Austria 2024-2025 Team Preview

Austria is a nation steeped in winter sports tradition. When you think of winter sports and the Winter Olympics its hard not to see Austrians. Almost every winter Austrian fans are assured of having one of the winningest winter sports rosters. The overwhelming majority of this success, though, comes in alpine skiing. Of course this make sense considering Austria is home to some of the most famous ski slopes in the Alps. Fittingly the Österreichischer skiverband is by far and away the all time leader in alpine skiing medals.

When it comes to Nordic skiing, though, the success is a little more spotty. Recently there have been some bright spots. Simon Eder’s 108 top 10 finishes rank 15th all time. Lisa Theresa Hauser, the winningest Austrian woman in biathlon history, continues on in the middle of her career. Also, the age of the Anna’s appears to be upon us as Anna Gandler, Anna Andexer and Anna Juppe are climbing the ranks.

Women

It’s fair to look at last season as a bit of a mixed bag for the Austrian women. On the downside the team finished 8th in the Nations Cup, representing a backward slide of exactly 1 place as the Czechia women snuck into 7th with 75 more points. Lisa Hauser had a bit of disappointing season. She was sick in the first trimester, missing the races in Lenzerheide, and never fully recovered the rest of the season. Behind her though, Anna Gandler showed her ability to be a true contender for the Austrian team while fellow Anna, Anna Andexer, showed serious potential of her own on the Junior and IBU circuits.

Head Coach: Richard Gösweiner

Quota: 5 Athletes to Start

World Cup Locks

With five athletes set to line up every race, there are two women who are completely locked in. We’ll cover them first and then it gets interesting.

Anna Gandler (23)

At just 23 years old, turning 24 in January, Anna Gandler showed last season that she has what it takes to be a very very good, and possibly great biathlete. Her season can neatly be split exactly in two parts with 11 races before Worlds and 11 races including Worlds and the last trimester. After a bit of a slow start to last season, with just two top 10s through the first two trimesters (a 10th place Sprint in Hochfilzen), Gandler turned up the heat from Nove Mesto through Canmore. Over the last 11 races (her worst finish was 19th. She finished the season with 5 straight top 10’s including four times in the flowers, and ending the season with a career best 5th in the Canmore Mass Start.

Over that terrific Worlds and final trimester of racing Gandler’s average finish was 10.2. Over the course of the season that would have matched Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold for 6th best average finish and of course we know where Tandrevold finished in the Overall rankings. Now that’s not say that we should expect Gandler to do that for an entire year. That’s a big part of developing as a biathlete, taking those strong trimesters and making them into strong seasons. The good news is we know that already at age 23 she can do it.

The key for Gandler’s closing stretch was…everything. She did everything well. If you go back and watch some of those races, and as a biathlon loony I certainly have, check out Gandler. She just looks like an athlete completely at ease. Her skiing somehow looks “too” easy. Her shooting looks rock solid and without a hint of stress.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2022-2023	91.2	82.4	86.8	30.1
2023-2024	91.7	81.1	86.4	30.1

The numbers bear it out as well. Over the final 11 races Gandler hit exactly 90% with a bit better prone shooting than standing shooting. She finished top 20 in course time rank in 7 of the final 11 races of the season, something she had done just once in first half of the year. While not a huge difference she managed to shave right around 1 second off of her average shooting time in the second half of the season as well. I know when you look at the overall season numbers you can’t see too much of a jump, but I’m choosing to focus on the second half of the season when we saw her star really shine. Maybe that’s not fair, but she’s just 23 and as I stated earlier, stretching that out to the full season is part of the development we hope to see over the next few seasons.

Anna Gandler’s potential remains that of one of an athlete who can compete with the best in the sport. Remember, she is just 23/24 this season. I don’t expect to see her running up the wins and competing for the Overall this season, but that’s where her potential lies. And even if she doesn’t hit that she has the chance to overtake Lisa Hauser as the best biathlete that Austria has even known.

Lisa Theresa Hauser (30)

The 2023-2024 season was a disappointment for Lisa Hauser. There really are no two ways about it. She got sick in the first trimester, including a missed weekend of racing in Lenzerheide, and never full recovered the remainder of the season. She finished 33rd Overall, her worst Overall finish since she ran 6 races in the 13-14 season. She had no podiums or top 5’s for the first time since the 19-20 season and no top 10’s for the first time since the 17-18 season.

Just look at the plot above and you can only find one major area of slippage in her performance. She was a touch slower than she was the prior to seasons when she finished 10th and 3rd respectively. Her shooting percentage actually came in between the 21-22 and 22-23 seasons and her shooting rank was actually a little better. However, her shooting time was over two seconds slower than the prior year and her shooting time ran fell from the top 10’s to 26.

The question stands, is this the beginning of the end of Lisa Theresa Hauser? Taking my own feelings out of it (cmon you guys know I’m always a fan), I truly don’t think it’s “the end.” We more than likely have already seen the high point of her career when she had three straight top 10 Overall seasons including 3rd in the amazing 21-22 season. However, that doesn’t mean it’s all downhill.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2017-2018	88.5	89.2	88.8	25.9
2018-2019	90.3	84.3	87.3	26.6
2019-2020	84.8	88.3	86.6	27.7
2020-2021	88.1	81.9	85	28.8
2021-2022	90	86.2	88.1	26.6
2022-2023	88.9	82.6	85.8	25.8
2023-2024	89.7	83.5	86.6	28.1

Over the last several seasons we’ve seen many athletes, like Dorothea Wierer, Tiril Eckhoff, Marte Olsbu Roeiseland, and Denise Herrman-Wick all have exceptional seasons in their early to mid 30’s. That’s not to put Hauser in their level but the point is that this doesn’t mean she has to be on the decline. Will she be a top 5 Overall athlete again? Not likely, but it isn’t out of the question to see her compete for podiums again including this season. If she has a season of health it isn’t difficult to see her ski ran return to around 20th, and the shooting is still good. Hopefully we see her shooting back to her nomal 26-27 second avg shoot time. If she does all of this I would expect to see a bounce back season that puts her in around top 10-15 in the Overall.

Rounding out the Roster and the IBU Cup

Well that’s the top two who are the locks. There are still three more spots to figure out. There are a couple of women that looks more likely than not two of those spots. But what about the fifth? To start out the season the other World Cup starters will be:
– Lea Rothschopf
– Kristina Oberthaler
– Dunja Zdouc

Lea Rothschopf (22)

Along with Gandler and Andexer, Lea Rothschopf is the third very young Austrian woman to be listed on the “A” roster. She started out last season on the IBU Cup and competed there exclusively until just before the World Championships. While Rothscopf didn’t complete the season on the IBU Cup she still amassed enough points to finish the year 20th in the Overall standings at that level. After a bit of slow start, in her last eight races on the IBU Cup level, including the European Championships that draw a handful of World Cup athletes, she had four top 10’s including her first career IBU Cup podium in Arber. From there she finished off the season on the World Cup with finishes anywhere between 24th (Oslo Individual) and 51st.

Looking primarily at the IBU Cup where she spent the majority of her season, Rothschopf ran well, finishing the season 17th in overall ski rank with an avg course time rank of 15th. Even that doesn’t tell the story though. After that sluggish start to the season, in the last 11 races she ran on the IBU Cup her worst course time rank was 14th and she averaged a ski rank of 9.5. While not a IBU Cup burner like Anaelle Bondoux or Julia Tannheimer, an average ski rank of 9.5 would have ranked 13th and put her alongside Karoline Erdal and Emilie Kalkenberg. When she bumped up to the World Cup her average course time rank of 37 put her in the same range as Amy Baserga, Lotte Lie, and Regina Ermits which is respectable for the 22 year old.

After a magnificent improvement in shooting two seasons ago, last season was fairly level. After averaging in the 60’s and 70’s earlier in her career, the last two seasons on the IBU Cup she hit 81.1% and 81.4% respectively. Just as with skiing, though, when you look at her shooting you can identify a definite improvement as the season went along. Over the first seven races she was hitting at a 74.5% rate, but in the last 11 IBU Cup races, coinciding to when she found her legs, she hit 84.4%. She then went on to hit 86% in her six World Cup races.

While it’s not a for sure thing that Lea Rothschopf will be starting the season on the World Cup all indications are that is the direction she is headed. As a 21/22 year old she performed at a reasonable level and if she can maintain the skiing and shooting improvement trajectory she is on then she has a very good career ahead of her. Again though, and I say this mostly to temper my own excitement, she is still just 22. There is a lot of growth that will continue to occur and it will not all be linear. There will be bumps in the road. This season, at just 22/23 years old, is all about, over time, continuing to learn, grow, and hopefully seeing that overall trajectory continuing to point upward.

Kristina Oberthaler (26)

After starting last season on the World Cup before a mid year move back to the IBU Cup, Kristina Oberthaler gets a spot on the Austrian “A” team for the 2023-2024 season. In her 5 races on the World Cup last year she never finished above 39, but also below 69, showing a high floor but also a relatively low ceiling. However, once returning to the IBU Cup she found her footing. Starting in January on the IBU Cup she remained there the rest of the season and along with 4 top 10’s (and 1 11th) she finished 22nd on the IBU Cup Overall listings.

Oberthaler, as a biathlete, looks a lot of Tamara Steiner. She’s a deadly accurate shooter who struggles just a little bit relatively on the skis. Oberthaler has shot 88% or better in all but one of her seasons on the IBU Cup and World Cup. Interestingly, a deeper look at her shooting indicates that she has a clear preference for prone shooting. Consistently she hits between 90-95% prone on the IBU Cup and World Cup while “only” mid to low 80’s standing. Oberthaler’s ceiling as a shooter is right up there with Steiner as one of the best in biathlon.

That amazing shooting provides the solid floor for her performance, but it’s the skiing that, right not at least, has kept a ceiling on her ability to find truly great finishes. Above we compared her to Steiner, and in the five races in which they overlapped on the World Cup Steiner consistently finished 5-25 places ahead of her in course time rank which explains why Steiner had the better finishes on the World Cup. Back on the IBU Cup she had an average course time rank of 33 over the last two seasons which allowed her to grab those top 10’s and finish 22nd Overall. That’s just the difference in ski level from the IBU Cup to World Cup. Someone like Oberthaler can be slightly faster, -0.8%, than median IBU Cup woman while running 3.8% slower than median on the World Cup.

Just as noted with Tamara Steiner, the ideal model is somebody like Lotte Lie. Keep the exceptional shooting, maybe even improving the standing, and improve the skiing. It’s obviously much more difficult to say (or write) than do. However, the good news is she already has an A level talent with shooting. Just getting to above average on the skiing gives her top 30 Overall potential. Let’s see what she can do over the next few seasons.

Dunja Zdouc (30)

After becoming a stalwart on the World Cup squad Zdouc spent last year primarily on the IBU Cup. However, after apparently a strong showing this summer/fall she has returned to the World Cup squad to start the 2024-2025 season. With as much young talent as there is on the Austrian team staying here is no easy guarantee.

Zdouc, like Steiner and Oberthaler, is a shooter. Over the last 7 seasons, on any level, she’s hit less than 85% just once. Combine that with rapidly improving shooting times, that peaked at 26.4 seconds per shoot in 22-23 season, and she’s all around a very very good shooter. Unfortunately, though, last season was a step back in both regards. She hit just 85.8% and averaged just 28.9 seconds per shoot.

Also like Steiner and Oberthaler, she doesn’t match up as well on the skis. At age 30 Zdouc certainly isn’t over the hill or too old to compete. However, you would think that we would have seen signs of improved skiing already. Thus far her best ski rank was 58th in the 2020-2021 season. Last season, in her limited World Cup racing, she had an average course time rank of 70 which was her worst since 2019-2020 so certainly not the direction we would hope to see.

We know that Dunja Zdouc has the shooting ability to get it done. If she can get the skis going again, and the younger Austrians have some struggles, we could see her on the World Cup all season long. Otherwise, I anticipate that she will occupy what may become a rotating spot with some of the women below her on this list.

IBU Cup: Austria certainly doesn’t have a set in stone top 5 for the World Cup. It is quite likely that we’ll see several if not all of the women on this list reaching for at least a few World Cup starts this season. Anna Andexer comes off a very strong World Cup season and is all listed on the “A team” while Juppe and Steiner spent considerable time on the World Cup last year. Our IBU Cup starting lineup will be:
Meanwhile on the IBU Cup to start the season we will see:
– Anna Andexer
– Anna Juppe
– Lisa Osl
– Leonie Pitzer
– Tamara Steiner
– Laura Wagner

Anna Andexer (21)

Last season I probably wrote more tweets about Anna Andexer than any other non-World Cup biathlete. I was a fan of hers coming off of her Overall Junior Globe in the 22-23 season and she did nothing to dissuade me of that last year. Andexer finished the season once again tops in the Junior Overall rankings. In 12 Juniors races she had 7 wins, 8 podiums, and 11 top 10’s. This included two victories at the Junior European Championships, as well as 6th, 8th, and 7th at Junior Worlds.

With her exceptionally strong racing on the Juniors level she earned herself the first IBU Cup races of her career. In those nine races she secured five top 10’s including a podium. In just nine races she managed to finish 21st in the IBU Cup Overall. Not bad for a 21 year old!

What we know about Anna Andexer the biathlete is that she is fast. She finished last season 13.1% faster than the median Junior Cup biathlete. That is the largest margin in the data that we have for the Junior Cup dating back to the 2001-2002 season. You don’t get much better than record setting. On the IBU Cup she ranked 11th in skiing amongst women that ran at least one trimester of IBU Cup racing. She was top five in course time rank in five of her nine IBU Cup races before notably slowing at the end of the season. In those five races she was running alongside other heralded young racers including Maren Kirkeeide and Julia Tannheimer.

The only reason she didn’t finish with even more Juniors wins and more IBU Cup success is because she still can improve her shooting. Over the last several seasons her shooting has slowly crept up from the 70’s into the low 80’s in overall shooting percentage. In fact in the Juniors she hit 87.6% last season while hitting 82.1% on the IBU Cup. Meanwhile her avg shooting time remained around 34 seconds per shoot which, even for her dominance on the Junior Cup, was only good for 36th fast shooting.

Andexer, along with Gandler, represents the very high ceiling for the future of the Austrian biathlon federation. Andexer is two years younger than Gandler but is showing incredible speed and shooting that is improving every season. While you can’t say with 100% certainty that this trajectory will continue, she has thus far shown no signs of stopping or even slowing. I have no idea where she will run this season. She may run all year on the World Cup. She may take another year of seasoning on the IBU Cup where she collects a pile of top 10’s and maybe even a few wins. Regardless, I’m looking to see her gain even a little more speed as well as some improved shooting. If she’s on the World Cup, her speed alone could carry her to top 20’s. If she’s on the IBU Cup I have no difficulty seeing her competing for the top 5 of the Overall.

Tamara Steiner (27)

Sharp shooting Tamara Steiner followed up her solid rookie campaign with another steady if unspectacular season. She had the five best finishes of her career including two finishes of 13th, one in the season opening Individual and again in the World Championships Sprint. She followed up that 13th place Sprint with 16th in the Pursuit.

Steiner once again was one of the top shooters. One year after leading the World Cup with a sterling 93.7%, she finished 8th in shooting at the highest level of biathlon at 89.6%. While not as good as she was, that was still VERY good and showed very little evidence of any major shooting concerns, so that remains a very strong point for her. She did this while also improving her shooting time from 29.5 seconds to 27.9 seconds. However, her skiing remained stuck. After finishing 67th in skiing in the 22-23 season she finished 71st last year with virtually no change in average course time rank which moved from 53.8 to 51.8.

Can we expect to see more out of Ms. Steiner this season? It is certainly possible. Steiner remains one of the best shooters in biathlon. The only way that will get any better is if she continues to get faster with her shooting and last season proves that she can make that improvement.

The real improvement though has to come with her skiing. At no point in her career has she been one of the fastest so it would be too much to expect that from her. Her best seasons on the IBU Cup she had an average course time rank of 29.2 an 28.3.

An ideal model for her would be Lotte Lie. Lie is also one of the best shooters on the World Cup. She too needed to find some see to reach her highest potential. Over the last couple of seasons she has been able to do that, improving her average course time rank from 72 all the way to 35 last year while maintaining a shooting percentage in the same realm as Steiner. Lotte Lie finished 28th Overall last season. If Steiner can follow the same path with her skiing then her potential would be the same, top 30 in the Overall.

Anna Juppe (25)

Anna Juppe rounds out the list of Austrian women most likely to compete for the World Cup roster. While on the Austrian “B” team Juppe has already run 39 races on the World Cup and is still just 25 years old to start this season. While real high level success has avoided her efforts thus far, she has been getting some experience. She finished 56th and 58th in the World Cup Overall while racing 12 and 16 races in those seasons. During that time she accumulated five top 30’s and a top 20.

Juppe, if anything, looks more like Lea Rothschopf and Anna Andexer than she does Oberthaler or Steiner. While on the IBU Cup in the 20-21 and 21-22 seasons she ranked near the very top in skiing. Since starting on the World Cup she has made skiing improvements every season. After ranking 56th in skiing in the 21-22 season she has made steady progress rising to 40th in the 22-23 season and 25th last year. Her average course time rank improved to 26.7 last season. In the final rankings she finished just ahead of Anna Gandler and just behind Karoline Knotten. Clearly fast enough to have success as both of those women racked up the top 10’s last year.

So what is the hold up? Clearly the shooting. Just take a look at those shooting percentages. Really nowhere near where she needs to be to compete like Knotten or Gandler. Throughout her career Juppe has shot better prone than standing, usually by about 7-10 percentage points but she’s never been able to raise her total shooting, at any level, above 80%. Meanwhile her shooting time remains quite slow averaging 33.8 seconds per shoot last season.

Juppe faces a tricky battle to get more experience on the World Cup. She’s still quite young, but the team is getting crowded and there are only 5 spots left. She clearly needs to improve her shooting and shooting speed. If, and it’s a big if, she can do that in the next few seasons it not only makes her road to the World Cup easier, but will really raise the bar on her performance. Her skiing has the potential to take her to finishes in the top 10-20. Let’s see what she can do.

Leonie Pitzer (22)

Coming off of 2023-2024 season in which she finished 4th Overall amongst Juniors, Leonie Pitzer is one of the young women on the Austrian “B” team. To be completely fair, Pitzer’s 4th place in the Overall has as much to do with the volume of her racing as the quality of it. She raced every race possible in the Juniors last season and came away with three top 10’s including the silver medal in Individual and 8th in the Mass 60 at the Junior European Championships. Prior to Junior Euros all of her finishes were between 10th and 25th and at Junior Worlds she finished 51st, 25th, and 40th.

Looking at the different aspects of her racing, her skiing showed modest improvement throughout the season peaking in the 3rd week of the “regular” Junior competitions and the Junior European champs before seeing a dramatic fall off at Junior Worlds. It makes me wonder if she didn’t get sick or just “hit the wall” so to speak at the wrong time. However, she was also facing the best competition of the year which certainly played a role as well. Year over year though, she absolutely improved her ski speed by any metric you care to examine including:
– Average course time rank improving form 30th to 20th
– 6.4% faster than median in 23-24 vs. 3.3% faster than median in 22-23
– 5.9% slower than median top 10 in 23-24 vs. 4.1% slower than median top 10 in 22-23.

Her shooting showed broad improvement as well. She is up to 80.5% on her highest volume of shots in a season, which is up from 77% in 21-22 and 75% in 22-23. This included improvement of 2% prone and 9% standing. She also lowered her average shooting time from 36 seconds down to just under 34 seconds.

Overall that was a solid year for Pitzer. I would anticipate we will see her more on the IBU Cup this season and we’ll have a better idea of her potential from there.

Laura Wagner (22)

The 22 year old Wagner split her time last season between the IBU Cup and the Junior Cup. After a solid 2022-2023 campaign on the Junior circuit, including her first career victory coming at the Junior European Championships in the Sprint, and a solid summer of training, she earned a start to the season on the IBU Cup. She raced there through the first five weeks of competition and the European Championships, earning enough points to eventually finish 38th Overall on the IBU Cup.

Wagner then raced one weekend of Junior Cup racing in addition to Junior European Championships and Junior Worlds. During that brief time on the Junior Cup she defended her Junior European Sprint title along with two additional top 5’s. At Junior Worlds she finished 12th, 26th, and 18th in the Individual, Sprint, and Podium. Even with missing two weekends of racing she still finished 8th Overall on the Junior level, good enough for 4th best among Austrian women.

Looking primarily at her IBU Cup racing, as she had a large enough sample size and it was against a higher level of competition, she showed good promise. She finished 22nd overall in skiing which puts her about the same ski speed as Lea Rothschopf. However, she’s been held back by her shooting. Last season on both the IBU Cup and Juniors she hit right around 75% with 80% prone and 70% standing. While that’s a small bit better than the 2022-2023 season it was a 10 point jump in shooting from prior. Meanwhile her average shooting time is dropping by several seconds per season.

Wagner is an interesting one. In theory, since she was near Lea Rothschopf’s skiing performance on the IBU Cup, you would hope that if performing on the World Cup she would be able to match Rothschopf again, putting her in range of Regina Ermits and Lotte Lie’s performances from last season. As a 22 year old that is quite good! However the shooting remains behind Rothscopf, and thus pending her improvement on the range, we’ll expect to see her mostly on the IBU Cup this season. However, should she have another solid improvement in shooting as she did 2 seasons ago, she’ll be firmly in the mix to join the World Cup. Let’s look for continued ski speed improvements and hopefully another leap in shooting this season.

Lisa Osl (24)

Lisa Osl has been a bit stuck in no man’s land. She doesn’t really have the skiing or the shooting talent to buoy her performances and as a result she has a lower floor than the other younger Austrian women. The skiing still has quite a way to go to match the other Austrian women. Of all of the Austrian women who raced on the IBU Cup last season she had the slowest skiing. Unfortunately her shooting also hasn’t been tremendous. Over the last few seasons her shooting is actually trending downwards from the low 80’s down to a total shooting percentage of 68% last season.

At 24 years old it is far too early to say anything like “Lisa Osl can’t make the World Cup” but she certainly does face a longer journey than the other women above her. Let’s see how she does this season. We’re not looking for anything wild, just a little bit faster and getting the shooting back to the mid 70s or better.

Julia Schwaiger (28)

Julia Schwaiger’s story is very similar to that of Dunja Zdouc. After establishing herself on the World Cup from 2018-2019 through 2021-2022 she has spent the last two seasons back primarily on the IBU Cup. She finished 31st and 28th in the Overall with just one top 10 in each of the last two seasons and a handful of top 20’s. Obviously if her goal is to get back to the World Cup that won’t get it done.

The drop off in her performance has affected both skiing and shooting. Her skiing has dropped off just a small bit. She has gone from being just a little faster than the median biathlete on the World Cup down to 0.9% faster than the median IBU Cup biathlete. Meanwhile her shooting percentages have dropped from low to mid 80’s in her seasons on the World Cup down to the upper 70’s on the IBU Cup.

Neither of these trajectories are the way she needs to be going. For her to get back to the World Cup she needs to get back to where she was two seasons ago. That means getting her shooting back to around 83-84% (up from 78% last season) and her skiing back to just a bit faster than average on the World Cup. She certainly can get it done, and she’s just 28 years old. Hopefully that’s what we see!

Junior Up and Comers: The Austrian women already have a number of young athletes listed above but there are still more! Many of the remaining Juniors, some how whom are on the Austrian “B” team are discussed below.

Wilma Anhaus (21)

Finishing 2nd Overall on the Junior Cup, Wilma Anhaus comes into this season on the Austrian women’s “B” team. Last year she raced every possible race on the Junior Cup, and in those 13 races she had five top 10’s including two 2nd place finishes. Three of those, including both 2nd place finishes, came in a single wonderful weekend of competition! However, as with Pitzer, it was the total accumulation of points that primarily lead to her #2 Overall finish. She finished 15th in average finishing position on the Junior Cup. At the Junior Worlds, against the top Juniors competition, she finished 16, 31, and 53. I know I just poured a lot of cold water on that #2 Overall finish, but let’s look at some reasons for optimism.

Last season Anhaus showed a significant improvement in both skiing and shooting. She improved her average course time rank from 30.5 to 18.9. Over a two week stretch including the 3rd week of Junior competition and the Junior European Championships her average course time rank was a stellar 5.7. While she only maintained that for two weeks that’s a very nice display of ski talent! Meanwhile, year over year she improved her overall shooting percentage from 75% to 81.6%. This improvement came entirely from her standing shooting rising from 58.3% to 74.7% while her prone shooting stayed excellent at 88.4%.

That two week mid season peak performance shows that she has the talent and ability to earn that. The skiing potential is there we just need to see it more often. As for her shooting, she already has excellent prone shooting and showed immense standing shooting improvement. So yes, it looks like Anhuas’ 2nd Overall finish was buoyed by the volume of her racing. However, there is clearly a very high potential for Anhaus and hopefully we will see both a higher level and more consistency as she develops over the next few seasons.

Lena Pinter (19)

Even at just 19 years old we have seen Lena Pinter race at Youth Worlds for the last three seasons. It’s very hard to analyze somebody when you only see them race for one weekend a year. So many variables can be at play. Even a minor injury or respiratory infection can dramatically impact performance. Last season saw her least successful experience at Youth Worlds with finishes of 27th and 49th x2. Those 49th place finishes were the lowest finishes in her career thus far. Looking at her statistics her skiing was clearly nowhere near the level we had seen the prior two seasons. Her course time ranks were far below where we normally see them which leads me to think there may have been an injury or sickness. However, her shooting was very good. She hit 95%, 90%, and 85% in those three races. Hopefully we see Lena back and healthy this season, with better skiing and continuing that strong shooting!

Selina Heigl (20)

Last season Selina Heigl raced the full season on Juniors missing only the Youth Worlds. Her average finish was down to 39th with a bit of mixed performance last year. Her average course time rank was down to 39. This may be because she was racing more against Juniors rather than just at Youth Worlds as she did the prior seasons. However, still not the direction you would want to see. Her shooting, though, was up to 78.6% and her average shooting time improved to 35.7 seconds. Hopefully we see another full season of racing from Heigl this season.

Anna Millinger (19)

19 year old Anna Millinger has all of six IBU level races to her credit. She raced the Youth Worlds each of the last two seasons. In 22-23 she finished 24th, 39th, and 34th in the Individual, the Sprint, and the Pursuit while last year she finished 50th, 8th, and 46th. It’s just three races each season which is very difficult to analyze. However, that 8th place Sprint was a really nice race! We do see that her ski performance last season was much improved. Her avg course time rank went from 25 to 16. However her shooting percentage dropped from 74% to 66%. She actually hit 50% in the Individual and 65% in the Pursuit while she hit 10/10 in the Sprint and finished 8th. Again, it’s such limited data. What I take away is that peak Anna Millinger can definitely compete on the Juniors level. The skiing is definitely coming along and if she hits she can run to a top 10. Hopefully we see more of that this season!

Anna Maria Schrempf (18)

Just as with Anna Millinger, with Anna Maria Schrempf we have a very limited data set from just the 2021-2022 and 2023-2024 Youth Worlds. All of her finishes at Youth Worlds have been between 37th and 50th. In each of those races her ski ranks were in the mid 30’s. Meanwhile we saw her shooting percentage rise from 62% in the 21-22 championships to 76% in the 23-24 championships. Hopefully this season we see Schrempf continue to be consistent with her skiing, but just at a higher level while we see that shooting continue to rise.

Rosaly Sollberger (18)

As with Millinger and Schrempf, once again we are dealing with small sample sizes here. Rosaly Sollberger has competed at Youth Worlds in 22-23 with finishes of 13th, 52nd, and 32nd and 23-24 with finishes of 30th, 33rd, and 16th. As you can see those are fairly similar finishes. Looking at her performance you can see no major change in her skiing or shooting year over year with the exception of the elimination of a bad shooting day that led to the 52nd place finish in the 2023 Sprint. Again, she is just 18 years old and this is just six races across two years so we should take too much out of this. Mostly I would like to see more of Ms. Sollberger this season.

Men

The Austrian men appear to be in a bit of no man’s land, but it appears new hope is on the horizon. International fan favorite Simon Eder continues racing, but at 41 even the ageless wonder Simon Eder finally slowing. The generations behind him haven’t shown super high potential yet. However, a number of young Junior men have shown that the tide may be about to turn.

Quota: 5 Athletes to Start

Head Coach: Vegard Bitnes

The Old Man

Simon Eder (41)

Simon Eder, the greatest Austrian male biathlete of all time, remains in a category all of his own. Not only is he one of the few remaining active biathletes older than me, but at age 41 he is still the best active Austrian man on the team. Unfortunately, though, the 2023-2024 season showed the first signs of a slip in form. I guess it makes sense. I’m 5 years younger than him and I have new aches and pains all the time. That he can continue to race at a level that saw him finish at the #30 Overall biathlete on the World Cup is an incredible feat!

The fascinating thing about Eder in the 2023-2024 season is that his slip wasn’t brought about by skiing. Check out the plot above and you can see there is basically no change in his ski rank. He finished the season ranked 46th overall in skiing, just 4 spots worse than the 22-23 season and basically exactly where he has been the last seven seasons. His average course time rank was 38.5, also basically unchanged since the 2018-2019 season.

Nope, it was actually his shooting that took a slight dip. Instead of being top 5 in shooting he slipped down to 14th. His standing shooting remained near his career average at 86.5% but his prone shooting “slipped” down to 90.3%. This 88.4% is his 6th worst out of his 20 World Cup seasons. Don’t worry though, he still averaged a remarkable 24.1 seconds per shoot which is incredible and his best since 2016-2017.

What can we expect from Simon Eder as he starts yet another season for the Swiss World Cup squad? While he isn’t exactly in uncharted territory, there really aren’t a whole lot of men who have competed this late into their careers. Personally I would have expected a little more deterioration in his ski form by now. However, since he didn’t have much of a slip at age 40 I see no reason to unnecessarily predict one at age 41. If he can boost his shooting back up to around 90% for the season I see no reason to believe that he can’t return to the top 25 in the World Cup. Maybe he’ll even grab another top 10?

Rounding out the World Cup

After Simon Eder there are still four more spots to fill up the World Cup roster. While it feels like Leitner and Komatz can pretty much expect to be there all season long, after them the last two spots could be a rotation to the “hot hand.” For now we’ll see the following athletes starting on the World Cup:
– Simon Eder
– Felix Leitner
– David Komatz
– Patrick Jakob
– Fabian Müllauer

David Komatz (32)

Finishing at 41st Overall in 2023-2024, and finding a way on to the “A” team David Komatz has had a bit of an up and down career as far as results are concerned. Last season was on the upper end of his career as far as Overall finishes go. Most of that was completed with middle of the pack of finishes though as he had just a single top 20 finish after having 6 of them in the 22-23 season. In his 21 races though he had 14 top 40 finishes though.

The plot of his performance throughout his career shows a fairly steady pattern. Komatz is consistently a very good shooter and consistently middle of the road in skiing. Since the 2019-2020 season he has had just one season shooting less than 89.4%. The one big change is how much faster he has been shooting over the last two seasons.

With his placement on the “A” team and his history of performance (and a full four spots to fill) more than likely I would expect Komatz to spend the season on the World Cup. Just two seasons ago he had six top 20 finishes with only similar shooting and only slightly better skiing. If he can stay healthy this year, and not pick up any colds from his toddler (with former biathlete Katherine (Innerhofer) Komatz)! There is no reason to believe that a top 40 Overall finish could happen again.

Felix Leitner (27)

Finishing one spot back of David Komatz, Felix Leitner came through last season at #42 in the Overall rankings. After finishing 22nd Overall in the 2019-2020 season, at just 23 years old, and with a solid Juniors career behind him, Leitner looked like the future leader of the Austrian men. As the 2024-2025 season nears, that reality hasn’t quite come to be. Instead, after not showing significant improvement in the 20-21 and 21-22 seasons, Leitner has slid backwards in performance the last two years. While holding steady in the top 30 of the Overall at those ages was not any sign of concern, the recent fall backward certainly has been.

After advancing as high as 22nd in overall skiing, he has steadily fallen back until last season he ranked just 73rd in skiing. However, like Komatz, his performance has been buoyed upward by improving shooting. Last season his prone percentage reached a stellar 95%, the best of his career, while standing was a more than solid 85%. You can see that it has been a steady improvement in shooting every season and last year he ended up 8th in Overall shooting.

So what will we see from Leitner this season? I remain hopeful. He’s still *just* 27 years old. With what has become absolutely stellar shooting he doesn’t need to be a burner on the skis. He’s been as high as 22nd overall in skiing in the 2019-2020 season. He doesn’t need to be that fast, but even if he can just make it back top 30ish in skiing he would be in excellent position. Last year he Sebastian Stalder shot 90.5% and finished 42 in overall skiing with an average shooting speed of 25.8 seconds (compared to Leitner’s 26.1 seconds). All of that took Stalder to 19th in the Overall rankings. That is definitely still in Leitner’s potential, but he has to make it happen. It all comes down to a return to form, not even his peak form, and he can be a top 20 Overall. I remain hopeful!

Fabien Müllauer (21)

While Lukas Haslinger ultimately won the Overall crown for the 2023-2024 Junior Cup season, Fabian Müllauer, who finished 2nd Overall, arguably had a better season. Müllauer started out the year on the Junior Cup and immediately scored three top 10’s in four races. After that he bumped up to the IBU Cup and in two weeks of racing had two top 10’s, a career best finish of 6th, and never finished worse than 22nd. While the European Championships didn’t go as well as he might have hoped, he returned to the Junior level for Junior Euros and Junior Worlds where he had four more top 10’s including two 5th place finishes.

That’s a heck of a successful season for the 21 year old. Müllauer is a bit of an unusual Austrian man. While most Austrian men are good shooters but slower on the skis Müllauer is an absolute ski demon. He was the fastest man on the Junior Cup. He finished 1st in course time rank in 9 of his 12 races on the Juniors. He ultimately ran eight races on the IBU Cup including the European Championships and the last two races of the season his Junior Worlds success. In those races his average course time rank was 12.5. At just 21 years old he’s already got the ski speed comparable to Isak Frey and Vetle Paulsen.

The remarkable thing is that he did all this with definitely subpar shooting. He hit just 65.6% on the Juniors and 71.7% on the IBU Cup. For him to have a long career on the World Cup that needs to improve. That was actually the worst season of his career. Just two years ago he hit 86.7% in his Juniors races.

It would not surprise me one bit to see Müllauer spend a chunk of time on the World Cup this season. That speed is undeniable. Sure, it won’t be comparable to World Cup athletes yet, but at just 21 years old we can’t expect that of him. It’s a type of speed the Austrian team just doesn’t have a lot of. Oscar Lombardot, who had an average course time rank of 7.4 on the IBU Cup, finisehd 44th in skiing on the World Cup last year. It wouldn’t be something extraordinary to see Müllauer do that next year. Combine that with him finding his shooting again and I would be really excited to see what he can do next year on any level.

Patrick Jakob (27)

After a year on the IBU Cup during the 2022-2023 season Jakob returned to the World Cup for the majority of the 2023-2024 season. While the results may not indicate it with just two top 60 finishes, there are reasons for optimism with his performance.

During his first three seasons on the World Cup Jakob was regularly in the back of the field in terms of ski speed. During that stretch his best overall ski rank was just 139th. However, this past season that jumped up to 78th. Appropriately his average course time rank rose from the 90s to 72. Clearly this doesn’t put him at the front of the pack, but it’s a good sign that coming off of some encouraging signs on the IBU Cup that he was able to take another step.

Unfortunately last season also saw him hit just 76.7% of his shots, his worst accuracy in the last five seasons but a decent margin. The good news is this was highly out of the ordinary for him. I included his IBU Cup season in the data above to show how unusual that was.

If he can bounce back to his normal shooting in the mid 80’s, and improve a little bit more on the track, he can make at breaking his career best of 37th and scoring a few more points this season!

IBU Cup : After those men, there is a group who is going to at least start out on the IBU Cup. Some of these men appear to be IBU Cup denizens who are regulars competing on this level. However, there is always the chance that they could find another level or have a few hot weeks where they make it to the top level. The initial IBU Cup roster will include:
– Lukas Haslinger
– Andreas Hechenberger
– Fredrik Mühlbacher
– Oliver Lienbacher
– Mangus Oberhauser

Lukas Haslinger (21)

While fellow Junior Fabian Müllauer was off collecting IBU Cup success, Lukas Haslinger was merely winning the Junior Overall crown. Haslinger’s road to the crown was similar to the success that we saw from some of the Austrian women last year. Some real good finishes, but also an accumulation of points that took him all the way to the crown. His average finish of 13.6 ranked 19th of all men who took part on the Junior Cup last season. Over the course of the season he had one victory, a Super Sprint win in Jakuszyce, three total podiums including bronze in the Junior European Championship Mass 60, and five total top 10’s.

Haslinger also looks more like some of the older men on Austrian squad. He certainly isn’t slow, with an average course time rank of 20th on the Juniors level this season. At Junior Worlds where he was up against the best Junior men he finished 30th, 21st and 20th. But his strength was his shooting as he shot 86.8% with fairly even prone/standing splits. He also had a fairly good average shooting time of 31 seconds, which for the Juniors ranked 33rd, and has improved every season.

For Haslinger to have success and be a consistent World Cup competitor along the lines of Leitner and Komatz he doesn’t need to get that much better at shooting. He’s just a couple of percentage points shy of where Komatz and Letiner have been. He needs the skiing to come along though. He’s likely a couple of seasons away from being on the World Cup regularly, but let’s season lets keep an eye on those IBU Cup ski ranks.

Fredrik Mühlbacher (26)

At 26 years old Fredrik Mühlbacher is a bit of a unique character. He has three seasons of racing and has never raced on anything but the IBU Cup. He’s taken a step forward in each season, going from 39th Overall in 2021-2022 to 27th and then 25th last year.

Mühlbacher’s improvement is nearly entirely related to his shooting improvement. His average course time rank has mildly improved moving from 28.5 to to 22.8 to 20.6. Those are certainly not bad. They aren’t exceptional, but it’s okay and fast enough for him to be competitive for top 10-20 finishes on the IBU Cup. However, it’s the shooting that has boosted his finishes, and has also held him back. Last season was the best shooting of his brief career as he hit 68.8% of his shots with near even splits (67.9% prone and 69.7% standing).

Barring a significant leap in shooting, which is certainly possible, Mühlbacher will more than likely spend the season on the IBU Cup once again. I don’t want to completely turn out the lights on him though. Last year he was faster on the IBU Cup than Viktor Brandt and a little slower than Emilien Claude. Both of those men have been able to have a couple of good showings on the World Cup. While Mühlbacher still has a ways to go with the shooting, at least the potential is there.

Andreas Hechenberger (24)

Andreas Hechenberger, like Mühlbacher he also has yet to see any time on the World Cup, but he does have some Junior cup racing under his belt as well.

In Hechenberger’s first IBU Cup racing in the 2021-2022 season, there was reason for high optimism. As a 21 year old he made three starts and finished 34, 36, and 43 with an average course time rank of 28th. The last two seasons though he hasn’t been able to replicate that performance on a consistent basis. He’s had just six top 30’s. However, if we’re looking for optimism last season he did have two of his career top 20’s.

Hechenberger profiles more similar to Leitner and Komatz. His shooting has usually been decent including hitting at an 85.4% clip last season. He just needs the skis to come along on a consistent basis to to crack the top 20 and the top 30 on a consistent basis. Like Mühlbacher, Hechenberger will likely spend the majority of next season, if not all of it, on the IBU Cup. What we’ll be looking for is that the skiing starts to look more like it did three seasons ago.

Oliver Lienbacher (22)

The 22 year old Oliver Lienbacher raced every possible race on the Junior Cup last season, and racked up enough points to get to 22nd in the Overall listings. He did have a 5th place finish, to go along with his 3rd place from the 22-23 season as his two top 10 finishes. Otherwise he had an average finishing place of 29th, up from 31st the year before, with a wide variance of performances from race to race. He did show a nice improvement in skiing last season as he moved from 5.9% slower than the median top 10 Junior biathlete to 4.3% slower than the median top 10. His shooting percentage stayed roughly the same as he hit right around 77.5% in both seasons. The skiing improvement was definitely intriguing. I am optimistic that we’ll see more of that, and maybe he can get his shooting up across the 80% threshold as he moves to the IBU Cup. If he can do that he’ll at least give himself a chance to collect some points and maybe score a couple of top 30’s.

Magnus Oberhauser (26)

The 2023-2024 season was Mangus Oberhauser’s first opportunity to get consistent run on the World Cup. He started races every weekend except for Hochfilzen and Lenzerheide. During that time he only qualified for one Pursuit and had just those two top 60 finishes in Ostersund including his career best finish of 33rd in that Pursuit. Previously Oberhauser raced solely on the IBU Cup with Overall finishes of 61, 129, and 53. In his first season on the World Cup, that 41st and 33rd in the Ostersund Sprint and Pursuit took him to 79th in the standings.

So was there a reason that he had that early success and then failed to have a finish better than 63 the rest of the season? It sure looks like it. His course time ranks in Ostersund were 77, 59, and 40. The most important to me is that 59 in the Sprint. The Pursuit is likely artificially elevated as it was a field limited to 60. Yes it was just one race, but the rest of the season he had just one Sprint or Individual race ski rank better than 72nd. Oberhauser missed the Hochfilzen and Lenzerheide races due to illness and it appears that after that he was never able to full recover. However, it leads me to be hopeful that should he be able to have a full healthy season that he has the ski talent to have more weekends like he did in Ostersund.

I’m also optimistic because last season he showed the best shooting of his career. He hit 78% on the World Cup and 81% in the European Championships and on the IBU Cup at Arber when he was left off of the World Championship squad. While those aren’t spectacular they are the best of his career thus far.

I might be more optimistic than most, and it may be selective picking of data, but there are good signs. The Ostersund performance before he got sick was much better than anything else we’ve seen. I will hope that we will see even more consistent shooting in the low 80’s (or better). If he can do that the results will take care of themselves.

Still Fighting: There are still a number of men who are fighting to earn spots on the IBU Cup as well. We’ll definitely see them make at least a few starts. It will be up to them to take advantage and prove they can stick!

Dominik Unterweger (25)

After a solid start to the 2022-2023 season on the IBU Cup spending the 2nd half of the year on the World Cup I was hopeful that we we were about to see another step forward for Dominik Unterweger. While the results don’t show it there are absolutely reasons to believe that the 23-24 season was another step of growth for Unterweger towards a consistent World Cup career.

To start with the good news the shooting was a nice little improvement. His World Cup shooting percentage was up 1.6% mostly due to a wild standing shooting of 95%, up from 81.5% the prior year. This comes off of a couple of seasons of deteriorating shooting. And he did this with an average shooting time of 24.4 seconds per shoot which ranked 6th in shooting speed. That was a full 3.4 seconds per shoot faster than 2022-2023.

Unfortunately there was bad news too. His average course time rank dropped 10 places. That coincides with a drop from 2.1% slower than the median biathlete down to 3.6% slower.

I was really excited to see the improved shooting from Unterweger last year. Leitner and Komatz have shown that a solid career is possible with great shooting even if you have less than spectacular skiing. While his shooting is not quite up to the level of Leitner and Komatz, the improvement he made last year was really quite good and his skiing isn’t that far behind those two. I don’t necessarily expect him to hit that level this year, but at 25 years old I think it’s absolutely possible we see him on that trajectory.

Christian Langegger (23)

Christian Langegger comes into the 2024-2025 season on the Austrian “B” team after finishing 93rd on the IBU Cup last year. He ran 12 races on the IBU level last season and finished top 40 in half of them but with a season’s best of 27th.

Langegger thus far in his career has relied on his skiing strength to overcome his poor shooting. The best shooting season of his career was last year on the IBU Cup when he hit 65.3%. Not even JT Boe speed can overcome that many penalty loops on a consistent basis. Langegger doesn’t have JT Boe speed though. To be fair, nobody does. Langegger finished 33rd on the IBU Cup in skiing on the IBU Cup last season which put him raked alongside men like Darius Lodl and David Zingerle. Certainly not slugs, but not the absolute fastest on the IBU Cup.

Christian Langegger did have a fair amount of success last season even with shooting only 65.3%. While we would certainly love to see him get a little bit faster, improved shooting raise the floor of his performance. Hopefully we could see him with a few more top 40’s or even top 20 and 30’s.

Maximilian Prosser (22)

The 2023-2024 season was Maximilian Prosser’s first full year on the IBU Cup. It was a solid if unspectacular season for the young man as he accumulated 8 top 40’s in 21 races. This included a really solid weekend in Martell-Val Martello where he had three straight 19th place finishes.

In Prosser’s Junior career was generally a solid skier with shaky shooting. In his last season on the Junior level he had an average course time rank of 15th and was 4.8% faster than the median Junior man. He averaged 70.5% in both Juniors seasons. His transition to the IBU Cup level saw basically no change in shooting. He continued to be right around 70% as he hit 71.6%. On the skis he was just a little faster than the average man on the IBU Cup and he had an average course time rank of 38th.

For Prosser to join Haslinger and Müllauer as men of the future we’ll hopefully see a season of growth with improvement in both skiing and shooting. It doesn’t have to be huge but just some positive movement.

Junior Up and Comers

The Austrian men have had a large number of young men racing on the Junior and IBU Cup levels and continue to have many listed on their “B” and “C” teams. We’ll just cover them briefly below.

Stefan Dankl (21)

21 year old Stefan Dankl has nine career Juniors races across the last two seasons. In those races he has a career best of 23rd. Last season he had an average finish of 32nd. It was nice to see that his best racing of the season came at the Junior Europea Championships, the best competition he faced all season, where he finished 38th, 27th, and 24th.

Dankl was remarkably consistent with his performance. He raced six times last season and four of those races he had a ski rank between 30 and 37 with the remaining two races having a course time rank of 26th and 12th. Meanwhile his shooting improved from an average of 60% in the three races he ran in 2022-2023 up to 73.3% with 80% prone shooting. The 2023-2024 season showcased a significant, if not huge, step forward for Dankl. Hopefully this upcoming year we see both more racing from Dankl as well as a little more speed and a bit higher accuracy. I would love to see cross into the top 20 on a regular basis and hopefully nab his first top 10’s on the Junior level.

David Neumayr (22)

The 2023-2024 season was David Neumayr’s first while racing on the IBU circuits. He completed 9 races last year including the races in Jakuszyce, the Junior European Championships, and Junior Worlds. It was a promising start with Neumayr securing 10th and 2nd in his first weekend of competition. The last six races though he failed to break into the top 20.

Neumayr had a very good season on the skis. Over the first six races of the season he had an average course time rank of 8.7 which was quite competitive. Unfortunately he fell off dramatically at Junior Worlds. I was not able to see if he was sick before then so it would appear that there was some change. For the season he averaged 70% overall with 77.1% prone and 62.9% standing. Twice he hit 90% but unfortunately he also shot less than 70% on four occasions.

The ski potential he showed at the beginning of the season was certainly intriguing. Hopefully that was just the start of something for him. If he can replicate that type of performance this season on the IBU Cup, and see some improved accuracy with the rifle, I am curious to see how the 24-25 season unfolds for him.

Marcus Stangl (21)

Marcus Stangle has seen consistent racing on the Junior levels over the last two season. Interestingly, he hasn’t raced at Worlds since he raced Youth Worlds in 2020-2021. Over these 17 races he has set a career best of 20th set in the 22-23 season during which he had an average finish of 36.8. Last year he had finishes scattered in a wide range from 32nd to 76th. He’s been decent in both skiing and shooting without standing out significantly in either aspect. While his average course time rank has peaked at 35th in the 22-23 season before falling back to 51st last year, his shooting has remained consistent right around 77% every season. It’s unclear what we’ll see from Stangl going forward. Hopefully what we see though, is most racing and just broad improvement throughout.

David Glasser (20)

David Glasser has raced 10 races over the last three seasons. He’s raced the Youth Worlds twice and the first four races on the Junior Cup last season. It’s a pretty limited sample and little consistent racing so it’s hard to try to piece together a picture. However, with Glasser what we have seen is consistently good shooting. He hit 88% at the 21-22 Youth Worlds, 78% at the 22-23 Youth Worlds, and 90% in his four races last season. Meanwhile his skiing has been consistently lagging. Last season each of his course time ranks were between 71st and 96th. It’s time for Glasser to see his skiing rise towards the level of his shooting. Members of his own team, Leitner and Komatz, have shown that you don’t have to be Johan-Olav Botn to be competitive. However, Glasser certainly needs to be a bit faster than he is now. Hopefully that’s what we see this season.

Thomas Marchl (19)

The youth Thomas Marchl has raced just six times over the last two seasons racing at Youth Worlds each time. His finishes have been between 13th and 39th the last 2 years. It’s a pretty small sample size to look at so we won’t look too terribly hard. His ski ranks have been consistent in the 20’s and 30’s in each race. Meanwhile he has averaged 80% at Youth Worlds both times. I am hopeful that the Austrian “C” team athlete will see a bit more racing this year so we can get a better picture of what he can do!

Leon Kienesberger (21)

Leon Kienesberger did not race any IBU level races last season but remains listed on the Austrian “B” team. So below is what I wrote prior to last sesaon:

21 year old Leon Kienesberger, he set a high standard at the 2020-2021 Youth Worlds that he just hasn’t been able to match since. At those races he won bronze in the Individual and finished 16th and 14th in the Sprint and Pursuit. Since then he has just one top 10. In fact he has just four top 30’s in 13 races. And he’s yet to race Junior Worlds against the best of the Junior Cup level. Even at his best Kienesberger wasn’t a tremendous skier, but at those magical Youth Worlds he shot the lights out hitting 88% across those three races. Since then he hasn’t broken 82% for a season. For Kienesberger to find that high level of success again he’s going to have to both shoot at that amazing level again, and find a way to get his skiing back towards the top 40 (he finished 75th last season).

Thomas Dankl (19)

19 year old Thomas Dankl (not to be confused with Stefan!) ran two races last season, the Individual and Sprint at Youth Worlds. In the Individual he finished 59th and 53rd in the Sprint. He finished 78th and 76th in course time rank and shot 85% and 90% in the two races. I’m happy that he got to get his feet wet and hopefully we see more this year!

Matthaus Schoenaigner (18)

Matthaus Schoenaigner does not have any races on the IBU Cup level but he did run at the 2022-2023 Youth Olympic Games where he finished 41st in the Individual and 7th in the Sprint.

Magnus Steiner (18)

Magnus Steiner does not have any races on the IBU Cup level but he did run at the 2022-2023 Youth Olympic Games where he finished 56th in the Individual and 69th in the Sprint.

Alexander Weigl (19)

Should he race on the Junior or IBU circuits this will be Alexander Weigl’s first season of racing at the IBU levels.