little faster and shooting closer to the mid 80’s and it might be a new story for Soerum next season.

Johan-Olav Botn (25)

Before the weekend in Sjusjoen, if you had forced me to pick, I probably would have selected Johan-Olav Botn for the World Cup team. Ultimately the team didn’t choose him and I can’t necessarily say they were wrong. Last year, though, Botn raced seven races including a comical Oberhof and a very strong close to the season in North America including a podium and four top 10’s. If he performs this year, like he did last year on the IBU Cup, he will more than likely at least get another handful of World Cup starts

So what is it about Botn that, even with less experience and Stroemsheim’s established record of World Cup success, he could contend to run on the World Cup next season? His ski speed. Don’t you remember in the 2022-2023 season when at the Norwegian Championships this kid with the hyphenated first name was outrunning the great JT Boe coming off of the best season of all time? Okay fine, maybe Boe was exhausted and the Norwegian Championships really didn’t mean anything for him. But Botn was unreal.

That ski speed continued to stand out last season. He started out last season on the IBU Cup. In total he ran 15 races. He was the fastest man on the course in 14 of those races. That’s outrageous. He came to the World Cup and his course time ranks in those 7 races his average course time rank was 8.6. The ski speed is legitimate.

It all came down to the shooting. Basically on the IBU Cup if Botn hit he was going to win, or at least find himself on the podium. He had seven victories in his 15 IBU Cup races and 13 podiums. It didn’t exactly work out this way but he needed to just hit 80% to have a chance to win. When he got to the World Cup the shooting just wasn’t there. He has two races where he hit 100% but otherwise broke 80% just once. He hit 80.9% total in those races.

If Botn can replicate the skiing and if he can improve the shooting even a little bit to hit in the low to mid 80’s, then he’s going to run on the World Cup and he’s going to win a race or two. His speed means his ceiling is the highest of anybody on this list. The shooting is also the worst of everybody on this list so he has much higher variance. On the IBU Cup he can still recover the poor shooting and get to the top 5, but that’s a much harder hill to climb on the World Cup. It all comes down to the shooting.

Mats Oeverby (24)

Last season’s IBU Cup Overall champion, Mats Oeverby would historically have been granted an extra bib for the 2024-2025 season. The new rules grant the bib to the Norwegian team to give to whomever they feel should get it rather than just directly going to the IBU Cup winner. While it is likely he gets a start on the World Cup, with all of the talent jammed into this Norwegian team it very well may not happen.

Last season Oeverby had an nearly unbeatable combination of statistics. On the IBU Cup he was the 4th best man on the skis and he had the 5th best hit rate of any man who ran more than five races. If you do that you’re going to be in good position to have a pile of good results, and Oeverby certainly did. He had two wins, nine podiums, 17 top 5’s and 21 top 10’s in 22 races. Even still he wouldn’t have won the Overall IBU Cup crown without Botn moving to the World Cup, that’s how good Botn was. Regardless, Oeverby won the title!

Will he make it to the World Cup this season? Before Sjusjoen I would have said that it was certainly possible if not even likely. Now though, just like Ida Lien did last season, he’s going to have to fight his way all the way back from the Norwegian national circuit. He’s going to have to raise his level even another step to out fight the men above him on this list. He has absolutely shown the ability to do it. If there is one “easy” way to make up ground it’s in the standing shooting where he hit just 81.5% last season. Hitting a few more targets there would be very helpful! Regardless of what level he is on, count on another excellent season from Mats Oeverby!

Martin Nevland (23)

The first of two Martins on this list, Martin Nevland finished 3rd in the IBU Cup Overall list behind his teammates Mats Oeverby and Johan-Olav Botn. Nevland is yet another terrific biathlete who has shown all sorts of potential. In his Juniors career he ran eight races and he won five of them. That’s a 62.5% winning percentage. Then in his first full season on the IBU Cup he runs 21 races with 19 top 10’s, 12 top 5’s, seven podiums, and a victory. It was an absolutely terrific season. On any other team there is no way he would have put up numbers like that because he would have been on the World Cup already.

On the IBU Cup his statistics were, just like Mats Oeverby, amazing. He ranked 5th overall in skiing while hitting 86.9% of his shots. Interestingly enough he was the inverse of Oeverby with his shooting as he hit a much better percentage of his standing shots than his prone shots. That’s just terrific biathlon right there. No significant weaknesses.

Everything about Martin Nevland, just like Mats Oeverby, shows that he has all of the potential to not only be a future top 10 athlete on the World Cup but also a potential top 3 Overall. However, also just like Mats Oeverby, he starts this season off both the World Cup and the IBU Cup staring lineups. Before the year I would have said it’s just a matter of when he is going to get his opportunity? Now? It’s an uphill climb. He clearly has the talent to do it though!

Martin Uldal (23)

Most of us first saw Martin Uldal when he “won” Junior Worlds in 2022 with three straight bronze medals, and then joined the World Cup for two races in Oslo. He showed well finishing 20th in the Sprint and 27th in the Pursuit. As a 21 year old he this was a very good showing. As we’ve said for multiple men above, if he was racing for almost any other nation we would likely be talking about him as a lock on the World Cup by now. On the Norwegian team that is not the case. Instead he went on to finish 6th in the Overall on the IBU Cup in 2022-2023 and then 4th place last season.

Uldal, just like Oeverby and Nevland above him, is a really solid all around biathlete with just slightly less accurate shooting. He was 7th in skiing on the IBU Cup last season and an average course time rank of 10.2. His shooting was what made the difference as he hit just 84.3% which was 2.6% off from Nevland’s mark and 4.2% less than Oeverby.

Martin Uldal should be just a step or two away from the World Cup circuit, but road for him to get there is difficult. There are five men that are locks. Then he has to compete with six other men to get there. In all likelihood he’s going to be spending another season on the IBU Cup. Hang in there Martin. In just a few years there should be some more openings on the World Cup! And for this season, it could be between him and the man below him who compete for the IBU Cup Overall.

Isak Frey (21)

Isak Frey makes biathlon look easy. It’s just easy. His skiing looks easy. His shooting looked effortless. He’s 21 years old and nothing looks difficult for him. He’s a sublime talent and I almost feel bad for the men above him on this list because if Frey keeps developing as he has so far he’s going to leap to the top of this grouping very quickly, and maybe make himself a lock.

Last season was his first full year of racing, which isn’t terribly surprising because he was just 20 years old at the start of the year. He ran 15 races on the IBU Cup and was in the top 10 for every single race with 10 top 5’s, seven podiums, and three victories. Those three wins were the 2nd most of any man on the IBU Cup behind only Johan-Olav Botn.

Frey’s skiing is beautiful and he finished ranked 8th overall in skiing last season. However, it’s the shooting range where he really shines. He hit 89.8% overall including 92.1% prone. It was the 2nd highest hit rate on the IBU Cup last season. The only area that he has to have major improvement in his his shooting time. He averaged 31 seconds per shoot last season but we would expect to see that come along in the next few seasons.

There is still a lot that has to go right, but should Isak Frey continue on the path he is on, he’s going to end up as the future of Norwegian biathlon. Having this combination of shooting and skiing at this age is so enticing. I just can’t wait to see what he does this season, and if he ends up on the World Cup I will not be surprised one bit.

IBU Cup Until Further Notice: This group of men find themselves off of the Norwegian national team rosters to start the season. That doesn’t mean they are to be completely forgotten. They are just going to have to work extra hard to find their way to just regular IBU Cup starts or even a World Cup start or two.

Sverre Dahlen Aspenes (27)

At the conclusion of the 2021-2022 season Sverre Dahlen Aspenes appeared to be on the pathway to the World Cup. He finished 3rd in the Overall on the IBU Cup and he closed the season on a storming finish. In his last seven races that year he never finished below 7th place and had three victories. He had proven to be a very good skier and had a history of good shooting. Then things went a little haywire.

In the 2022-2023 season Aspenes remained one of the fastest men in the IBU Cup but his shooting was really not very good. He never hit above 80% and as a result only raced seven times that season. A dramatic demotion. Last season he earned even fewer races. He ran just four times last year, the last four races of the season after the World Cup promotions that were afforded for the end of the season North American swing. He certainly made the most of those four races though! He was the fastest man in each of those races as he finished 3rd, 10th, 3rd and closed with a victory. He still struggled with his accuracy hitting 70%, 55%, 80%, and 80%.

The story for Aspenes is clear. If he can find a way to at least get some consistency with his shooting, and remove the very bad shooting days, then he will get at least consistent IBU Cup racing. In fact he’s been name to the IBU Cup roster for the start of the season in Idre Fjall. If he can find consistency with his shooting and get to around 80% he may even find himself on the World Cup. Just like all of these men he has that kind of talent. The competition is fierce for that, but Aspenes is a very good skier. It’s all about the rifle and if he can earn himself the opportunities. The talent is there, he just needs to make the most of it now. Much easier said than done I will admit!

Vetle Paulsen (24)

Vetle Paulsen not being on at least the Norwegian National Recruit team is emblematic of the numbers crunch that the deep and talented team faces. After not racing in the 2022-2023 season, Paulsen returned last year for the first four weeks of racing on the IBU Cup. He ran just 11 races but still found six top 10’s and 10 top 13 finishes. That was enough to land him at 13th Overall on the IBU Cup even without running a single race after January 7th.

You will be stunned to learn that Paulsen was also a very fast skier. He was top 10 in ski rank in all but three races last season. Those three races were the week 4 IBU Cup races, his last of the season, and likely had a lot to do with why we didn’t see him the rest of the season.

Paulsen has a significant delta between his prone and standing percentage. He hit 90.6% of his prone shots last year which put him near the top of the IBU Cup shooting ranks. But he hit just 68.2% of his standing shots, which is…not great. He also averaged 27.9 seconds per shoot which is pretty good for being 24 years old!

On any other team Paulsen would be a shoo in for the roster and yet here we are with him starting off the season from the way outside looking in. From my point of view a guy like Paulsen could really benefit from the added support of the national team. He has the potential to grow into a really good biathlete. On the Norwegian men’s team “really good” just isn’t good enough though, you have to be spectacular. That’s such a high bar to clear. I just don’t know how he’s going to be able to breakthrough to get to that level. He’s exactly the kind of guy I wish could find out that he has an American or Slovenian grandparent he never knew about.

Sindre Fjellheim Jorde (28)

I know next to nothing about Sindre Fjellheim Jorde, but I have respect for what he is doing. He is now 28 years old and hasn’t found himself on the Norwegian national team in a few years now, but he fights on. This past weekend in Sjusjoen he had some very good finishes and battled his way onto the IBU Cup roster for Idre Fjall. Unfortunately over the last few seasons he’s seen intermittent racing. He has never run more than the 11 races he ran in the 2019-2020 season and over the last three years has never run more than eight in a year.

He really gives it his all when he’s out there though. Two seasons ago in his eight races he had two victories and five top 10’s. Last year in his four races he finished 2nd, 3rd, 12th, and 9th. He profiles like Aspenes, or Aspenese profiles like him, with strong skiing and spotty shooting. Last year his “worst” ski rank was 5th but he didn’t hit better than 80%. That’s been his pattern for years.

I can’t imagine that this season is dramatically different than the last few seasons. The ski speed will never be a question. If he can shoot a little more accurately he would earn himself more consistent racing. With his speed he would likely find himself in the top 5-10 of the IBU Cup Overall. However, that’s been about where he’s been in terms of shooting for several years now and I’ll believe it when I see it. While he’s starting the season on the IBU Cup he’s going to have to fight to earn the right to stay there with some of the names like Mats Oeverby and Martin Nevland who aren’t there to start the season.

FF Andersen (25)

Just a few seasons ago the future of the Norwegian World Cup team looked like it could be the Andersen brothers and Sivert Gutthorn Bakken. Now, for a mixture of reasons, none of those men are on any of the Norwegian National teams. Of those three, FF Andersen found the most World Cup run before his demotion. He ran two full seasons on the World Cup and made two podiums and four top 10’s in 33 races.

Unfortunately for FF Andersen his ski form really started to drop off as the 2022-2023 season progressed. He ended the season with four of five races with a course time rank of 29th or higher. That happened to correspond with a large drop off in his shooting. If you look at his statistics across both seasons they look almost identical. The difference is that while he was performing stronger and stronger as the 2021-2022 season went along, the 2022-2023 season was the opposite.

While his brother has retired, and Sivert Bakken is continuing to fight back from his health struggles, FF Andersen soldiers on. We most recently saw him at the Martin Fourcade Nordic Festival where he finished 8th, and the Norwegian Summer Biathlon National Championships where he finished 21st in the Sprint. It is unclear where his career will progress from here. Hopefully he will be able to recapture the magic!

Einar Hedegart (23)

In the 2022-2023 season Einar Hedegart was an absolute stand out at the Junior Worlds. He had two silver medals and finished 4th in the Sprint. He did this while displaying exceptional skiing, ranking top in course time ranks each race, and very good shooting as he hit 90%, 90%, and 85%. Last season he ran just a single race. I have no idea what’s going on there. He ran a couple of cross country races last season and he ran the roller skiing races at the Blink festival. Maybe he’s going in that direction?

Joergen Saeter (24)

Another young Norwegian man I don’t know what to make of is Joergen Saeter. As a Junior he didn’t show so much potential that he demanded attention. He did end his Juniors career well at the 2021 Worlds by finishing 10th in the Sprint, 5th in the Pursuit, and 15th in the Individual. He didn’t race at all during the 2022-2023 season. Last year he ran just two IBU Cup races where he finished 4th in both races. He skied well with course time ranks of 11th and 7th and he shot 100% and 85% in those races. Those were the 7th week of racing and he did not race the following weekend. Hopefully he uses that experience to springboard himself to the IBU Cup on a regular basis next season!

Sivert Gutthorn Bakken (26)

It’s hard to believe he is already 26 isn’t it? Time flies. We haven’t seen Bakken since he won the season ending Mass Start in Oslo to conclude the 2021-2022 season. It was the end of a great first season as he finished 9th Overall!. After that he got sick with a form of inflammation of the heart muscle. After taking off time to recover he has been working his way back into form. Tommaso Giacomel recently posted a picture of skiing with him with the hashtag “Make Sivert Great Again.” Hopefully that’s a good sign!

Last weekend in Sjusjoen was the first time any of us have seen him in live action T since then. You know what? He didn’t look bad! He finished 13th in the Sprint just a few seconds back of Emilien Jacquelin. Sure, the skiing wasn’t quite at the same level as it had been, but he can be competitive. Give him a few weeks to continue to train and race and there is every reason to be hopeful that Sivert Bakken could be back on the World Cup…maybe even this season!

Developing Talent: Lastly come the Juniors on the roster. We may not see a lot of these women this year. That’s not because they aren’t good. It’s because they get pretty good competition running in the Norwegian races without needing to travel to IBU Juniors races outside of the Junior Europeans or Junior Worlds. That actually makes it very difficult to figure out what we’ll see from these athletes because we just don’t have as much readily accessible data! So here’s the best I’ve got.

Kasper Kalkenberg (19)

Somehow the Norwegian talent train keeps on going on the Juniors level. Kasper Kalkenberg is yet another phenomenal prospect. He’s run six career races on the IBU level with all coming at the 2023 and 2024 Youth Worlds. In those six races he has three gold medals, a silver medal, a 4th place, and a 10th place.

I know you’ll be stuned to hear that he’s fast. He’s finished as the fastest man on the course in three of those races and top three in five of them. Last season he never hit worse than 90%. That’s an exciting combination. If he wasn’t on the Norwegian team we would be expecting to see him not just racing, but having success, on the World Cup sooner rather than later. And yet, he is Norwegian, so how long until this exceptional talent finds the top level?

Sivert Silsand Gerhardsen (20)

Just like Kasper Kalkenberg, Sivert Silsand Gerhardsen also has run the last two seasons. Because of his age he ran in 2023 at Youth Worlds and in 2024 at Junior Worlds. That didn’t stop him from having success though. He nearly matched Kalkenberg’s three gold medals with two of his own with one each coming at each Worlds. He won gold in the 2023 Youth World Pursuit and the 2024 Junior Worlds Mass 60. He’s never finished outside of the top 10 and has just one finish outside the top 4.

Gerhardsen, while note quite as strong on the skis as Kalkenberg, is still solidly a top 5-10 skier in each of his races. Also, in his six races his hit less than 90% just twice. And to top things off he’s been one of the fastest shooters as well. How is it possible that the Norwegian men have not one but two potential stars waiting in the wings as Juniors?

Andreas Aas (21)

Andreas Aas comes into the 2024-2025 season in a bit of an odd position. He remains on the Norwegian National U23 team, but he hasn’t run an international race since the 21-22 season. At the 2022 Junior Worlds he finished 4th in the Individual, 31st in the Sprint, and 34th in the Pursuit on the back of good skiing but shaky shooting. It’s not even worth focusing on that though because it was so long ago. I have no idea what we’ll see from Aas, but hopefully we see the young man return to Junior Worlds this season!

Havard Tosterud (20)

Making his debut at the 2024 Junior Worlds in Otepaa, Havard Tosterud finished 30th and 17th. He had a couple of up and down races. He was 38th in skiing in the Individual and 4th in the Mass 60. Quite an odd gap between the two races. Maybe he was sick and got better for the Mass 60? Regardless the 4th place course time in the Mass 60 is intriguing. Hopefully we see more of him this season to get a better picture!

Oliver Alm (19)

With a debut performance at the 2024 Otepaa Youth Worlds Oliver Alm flashed enough potential to make us curious. He finished 20th in the Individual, 18th in the Sprint, and won bronze in the Mass 60. His course time ranks predict his finishes almost perfection as he had course time ranks of 21st, 12th, and 3rd. He had decent shooting as he hit 80%, 80%, and 90% in those three races. Let’s see some more Oliver Alm this season!

Andreas Prasterud (19)

Although we didn’t see Andreas Prasterud race on snow skis, we saw him run at the Summer Worlds in Otepaa this past August. He raced the Juniors races and finished 18th in the Super Sprint, 23rd in the Sprint and 23rd in the Pursuit. Now lets see what he can do on snow!

Women

Oftentimes the Norwegian women get a hard time for not being as good as their teammates. Well last season they were a end of year standing shooting collapse away from taking the Overall title for three of the last four seasons. That’s pretty darn good. Now it is quite clear that they don’t have the depth of the Norwegian men as they frequently turned over the positions on the back half of the World Cup squad. Will this season be a little different? Is there more young talent on the way to joint the top three?

Quota: 6 Athletes to Start

World Cup Locks: The Norwegian women start the season with three who are locks to be on the World Cup pretty much from start to finish: Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold, Karoline Knotten, and Juni Arnekleiv. After them there is a large group who could find themselves on the World Cup at various times this season. We’ll try to run through everybody who both made the team out of Sjusjoen and who could be there before the end of the year.

Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold (28)

Last season was heart breaking for Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold (now married but appears to be racing under her maiden name!) and her legion of fans. You well know that I myself am included in that number. I was and I am over the moon happy for Lisa Vittozzi and Lou Jeanmonnot, just like I would have been for Justine Braisaz-Bouchet or Julia Simon. The great thing about women’s biathlon right now is that we just have so many really great athletes that are so easy to love and cheer for. The great thing is that, credit card incident aside, they do all seem to really like each other too. Tandrevold seems to be genuinely happy seeing Julia Simon and Lisa Vittozzi succeed. You frequently see these women celebrating each other, and even when the other’s victory comes and their own expense, they are happy.

But last season was heart breaking for Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold. She came off of a rough World Championships and in Oslo won the Individual and finished 4th in the Mass Start. Then in Soldier Hollow she finished 2nd in the Sprint. At that moment, with four races remaining, she had the largest lead she had held all season. In fact she had a larger lead at that point than JT Boe had on his brother on the men’s side. Then it all fell apart.

Always a big shaky on the standing shooting, Tandrevold held it together for most of the season. In the World Championships she showed the first cracks, but seemed to get it fixed during the resurgence in Oslo and the Soldier Hollow Sprint. Then over the last four races she hit 40%, 80%, 60%, and 80% in her standing shooting. That’s a 62.9% over that stretch. It was killer. By the time it was over she had tumbled not out of first, but out of second as well, finishing the season third Overall. While at the begining of the season that would have felt like a victory, in the end it felt like a gut punch.

In the end it was really the 17th place in the Canmore Sprint that did her in. She lost so many points to Vittozzi, but also she put herself way behind the 8 ball for the Pursuit race. She gave it a great effort in the Mass Start but it was too big of a hole to climb out of.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2017-2018	85.5	82.7	84.1	33.4
2018-2019	90.2	73.6	82	31.5
2019-2020	91.8	74.7	83.2	31.5
2020-2021	92.3	73.9	83.1	32.4
2021-2022	92.4	81.6	87	31.8
2022-2023	94	78.5	86.3	28.2
2023-2024	96.2	73.8	85	29.8

Can Tandrevold rebound to contend again for the Overall title? Yes, absolutely. She was faster than ever last season, moving up to 3rd overall in skiing. Her shooting time stayed pretty steady in the high 20’s so there is a little room to gain there too. The key, as always, is the standing shooting. She has twice hit in the 80’s for her standing shooting, most recently in the 2021-2022 season when she hit 81.6%. If she can do that (HUGE IF!) then she has a chance to compete for the coveted Overall World Cup Title. If she needs to look for inspiration she need look no further than her friend Lisa Vittozzi who overcame crippling prone shooting struggles to win the crown just last season.

Karoline Knotten (29)

Last season Karoline Knotten was one of the great breakthrough stories. After seemingly stalling in her progression with three straight Overall finishes between 18th and 29th. She appeared to be locked in as a great shooter who was just held back by her skiing. Then last season she looked like an entirely new woman on skis. While she didn’t look exactly like Justine Braisaz-Bouchet it was a dramatic improvement. The results speak for themselves: 12 top 10’s, five top 5’s and the third podium of her career. It was an overwhelming success. She leapt all the way to 9th in the Overall and became a solid #2 on the Norwegian women’s team.

As is clearly visible Karoline Knotten has established herself as a very good shooter. While she did slip just a touch last season, sliding from 3rd most accurate woman on the World Cup down to 20th. However, hitting 87.7% is still very very good. She also continues to improve her shooting speeds every year, last season reaching a career fast of 25.3 seconds per shoot, good enough for 4th fastest on the World Cup.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2019-2020	85.7	81.9	83.8	27.2
2020-2021	89.4	88.9	89.2	27.5
2021-2022	88.6	83.6	86.1	26.1
2022-2023	94.7	89.5	92.1	26
2023-2024	87.7	87.7	87.7	25.3

The big improvement for Knotten was her skiing. She improved significantly by every metric. Her average course time rank improved from 36.5 to 20. She advanced from just a hair slower than the median biathlete all the way to 1.6% faster than median. Similarly she moved from 4.6% slower than the median top 10 all the way up to 3.1% slower. All in all it was a tremendous leap forward.

The 2024-2025 season hopefully is a set up for another career year. She could potentially improve her shooting back up closer to, or even above, 90% again. Then she can still eek a little bit more speed out of her skis. She didn’t look amazing on the skis in Sjusjoen (in fact none of the Elite team women did). However, if she’s able to do that, it would be yet another top 10 Overall finish for Knotten.

Juni Arnekleiv (25)

Juni Arnekleiv made some noise in her first season on the World Cup. After three years on the IBU Cup, as she moved from 39th, to 17th to 11th, she made the leap to the World Cup. Arnekleiv ran a full season without even a hint of concern that she might be dropped back to the IBU Cup. She scored her first career podium in just the second race of the season, and followed it up with another in the Ruhpolding Pursuit. In all she totaled eight top 10’s in her 23 races on her way to 13th in the Overall standings. She also provided a crucial consistently reliable relay leg as the Norwegian women won four of the seven relays on the season.

The key to success for Arnekleiv was her skiing. She finished the season ranked 17th in skiing including an average course time rank of 16th. Arnekleiv was actually running a little faster early in the season and her form dropped starting with the World Championships. From that point to the end of the season her average course time rank was 20.7 compared to an 13.4 in the first two trimesters of the season. There is certainly an argument to be made that she could find a little more speed, or at least consistent speed, next season.

Shooting is also another area where Arnekleiv has room to grow. She hit 86.8% prone and 81.6% standing. She has shot consistently in this range for nearly her entire career from Juniors on up. If there is any time for growth it is now! Arnekleiv also averaged 28.7 seconds per shoot!

Juni Arnekleiv had a very successful first full seaon on the World Cup. The great news is there are clear areas where she can get even better. I am very optimistic about what she can do next season. There is going to be high competition, but should she move her shooting towards 86-87% total hit rate, along with that more consistent speed, she can make a run towards a top 10.

The Next Group: The Norwegians will run six women in World Cup Sprints and Individuals this season. So who will join the top three? Well to start the season we will see veteran Emilie Kalkenberg along young talents Maren Kirkeeide and Gro Randby. It is highly likely that, while they start the season, there will be many more who will join them at various pints this season.

Behind those first three the women starting the season on the IBU Cup will be:
– Ida Lien
– Marthe Krakstad Johansen
– Karoline Erdal
– Marit Ishol Skogan
– Siri Skar
– Mari Torsteinsrud

These women are just the top contenders, but there are likely even more beyond them. I intentionally didn’t put anyone on the list who isn’t on the national rosters. However, just look at Ida Lien’s surge to the top last season as an example of how you can come from off the radar.

Maren Kirkeeide (21)

Last season, one of the biggest competitions of the women’s IBU Cup season was actually in intra squad competition between Maren Kirkeeide and Ida Lien. Ultimately, while Kirkeeide won the battle by having bringing home two solo gold medals, Lien won the war and earned the position on the World Championships roster.

The rapidly ascending Krikeeide may only be 21 but assuming health and good training she has a very good chance of running a full season on the World Cup now. Last season showed just how quickly she is improving. In the 2023-2024 season she raced nine fewer IBU Cup races. Even still she matched her win total (three), scored one more podium (five), and just as many top 5’s as she had in the 22-23 season.

Kirkeeide is the whole biathlon package. She has the ski speed and she has the shooting. The last two seasons on the IBU Cup she’s had an average course time rank of 7.5 in both years, and last year she hit 88.2% of her shots. When she moved up to the World Cup she obviously wasn’t quite able to match those numbers. She hit 83.3% of her shots while her average ski rank on the World Cup was 34.6. She still performed very well for a 20/21 year old!

While Ida Lien won the competition between the two for final World Cup spot last year, there is a real chance both could make the World Cup roster this season. Kirkeeide has shown terrific shooting ability that gives her a high floor even at this early stage of her career. As her skiing continues to come along, and her Juniors and IBU Cup level skiing indicates she can be a top 15 World Cup skier, as she grows up as a biathlete, she’s going to be a real contender. The signs are there that peak Kirkeeide could be a top 5 Overall biathlete. It (likely) won’t happen next season, but in the next 3-5 years it is possible.

Emilie Kalkenberg (27)

At this stage of her career Emilie Kalkenberg occupies a fairly precarious position on the national team. She she remains on the recruit team, but she’s the oldest women on that level by a full three years. The general movement with the Norwegian team (and most teams) is that athletes will go from Juniors to the Recruit team where within a couple of years they are either up on the World Cup squad or they are bumped off by more young talent. The other Norwegian women of Kalkenberg’s general age range have either made it to the World Cup team (Tandrevold and Lien) or, while still competing for IBU Cup starts, they are outside of the national team embrace.

Kalkenberg herself did compete on the World Cup in full or for significant parts of the three years beginning in the 2020-2021 season. While she was on the World Cup she just couldn’t find her big breakthrough. Skiing was stuck in the middle of the pack and she regularly hit in the mid to low 80’s.

Last year she was back to the IBU Cup for just over half the season . She did ski very well, finishing with an average course time rank of 8.8. While it’s hard to make a direct comparison to the World Cup, it was a significant improvement on her IBU Cup skiing in the races she ran in the last few seasons. Somewhat reassuringly, she once again hit in the low 80’s. All in all she found herself to seven top 10’s in 12races including three podiums and a victory. All in all it took her to 8th in the Overall.

Her World Cup racing reflected that. In the eight World Cup races she ran her average course time rank improved to 30.9 after being in the mid 40’s and 50’s the last three seasons. However, just like on the World Cup, she drop in her shooting all the way down to 75%. It was easily her worst performance in several years.

It’s make or break time for Kalkenberg. She’s running out of time to prove that she can run consistently on the World Cup. She needs to show it this year or she is going to end up off the national team rosters next season. That’s going to take her replicating her skiing from last season, if not improving on it. She’s also going to need to get back to the 83-85% hit rate range where she lived for several years before last season. Let’s do it Emilie!

Gro Randby (22)

Unlike Emilie Kalkenberger, Gro Randby represents the more “normal” progression pattern. She’s 22 years old and after running just seven IBU Cup races in the 2022-2023 season, which marked her debut on the IBU levels, she ran a full season last year and finished 12th in the IBU Cup Overall. She ran 13 races and was top 20 in 11 of them with six top 10’s and two podiums. Her average finish on the year was 12.8. She did have one bad weekend of racing, the first weekend after the holiday break, and if you remove that her average finish leaps to 9.7. All in all a successful first year.

Randby showed some good things last season. She finished 12th overall in skiing for the season as she had an average course time rank of 9.7 and she finished outside the top 10 in skiing just twice in the last nine races she ran last year. Yes, you guessed it, both of those were during her one “bad” weekend of racing. She ran much faster than the median IBU Cup woman and was just 1.1% back of the median top 10. A few women she was comparable with last season were Julia Kink and Anna-Karin Heijdenberg. Pretty good company!

Randby’s shooting is showing signifncant improvement as well. Year over year she improved from 72.7% to 78.5% which include across the board improvement. Her prone shooting remains well ahead of her standing, but she raised that weak spot of her racing up from 63.6% to 70%. She also was able to drop her average shooting time from an average of 35.3 seconds per shoot to 31.5 seconds.

Gro Randby has me intrigued. I’m not going to declare she’s the “Next Big Thing” for the Norwegian women, but I am very excited about that level of year to year improvement. She’s just 22 so give her another 3-4 seasons of growth and she very well could be. We just don’t have a lot of public data to go off of. But I love the trajectory she’s on!

Ida Lien (27)

Ida Lien’s 2023-2024 season was one for the books. Coming off of a disappointing 22-23 campaign, and a less than perfect summer/fall, Lien was left completely off the roster. No World Cup. No IBU Cup. All the way down to the Norwegian races. She got herself to the IBU Cup by the third week of the season in Sjuojoen. Lien took full advantage of the opportunity afforded to her and immediately found the podium in her 2nd race, leaping from 16th to 2nd in the Pursuit. She followed that with a 3rd in the Mass 60 and she was off.

Lien returned to the IBU Cup following the holiday break and finished outside the top seven just once in five races, including two podiums in Ridnaun-Val Ridanna, before being brought to the World Cup for the Antholz weekend of racing. It wasn’t perfect as she finished 9th and 26th. However, she went to the European Championships fighting with Maren Kirkeeide for the last spot on the World Championships roster. At the European Championships she finished 4th in the Sprint and won gold in the Pursuit. She finished it off with 4th in the Mass 60. Even though Kirkeeide had better overall finishes with two victories, Lien’s better ski speed and experience carried the day.

It was a remarkable and triumphant return to the World Cup, and even though she didn’t have a terrific World Championships, she capped off her rise with a 3rd place finish in the Oslo Individual race. It was the first podium of her World Cup career. In a single season she rose from off the roster entirely to climbing her first World Cup podium. A dream season. This season she begins the year on the Elite National roster.

We all know what to expect from Ida Lien now. She is a terrific skier and finished 5th in skiing last season. Meanwhile the shooting, particularly the standing, frequently leaves much to be desired. Last season, even with her success, she hit 76.3% of her shots and just 64.2% of her standing shots. In her time on the IBU Cup she hit 81.7% showing her higher shooting potential yet to be untapped.

For Lien to hit the peak that we all dream for her, that’s pretty much the final frontier. This season she’s going to be once again fighting uphill. After a less than stellar performance in Sjusjoen she’s on the IBU Cup to start the season. On the optimistic side, that’s one step closer to the World Cup than she was at this time last season. Hopefully she can follow the same type of trajectory!

Karoline Erdal (27)

Remember what we were talking about when we mentioned with Emilie Kalkenberg that most of the women in her age cohort were on the Elite roster or off the National team radar? This is what we meant. Karoline Erdal is only 26 years old, she has run 26 races on the World Cup including five just last season, but she opens the year off the rosters entirely. That’s the negative aspect of being in such a competitive national federation.

Erdal has run at least one weekend on the World Cup in each of the last five seasons including a career most eight races in the 2021-2022 season. Last year, even with those five World Cup races she still ran 16 times on the IBU Cup and she raced very well. In fact she raced well enough to find herself to 3rd in the IBU Cup Overall as she had two wins, four podiums, and 10 top 10’s.

At this point in her career Karoline Erdal hasn’t established herself as a great skier or a great shooter. As a result she has neither a high enough ceiling or a high enough floor to have been given more time on the World Cup. Fortunately for Erdal she keeps getting at least a little bit better every season. Last season was her best skiing season as she had an average course time rank of 28.8 on the World Cup, up from 43.7 the year prior. Just for perspective, that same level of ski form lead to an average course time rank of 9.7 on the IBU Cup. Last year she hit 85% of her shots on the World Cup and 81.3% on the IBU Cup. That’s pretty much in line with her career average.

Erdal performed well enough last season to justify giving her another look last year. And her trajectory is upwards. I hope that she’s given at least another full year on the IBU Cup. If she can see some broad improvement with further ski speed improvement, and hopefully moving towards the mid 80’s with her shooting, she can find herself competing for the 6th position on the World Cup team. She’s still just 27 so it’s not too late to hope!

Marit Ishol Skogan (26)

Last season was the ultimate roller coaster for Marit Skogan. She fought her way into a surprise start on the World Cup in Oestersund with a great week of racing in Sjusjoen. She came right out and finished 10th in her first career race in Oestersund and two weeks later followed it up with a 6th in the Lenzerheide Sprint and her first career podium, finishing 3rd in the Pursuit. At that point Skogan was like an out of nowhere surprise for the Norwegian women. That’s when things turned upside down.

Coming out of the holiday break she was just never able to find the same performance level. She continued to race on the World Cup through the races in Oslo but the rest of the way she not only couldn’t find the top 10, she didn’t even find the top 30. Her ski speed fell off significantly. After running in the top 20 in course time rank in four of the seven races in the first trimester she wasn’t able to do that a single time the rest of the season. Meanwhile her shooting continued a slow but steady downward trajectory throughout the season. After hitting 86.2% in the first trimester she hit just 70% the rest of the season. She bright side is that she did maintain her significant improvement in shooting speed jumping from around 35 seconds to 28 seconds.

Was that just one magical two months of racing from Marit Ishol Skogan? Can she recapture that glory? The first trimester shooting was just leaps and bounds better than everything we have seen from her whereas the 2nd trimester was more like what we had seen previously. Was the first trimester a flash of her potential that we’ll see more of this season? Or an unreachable peak moment of her career. Only time will tell. Regardless, she’s going to have to earn her moment again. We’ve seen her do it before, so she can do it again!

Ragnhild Femsteinevik (29)

Ragnhild Femsteinevik is the kind of biathlete who, were she not on one of the powerhouse biathlon squads, would be a regular World Cup member, and likely a fan favorite. She won myself as a fan, and many others, a couple of seasons ago as she ran with the Santa hat headband. It clearly brought her good luck as that weekend in Annecy-Le Grand Bornand was not only the best week of racing of her season, but of her career. It included a 9th place Mass Start, the best finish in her World Cup career to date. She raced the full season on the World Cup and ended up 34th in the Overall. Not a bad season by any means. Just imagine how we would look at that season if she was Polish or Lithuanian?

Last year she started her year off of the IBU Cup roster, but joined the team for the 2nd week of racing in Idre Fjaell. She ended up running five weeks on the IBU Cup and got stronger as the season went on. She even scored a victory in the Sprint in Obertilliach and had three top 10’s in her last four races. All told, in 12 races she finished 17th in the IBU Cup Overall.

She got stronger as the season went along because she found her legs again. Normally a fairly strong skier she started off the season well off her normal performance level. However, over the last six races she had an average course time rank of 2.8 compared to 15.2 in her first six races. Unfortunately shooting continued to be a drag on her performance as she hit just 72.4% last season.

Ultimately Femsteinevik is in a difficult position. She is going to have to have to pull an Ida Lien where she just forces her way into contention. The ski speed she showed at the end of last season is enough to do that, but she’s going to have to pair that with much better shooting. We’re talking about hitting closer to 80% which she has done just one time in the last five seasons. I’m still going to be pulling for her though!

Siri Skar (20)

This is one of the surprises of the early season for me. When I was first writing this I didn’t have anything written for Siri Skar. On the IBU level we’ve seen her race just twice. In the 2023 Junior Worlds she finished 33rd in the Sprint and 34th in the Pursuit. In those two races her ski ranks were middle of the road and she finished 30th and 33rd in course time ranks while hitting 90% and 80%

Mari Torsteinsrud

I’ve got nothing. This was the first time I have ever seen her race and she has no IBU data to go off of. She’s going to make her IBU debut in 2 weeks in Idre Fjall.

Just Outside Looking In: Before the season there were a few more women I might have included in contention for the group above. However, after Sjusjoen they find themselves just on the outside looking in. More than likely they will make at least some IBU Cup starts this season though.

Marthe Krakstad Johansen (25)

Coming off of two consecutive finishes in the top 5 of the Overall on the IBU Cup, Marthe Krakstad Johansen took her game to the World Cup where she raced the majority of the season. She ended up racing 11 World Cup races along with seven on the IBU Cup. The peak of her career came at the very beinning as she had her two career World Cup top 10’s in the first weekend of the season at Oestersund. For the rest of the season she still managed to finish consistently in the top 30, but just wasn’t quite able to find that top 10 magic. She did have a little bit on the IBU Cup, though as she had three top 10’s including a victory in those seven races.

Johansen is a very good shooter, and at times a superb one. Last year on the World Cup she ranked 16th in accuracy hitting 88.2%. That was actually down from her IBU Cup performance in the 2022-2023 season when she hit an outrageous 93.1%. Johansen’s future successes ret on her ability to continue to hit at that level while also bringing along her skiing. Comparing her skiing for the 22-23 season to last year on the IBU Cup we see a definitive improvement as her average ski rank improved from 25.1 to 18 and she went from 4.3% behind the median top 10 to 2.2% back. That’s a nice improvement right there.

Johansen’s ceiling looks very similar to that of Karoline Knotten, but after a subpar weekend in Sjusjoen she finds herself not just off the World Cup team, where she spent last season, but off the IBU Cup roster as well. Just like with Knotten it is going to take a lot of work to get to her peak potential, and it may not happen until she is in her late 20’s, but that’s the hope! If she can get there, though, she’ll not only be on the IBU Cup, but she’ll be on the World Cup for several years.

Aasne Skrede (24)

I don’t know what to make of Aasne Skrede. Over the lat two seasons she has run exactly four IBU races, all of which were last season. If you go back to the 2020-2021 season she looked like an amazingly intriguing athlete. That season she finished 4th Overall on the IBU Cup at just 20 years old. She had an average finish of 8th. She was consistently finishing in the top 10 in course time rank and she hit 81.8% of her shot sincluding 94.5% prone.

Since then it’s hard to know what happened. Her skiing fell off until rebounding again this last year to match her skiing form of the 20-21 season. Her shooting also has failed to progress. Even as her prone shooting remains exceptional, her standing shooting has slipped down to around 60%.

Last year in her four races she finished 9th, 4th, 30th, and 26th. She ran very well but she hit better than 75% just once in those four races. It would seem, with her being on the Recruit Team, that she’s going to run at least part of the season on the IBU Cup this season. I guess we’ll find out if Skrede has found the secret to her standing shooting.

Frida Dokken (23)

I guess we’ll find out pretty soon what we’re going to get with Dokken. I’m hopeful that we’ll continue with her exceptional shooting. It’s what makes her so intriguing. Maybe she can eventually follow the Karoline Knotten route where she rides her tremendous shooting prowess to the World Cup. What will obviously unlock her potential will be finding the ski speed. That’s the goal!

In the 2022-2023 season, as a 21 year old, she showed some promise when she had five top 10’s and finished 19th in the IBU Cup Overall. That season she shot very well, consistently hitting 90%. Last season in her five IBU Cup races she actually somehow shot even better as she hit 92.9%. Unfortunately her ski speed fell off just a touch though which is what resulted in just one top 10 and two top 20 finishes in her five races.

Last season was set up to be a big one for Frida Dokken. Coming out of the preseason races at Sjusjoen she was picked to start the season on the World Cup. She made her debut in Oestersund, and after finishing 46th and 65th, she went back to the IBU Cup where she raced a truncated season before her international racing season ended after the racing in Ridnaun-Val Ridanna.

Jenny Enodd (28)

In the 2023-2024 season Jenny Enodd made a real run at the IBU Cup Overall title. It came down to the last weekend of the season. She had a chance to win, but Oceane Michelon closed strong with a 3rd and a 2nd while Enodd closed with a 43rd and a 25th and that proved to be the differece. I bring this up because winning the IBU Cup Globe would have given the Norwegians an extra bib to start the season and it may very well have been Enodd wearing it to make her World Cup debut.

A close examination of her statistics shows that Enodd has had a career that remains difficult to pin down. She’s had years where she looked like one of the better skiers on the IBU Cup. Then she has followed that up with years like last year, where she had the 7th best hit rate amongst full time IBU Cup women including a 92.7% prone shooting percentage.

The 2023-2024 season was the best overall statistical season of her career. She very nearly won the IBU Cup Overall, a prize she could have hung her hat on forever. While she fell short, it’s certainly not a knock on her. I’m not sure what to expect from Enodd next season. She may repeat that for another great season on the IBU Cup. She may improve on it and fight her way to the World Cup. Or, maybe she goes the other direction. Her career just hasn’t been consistent enough to find a clear pattern. She should be entering the beginning of her career peak so maybe that will come with another career best season next year?

Juniors: Lastly come the Juniors on the roster. We may not see a lot of these women this year. That’s not because they aren’t good. It’s because they get pretty good competition running in the Norwegian races without needing to travel to IBU Juniors races outside of the Junior Europeans or Junior Worlds. That actually makes it very difficult to figure out what we’ll see from these athletes because we just don’t have as much readily accessible data! So here’s the best I’ve got.

Maren Brannare-Gran (20)

One of the top young Junior women for the Norwegian women appears to be Maren Brannare-Gran. She’s raced at Junior Worlds the last two seasons and has finished in the top 10 four times, but has just found the podium once. That’s still really good but maybe not what we would expect from a Norwegian woman?

She’s been decent the last two seasons in skiing ranking top 10 in course time ranks four times in those six races. Last season she was a pretty good shooter too as she hit 85% or better in every race. Skiing in the top 10 and hitting 85% or better is a good recipe for success going forward!

Ragna Fodstad (20)

Although she didn’t race on the IBU level last season Ragna Fodstad remains on the Norwegian Juniors roster for this season. We last saw her at the 2023 Junior Worlds where she finished 8th in the Individual, but followed that up with 34th and 25th in the Sprint and Pursuit. I’m not sure that looking at three races worth of statistics from the 2023 Junior Worlds means a lot but here they are anyway. Not surprisingly, she had her best shooting performance in the Individual hitting 90%. The next two races she hit 50% and 75%. Her course time ranks of 15th, 20th, and 13th were decent but certainly not enough to knock anybody’s socks off. I’m really curious to see what we’ll see out of her this year with another year and a half of training?

Eivor Melbybraten (22)

Making her IBU career debut last season at the 2024 Junior Worlds in Otepaa she finished 36th in the Individual and 19th in the Mass 60 and she didn’t race the Sprint. She was decent at skiing and hit 75% in the Individual and 90% in the Mass 60. She remains on the Juniors roster for the upcoming season. Hopefully we see a little more racing out of her!

Guro Femsteinevik (20)

After making her IBU level debut at the 2022 Youth Worlds, she didn’t race any IBU races in 22-23, and returned for the 2024 Junior Worlds. In these six races she has shown solid shooting as she has hit 80% or better in five of the races. That’s a good floor at least. The skiing has been solid if not exceptional. Hopefully Guro can find some of Ragnhild’s speed. Put that together with 80% or better shooting and that’s a good looking biathlete!

Ann Kristin Aaland (20)

The Otepaa Junior Worlds last season were the IBU level debut for Ann Kristin Aaland. She finished 17th and 12th in the Sprint and the Mass 60. Aaland showed absolutely terrific shooting hitting 100% and 95%. As you can guess, if she hit that well and didn’t have a top 10 the skiing wasn’t quite up to the same level. It was just two races, but if they were indicative of her true form, she at least has a super power of shooting to build off of. She could find herself following the Karoline Knotten pathway!

Anna Maehre Torjussen (19)

The 2024 Otepaa Junior Worlds were a really really good IBU debut for Anna Maehre Torjussen. She came out flying and finished 4th in the Individual, 6th in the Sprint, and 14th in the Mass 60. Torjussen displayed very good skiing as she finished 6th, 5th, and 7th in course time rank. She added in shooting 85%, 90%, and 80% in the three races. If those three races are anything to go by Torjussen has very high potential. Let’s see what she can do over the next few seasons!

Agathe Brathagen (19)

Another athlete making her IBU level racing debut in Otepaa was Agathe Brathagen who raced in the Youth Worlds. Her best finish was 7th in the Mass 60 after finishing 26th and 19th in the Individual and the Sprint. Her skiing was okay as she was in the mid 20’s in ski rans every race, but her shooting was pretty good as she hit 90% and 100% in the last two races. It’s hard to tell from just three races but it’s a good start!

Silje Chrstine Berg-Knutsen (19)

Silje Christine Berg-Knutsen also had a solid if unspectacular debutat the Otepaa Youth Worlds. She had some solid racing with course time ranks of 15 and 17 to pair with 75% and 85% shooting. She ended up finishing 20th and 21st.

Nora Randby (19)

And last, but not least, we come to Nora Randby. She shot well in her Otepaa Youth Worlds debut hitting 80%, 90%, and 90%, but her shooting was held back by her skiing and she finished 31st, 21st, and 12th. We’ll see what she can show this season!