Hochfilzen 2024-2025 Preview

Dates: December 13h, 2024 – December 15th, 2024

Schedule:
– Friday December 13: Men’s 10km Sprint + Women’s 7.5km Sprint
– Saturday December 14: Men’s 12.5km Pursuit + Women’s 10km Pursuit
– Sunday December 15: Men’s 4×7.5km Relay + Women’s 4x6km Relay

Course Overview:

– Stadium altitude: 1,010m
– Maximum altitude on course: 1,035m
– Lowest altitude on course: 997m
– Stadium capacity: 10,500 spectators

The way I always remember the Hochfilzen course is it has the tight nearly 180 degree curve. The other thing I always think about are all of the climbs on this course. It feels like everything is either uphill or downhill. Just very little flat in this course. So you better like climbing!

Weather:
– Avg Temp for late November and early December: High 0C and Low -5C

This week in Hochflizen looks absolutely perfect. There was plenty of snow falling while the races were underway in Kontiolahti, and during the week the daytime highs were just right around freezing. As the racing gets underway we are going to see high temperatures just above freezing and well below freezing at night which should keep the tracks in good shape. There also looks like there is a little snow possibly on Sunday? It doesn’t look like it’s going to be too heavy so it shouldn’t affect the racing too much. Hopefully it just adds to a serene weekend of biathlon! Don’t get used to it because the early weather forecast for Annecy looks dicey.

We just saw a Swedish team and French team that looked rocked in on the skis. Presumably they had their wax just right. Obvious differences between alpine snow and Scandinavian snow aside, the temperatures would seem to indicate relatively similar conditions.

News and Notes

1. Injuries: Normally I would like to highlight something good here. Unfortunately we’ve seen a rash of health related issues that are already impacting the Women’s Overall picture:
   – Lisa Vittozzi: Our reigning Overall Champion, will be out for at least the entire 1st trimester. That means the earliest we could see her would be in Oberhof in January. Initially there was hope we would see her this week in Hochfilzen. When her back injury was announced it was phrased in a way that made it seem like the back was feeling well and it was all about her being in the right shape to return to racing. Then midweek during the Konthiolahti racing there was an ominous warning that her level of participation was still being evaluated. That raised the hairs on my arm and I actually prewrote part of this saying that she was going to be out. I can’t say I’m too surprised. Backs are tricky and she needs to make sure it is completely healed before she comes back and makes it worse!
   – Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold: After first popping up a few years ago, Tandrevold’s heart condition appeared to be pretty well controlled. However, after two incidents during the races in Kontiolahti where she had to step to the side of the course and rest, she is going to be missing at least one week from the World Cup. It sounds like, based on what she is saying, that she is not currently on any medication for this. She is trying to hard to control this with just Valsalva and other techniques. She’s visiting the cardiologist now and hopefully she gets the all clear. However, I think we all agree that the most important thing is her long term health and no matter how much time she needs to step away, it’s so important that she is okay!
   – Julia Simon: She initially suffered the injury on the 2nd lap of the Mixed Relay and it got very bad on the last lap. MRI was apparently negative as she raced the rest of the weekend and seemed to get stronger as the week went on. It sounds like she also didn’t come into the season on top form as well (which may have had something to do with her getting the injury in the first place…). All in all it looks like she’s going to be just fine and I would expect her to be as close to 100% as possible this week

2.Who is up and who is down (from the IBU Cup):
– Norway: Coming up to the World Cup this week we have Marit Oeygard and Martin Uldal. These are dramatically different stories. Marit Oeygard started the season on the Norwegian Cup before earning a way to the IBU Cup in Gielo last week. She showed off some very accurate shooting (92% overall!) and with a 2nd and two 5th pace finishes she rocketed all the way to the World Cup. You can definitely argue that Ida Lien or Siri Skar may have earned this position as well, but Marit Oeygard is a worthy choice. Also it sounds like Lien may have hurt her back. Meanwhile Martin Uldal, last season’s 4th Overall, has finished off the podium just one time this season. He has improved his shooting from the low 80’s up to 88% this year. After two victories in Geilo he absolutely deserves a World Cup look. They will be taking the positions of Tandrevold (as she visits the cardiologist) and unfortunately Johannes Dale-Skjevdal who also may have had a back issue but certainly did not perform up to his standard in Kontiolahti.

– Germany: Marlene Fichtner and Simon Kaiser come up from the IBU Cup to join the rest of the German roster. Johanna Puff and David Zobel are the odd ones out. Fichtner is yet another young 21 year old German who could be very good. She’s made some very big ski gains this year and it showed with the two best finishes of her young IBU Cup career in Geilo, 2nd in the Sprint and a win in the Pursuit! Meanwhile, the same could be said of Simon Kaiser. He looks like a whole new man. After what appears to be a HUGE shooting improvement, up to 86.7% total hit rate from 73.1%, he’s been the best non-Norwegian on the IBU Cup. He currently ranks 4th Overall as he’s been top 10 in every race.

– Austria: Young Anna Andexer, the two time defending Junior Overall Champion makes her World Cup debut in front of home fans!

1. We have two first time Yellow Bib Wearers as Elvira Oeberg and Eric Perrot lead the way as racing starts in Hochfilzen. While Eric Perrot has the absolute slimmest of leads (1 point!) Oeberg already has a 60 point margin that, based on her current form, could get even bigger this week!

Recent History

Men’s Top 5 Finishers Last 5 Competitions (Includes 2 weeks in 2020-2021)
– Does not include retired or ineligible athletes

Athlete	Finishes
JT Boe	🥇🥇🥇🥇🥉🥉,4,4
Emilien Jacquelin	🥈🥈🥈🥈🥉,5
Sturla Holm Laegreid	🥇🥇🥈🥈🥉,4
Tarjei Boe	🥇🥉🥉,5,5
Sebastian Samuelsson	🥉🥉,5,5,5
Quentin Fillon Maillet	🥇🥇🥈,4
Martin Ponsiluoma	🥈🥈,4,5
Fabien Claude	🥉,5
Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen	4,4
Johannes Kuehn	🥇
Niklas Hartweg	5
Andrejs Rastorgujevs	5

Women’s Top 5 Finishers Last 5 Years (Includes 2 weeks in 2020-2021)
– Does not include retired or ineligible athletes
– I’m leaving Tandrevold and Vittozzi on this list because I am just sad they are not racing.

Athlete	Finishes
Elvira Oeberg	🥇🥈🥉🥉,4,4,5
Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold	🥇🥇🥈🥉,4
Julia Simon	🥇🥉🥉,5
Marketa Davidova	🥈🥉,4,5
Hanna Oeberg	🥈,4,5,5
Justine Braisaz-Bouchet	🥈🥉
Lena Haecki-Gross	🥈,4
Franziska Preuss	🥉,5
Dorothea Wierer	🥉,5
Lisa Vittozzi	4,5
Ida Lien	4
Anamarija Lampic	5
Karoline Knotten	5

Recent Memorable Moments/Performances

Maybe it is just me, but if you ask me to think of specific races from Hochfilzen, I just struggle to do it. Maybe it’s because it falls right in the middle of the first trimester. Maybe it’s because of how compressed the week always is with six races in two days. I just don’t remember a lot of what happens here. So here are just a few things I do remember from recent race weekends.

19-20 Men’s Relay: Even for Team Norway this is one of the wildest comebacks of all time. After a strong first leg by Dale-Skjvedal gave them a lead, Erlend Bjoentegaard had quite the adventure on the range that led to a penalty loop. It put Norway 53 seconds behind Germany. While Arnd Peiffer raced well, Tarjei Boe was able to trim off 10 seconds. Still going into the last leg Benedikt Doll had a 43 seconds advantage on JT Boe. Even with JT Boe that was a solid lead. It wasn’t enough though. JT Boe and Doll both cleaned the prone shooting and Doll was still up by 36 seconds. That was down to 25 going into the last shooting which was enough if Doll could clean…but he couldn’t. But neither could JT Boe. They both had two misses but JT Boe was a solid 8 seconds faster. Quick fingers on the reload! With just a 13 second advantage Doll couldn’t hold off the freight train forever. He caught him with just around 1km remaining and swept past him down the stretch for the victory.

20-21 Women’s Pursuit: The first of two consecutive races between Belarusian women and Marte Olsbu Roeiseland that each had the same result: Roeiseland victory. In this race Dzinara Smolskaya (Alimbekava) came in off of a narrow victory in the Sprint over Eckhoff and Preuss while Roeiseland started from 4th just 17 seconds back. Roeiseland pursued the leaders like a shark. She took the lead after shooting 2. Even with a miss in shooting 4 which opened the door for Alimbekava, Roeiseland still left the range with a slight lead and pulled away for the victory.

20-21 Men’s Relay: In this moment I distinctly remember thinking that Sebastian Samuelsson was going to be a star. They started the last lap tied and stayed neck and neck until the final shooting. Samuelsson had two misses but held it together while JT Boe headed to the penalty loop. Samuelsson showed a lot of grit to hang with the man who was on the way to an Overall Globe!

21-22 Women’s Pursuit: This was primarily a race between two women that we won’t see one second of this season. Hanna Sola entered the Pursuit with a commanding 46 second advantage. Yellow bib Marte Olsbu Røiseland though was always a threat in a Pursuit race. Sola did a tremendous job holding her off, but Røiseland was not to be denied. The last lap was actually something to behold. Sola entered the final shooting with a 35 second advantage. However, she had 1 miss opening the door just a touch. Røiseland cleaned and moved within 12 seconds of Sola. The last lap was either painful or exhillirating depending on who you were pulling for. It felt like Sola was moving in slow motion compared to Røiseland . Finally with just 400 meters to go Røiseland moved past Sola. It was an incredible comeback and truthfully showed her strength in what proved to be her crowning Overall winning season.

21-22 Men’s Pursuit: The race started with a nice bunch at the top. Johannes Kuehn was coming off his first career win but there were seven men within 25 seconds to start. QFM did what would become his calling card during his Overall Globe winning season as he came back and stole the victory. He was still a few seconds behind after shooting 3 but he closed the gap on Kuehn before the final shooting. He went clean and raced away for the victory. It was really a tone setter for the rest of the season as he claimed the Overall title.

23-24 Women’s Pursuit: The Women’s Sprint ended in a bit of heartbreak for Lena Haecki-Gross. She finished 0.3 seconds off the podium. She had started out the season so strong, and we weren’t yet sure if she was going to be able to keep i tup for the full season. It felt cruel that she would come so achingly close to a podium. The next day in the Pursuit, though, Haecki-Gross left no doubts. She hit 19/20 shots with her only miss coming in the 3rd shoot. It actually knocked her down to 3rd and she was 16.3 seconds back of Tandrevold. It didn’t matter. Lena Haecki-Gross was a woman on a mission. She came to the range for her last shoot and knocked them down in 20.7 seconds while Tandrevold struggled, hitting 5/5 but taking a loooooong 41 seconds. Haecki-Gross broke loose on the last lap and came home with a triumphant second place. It was just the start though as she went on to have four more podiums including her first two career wins!

Thoughts/Predictions:
– Emilien Jacquelin has had a lot of success in Hochfilzen. He’s coming in after a great week in Kontiolahti including a phenomenal win in the Sprint. Could we see him in Yellow by the end of the week? He’s starting out 21 points behind so it is well within reach!
– Elvira Öberg is like a freaking rocket ship right now. She has a habit of starting out very strong but this is maybe the best I’ve ever seen her ski. If the wax techs get it right she could really shine on this course and add a couple more podiums, or wins, to her career successes. It also could stake her out to a relatively massive lead in the Overall.
– Sebastian Samuelsson coming in with excellent form. Obviously one of the favorites for a Sprint win. He’s right alongside JT Boe as the best in skiing at this early juncture, he just hasn’t hit yet. He was one miss away from a Sprint win last week. Then with five misses he still finished 10th in the Mass Start. I think he’s primed two podiums this week.
– JT Boe gets his first win of the season this week. He shakes off the shooting woes and flashes his speed again. I think he wins one of the two solo races.