Italy 2024-2025 Team Preview

If you ask somebody to rank the top five nations in biathlon today, the rankings will usually go something like: Norway, France, Germany, Sweden, and Italy. The top three are almost always the top three, and then Italy comes in fourth or fifth. Sound about right?

Interesting because of the last 10 Overall titles no nation has more Overall women’s titles than Italy. The men are a different story of course as the Overall has been dominated by Fourcade and JT Boe with a brief Quentin Fillon Maillet interlude. From that angle you would want to put the Italians at least third right? At least amongst the biathlon fans I know it just doesn’t usually go that way.

The way things are shaping up for the Italians they are going to have the opportunity to make an argument to move themselves up the rankings over the next few seasons.

Women

The women are lead by a top notch 1-2 duo who can go toe to toe with anybody. Behind them though there is a long list of developing talent. For a couple of years now one of the squads on the national team has been named Milan-Cortina 2026. Well believe it not that’s just two seasons away now. It’s about time for the developing talent to start becoming the established talent. While Vittozzi fights to defend her crown, and Wierer aims to return to the top levels of the sport, the team as a whole can fight to move up from 5th in the Overall.

Quota: 6 Athletes to Start

The Champs are Here We’ll start right out with that exceptionally talented 1-2 of Lisa Vittozzi and Dorothea Wierer. No other federation can run out multiple Overall winners. Sure, maybe Wierer didn’t have a great 2023-2024 season, but she was 2nd in the Overall just two seasons ago! This is a duo that every team would absolutely love to have

Lisa Vittozzi (29)

When all is said and done the Lisa Vittozzi story is going to end up being one of my all time favorite biathlon careers. It’s going to be the kind of story I use with my kids when they are facing a moment of adversity.

We all know it by now but it’s always worth remembering. In the 2018-2019 she came within 23 points of winning the Overall Globe. It was a precocious start to her career and at that moment it looked like it was just a matter of time until the then 24 year old was going to win her own Globe, just like her teammate Wierer. The next season she finished 10th Overall which was a step back, but she was still young. Then she fell down to 16th the next year and 31st the year after that.

That 31st place finish in the 2021-2022 season was hard to watch. Her skiing had fallen off but the shooting was scary. She hit just 55.5% of per prone shots. Every time she got to the range for prone shooting she looked like she didn’t know where the shots were going to go. She looked nothing like the woman who seemed destined to win it all just a few years prior. For the podcast we were fortunate enough to talk to multiple athletes and they all said they just tried not to pay attention when Vittozzi was on the range.

Then in 2022-2023 suddenly things looked better. Much much better. For one, she was skiing in a manner in which she had never skied before. She was a sensation on the course moving up from regularly raking in the mid 20’s in skiing all the way up to 7th. Even more importantly though was her prone shooting. It was back!!! She hit 86.1%. For the first trimester we were all holding our breath a little just hoping it was real. As the season went on she reassured us time and time again that this was the real deal. Combine that with 90.6% standing and she had her best shooting season of her career. The highlight of the season was her finally winning again in the Ruhpolding Pursuit.

Then came the 2023-2024 season and it was magical. For long stretches she didn’t look like the “best” biathlete. First it was Jeanmonnot, then Braisaz-Bouchet, and maybe Tandrevold for a little bit. She was always right there in the mix though rarely finishing outside the top 5. But then in the third trimester, it became clear that it was Vittozzi. She ended the season ranked 2nd in shooting just behing Lou Jeanmonnot hitting an astounding 93.1% total including what would have been unfathomable just two years prior, 93.3% prone. She continued to be one of the fastest skiers in the World.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2017-2018	86	88.8	87.4	27.9
2018-2019	83.6	92.3	88	27.9
2019-2020	78.8	81.8	80.3	29
2020-2021	70.5	85.5	78	29.1
2021-2022	55.5	86.5	71	27.2
2022-2023	86.1	90.6	88.3	27
2023-2024	93.3	92.9	93.1	28.7

At the end of the day Vittozzi ran up a total of five victories last season, 10 podiums, and 16 top 5’s and 22 top 10’s in 25 races. While the crowning moment of the season was undoubtedly lifting the big globe at the end of the season, maybe the peak was actually Worlds where she won the gold medal for the Individual along with two silvers in Pursuit and Mass Start.

Now we enter the 2024-2025 season and Lisa Vittozzi is the defending champion. Will she go back to back like her teammate Dorothea Wierer did in 2019 and 2020? I would never predict that. However, she clearly has all of the skills. Let’s just enjoy what should be another really fun year.

Dorothea Wierer (34)

If you would have asked me in April, would Dorothea Wierer be competing this season I would have said “No.” Last season was a struggle. She got sick before the season started and never was able to put it together. Wiere raced just 11 times and clearly looked labored on the course. While she still shot 89.4%, the best hit rate of her career, and shot nearly as fast as ever, it wasn’t enough to overcome the hit to her form caused by the respiratory infections.

In April she had just turned 34. Over the years she clearly has indicated many varied interests outside of biathlon. It was announced that she would be assisting with the broadcast of the 2024 Paris Olympics (which she appeared to love by the way). And she has mentioned before that she does eventually want to have a family, and unfortunately there is a time limit on that if she wants to do it biologically and not through adoption. Also in my consideration was the idea that if you come back for one more season, you might as well come back for two more because at the end of the upcoming season you’ll be under 1 year from what would be a final Olympics on home snow. When I put all of that together I didn’t know that Wierer really would want to run for two more seasons.

Well, Doro had a trick up her sleeve for me! She is coming back and she announced already that she plans to run again in the 2025-2026 season!

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2017-2018	90.2	85.6	87.9	26.6
2018-2019	88.3	81.5	84.9	25.6
2019-2020	88.2	79.4	83.8	26.6
2020-2021	90.5	83.3	86.9	26.9
2021-2022	87	82.5	84.8	26.6
2022-2023	94	82.5	88.3	25.8
2023-2024	91.1	87.8	89.4	26.2

Prior to the 2022-2023 season I confidently said that racing for the Overall was probably no longer in Wierer’s sights. Well, Doro had another trick for me that season as she was the only woman who could put a scare in Julia Simon in the third trimester. I make no predictions now on Wierer’s goals for the 24-25 season. I still believe that she most likely will focus on perfecting a peak for the World Championships in anticipation of the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics. However, she’s Dorothea Wierer! Just two years ago she was 14th overall in skiing, hit 88.3% and was one of the fastest shooters on the women’s World Cup as she finished 2nd Overall. So I no longer make Wierer predictions. I just enjoy the racing we have left with her!

It Is Time When I think about the next group of women on the Italian roster I think of the Disney move the Lion King (I’ve got young kids so it’s on frequently) where Rafiki the mandril says “It is time!” meaning it’s time for Simba to come home and become the man/lion he is meant to be. (Quick side note the Lion King is a great movie. If you haven’t seen it watch it. But here’s just the quick line: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olLxrojmvMg). Well it’s time for this group of Italian women to take the next step. They are all talented. They have all shown flashes. But I think we’re all ready for them to show they can be more than what they have become (That sounds harsh but I’m paraphrasing another Lion King quote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maARmxjj3f0).

Normally in this section, of prior previews I have just been focusing on the World Cup roster. However, there are so many Italian women that occupy roughly the same position in terms of their current levels of performance that I’m going to put them all here together, both World Cup and IBU Cup.

To start out on the World Cup the Italian women will be going with:
– Lisa Vittozzi (once she returns hopefully in Hochfilzen)
– Dorothea Wierer
– Hanna Auchentaller
– Samuela Comola
– Rebecca Passler
– Michela Carrara

The IBU Cup team to start out the 2024-2025 season:
-Beatrice Trabucchi
– Martina Trabucchi
– Linda Zingerle
– Birgit Scholzhorn
– Alice Pacchiodi

Samuela Comola (26)

Of all of these women Samuela Comola is the we have seen the most of on the World Cup level. That’s for good reason as she is a few years older then everybody but Carrara. She also is the only one with a top 10 (2) and a top five. If you don’t remember the top five was a 4th place finish in the Individual at the 2023 World Championships in Oberhof. Running from bib 18 she went 20/20 and as she crossed the finish line she was in 3rd place. Unfortunately she was swept off the podium by Hanna Oeberg who was on a mission and stormed to the gold medal. At that moment though it felt like the breakthrough we had been waiting from Comola. She went on to finish the season 37th Overall.

Leading into last season it seemed like we were poised to see a little more of that. She had proven herself to be an excellent shooter as she hit 89.1% in the 22-23 season and made a huge jump in skiing. However, last season the progress stalled. She actually hit a little better at 90.3% ranking 6th most accurate on the World Cup, but a small regression, we’ll call it a plateau, meant that she ended up finishing the season at exactly the same position: 37th Overall. The only real difference in her finishes was the lack of top 10’s after having two the season before.

When I look for the most optimistic outcome for Samuela Comola I see Lisa Vittozzi. Vittozzi has established herself as a top shooter, just as Comola appears to be doing. Vittozzi also made a big ski improvement about three seasons ago moving from 35th in skiing up to the top 10 the last two seasons.

	Hit Rate	Ski Rank	Avg Course Time Rank	Ski Median Back	Ski Median Top 10 Back
Comola 23-24	90.3%	49	42.9	0.6%	6.2%
Vittozzi 21-22	71%	26	24.1	-1.6%	2.8%
Vittozzi 23-24	93.1%	9	10.8	-3.6%	1.1%
Knotten 22-23	92.1%	47	36.5	0.3%	4.6%
Knotten 23-24	87.7%	24	20.3	-1.6%	3.1%

Okay, maybe that’s too optimistic. Vittozzi is freaking amazing and that’s way too much to expect. How about like 90% of Lisa Vittozzi, or something resembling Karoline Knotten Last season Comola was a top 10 shooter on the World Cup 3% better than Knotten. However, the difference in their performance is that Knotten made a dramatic leap in skiing. Last year Knotten leapt up to 24th in skiing which was an average course time rank of 20.8, 1.6% faster than the median biathlete, and 3.1% slower than the median top 10.

Up until the last few seasons it wasn’t a sure thing that Knotten could do that. She seemed like a good shooter whose ceiling was capped by her ski speed. That’s Samuela Comola right now. I only included Knotten’s year over year gain but if you go back one more year her skiing ranks were actually further back than Comola’s were this most recent season. If over the next few years she is able to make the same gains as Knotten then her potential is the top 10 of the Overall. I actually don’t think that’s unreasonable.

Rebecca Passler (23)

Next up in our “It is Time” category is Rebecca Passler. Passler has been on a bit of a fast track to the World Cup as she went from being a 18 year old Junior to a 19 year old on the IBU Cup to a 21 year old on the World Cup. When she was competing as a Junior she was regularly in the top 10. In her last two seasons of Juniors eligibility in 20-21 and 21-22 she had three medals in her last six Junior Worlds races.

Since coming up to the World Cup she’s been proving that she belongs. While still very very young she’s put up four top 20’s in the last two seasons. Her performance over those two seasons has been fairly flat without significant gains or losses. But again, being just 21, 22, and 23 years old, she’s on the youngest edge of the World Cup.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2022-2023	82.5	85	83.4	24.1
2023-2024	83.6	80	81.8	25.3

On the World Cup Passler has shown a true strength with her shooting speed. Both of her two full seasons she’s ranked top 3 in shooting speed. While shooting quickly she’s maintained an average in the low 80’s which has been stable over the last few seasons dating back to her time on the IBU Cup. Her skiing meanwhile has been neither a strength nor a hinderance. She finished the last two seasons ranked 58th and 56th overall in skiing with course time rank averages of 49.8 and 50.1. That’s squarely middle of the road. Looking back to her Juniors time (because even on the IBU Cup she was quite young for the competition!) she ran in the front quarter of the field. Not a blazing fast biathlete by any means, but good enough that her shooting was able to carry her regularly in to the top 10 over her last two Juniors seasons.

Looking back at her Juniors races Passler has a fairly high ceiling that she can reach. When racing against the best of her age cohort she was consistently one of the best on the biggest stage. She is still just 23 years old at the start of this season. It is likely too much to expect a full development in the next two seasons. Milan is just coming too fast! However, looking down the road Passler has the potential to reach a consistent top 20 ability. While she has not shown a super power strength in either skiing or shooting, her history and her generally trajectory show her developing into a biathlete who is very good at both aspects, an athlete with no major weaknesses. I am hoping that this season we just see her general level rise up. Nothing major, but just advancing the shooting up towards the mid 80’s, maybe like 83-84% with a ski rank closer to the 40 than 50. If she can do those two things we should see her score at least another 2-4 top 20’s and maybe a new career best!

Hannah Auchentaller (23)

Hannah Auchentaller is yet another young 23 year old Italian on the rise who has already been cutting her teeth on the World Cup. She made her debut in the World Cup in 2021-2022 before getting her first consistent run in the 22-23 season and returned last season. Just like Rebecca Passler, Auchentaller is on the fast track to the World Cup as she went from being a 18 year old Junior to a 19 year old on the IBU Cup to a 21 year old on the World Cup.

Looking backward at her career for the moment, Auchentaller’s last racing on the Juniors Cup was at the Junior Worlds in 20-21 and 21-22 and they showed a significant upward trajectory for her. She concluded her Juniors racing with the best racing on that level of her career, finishing 8th in the Individual, 7th in the Sprint, and winning Silver in the Pursuit. During that time she was also competing on the IBU Cup where she was showing some really good results including a 5th in her very first IBU Cup race along with several more top 20-30 finishes.

Over the last two seasons she’s split time on both the World Cup and IBU Cup and has actually shown a series of results that make sense. On the IBU Cup she’s been collecting more and more high level finishes including consistent top 25, three podiums, and the first two victories of her IBU Cup career. While competing on the World Cup, not surprisingly for a 21-22 year old, the results have been more mixed. She’s had great moments including Oslo last season where she finished 20th in the Individual and 14th in the Mass Start. But she also saw her average finish slip a little bit year over year.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2022-2023	89.5	76.2	82.9	29.2
2023-2024	84.2	77.9	81.1	31.3

At this early juncture in her career Hannah Auchentaller has not definitely shown us a single strength in her racing. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. As we discussed with Passler, a solid all around biathlete can do pretty well! Her shooting has been very consistent over the last three years in the mid low 80’s running usually around 82-83%. Her skiing has yet to distinguish itself on the World Cup, but once again she’s quite young. Looking at her results on the IBU Cup (where she’s still young!) she actually has seen her average course time rank improve up to 12.9 last season. That’s very encouraging for where she might head going forward.

If I was going to make a guess I think that over the next few seasons we’ll see Auchentaller develop into an athlete who is a bit better skier than a shooter. I don’t think she’s going to be Vittozzi level fast, but top 20-25 in the World Cup is not unreasonable as she enters the peak years of her career later this decade. If the can raise her shooting up to the 85-87% range then we’re cooking. It’s all very possible for her, and she’s got great coaching both with her team and at home. As for this season, she enters the year just 23 years old. I’m going to hope for a shooting percentage near 84% and improved skiing with running closer to 40th on the World Cup. Less concerned with results and more concerned with progress!

Michela Carrara (27)

Michela Carrara is a bit of a difficult athlete for me to get my arms around. I just can’t quite figure her out. Is he a boom and bust athlete? Is she someone showing flashes but inconsistency? After the 2017 Junior Worlds she was a hot pick for the future of the Italian team. As a 19 year old she won gold in the Sprint and silver in the Pursuit. The next season on the Juniors level she wasn’t quite able to repeat nearly that level of success.

The next several years she split time on all levels and while she had a few top top 20’s on the IBU Cup and a single top 10, the enticing competitor from 2017 just wasn’t there. The 2021 Worlds actually were another intriguing week when, still very young, she finished 23rd in the Sprint, 38th in the Pursuit and 31st in the Individual. However, she followed that up with a steady deterioration of results the rest of the season.

Then she started out the 21-22 season with some of the least successful racing of her career on the World Cup, struggling to finish above 80th. She went down to the IBU Cup and started to look good again with several top 10’s and more top 20’s the rest of the year. That pattern has been repeated the last several seasons. Really good racing on the IBU Cup including several top 10’s, top 5’s and even a couple of podiums. Meanwhile nothing spectacular on the World Cup.

Then, came last year. After a hot start on the IBU Cup again, with nearly every finish a top 15, she came to the World Cup and had her first extended good showing. As it turns out, some athletes just need to follow a more regular period of development and don’t just come right up and have success! Who knew?!?

Last year on the World Cup Carrara was running regularly in the top 30. She had five top 30’s in those 12 races. Prior to that she had just one top 30 in her 29 career World Cup races. It was so good to see! 26 is just around when you would expect an athlete following the “normal” growth curve to start reaching the peak performance years and here she came.

Carrara is a really good skier. Last season she finished 14th overall in skiing. It’s been her shooting that has held her back. Last year she hit 74.7% on the World Cup. That doesn’t sound like much but it was good enough for the best of her career. She also significantly improved her skiing, right on schedule. The combination significantly raised her floor and her ceiling, and she ended up collecting all those top 30’s.

Do we have a better idea of who Michela Carrara is now? How about this: Carrara is a very good skier, developing her shooting, who is coming along right on schedule. It might not be spectacular, but I truly believe that the long term raised level of performance last season was the real deal. We should expect to see Carrara continue to get a little bit faster the next few seasons. The big thing is going to be her shooting. If we see that continues to move towards 80% we’re in for a career year.

Beatrice Trabucchi (24)

Yet, ANOTHER, talented youngster is Beatrice Trabucchi. In her Juniors career she had six top 10’s in her nine Junior Worlds races. Even while she was still piling up those Junior top 10’s she raced consistently on the IBU Cup as a 22 and 23 year old. She was running well enough to finish 19th and 20th Overall on the IBU Cup during the 21-22 and 22-23 seasons. She made a case for herself to get time on the World Cup with the success of her shooting giving her a solid floor to her performance level.

Last season she ran 15 races on the World Cup and collected enough points to finish 46th Overall. The highlight of her season came in the third trimester as she closed out getting stronger every race concluding with back-to-back 13th place finishes in Canmore. In addition, she added two more IBU Cup top 10’s to her career tally during her brief stint there at the European Championships and in Arber. All in all it was a very successful season of growth.

As mentioned above Beatrice Trabucchi is a very good shooter. Last season, as a 23 year old in her first World Cup season, she hit 89.1% and finished as the 11th most accurate shooter. While shooting is comparable across levels, it’s a little more difficult to do that with skiing. Thankfully Beatrice Trabucchi ran six times on the IBU Cup. What we saw from her skiing there was a significant leap in performance. She jumped from 0.5% faster than the median biathlete to 2.8% faster while her average course time rank on that level improved to 22.8.

As with this entire list, Beatrice Trabucchi is such a young woman that we can’t always expect her progress to be linear. While it would be wonderful to confidently predict that next season she’s going to hit 91% and rank 40th in skiing it’s not always that easy. However, she’s shown for years now to be an excellent shooter. I would be shocked to see that fall off. That will continue to provide a base performance to build off of meaning she should continue to score points on a regular basis. When her skiing catches up, like it did in the third trimester of last season when her average course time rank was 36, compared to her season of 46, she finished top 40 in five of the six races. If she can replicate that for most of next season we’re looking at somebody who could easily leap up to the top 30 in the Overall rankings.

Martina Trabucchi (21)

The younger Trabucchi, Martina, is just 21 years old as we start the new season, but she’s just as exciting as her sister…and pretty much everybody else on this list. So far it doesn’t seem to matter what level she’s racing at, she’s showing some good results. On the Juniors she has eight top 10’s in 22 races, or more than 1/3 of her starts. And she has 15 top 20’s in those 22 races.

Not surprisingly with that talent she started to get experience on the IBU Cup back in the 2020-2021 season. Near the end of the following season she had her first good finishes on the IBU Cup when she had three top 20’s in her last five races of the year. She’s spent most of the last two seasons on the IBU Cup while still racing Junior Worlds. She’s shown tremendous year over year progress the last two seasons improving from 52nd in the 22-23 season up to 26th last year, just one position back of Sara Scattolo in the Overall.

Martina Trabucchi, interestingly enough, is already faster than her sister. Remember how we were excited about Beatrice Trabucchi showing the good ski speed when looking at her IBU races from last season? Well Martina Trabucchi actually ran a few places ahead of Beatrice. However, while Beatrice is the sharpshooter, Martina is still finding her accuracy on the range. Throughout her career Martina Trabucchi has hit consistently in the upper 70’s to low 80’s which is exactly where she was last season.

As with all of these women, Martina Trabucchi is an exceptionally young athlete. The reassuring thing with her development is that she is actually showing fairly steady ski improvement. Each year she’s just a little bit faster. Hopefully this coming season she starts to take some lessons from her sister and inches that shooting up a little bit. At least as a Junior she’s shown potential to be a top 20 skier and that will hopefully continue to develop. Add to that better skiing and she could join Sara Scattolo into the top 15 on the IBU Cup if she isn’t running a few races on the World Cup.

Linda Zingerele (22)

Honestly, this section has been one of the most exhausting I’ve ever tackled. There are just too many highly talented women all around the same age group for this team. Rounding out the group is 22 year old Linda Zingerele.

Early in her career Linda Zingerele showed exceptionally high potential. She started out on the Juniors and had some excellent finishes at Youth Worlds four medals in her six races. She, like most of these women, started running on the IBU Cup very young and grabbed her first win in just her 6th race. While she’s had a handful of IBU Cup top 10’s since then she’s been unable to have a consistent level of success. On the Juniors level her best finish over the last nine races (all Junior Worlds) is 16th and she has just two top 20’s in those races.

If we’re looking for a reason for optimism she actually ended the year on the IBU Cup last season on a high note. Between the European Championship and the weekend of racing in Arber she had three top 25’s and a 27th. Outside of a good run in the middle of her 2022-2023 season it was the best stretch of racing in her IBU Cup career.

Where can Linda Zingerele go from here? Thus far she’s a well rounded biathlete with no exceptional areas of expertise. She ranked 42nd in skiing lsat season with an average course time rank of 38. She hit 80.8% which is the 2nd best of her career just barely behind her 81.8% in the 22-23 season. Both seasons were solid improvements from her prior racing though!

Let’s see what Zingerele does this season. Maybe a little bit faster. Maybe she cleans up the standing shooting a little bit, as it lags well behind her prone shooting. If she can do those two things she can close the gap towards Sara Scattolo and Martina Trabucchi.

Birgit Schoelzhorn (20)

The young Birgit Schoelzhorn completed her second season on the Juniors level last season. Over the last two years she has shown a moderate but definite improvement. While she doesn’t have the very high finishes of some of the other women on this list, there have been some good moments. In particular last season in Ridnaun-Val Ridanna she had back-to-back top 10’s (both 10th place) for the first time in her career!

Between the two seasons Schoelzhorn showed a nice improvement in skiing. she moved from an average ski rank of 26.9 up to an average course time rank of 16. Correspondingly she moved from 3.5% faster than median up to 7.7% faster than median. That’s a very solid improvement! Meanwhile her shooting stayed roughly the same as she was hitting in the mid 70’s.

She has shown a good summer of training and then showed up well at the selection races and raced her tail off. She has earned herself at least the ability to start the season on the IBU Cup. Hopefully the 24-25 season brings another year of improved skiing for Birgit Schoelzhorn, shooting moving towards the 80’s. If that happens the results will take care of themselves.

Alice Pacchiodi (20)

Over the last two seasons Alice Pacchiodi has raced in a total of four races. She ran Youth Worlds in the 22-23 season finishing 23rd, 46th, and 46th, and in the 23-24 season she ran the Pokljuka Sprint and finished 47th. That’s not a whole lot to go off of. I wasn’t able to find any particular reason for the limited racing either. But she came out and had a great weekend for the test races two weeks ago. This one was a surprise to me as I would have expected Sara Scattolo or Astrid Plosch here, but she earned her spot!

Sara Scattolo (21)

So it might be a little unfair to to include Scattolo in this list as she’s a little bit younger, however she’s proving that she can perform at the same level as these other women. Scattolo had a very successful Juniors career where she ran in the top 10 nearly every race in the 2021-2022 season including two victories. She ended up ranked 6th Overall amongst Juniors. She started out the 22-23 season on the Junior level and in the first weekend of racing she had two wins, a 3rd and a 5th before moving to the IBU Cup level. She ended up the season at Junior Worlds with finishes in the teens and completed the season 4th Overall on the Juniors.

In the mid part of the 22-23 season, and the majority of last season, she moved over to the IBU Cup and is showing some really strong performances. Last season in particularly was a great showing for a 20 year old on that level. She had two podiums and five top 20’s and nine top 30’s. It all came together for 25th Overall on the IBU Cup.

The best part about Scattolo’s performance thus far has been her skiing. She ended last season ranked 24th in skiing and had a course time rank of 22.5. That skiing has been enough to buoy her developing shooting talent as she hit just 71.2% last season. That actually was down a bit from where she has been on the Juniors, regularly in the mid 70’s up to even the low 80’s.

Sara Scattolo is still so so young. She’s still a Junior for goodness sakes! But she is showing the potential that, should she make a leap that is well within her abilities, she could push for regular World Cup time. It is more likely though, that we’ll see her back for a season on the IBU Cup with Junior Worlds as well. Assuming she shows expected growth for a highly talented 20 year old I would anticipate a modestly higher hit rate with continued ski improvement. That should lead to a few more top 20’s and reaching towards the top 15 in the Overall IBU Cup next season.

Astrid Plosch (20)

The 20 year old Astrid Plosch is basically a pure Junior. She’s run just four IBU Cup races in her career so we can look entirely at her Juniors racing. Thus far she’s actually looked quite good. She had the best performances of her career at the 2023 Youth Worlds when she finished 12th in the Indiviual, won bronze in the Sprint, and was 6th in the Pursuit. Last season she had an average finish of 17th on the Juniors, but had her best racing of the season at the Junior European Championships when she finishe 26th in the Individual, 12th in the Sprint, and 10th in the Mass 60.

So far in her career she’s proving to be a solid skier, but an exceptional shooter. Last year in her Juniors racing she hit 89.2% including a spectacular 95.4% in the prone shooting. Meanwhile her average course time rank was 23.7. But again, she had the best skiing of her season at Junior Europeans including 8th best course time in the Mass 60.

Plosch is one I will continue to be optimistic about because a 90% total shooting can cover a lot of holes. Even just above average skiing can make her competitive. I would love to see another year of progress from Plosch hopefully with some additional IBU Cup racing this year.

The Juniors Below that large stretch of women there is another large block of women who are all still in the Juniors. It is quite possible that a surge from one of these women will push them up into the conversation for the top levels in 2026 or even sooner. For now though they all deserve at least an eye on them.

Carlotta Gautero (18)

The Italians have to be excited with what they’ve seen from Carlotta Gautero in limited racing thus far. She has run a grand total of six career races, all of which occurred at Youth Worlds. In those races, against the top competition in her age group she has three top 4 finishes. Gautero has flahsed exceptional ski speed sa she has been top 10 in course time rank in each of the races in which she has competed. When she has hit greater than 85% of her shots she’s been top 4. That’s going to be the key for her. Continue progressing along her current path with her skiing and to keep getting more consistent on the range.

Ilaria Scattolo (20)

The younger Scattolo sister, Ilaria, has spent the last three seasons battling it out primarily on the Juniors level In that time she’s run 20 races wth three top 5’s including two coming in a single weekend last season.

After a truncated 22-23 season spent entirely on the Juniors level, Scattolo began the 23-24 season on the IBU Cup. After running the first trimester there she came back to the Juniors level where she had those two top 5’s at Jakuszyce. Unfortunately Junior Worlds didn’t go quite as planned as she had a best finish there of 27th.

The good news for Ilaria Scattolo is that, on the Juniors level, she’s seen improvements each year. Last season she improved her average course time rank from 30.2 to 17.7. Meanwhile her shooting jumped from 77.1% to 82.2%. This season should see another one split between the Juniors and IBU Cup. Let’s hope we see another improvement similar to last season!

Fabiana Carpella (20)

With Fabiana Carpella you can add another intriguing young talent to the Italian Juniors roster. She started racing on the Juniors level in the 2021-2022 season and immediately made an impact. In her first four races she finished 13th, 6th, 7th, and 11th. It was like she was shot out of a cannon. In the 22-23 season she eight top 20’s in 13 races including four top 10’s and 3 top 5’s.

Last season she ran just 10 Juniors level races, as she split time with the IBU Cup, but she had five top 10’s and her first career podium. She also ran six races on the IBU Cup. In those six races she had a worst finish of 61st but the rest of her finishes were between 25th and 48th.

Carpella has been showing yearly improvement, as evidence by her statistics. Her skiing has improved steadily and last season she was consistently skiing in the top 10. Her shooting has mildly improved from 76.3% to 79.3% with a significant advantage on prone vs. standing shooting. It’s hard not to be optimistic about Carpella. The skiing is intriguing and we’ve seen many athletes improve their shooting over the years. She’s not showing any major red flags. The 2024-2025 season should look at lot like this past year. She will likely get another 6-8 starts on the IBU Cup. Hopefully her Juniors races continue to look stellar and her she could maybe get he rfirst top 20 on the IBU Cup!

Fabiola Miraglio Mellano (18)

Last season was the first of IBU level competition for Fabiola Miraglio Mellano, but she showed very well at her first Youth Worlds. She finished 37th in the Individual, 30th in the Sprint, and 9th in the Mass 60. It was a good all around performance. Her ski ranks of 11th, 20th, and 18th were solid, and her shooting of 65%, 80%, and 90% indicates that she can definitely hit the targets. The 2024-2025 season should see her racing several more times and hopefully we see a lot more races like that Mass 60!

Nayeli Mariotti Cavagnet (18)

Just like Fabiola Miraglio Mellano, the 2024-2025 season was the first of Nayeli Mariotti Cavagnet’s IBU level career as she raced at Youth Worlds. She finished 8th in the Individual, 47th in the Sprint and 57th in the Mass 60. Her performance were completely scattered but she did put together her best skiing day and best shooting day in the Individual which led to the 8th place finish. That day she had the 4th best course time rank and hit 80%. The other days she was 17th and 43rd on the course and she only hit 60 and 75% in the other two races. Also just like Fabiola Miraglio Mellano we should see more racing from her next season and hopefully we see a lot more like that Individual!

Francesca Brocchiero (20)

Francesca Brocchiero made her IBU level debut during the 2023-2024 season. She raced a full season on the Junior level up through Junior European Championships before going to Arber to race on the IBU Cup to close out her season. She seemed to get stronger with every week of racing. Literally every week on the Junior Cup she set a new personal best, peaking with a 4th place finish in the Junior European Individual. She followed that race up with a 26th place Sprint and a 16th place Mass 60. All in all it was her best full season of racing and it was against the best Juniors competition she faced all season. Then she went to Arber and finished 16th in the Sprint and 28th in the Pursuit against even better competition!

At first glance Brocchiero doesn’t appear to be great at either skiing or shooting. However, a closer look shows she is actualy quite a good skier. After clearly not faring her best on the skis in the first two weeks of competition she really found her groove after that. Her average course time rank the first two weeks was 37. For the last two weeks of Juniors racing her average course time rank was 11.3. In the two races she ran on the IBU Cup she ranked 21st and 22nd in skiing. Meanwhile, for the season she his 80.7% of her shots with relatively even splits.

I’m fairly excited to see what Brocchiero can do with a full season. Those last three weeks that she raced she showed some truly excellent ski potential. She could really come along and develop as a little bit of a surprise for the Italians.

Sophia Zardini (20)

Last season Sophia Zardini made her IBU level debut on the Juniors and ran two races. She ranked 25th and 55th in which she displayed moderate skiing talent but hit 90% in each race. If she can continue that 90% shooting going forward that would be phenomenal. We can hope!

Georgia Saracco (20)

Just like Zardini, Georgia Saracco also made her debut with two total races on the Juniors level last season. She finished 52nd and 39th in the two races in Ridnaun-Val Ridanna. She too showed good shooting hitting 90% and 80%. We can hope that continues!

Serena Del Fabbro (19)

After making her debut with one race in the 2021-2022 season, she skipped the following year before returning last season for six more Juniors races and two IBU Cup races in Arber. In her six races her best finish was 11th in the Mass 60 at Junior Europea Championships. Actually four of her six races she finished in the top 20. Then in Arber she finished 44th and 51st. Del Fabbro was actually quite slick on the course as she had an average course time rank of 15th. The difficulty was shooting in which she hit just 73% of her shots. This next season we’ll want to see that shooting come along to match the skiing…and maybe just a little bit faster too!

Eva Hutter (18)

While Eva Hutter has never raced in an IBU level race she did race at the Youth Olympics in Gangwon in 2024. She finished 52nd in the Individual and 32nd in the Sprint. This season maybe we’ll see her in a few Juniors races!

These last two women have yet to make their IBU or Youth Olympics debuts, but they have appeared on the roster for this season so hopefully we get to see them this winter!

Maya Pividori
Alessia Forlin

Men

While the men don’t attract quite the attention that the women do these days (it helps having two active Overall Globe winners!) the men aren’t completely devoid of talent either. They finished 5th in the Nations Cup last season and were just 47 points back of 4th place Sweden, definitely an attainable goal this year. Also, while the pipeline of talent isn’t quite as deep for the me, there are still a handful of young men still on their way up!

Quota: 6 Athletes to Start

World Cup: The World Cup squad is pretty much split evenly. There are three men who have earned a World Cup starting position for the entire position. The remaining three spots are a toss up and will likely see at least a little turn over during the season. For the start though here is who we have:
– Tommaso Giacomel
– Lukas Hofer
– Didier Bionaz
– Elia Zeni
– Patrick Braunhofer
– Daniele Cappellari

Tommaso Giacomel (24)

Two years ago Tommaso Giacomel was achingly close to winning the u25 Globe only for Niklas Hartweg to find a well of strength and sprint away with it at the very end. Last year Giacomel took the blue bib on day one and never gave it back going from start to finish unchallenged as the u25 king while finishing 8th in the Overall. Normally I would say he’s one of the top contenders to take the title again, but recent rule changes mean that he’s no longer eligible for it as it is only u23 bib! So, can Giacomel challenge for the Overall globe at some point in the future?

Giacomel has already shown a very high ski potential. Even last year at just 23 years old he finished the season as the 7th best skier on the World Cup. The only men ahead of him are all unquestionably the fastest men in biathlon. That means Giacomel too is now one of the fastest men in biathlon. If you’re looking for the charateristics of a future Overall champion top notch speed is one of them.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2019-2020	85	85	85	27.8
2020-2021	72.9	77.7	75.3	25.4
2021-2022	73.6	77.1	75.4	27.4
2022-2023	80.5	80.9	80.7	25.2
2023-2024	80	77.1	78.6	24.6

For Giacomel to take the step from u25 Champion to Overall Champion he’s going to need to get the shooting all straightened out. To this point in his career he’s struggled to nudge past the 80% mark. With his speed, and with his Overall aspirations, his goal has to be get somewhere in the mid high 80’s. Something like 87% would at least give him a chance. Fortunately he won’t need to work on shooting speed though as he’s already one of the 10 fastest shooters on the World Cup last year, averaging a ridiculous 24.6 seconds per shoot.

It seems like Tommaso Giacomel has two of the three aspects already close to what he needs to be a future contender for the Overall crown. Just a touch more speed to get into the top 5, and improved shooting (easier said than done!) takes him from top 8 to top 5 in the Overall. That’s a steep hill to climb when you get to this level, but I think he can do it!

Lukas Hofer (34)

At the other end of his career from Tomasso Giacomel, is Lukas Hofer. At this stage of the game it’s hard to know what we’re going to get from Hofer. Two seasons ago he ran just three races while battling a chronic tendonitis in his shin. Last year he bounced back with a full season, running 23 races, but had just two 10’s, his fewest in a full year of racing since the 2015-2016 season. He ended up 25th in the Overall, just five places back of his 2022-2023 finish, but the overall level felt like it had dropped off.

Looking at the numbers there were some clear differences. His ski rank was 17th. Is that good? Is that bad? Hard to know! During his career peak Hofer was regularly a top 10 skier. His first hint of decline happened in the 2019-2020 season when he finished the year ranked 16th in skiing. However, he bounced back the next season right back into the top 10. Then in the 21-22 season he had some real ski struggles and finished the season ranked 38th. Looking at the big picture I would actually qualify last season as a success. Climbing back to 17th indicates that there is still some left in the tank!

For Hofer it seemed to actually be the shooting that hurt him more than the skiing. Looking at the chart above you can see the slip in prone shooting really dragging down the total hit rate to 80.8%. He can absolutely do better. There is no reason to believe that this is a permanent decline for him. He can probably boost that standing back up to at least the mid 80’s where he has lived or most of his career.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2017-2018	88.2	85.1	86.7	30.6
2018-2019	89.5	79	84.3	29.1
2019-2020	81.3	73.1	77.2	31.1
2020-2021	86.3	77.1	81.7	33
2021-2022	85.6	85.1	85.4	32.6
2023-2024	81.6	80	80.8	31.6

Is this the beginning of the end for Hofer or just a new “post-peak” era. It honestly feels more like a “post-peak” than the end. He’s still only 34 and we’ve seen many athletes be able to drag out the decline in ski speed to be a gradual decline rather than a cliff. His shooting *should* rebound at least a few points as well. Hofer very well could bounce back to right around the top 20 in the Overall and at this stage of the game that really isn’t too bad!

Didier Bionaz (24)

Then we come to Didier Bionaz. The same age as Giacomel, he is taking the more traditional gradual improvement approach rather than Giacomel’s rocket ride to the top. Bionaz himself said that his racing last season gave him confidence that he can race with the top of the game. Last saeson was his career year by far finishing 21st in the Overall rankings. The single stat that most exemplifies how this happened was top 20’s. In his career prior to last season he had a career total of four top 20’s. Last season he had 10. He also had 16 top 30’s and was in the top 40 nearly every race of last season.

Bionaz raised his ceiling last season, but also more importantly, he raised his floor. How he did it comes back to just one thing: skiing. Bionaz’s shooting was actually down year over year, back to around his career average of about 80%. His shooting time didn’t dramatically improve. It was all about his skiing. He has steadily risen from 78th in skiing three seasons ago up to 20th last year. His average course time rank up from 53 to 38 to 16. That’s the gradual steady progression we were talking about!

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2020-2021	78.7	80	79.3	32.2
2021-2022	75	86	80.5	33.8
2022-2023	85.8	81.7	83.7	32.4
2023-2024	85.5	75.5	80.5	31.6

There is no reason to believe that this is going to be Didier Bionaz’s career peak. He’s only 24 and he’s training alongside one of the fastest men in biathlon. He can keep getting incrementally faster and assuming full health he should be able to be up inside the top 20 of ski ranks this season. The biggest open question is going to be the shooting. The entire team slipped a little in shooting last season. Hopefully there is a small to moderate improvement in shooting, maybe back towards the 83.7% he hit two seasons ago.

If Bionaz does both of those things we’ll be seeing him well inside the top 20 this upcoming season. He may not ultimately have the same ceiling as Giacomel, but in 3-4 years it wouldn’t be shocking to see Giacomel in the top 5 of the Overall with Bionaz around 10th. That would be a very good 1-2 for the Italian men!

Elia Zeni (23)

Two seasons ago the very young 21 year old Elia Zeni made his debut midway through the 2022-2023 season. He only ran eight races including the World Championships but actually proved himself quite well with all of his finishes coming between 40th and 55th. His race of the year that season might actually have been as the anchor leg of the Italian relay in Antholz. He took over in 4th place and with just 1 extra round he brought Italy home safely in the top 5. Zeni returned for a full 23-24 season and once again displayed a high floor to his performance, but this time with a higher ceiling. In 18 races he had just four finishes outside the top 40 and had three top 30’s including a career best of 24th in the Canmore Sprint.

Of course we hope to see progression for a young athlete, but where did it come from for Elia Zeni? Well, he got a little faster. His overall ski rank improved from 72nd to 58th. That really only took him from 1.7% slower than the median World Cup biathlete to 1.5% slower. However, his shooting really took off. He his 87.6% up from 80% the year prior. That included a terrific 90.3% which was 4th best on the entire World Cup! Add to that an average shoot time of 29.3 seconds and that’s a really solid step up.

The still very young Elia Zeni is showing the kind of things that make me get a little excited. The shooting is really coming along and he’s shown the potential to be one of the top shooters in the World Cup field. So now it’s about the skiing. In the 2022-2023 season Zeni still qualified as a Junior. In the four races he ran he was top 3 in course time rank three of them. So, at least amongst his age cohort he has the ability to be the fastest man out there. He’s still just 23 so we can give the ski speed a few more years to come along, just like it did for Bionaz. However, as noted Zeni’s shooting is even better right now than Bionaz’s. So could Zeni be a third top man for the Italian men in the future? The potential is there, but now is the hard part, bringing the ski speed up to match that potential. We’ll be watching for a bit more speed this season as he aims to move closer to average in ski speed on the World Cup.

Patrick Braunhofer (26)

It’s a little hard to believe that Patrick Braunhofer is already 26. I’m not sure where the time goes. I remember looking at Braunhofer a few years back and thinking that he was about ready to break through to the World Cup. Well, the transition hasn’t been so much a breakthrough as a steady arrival. Two years ago in his last full IBU Cup season he was showing consistent improvement with four top 10’s as he pushed up to 13th Overall on the IBU Cup. The last two seasons’ on the World Cup he’s consistently scored at least small amounts of points as he’s finished 54th and 49th in the Overall. Last season that placed him 1 spot behind teammate Elia Zeni.

Braunhofer is a bit unlike the Italian men above him on this list. While most of his teammates have shown either great speed or potentially great speed, Braunhofer just hasn’t. He’s never really been a speedster at any level even when he was on the Juniors. Instead, Braunhofer is simply one of the best shooters. Last season he hit 88.9%, a slight improvement on his 88.3% from the year prior. Both times that put him in the top 15 on the World Cup. Last season his 93.1% prone shooting was 9th best. That plus her after shooting time around 27 seconds and thus far in his career his performance has rested on the strength of his rifle.

A profile like that leads to exactly what we’ve seen, a high floor but a low ceiling. His shooting means that he’s never having really terrible races. His skiing means that he is limited in how high up in the field he can finish. So plenty of top 40’s but limited top 20’s.

The key for Braunhofer to take the roof off is going to be the skiing. So easy to say and so hard to make it happen. What he’s got going for him is that he’s training alongside some young men that have serious ski talent and potential. Hopefully that can transfer over to him as he pushes himself to keep rising the Overall rankings. Let’s go Patrick!

Daniele Cappellari (27)

After racing on the World Cup in the 2019-2020 season Daniele Cappellari has become a veteran on the IBU Cup. He’s actually performed quite well there but he’s struggled to get the call up to the World Cup as he’s been passed over for some younger athletes. When he has gotten the call up he has a career best 44th. The last time he had consistent World Cup starts was the 22-23 season when he ran six races and usually finishing in 50’s.

Other than that brief run he’s mostly been on the IBU Cup where he’s actually looked pretty good. In the IBU Cup Overall he’s finished 9th, 12th, 11th, and 10th in each of the last four seasons. It’s almost hard to believe that he hasn’t had more World Cup run with consistent IBU Cup racing like that.

As a biathlete Cappellari looks much more like Braunhofer and Zeni than Giacomel or Bionaz. The shooting is very good. Last year he was the best shooter on the IBU Cup hitting 89.7% with even splits. He also averaged 26.7 seconds per shoot which was 3rd best on the IBU Cup. The skiing, though, was substandard for what you would hope to see on the World Cup. Last year he ranked 50th in skiing on the IBU Cup and he was just 0.1% faster than the median biathlete. That just doesn’t transfer very well to the World Cup.

It’s clear what Cappellari needs to do to race well on the World Cup, it’s all about the skis. The shooting is so good and if he just transfers that to the World Cup he’s already a world class shooter. However, the skiing is significantly holding him back. If he makes ski improvements we see him on the World Cup. If he doesn’t he’s going to be back on the IBU Cup likely finishing towards the top of the rankings once again.

The IBU Cup…and More? As mentioned above the World Cup roster has three men that have spots locked up. Then there are three more spots that are currently occupied by Zeni, Braunhofer, and Cappellari. Those spots are certainly not locked up. That means the men who are currently starting on the IBU Cup know that if they perform well they could find themselves on the top level sooner rather than later. Hopefully that spurs them to their best possible results! Here is the Italian IBU Cup roster to start:
– David Zingerle
– Nicolo’ Betemps
– Christopher Pircher
– Nicola Romanin
– Nicolo Giraudo
– Marco Barale

David Zingerle (23)

Coming off of a very good Junior Worlds to close out the 2021-2022 season, David ZIngerle started out the 22-23 season directly on the World Cup. After the first four weeks of racing he returned back to the IBU Cup for four races before ending the season a little early. After showing much promise in the 21-22 season it was decidedly a growing year. Important, but not always flashy or good looking. Last year he spent the entire 2023-2024 season on the IBU Cup and it looks like he took some good lessons out of that bumpy 22-23 season.

Last year on the IBU Cup he looked solidly improved. He had 11 top 40’s in 19 races including six top 20’s and his first career top 10 a 9th place Pursuit in Obertilliach. As a result he had the best Overall finish of his career on any level, coming in 24th.

For David Zingerle it was a significant all around improvement. His ski rank moved from 106th to 34th. He went from being basically right at the median for biathletes up to 1.3% faster than median. In terms of average course time ranks he went from 58.8 up to 28.5. That was even without having terrific shooting, at 77.1%. However that was actually up from 72.5% the year before.

Clearly there is still plenty of room to grow for David Zingerle. At just 23 we should still expect some ski improvement to come. If last season was any indication we could see a big jump. On the Juniors level he routinely finished top 10 in course time, so while that might be a stretch, improvement is still in the cards. He has potential to get up into the low to mid 80’s over the next few season as well. While, right now, not quite on the same level as the men above him, there is still a chance that he gets himself routinely to World Cup level in the next few seasons.

Nicolo’ Betemps (21)

At the start of last season Nicolo’ Betemps was one of my hot names to watch. He was coming off of the Overall Juniors title. It was a season in which he had three victories including both the Junior European Sprint and Pursuits. He also was 4th in the Junior Worlds Individual and 5th in the Junior European Individual. All signs are there for very high levels of success.

Last season was a definite growing year, but not without some good signs as well. Still just 20 years old he ran seven Juniors races and had another victory in the Pokljuka Individual. However, his performance deteriorated throughout the year and by the time Junior Worlds came he just wasn’t looking like himself. He had a 14th in the Individual and a 13th in the Mass 60, but a 47th in the Sprint. He also ran seven races on the IBU Cup, and while five of his finishes were between 29th and 48th, he did have a 7th place finish in the Arber Sprint which is a great result to hang your hat on!

I the early stages of his career Betemps has been a really great all around biathlete. He has shown at times very good ski speed with showing regular ability to find the top 10 in course time. He’s also a pretty good shooter already as the last three seasons as a Junior he’s hit between 82%-84%.

The reason he didn’t really take off last season though, is because he was just off his game both in skiing in shooting. He never quite hit the ski form he had in his amazing 2022-2023 season, and at least on the IBU Cup he hit just 75%. This season, I’m hoping to see the Nicolo’ of the 22-23 season return. Whether that’s on the Juniors or the IBU Cup (or hopefully both!) that Nicolo’ Betmps has the ability and the potential to one day be a top 15 biathlete on the World Cup. Maybe not next season, but in the next 3-5 years for sure.

Christoph Pircher (21)

Christoph Pircher, following along with what is a trend with the Italian squad, at the young age of 20, already made his IBU Cup debut and ran 17 races on that level last season. He did it while having a moderate amount of success too as he had four top 20s and two top 10’s including a career best 9th place in Kontiolahti. He also ran at Junior Worlds last year with mixed success but he did have a 7th place finish in the Mass 60.

Pircher is the jack of all trades but master of none biathletes at this stage of his career. He has shown the ability to be good at skiing and shooting, but he’s certainly not dominant at either. Last season at just 20 years old he ranked 40th in skiing on the IBU Cup, with an average course time rank of 32, while he hit 76.8%. Meanwhile, on the Juniors level he’s been consistently a decent skier, with course time ranks regularly in the 20’s and shooting that has moved up to the low 80’s. He’s still pretty young though so maybe he becomes an expert at one of them!

It would appear that Pircher is likely going to run another season on the IBU Cup with Junior Worlds again. Hopefully we see a little progress across all aspects of racing, a little faster and a little more accurate, and then he can get a few more top 20’s!

Marco Barale (21)

21 year old Marco Barale had a bit of an odd schedule last year. In the 2022-2023 season, as a 19 years old, he raced eight times on the IBU Cup in addition to the six races on the Juniors level. Last year, though, he again raced six times on the Juniors level but only hit the IBU Cup four times.

Last year he had a string of very good races on the Juniors level. In Jakuszyce he finished 6th, 11th, and 4th. Then in the Junior Worlds the next week he finished 17th, 27th, and 26th. That was probably the best six consecutive races of his Juniors career. Unfortunately, though, after a moderate level of success on the IBU Cup in 22-23, where he had three top 20’s including a 6th place finish in the Short Individual in Pokljuka.

So what happened last season? Well in the four IBU Cup races he ran his ski form was nowhere close to where it was the year prior. He went from 2.4% faster than average to 2.1% slower than average. That corresponds with a drop in average course time rank from 30 down to 61. Meanwhile his shooting percentage stayed almost exactly steady with a drop of just 0.4% from 76.4% to 76%. However he did have a strange split form where he hit much better prone than standing where as in 22-23 he was nearly even.

He then had over a month off before he raced again when he returned ot the Juniors in Jakuszyce. When he returned there his skiing was the best level of his Juniors career. From 2.4% faster than median to 4.4% faster than median with his average course time rank improving from 32.2 to 19.5. At the same time his shooting improved from 73% (about where he has been his whole career) to 84.4%. Interestingly he still had a wide split between prone and standing like he did on the IBU Cup, but both prone and standing were much better.

Okay that’s a ton to write about Marco Barale, I just thought his season last year was really interesting. I hope that that his racing from the Juniors portion of the season carries over this year!

Nicola Giordano (19)

Running his first IBU international races last season, Nicola Giordano made his debut at Youth Worlds. He finished 26th in the Individual, 43rd in the Sprint, and 13th in the Mass 60. He skied relatively well finishing with course time ranks of 26th, 22nd, and 13th. He was a little rougher on the range as he hit 75% in two of the races and just 60% in the Sprint. He was a pretty fast shooter though! Clearly he put in the work though because he went out and earned a spot this fall and at the selection races. He’s just 19 so there is the potential that he can get better and get better quickly. Hopefully that’s what we’re about to see!

Nicola Romanin (30)

Nicola Romanin just keeps on fighting. You couldn’t blame the man for giving up on the dream. He turned 30 this past February and will be 31 before this season ends. He’s raced 45 times on the IBU Cup and has raced absolutely 0 times on the World Cup. Yet he’s actually increased the number of races he has run over the last two seasons and he was able to finish 30th and 37th in the IBU Cup Overall standings.

Romanin doesn’t really excel at any one particular thing. He is a fairly middle of the road skier with an average course time rank of 31.7. That’s actually right around where his skiing has been over the last five seasons with only a very slight deterioration. Last season he hit 79.4% of his shots which was actually the 2nd best of his career.

I’m really happy for Nicola Romanin and it’s honestly inspiring to see somebody continue to fight like this. I wouldn’t be surprised though to see his spot on the IBU Cup be given over to one of the younger men as the season goes on.

Who Is Next? While not immediately noted as possible choices for the World Cup several of these young men may find themselves there sooner rather than later. While the top three men on the World Cup are locks, the next three are less so and strong preseason or early season performances may push one of the Juniors to the top level right away. We already know with how the Italians handled Giacomel and Bionaz that they aren’t afraid of pushing young men to the top quickly! The rest of these men are worth monitoring, maybe not for the next few years, but as we approach the 2030 Olympics they might be more recognizable.

Fabio Piller Cotterer (22)

With Fabio Piller Cotterer it’s hard to see exactly what changed. In the middle of the 2022-2023 season he was trending upward and looked like he was heading to a very good season. Then after a 6th place finish in the Junior European Championships it was seemingly all downhill with a rough go at Junior Worlds.

That downward trend continued through last season. His finishes continued to trend downward. It wasn’t a straight linear downward trend but the trendward was generally down. Looking at his statistics it was all his skiing. His shooting, while not amazing, was steady, and maybe even a little better as he hit 78.6%. However the skiing fell off dramatically by every metric. Maybe the easiest to see is his average course time rank which dropped from 23.7 to 44.9.

Hopefully 2024-2025 he reveresed the trend!

Michele Carollo (19)

Michele Carollo made his career IBU level debut last season at the Youth Championships. He had a great first three races of his career! He went 6th in the Individual, 16th in the Sprint, and 5th in the Mass 60! It was just a solid few days of racing as he hit 80% in both the Individual and Sprint and 90% in the Mass 60. Meanwhile he was top 10 in course time rank in both the Individual and the Mass 60 and 17th in the Sprint. It wasn’t much but it was certainly intriguing. I just want to see more of him this year!

David Compagnoni (20)

20 year old Davide Compagnoni has competed on the Juniors level the last two seasons. After running three races in the 22-23 season, the Youth Worlds when he finished 14th, 10th, and 21st, he raced a full season last year. Over those 10 races he basically ran everything except Junior Worlds. His finishes were scattered anywhere from the teens through the 30’s. Pretty much every weekend he had two finishes in the teens along with one finish that wasn’t quite as good.

The good news for Compagnoni was that his ski strength improved bit by bit as the season went on so that he did his best skiing in the last few races of the year. His shooting was decent as he hit 75.7% of his shots.

202-2024 should be another season of growth as he likely races a number of Junior races with a scattering of IBU Cup races mixed in. Let’s see another solid year of growth!

Alex Perissutti (20)

Alex Perisutti has run nearly the exact same races as Davide Compagnoni. He ran the Youth Worlds in 2022-2023 finishing 49th, 16th, and 32nd. He returned to the Juniors last season with eight more races culminating with the Junior European Championships but not the Junior Worlds. He definitely had respectable finishes but nothing spectacular. He had just a single top 20 in those eight races. He’s proved to be a decent skier regularly running with course time ranks in the top 20, but he’s struggled on the range rarely hitting more 70% and averaging 61.7% for the season. Let’s see some improved shooting from Perisutti as he likely continues on the Juniors level next season!

Felix Ratschiller (21)

After a 2022-2023 Juniors campaign with just a single top 20, Felix Ratschiller clearly hit the 2023-2024 season with an aim at improving on that. He 10 Juniors races last season including Junior Worlds and had top 20’s in half of those races including his first top 10 when he finished 9th in Jakuszyce. While he didn’t have tremendous success at Junior Worlds it was decidedly an improvement. While he didn’t show significant improvement in terms of his skiing as his average course time rank was basically unchanged, he shot MUCH better. His total shooting improved from 68.2% up to 83.6%. That’s just massive. If he can find a way to have another jump next season he’ll find himself in a new category on this list.

Hannes Bacher (18)

Last season Hannes Bacher made his major international competition debut at the Youth Olympics in Ganwon. He finished 8th in the Individual even with only hitting 13/20. He followed that up finishing 14th while hitting 4/10 shots in the Sprint. Clearly Bacher has some ski speed. Now let’s see the shooting come along with it!

Michel Deval (18)

Michel Deval made his international biathlon debut for the Italian team at the 2024 Youth Olympics in Gangwon. In those races he finished 29th in the Individual and followed that up with a very good 6th in the Sprint. While he hit 70% in the Individual he went a clean 10/10 in the Sprint. Definitely some potential there and I would love to see him make some IBU races this season!

Manuel Contoz (18)

Along with several of these young men Manuel Contoz also made his international debut at the Gangwon Youth Olympics where he finished 26th in the Individual and 46th in the Sprint. As he hit 70% in the Individual and 40% in the Sprint there are opportunities for improvement all around. Maybe well see some of that in the IBU Juniors racing next season?

Davide Cola (19)

When Davide Cola competes he competes at the big events. He raced in the 2022-2023 Youth Olympics finishing 31st and 22nd. Then he followed that up last season with Youth Worlds where he finished 76th, 36th, and 45th. He will be looking to improve a little bit on everything over the next few seasons.

As of yet the following men have not yet made their debut racing for the Italians. Hopefully we see them soon!

Samuel Bettega
Paul Barale