Finland 2024-2025 Team Preview

I’ve got reindeer and jingle bells dancing in my head. Jolly people singing. Snow. It either means I’m thinking about Christmas…or Finland. In this case, with the holiday season here it could be both! But right now, we’re going to focus on Finland! (I’ve been writing these for I don’t know how long straight now and I’m getting a little loony…can you tell?). When I think about Finland and biathlon of course the first thing that comes to mind (or person as the case may be) is Kaisa Makarainen with 27 wins, 85 podiums, and 6 World Championship medals, and 3 overall Crystal Globes. Not just the best Finnish biathlete ever but one of the greatest of all time.

After that, though, I think of Kontiolahti, which is possibly the most charming venue on the World Cup. At least that’s the way it comes across on television. A warm arena full of fans that are of course pulling for their home Finns, but also more than happy to cheer for all the athletes. It doesn’t seem to matter if you’re one of the top contenders, or simply an athlete fighting through another tough day, the Finnish fans are there to embrace you.

And after that, I think of the Finnish wax techs who are just awesome. Here’s a shot of them cheering on Otto Invenius. You can’t see it but the gentleman in red was in a dead sprint cheering on his man. They are not only good at their job but also just really fun to watch out on the course!

Now our job is to figure out what we think about the 2023-2024 edition of Team Finland!

Women While the Finnish women continue to try to move forward after the immense success of Kaisa Makarainen, and to a lesser extent Mari Eder, the 2024-2025 season is showing glimmers of hope. Suvi Minkkinen prepares to chase another top 25 Overall season and a couple of young women are showing some promise!
– Suvi Minkkinen
– Venla Lehtonen
– Sonja Leinamo
– Inka Hamalainen

Quota: 5 Athletes to Start

World Cup

Suvi Minkkinen (29)

I won’t make try to lie to anybody, I am a fan of Suvi Minkkinen . I was so excited to see her surge from 76th in the Overall in 2020-2021 to 43rd and then 27th two seasons ago. Last season was a little bit of a slide but I remain excited for what Minkkinen can bring!

The drop in Minkkinen’s performance was basically imperceptible. So much so that it’s hard to see where the slip came. Never the fastest athlete her ski rank fell from 65th to 68th which isn’t dramatic. Her average course time rank dropped from 44th to 54th which is a little more indicative of a diminished ski form.

Her shooting though remained magnificent as she hit 90.9% which was 5th best overall. That was her third straight season of top seven shooting. She did it with an average shooting time of 26.8 seconds. That’s really really good. It’s pretty difficult to see any improvement on that!

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2017-2018	86.7	83.3	85	29.2
2018-2019	95	81.7	88.3	28
2019-2020	81.3	76.3	78.8	29.2
2020-2021	86.2	81.5	83.8	28.4
2021-2022	94.4	89.6	92	29.1
2022-2023	90	91.6	90.8	27.1
2023-2024	93.1	88.8	90.9	26.8

Minkkinen’s shooting will give her an opportunity to compete. It’s a strength that very very few women have. When you barely miss any shots, and you hit that quickly, you’re really not spending a lot of time on the penalty loop. She can ski just a little better than she did last season as well. It’s not impossible to think that she has a couple of years of top 25 Overall finishes in her career still to come.

Venla Lehtonen (28)

The third member of the Finnish roster, Venla Lehtonen, is a member of the same post-Makarainen/Eder generation as Minkknen and Janka. She is still looking to find consistent success on the World Cup. She’s raced at least one race on the World Cup every year since 2017-2018 including the majority of the last two seasons.

Unfortunately Lehtonen’s total level of performance has remained just a touch behind Janka and well back of Minkkinen’s. The major difference is the shooting. While Minkkinen is a superstar shooter, and Janka has been decent, Lehtonen just struggles to get past the 80% mark. She’s broken that barrier just twice, but importantly she did get all the way to 85% in the 2022-2023 season.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2022-2023	83.3	86.7	85	32.5
2023-2024	86.2	72.3	79.2	31.5

Venla utilized that improved shooting to score the first World Cup point of her career that season! However, the combination of regularly shooting below 80%, along with skiing that is regularly putting her in the middle of the field at best, has kept Lehtonen on the outside of the points and looking in for the vast majority of her career.

Having said all of that, it still feels like Lehtonen isn’t that far away from being able to score just a few more points. Last season she had an average course time rank of 56 and in the 22-23 season she hit 85%. While those are both career bests, if she put them together she would exactly match the performance of Anna Maka who hit those numbers exactly last season. Last year Maka finished 45th Overall. That would mean having her career years all at once but at least we know it’s her potential. Even if she can’t hit that, an Overall ranking in the 60’s or 70’s is definitely possible.

Sonja Leinamo (22)

Sonja Leinamo’s two arguments for continued inclusion on the World Cup are: 1) She’s a different type of athlete than the other Finnish women and 2) She already has a year on the World Cup under her belt at age 22. Sure, she didn’t garner any points in her first World Cup season, but she was just 21 yeras old and was coming up while still being a Junior! Speaking of Juniors, in addition to her World Cup racing, Leinamo also raced against her age group at the Junior European and Junior World Championships where she actually had quite a bit of success. She won the silver medal in the Junior European Sprint and 6th in the Junior Worlds Mass 60. She also finished between 13th and 18th in the remaining races aside from a 35th in the Junior European Individual.

The road to success for Leinamo in those Juniors races on her skis. She was top 10 in skiing in each of those races and top 5 in five of the six. She actually ranked 3rd overall in skiing on the Juniors level last season. Even while she hit 78%, that was enough, combined with the skiing prowess, to get her to those high finishes. That basic formula was replicated by her on the World Cup this season as well. She ranked 52nd overall in skiing and had an average course time rank of 50.5. Meanwhile she shot 74.3% with a definite prone preference with 81.4% to 67.1% prone/standing splits.

The racing that Leinamo has shown on the Junior Cup indicates a different type of high ceiling for a Finnish woman. The other women above her who have had the success or shown the ability to have the success get there with terrific shooting. Leinamo is a different animal. Her ski speed is what gives her the floor of her performance. If she can learn some shooting tips from Minkkinen and Keranen and get her shooting percentage into the low 80’s we would absolutely see her score her first World Cup points!

Inka Haemaelaeinen (18)

At 18 years old at the start of the season Inka Haemaelaeinen is almost assuredly too young to get real World Cup consideration. I saw almost assuredly because the Finnish team regularly runs out Juniors on their World Cup roster so nothing can be assured! And last season she did run basically 10 races on the IBU Cup while also racing the Youth World Championships and making her World Cup debut. At those Youth Worlds she made her mark with a 6th place finish in the Individual. On the IBU Cup she finished in the points a couple of times. Her best races of the season came at the European Championships (not Juniors!) when she finished 23rd in the Individual, 35th in the Sprint and 43rd in the Pursuit.

Haemaelaeinen is really really young to compare to her IBU Cup competitors, but since she only raced three times against Juniors this is just where we have the most data. She finished 70th overall in skiing and had an average course time rank of 39.3. For being 18 for most of the season that isn’t bad! She shot 77.1% which placed her roughly in the middle of the field. Again, not bad!

In her limited Youth competitions she proved to be near top of the field in skiing. Her course time ranks in those three races were 2nd, 7th, and 13th. That’s a consistent step up from where she was last season. She didn’t shoot the lights out either hitting just 70% or 75% in each of the three races and still she was able to have those high finishes.

I like Haemaelaeinen’s potential. She’s just so young that we’re still a few years off from seeing it bloom into the full biathloete that she will become. This season, she will likely do mostly IBU Cup along with more Junior Worlds. If she’s able to have a good season we’ll see her take continue to flash intriguing speed and hopefully move towards 80% shooting!

The Rest of the World Cup and the IBU Cuppers

Erika Janka (29)

It looks like Erika Janka will be returning to the Finnish team in 2024-2025 after running just two races last season. She has decided to branch out on her own and is doing her own training with her own coaches. She feels that this will give her the best opportunity to be successful for the remainder of her career. Hopefully it will!

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2020-2021	91.4	72.9	82.1	33.9
2021-2022	94.3	68.6	81.4	32.4
2022-2023	90.7	77.3	84	30

In her career Janka has found most of her success with her shooting. In her three full seasons on the World Cup she has hit between 81.4% and 84% of her shots. Certainly not on the same level as Minkkinen but it could definitely be worse. However, the skiing has been what has held her back. Her best average course time rank is 68.2 in the 2022-2023 season. Other than that her course time rank averages are usually in the 80’s. She also leaves a little on the table with her shooting speeds as she averaged exactly 38 seconds per shoot in her last full World Cup year.

Will training on her own in France deliver Janka the success she is hoping for? I sure hope it will. Again, the shooting isn’t bad. It’s not amazing, but it’s good enough. She’s going to need to find some strength on the skis and hopefully her group has a plan for that. I’m certain that regardless of how she finds it, her Finnish teammates and coaches will be excited to see it happen.

Noora Kaisa Keranen (23)

Much younger than her teammates above her on this list is Noora Kaisa Keranen. She carries the weight of having her middle name be that of only the greatest Finnish biathlete of all time. Keranen, while maybe not having the same amazingly high ceiling at Kaisa Makarinen, still has shown some good talent at this young stage of her career.

In her last two seasons as a Junior, the 21-22 and 22-23 seasons she had some very solid results at Junior European and Junior World Championships. In those 11 races she had nine top 11 finishes. I tend to focus on those a little more because they have the highest concentration of talent for the Juniors races bringing back some of the men and women who have been competing more frequently on the IBU Cup and even World Cup levels.

Last season Keranen found herself on the World Cup. It was a bit of a growing season, but she showed some potential already. She scored the first point of her career with a 40th place in the Lenzerheide Sprint and then scored a few more with a career best 28th place finish in Antholz in the Short Individual. On the year she qualified for two Pursuits.

For the season Keranen shot a more than respectable 86.3% that ranked 28th in shooting for the season, while averaging 28.5 seconds per shoot, which ranked 30th on the World Cup. For a 23 year old that’s a great place to start. She ranked 83rd in skiing and had an average course time rank of 76th meaning she was in the back portion of the field in skiing. However, again, she is just 23.

Keranen is a young Finn who definitely has potential. Although she has never been a tremendous fast biathete even when finishing highly on the Juniors, she should be able to find a bit more speed over the next few seasons. If I were going to make a guess I would say she follows the Suvi Minkkinen route. She already ranks significantly higher in skiing at a younger age than Minkkinen did while her shooting is already on the level of Minkinnen’s when she was 23. She’s got the starting point, and she has the potential, now it’s all about development and that remains to be seen. In 3-4 years though it would not surprise me at all to see her top 30ish in the World Cup buoyed by exceptional shooting and improving skiing.

Seela Peuralahti (23)

The 2023-2024 season was Seela Peuralahti’s first full season on the IBU Cup. While it wasn’t a season that would necessarily knock your socks off, she did get a little bit better as the season went along including scoring two of her three best finishes at the end of the season.

In her debut season Peuralahti didn’t overwhelm in any particular area of performance. She ranked 55th in skiing coming in 3.9% slower than the median biathlete with an average ski rank of 57.3. Meanwhile she shot 65.9% with fairly even splits. She averaged 42 seconds per shoot.

Long story short, she’s just 23 years old. There are plenty of areas for Peuralahti to improve. Just small improvements across the board would be great to see!

Heidi Kuuttinen (26)

The 2023-2024 season showed some encouraging signs for Heidi Kuttinen. Her shooting rebounded after sliding the last two seasons. After hitting in the low to mid 80’s in the early stages of her career she had fallen down into the 70’s. Last year, though, she rebounded to 85.4% overall which was quite reassuring to see.

Unfortunately, even with the shooting rebounding to the mid 80’s she wasn’t able to have a major improvement in her overall performance. Her skiing has been slowly getting a little bit worse each year over the last few seasons. Meanwhile, her average shooting time was a pedestrian 40.3 seconds per shoot. Last year a 31 second average shoot ranked 20th in shooting time on the women’s IBU Cup. Kuutinen lost 18 seconds per Sprint and 36 seconds per Pursuit/Individual just in shooting time. That’s a massive gap.

Kuuttinen’s average finish each of the last five seasons on the IBU Cup was in the 50’s without any major change. For her to start taking positive steps again in her biathlon journey it’s going to be about seeing the skiing reverse course and move back to at least average for the IBU Cup field. The low hanging fruit though is if she can cut some major time off of that shooting speed. She doesn’t have to be the fastest, but just getting it down to something below 32-33 seconds would actually make a big difference for her. That’s what I’ll be watching for this year, her skiing and her shooting speed.

Lyydia Rainio (20)

Another Finn making her IBU level debut last season was Lydia Rainio as she raced the Junior European and Junior World Championships. While most of the races she finished in the 40’s and 50’s, she did have one bright spot with a 17th place Junior European Mass 60. Not surprisingly that was also the race where she hit 95% (she went 70, 80, 75, and 90 in the other four races). Clearly when she put it together she was able to be competitive. After a season of training she apparently looked good enough this fall to earn a spot to start the season on the IBU Cup. Let’s go Lyydia!

Nenna Lukkarinen (24)

Nenna Lukkarinen did not race last season and ran only three IBU level races the year prior. I did not see a notice that she had retired but I wanted to include her name here just in case she does return to racing.

Juniors and Up And Comers

Frida Achren (21)

Ms. Frida Achren made her IBU racing debut last season. In an unusual circumstance she actually raced on the IBU Cup before she ran on the Juniors! She raced the Kontiolahti Individual and the European Championships and then finished the season with the Junior European Championships and Junior Worlds. The highlight of the season was an 11th in the Individual at Junior Europeans and then 29th in the Sprint and 24th in the Mass 60. Looking just at her Juniors racing it was a decent start to her career. She generally ran with a course time rank in the 20-30’s. The good finishes at the Junior European Championships were boosted by good shooting where she hit 95% 90%, and 80% in those three races.

There just isn’t enough data to get a good sense of if Achren is going to be a great shooter or a good one. However, she clearly has the ability to do it as she showed at Junior Euros. I’m hopeful that she can replicate that this season and maybe with a little bit better skiing.

Eveliin Hakala (18)

Last year Eveliin Hakala made her Juniors debut at the Junior Worlds. She finished 28th in the Individual, 25th in the Sprint and 37th in the Mass 60. Her course time ranks of 23rd, 23rd and 45 almost exactly matched her finishes. She shot 70%, 80%, and 85%. It was just three races but Hakala’s performances matched fairly closely with her skiing. It’s just three races, but it was a decent beginning to a career. Hopefully we see even better racing (and more racing!) next season.

Hanni Koski (17)

Hanni Koski’s only winter international racing that we have documented is the 2024 Gangwon Youth Olympics where she finished 49th in the Individual and 45th in the Sprint. Her performances were hampered by poor shooting as she hit 13/20 in the Individual and 5/10 in the Sprint. She also raced Summer Worlds this year in Otepaa where her best finish was 27th in the Super Sprint final. Once again though, the shooting was the main thing holding her back. It’s a very limited data set but right now it appears that if Koski can improve her shooting she’s going to at least give herself a better chance when she competes on the Juniors level this year.

Rebecca Sandnaes (20)

After racing in the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 seasons on the Juniors level Rebecca Sandnaes took a year off before returning for another season of Junior racing last year. So far in her career she has shown an ability to shoot well. In her nine career races she has four races where she hit 90% or better. Unfortunately there is little boom or bust where four of the races were also 75% of lower. So far in her career she hasn’t quite shown the ability to ski fast enough to overcome the bad shooting days. However, when she hits she can compete. The last two years of competition when she hit 90% or better she finished in the top 26. If the skiing can come along there is a real opportunity for her.

Emilia Irvankoski (22)

Emilia Irvankoski has a bit of a strange career thus far. At the start of this season she is just 22 years old, but she’s been running more consistently on the IBU Cup than the Juniors level. Even more interesting, she hasn’t competed in Junior Worlds since 2022. And last year she ran just two races, both on the IBU Cup. I couldn’t find any mention of an injury, and she seemed optimistic after the first races of the season. Unfortunately that was it for her racing last season.

In her career Irvankoski has been a little bit better shooter than a skier. That’s not to say she’s a sharpshooter like Suvi Minkkinen, but she has shown the abilility to hit consistently in the 80’s or higher. That includes the 2023 Junior European Championships when she hit 90% in the Sprint and Pursuit and finished 22nd in both races. She actually has been a very good prone shooter as well.

Hopefully we see more racing from Emilia Irvankoski this summer. With just a handful of races over the last two seasons it’s difficult to say what we will see. I’ll keep my fingers crossed though!

The following three women didn’t race last season. They are all Juniors with the oldest being Iiris Herlander at 20 years old to start the season. I didn’t see any indication of retirement amongst the three of them. They have had some success between them including Teodora Westerlund’s 9th place in the Youth Worlds Individual in 2023 that came mostly on the back of her 19/20 shooting that day.

Teodora Westerlund (19)
Iiris Helander (20)
Saga Hursainen (18)

Men

Quota: 5 Athletes to Start

World Cup Just like for the women, the Finnish men are also showing some signs of hope. In this case Tero Seppala is similar to Suvi Minkkinen, aiming for another top 20-25 Overall finish. Then we have some young men like Otto Invenius and Arttu Heikkinen coming up!
– Tero Seppala
– Otto Invenius
– Olli Hiidensalo
– Arttu Heikkinen
– Jaako Ranta

Tero Seppala (28)

Two seasons ago we were treated to a real breakthrough season by Tero Seppala as the young lefty with the green rifle collected five top 10’s including two top 5’s! He was shoowing exceptionally well and you always had to at least consider him at the start of races that maybe, just maybe, he could find a way to the podium. Alas, he never quite got there, twice finishing 5th. The last two seasons he’s battled some illness, a minor injury here and there, and wasn’t quite able to recapture the magic of that 2021-2022 season. At just 28 years old at the start of this season, though, could be find it again?

Seppala is clearly a pretty good skier that made his breakthrough when he figured out the shooting. He surged from a biathlete who couldn’t get out of the 70’s to hitting 83%. No 83% isn’t exceptional, but it was just enough that with his ski speed, which has ranked amongst the top 30 fastest biathletes over the last five seasons, he could find a way to get to the top 10’s. Over the last two years as his performance has slipped, it hasn’t been his skiing, but the shaky shooting, that has let him down again.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2017-2018	80	71.7	75.9	31.8
2018-2019	80.8	72.5	76.7	31.8
2019-2020	79.2	74.6	76.9	28.2
2020-2021	83.1	76.3	79.7	29.6
2021-2022	88	78	83	28.4
2022-2023	84.8	78.6	81.7	26.7
2023-2024	80	79.2	79.6	25.7

There are some promising signs with the shooting though. His standing shooting has only continued to improve. Even as his prone shooting slipped down to 80%, his lowest in four years, his standing shooting hit a new World Cup career high of 79.2%. If he can get the prone shooting turned around, at least closer to the 88% he hit in 21-22, then there is no reason to believe that he can’t find the top 10 on a regular basis again. Especially when you look at his shooting speed being nearly 3 full seconds per shoot faster on average compared to that breakthrough season.

Overall, I remain optimistic on Seppala. It may just have been that his 21-22 season was just a little too early and that the last two years have been rough, but important for his growth and return to the top 20 of the Overall standings. Hopefully we see him moving in that direction this season. The first good sign would be shooting over 80% in the early stages of the season. He does that and I’ll get excited!

Otto Invenius (23)

In his first full season on the World Cup Otto Invenius had a very solid season, finding the top 30 in nearly 1/3 of his races, three top 20’s, and a new career best of 10th in the Antholz Mass Start. He came into the season with just nine prior World Cup races so it should come as no surprise that he had all five of the five best finishes of his career in the 23-24 season.

Invenius has been an intriguing talent for several seasons now particularly because of his ski skills. In the Juniors he was regularly top 10 in course time rank. That ski speed propelled him to solid success including silver in the Sprint at his last Junior Worlds in 2021 along with 5th in the Individual and 15th in the Pursuit. After solid, if unspectacular, racing as a 21-22 year old on the IBU Cup Invenius moved to the World Cup and did not appear overwhelmed. He ranked 29th overall in skiing coming in just behind Jakov Fak and teammate Seppala, and just ahead of Roman Rees. He hit 80.3% of his shots, the best full seaosn of his career. And he did that while shooting at a nice 26.5 second average shooting clip. Overall a successful season.

The hopes and dreams of the biathlon world for Invenius are probably set pretty high. At just 23 years old to start this season he likely won’t come close to reaching them. That’s not what we are looking for though. We just want to see some signs of progress in that direction. Hopefully we’ll see the skiing a little faster and the shooting a little closer to 83%. If he does that he can probably hope to find the top 10 1-2 more times, be even more consistently in the top 30, and inch his way towards the top 25 of the Overall. Afterall, that would be VERY close to Krcmar’s 23-24 season (25th in skiing and 83.3% hit rate) and Krcmar finished the year at 28th in the Overall. That would absolutely be a success for Invenius.

Olli Hiidensalo (33)

As Olli Hiidensalo gets a little bit older it’s hard to know exactly what to expect from him. He’s at the age where some athletes can start to show signs of falling off, while others don’t show any regression at all. Two years ago he hasd the best Overall finish of his career, finishing 30th. He matched his career best finish in a race of 11th as well. Then, last year he only raced seven races with just two top 40’s. I couldn’t find anything about his health status last year so I don’t know what played a role in that. Hopefully he’ll be healthy to race a full season this year.

It’s not entirely clear what was the cause of last season’s fall off. His skiing showed a mild decline from the year prior but was still better than 21-22 when he finished 38th in the Overall with an average finish of 42.1 compared to last year 60.3. His shooting was a little worse as he hit 80% compared to 84.6% in 22-23 and 80.8% in 21-22. His average shooting speed was 1.2 seconds closer year over year but still faster than 21-22.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2017-2018	89.6	71.3	80.4	30.8
2018-2019	87.1	78.8	82.9	31.4
2019-2020	87.5	61.3	74.4	30.7
2020-2021	80	65	72.5	32
2021-2022	84.2	77.5	80.8	31.8
2022-2023	89.1	80	84.6	27.4
2023-2024	80	80	80	28.6

Looking at the stats there is no clear and obvious reason the performance wasn’t as good last season as the year prior. It wasn’t just racing less either, as his average finish fell from 42.1 in 21-22 and 29.5 in 22-23 down to 60.3 last season. That makes me more optimistic that the ability to have the racing he did in those two seasons is still there. He just needs to be healthy and hopefully he can get himself back to the top 40 in the Overall.

Jaakko Ranta (27)

In his second year on the World Cup Jaakko Ranta showed a nice improvement. In the 2022-2023 season he finished the season without scoring a point. In the 23-24 season, though, he score his first points in Hochfilzen when he finished 38th in the Pursuit race. He added to that a career best 23rd in the Short Individual in Antholz to get himself up to 66th in the Overall. Those were the two big successes of his season as he unfortunately failed to qualify for another Pursuit race the rest of the season.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2022-2023	91.3	86.3	88.8	23.9
2023-2024	86.7	80	83.3	24.5

That all may sound like much ado about not a lot of success, but there was something great to like last season. In the 2023-2024 season Jaako Ranta finished 11th in shooting hitting 88.8% of his shots. While he is consistently a very good shooter, usually hitting in the mid 80’s, this was the best shooting in a full season of his career. The skiing, though, showed no improvement at all. He moved from 84th in skiing to 83rd in skiing rankings but his average course time rank slipped backwards just a touch compared to the median biathlete.

Jaako Ranta’s shooting ranking near the top of the World Cup shooting rankings gives him an opportunity. It makes sense why he was able to have his best career race in the Short Individual there the premium on shooting and shorter course matched his style better. However, should be be able to find a way in the next few seasons to improve that skiing up closer to average, that shooting will give him a chance to be competitive. He has the shooting, he has the shooting speed averaging 23.9 seconds per shoot last season ranking 3rd on the World Cup, now it’s all about the skiing.

Arttu Heikkinen (19)

Yes, he is just 19 years old but he has as very good potential along the lines of Otto Invenius. Even as a teenager he’s been getting consistent racing on the IBU Cup. For Heikkinen last season was another season of progress. In the 2023-2025 season Heikkinen added a Junior European Sprint gold medal to his resume which also includes five Youth Worlds top 10’s, including three medals. He didn’t have quite as much success at Junior Worlds where his best finish was 16th in the Individual to go along with 21st in the Sprint and 41st in the Mass 60. In his IBU Cup racing he had three top 30’s. He also made his World Cup debut finishing 91st in the Ruhpolding Sprint.

For Heikkinen we can look at both his Juniors and his IBU Cup stats. It is likely that he wasn’t able to have the same success at Junior Worlds as he had at prior Youth Worlds due to the poor shooting. He hit just 73% on the Junior level last season. He still skied at a top 10 level even amongst the older cohort of biathletes. On the IBU Cup he shot a little bit better in about the same number of races, hitting 81.4%, about the same as the year before. He had decent skiing as well, with an average course time rank of 35th.

What does all that mean for Arttu Heikkinen? It means that he’s really really young and he has a ton of potential. He’s skied at a high level once again on the Juniors level. And it’s so hard to judge him against the IBU Cup and small sample sizes on the Juniors can greatly vary the statistics and results. We’re about to get a real good idea of where Heikkinen stacks up against the best in the World as he’s going to be running on the World Cup at least in Kontiolahti. While he may stick on the World Cup all season there is a good chance that we’ll see him still run some Juniors and IBU Cup races this year. He’s still several years away from real World Cup contention and we won’t have a good picture of him for another few seasons. Hopefully this season he gets some good experience and he keeps developing. This is going to be a fun year!

The Rest of the World Cup and the IBU Cuppers

Heikki Laitinen (30)

At age 30 Heikki Laitinen seems to be coming into his own on the World Cup. After running his first full season of 11 races on the World Cup in the 21-22 season he scored the first points of his career last year. After starting the season on the IBU Cup, and having some consistently good success with finishes regularly in the top 25, he moved back to the World Cup for the Ruhpolding weekend and stayed there the rest of the season. In his first race in Ruhpolding he scored a new career best of 24th. He followed that up with 38th in the Pursuit. Most of his finishes the rest of the season were in the 50’s and he added three more points to his total with a 38th place Pursuit in Soldier Hollow.

Laitinen success this season was mostly predicated on his shooting improvement. While his skiing was similar year over year, with an average course time rank of 53 in 2023-2024 vs. 50 in the 2022-2023 season, the shooting made a solid improvement. He bumped up his hit rate from 75.8% to 82.1%. That was entirely based on his standing shooting improving from 60% to 82.9% while his prone percentage dropped 10% from 91.7 to 81.4.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2021-2022	81.1	61.1	71.1	31.3
2022-2023	91.7	60	75.8	30.5
2023-2024	81.4	82.9	82.1	28.8

If Heikki Laitinen can continue his current trajectory, with maybe a little skiing improvement, while making solid shooting gains, he could absolutely set a new career best and new Overall best in the 24-25 season. Not every athlete needs to be competing for a top 10 Overall finish. For next season, if he can run a full healthy World Cup season, Laitinen may very well have the best year of his career, running towards a top 50 Overall.

Jonni Mukkala (23)

In just his third full season of international biathlon racing, Jonni Mukkala had another very good season of progress. After making his World Cup debut in 2022-2023 he earned three more starts on the World Cup last season. He finished 68th in the Hochfilzen Sprint which he followed up with 56th in the Lenzerheide Sprint and 55th in the Pursuit. Otherwise he raced primarily on the IBU Cup where he had eight top 30’s in 15 races, three top 20’s and his 2nd career IBU Cup top 10. His average finish of 34.6 was an accurate representation of his racing as he was consistently finishing from the teens to the 30’s.

Mukkala has displayed an improving all around form of biathlon. Last season on the IBU Cup he had an average course time rank of 24.5 and ran a career best 2.8% faster than the median biathlete. However, while his skiing has advanced his shooting has regressed. Last season he hit 72.7% of his shots including 77.3% standing and 68.2% prone. It was actually the lowest shooting percentage of his young career.

The young Jonni Mukkalo doesn’t have the pedigree of Otto Invenius or Arttu Heikkinen, but he’s starting to look pretty good. The skiing has come along significantly in the last three seasons and is no longer a hinderance to his performance. Now he has to get his shooting moving back towards a hit rate in the 80’s. It’s likely going to be another season on the IBU Cup, but this is an optimistic one. If he can hit some checkmarks like continued ski improvement and a shooting percentage in the upper 70’s or above then I’m going to be pertty excited for Mukkalo going into 25-26.

Joni Pykaelaeinen (Mustonen) (29)

Our second Joni on the Finnish roster, Joni Pukaelaeinen had his best IBU Cup year to date during the 2023-2024 season. He had easily his highest rate of top 30 finishes, 61.5% of all races, and had four top 20’s which matched his entire career total prior to the start of the season. He also made five starts on the World Cup from Hochfilzen through Antholz including finishes of 40th and 43rd in the Lenzerheide Sprint and Pursuit, the best World Cup starts of his career.

What led to this career best season? Easily his skiing. He ranked 15th overall in skiing on the IBU Cup last season for his best year on the skis yet. He had an average course time rank of 16th and had several top 10 ski ranks throughout the season. The highlight was finishing 3rd fastest in the Rindaun-Val Ridanna Mass 60 during which he finished 16th. That’s in a field that included the young Norwegians and other fast men like Danilo Riethmueller.

His shooting, though, still stands as a point where he could make up some ground. Last season he hit 72.1% which was his best on the IBU Cup. He’s made tremendous strides over much of the last decade. That still leaves him spending more time on the penalty loop, or tacking on more penalty time, than the other serious contenders.

For Pykaelaeinen to take the next step he has to find a way to make a significant jump in shooting. At this stage in the game he’s 29 years, so while time isn’t running out quite yet, he’s solidly into the middle portion of his career. It can definitely happen that he’s able to find something on the range and boost that shooting up into the upper 70’s or even the low 80’s. There is easy low hanging fruit with a prone shooting of just 68.2% last season. That would be magnificent and with his skiing would give him the opportunity to find the top 20 on a regular basis. That would actually be a bit better than Heikki Leitinen’s IBU Cup performance from last season in limited racing. But we know what Leitinen was able to do on the World Cup last year. There just isn’t a lot of time left for it to happen.

Tuomas Harjula (26)

In the 2022-2023 season Tuomas Harjula was the “where did that come from?!?” athlete of the year. He was so off the radar I didn’t have him in any of the previews. In the first trimester of that season he had a 14th in the Hochfilzen Pursuit followed by 19th in the Annecy-le Grand Bornand Pursuit and 10th the following day in the Mass Start! It was a tremendous showing. That proved to be the high point of that season but it was a great high point that many athletes would love to achieve.

The offseason didn’t go great and after starting the season in Oestersund he went back to the IBU Cup for the remainder the season save the Oslo Individual at the end of the season. His season on the IBU Cup was definitely a bit of a disappointment. He actually finished 43rd in the Overall, two spots back of his finish on the World Cup in the 22-23 season.

The drop off was clearly in the skiing. He shot just 0.9% worse in 2023-2024 than he did the season prior. However, his ski ranking went from 60th on the World Cup down to 58th on the IBU Cup. The IBU Cup is good but that’s still a significant drop. In skiing on the IBU Cup he ranked right next to Ukrainian Artem Tyshchenko who, in his World Cup racing, ranked 88th in skiing. That would have equaled a 40+ position drop in skiing for Harjula.

Harjula has had an unpredictable season. I refuse to predict what will happen next. He may have a similar season to 23-24, he may have a career year, or he may choose to become the greatest falconer on the planet. I honestly don’t know. However, we know that Harjula has better in him than we saw last season and I hope we get the chance to see it.

Juniors and Up and Comers

Jimi Klemettinen (18)

Just 18 years old young Jimi Klemettinen spent the last season split between the IBU Cup and the Juniors. As a 16 year old he raced Youth Worlds finishing 39th, 32, and 42. Last season he went to the IBU Cup to start the season and for a 17 year old he did quite well! He was regularly finishing in the 40’s with just a couple of finishes outside of that realm and all finishes between 37 and 64. Then he went to Youth Worlds and really showed out. He won bronze in the Sprint, finished 4th in the Individual, and 20th in the Mass start. In those three races he ran very well with course time ranks of 2nd, 5th, and 20th. Even with only hitting 85%, 90%, and 80%, he still had a tremendous Worlds.

Overall I’m pretty optimistic on Klemettinen. He’s still very young and those were some really strong finishes. And when racing against his age level he looked great. Let’s hope we see a lot more of him this season!

Kalle Loukkaanhuhta (21)

One of my favorite names in biathlon, Kalle Loukkaanhuta showed a spark last season. He won the silver medal in the Individual at the Junior European Championships. He followed that up with 14th in the Sprint and 21st in the Mass 60. All of the rest of his races he’s finished usually in the 40’60’s throughout his caeer. The difference that weekend, though, was that he skied very well and had the most consistent shooting of his career as he hit 100% in the Individual followed by 80% in the next two races. Now we clearly know his potential, and hopefully we see more of it!

Eemi Naumanen (20)

Over the last four seasons Eemi Naumanen ran the Youth/Junior Championships and Junior Europeans. The 21-22 season was his best so far when he finished 14th, 15th, and 6th at Youth Worlds. The last two seasons at Junior Worlds have been a bit less successful. He just hasn’t been able to hit well enough to contend. His ski ranks haven’t been tremendous either. She’s 20 years old not so hopefully this is the year he hits his stride!