Breakthroughs and Career Years

It’s time for one my favorite exercises of the first trimester…celebrating biathletes in the midst of breakthrough seasons! There is almost nothing in biathlon that I love more than watching athletes reach new levels of success. Sometimes it is finally reaching potential that was seen in Juniors/IBU Cup. Sometimes it is the result of putting in a really hard summer to push to a new level. And sometimes it is the culmination of work that has been years and years in the making. For us as fans, each of these is so much fun to see!

As you already noted just from a quick review of that list there were some hits and some misses. Probably more misses than hits. And I definitely didn’t call several of the athletes having the biggest breakthroughs! The lesson as always, I’m a dummy a lot of the time. But I do love this sport!

Before we get started the most important thing I want to point out is that there are different levels of breakthroughs:

• The biggest and hardest breakthrough is getting to the point of regularly being in contention for podiums and even wins
• The most common and easily recognized breakthrough is an athlete who was generally finishing in the middle of the pack who starts regularly finding the top 20 and even flirting with the top 10.
• There are also breakthroughs for athletes who start to regularly score points for the first time. No they aren’t getting to the top of the leaderboards but it’s still a big step forward!
• I also included rookies in this list this year rather than making a separate post. I don’t know why I did it I just wanted to have everybody in the same group. In this case I consider a rookie anybody who is competing in their first full season. If they made a handful of starts on the World Cup previously that doesn’t count (for me) as their true rookie season. Only their first season with regular starts.

These are all breakthroughs worthy of being celebrated. I will mention a handful here that I’ve really enjoyed watching. If there is anybody that you want to shout out please comment below or send me a note on Twitter/Instagram!

Eric Perrot

Age	23
Current Overall Rank	4
Career Best Rank	11 (2023-2024)
Overall Career Races	63
Key Stat	Standing Shooting Percentage: 95.4%

This is the best example we have, so far this year, of an athlete going from being really good to be in contention nearly every week. To be fair this breakthrough really started at the World Championships last season. From that point on he made eight top 10’s in 11 races including two podiums and his first career victory. This season he has four top 10’s in eight starts with two more podiums including his 2nd career victory. The real additional breakthrough that came this season was raising his floor. Even while making that run last season he still had two finishes of 20th. This season his “worst” finish is 13th.

The key for Perrot this year is that he has improved his shooting, particularly his standing shooting, which is helping to provide that solid floor to his finishes. After the first trimester he is hitting a wild 95.4% of his standing shots which is 3rd best on the World Cup so far. That’s up from 86.2% last year. His total hit rate is up to 92.3% an improvement from 84.8% last year.

While Perrot’s ski speed is basically unchanged year over year, by turning himself into a top 10 shooter on par with Sturla Holm Laegreid he’s been able to not just raise his ceiling but also raised his floor. As we head to the 2nd trimester Perrot has thrust himself into the conversation as one of the three co-leaders of the French men’s squad and the top 5 of the Overall. With him being just 23 years old I suggest that we get used to seeing him there!

Vebjørn Sørum

Age	26
Current Overall Rank	6
Career Best Rank	26 (23-24)
Overall Career Races	27
Key Stat	Overall Ski Rank: 3rd

Last year at this time Vebjørn Sørum was in a very tricky position. He was the 7th best Norwegian man on the World Cup. That meant that while he was still one of the top 10-20 men in the world, there just wasn’t a spot for him on the World Cup. Instead he slipped into this liminal in between space where he was still qualified for Mass Starts on the World Cup, but was otherwise racing on the IBU Cup.

You could argue that regardless of anything else, Soerum not being included in the conversation of which Norwegian man will be dropped from World Cup competition due to the cut down to six starters is a breakthrough in and of itself. If you’re a steady and regular starter on this squad that means you’re absolutely solidified as one of the best!

The results speak for themselves. Soerum currently sits as #6 in the World Cup Men’s Overall. After starting out the season finishing 43rd in the Kontiolahti Short Individual he’s finished outside the Flowers just twice, one of this was an 8th place finish which is hardly something to be upset about.

Soerum first made his intentions knows at the preseason races in Sjusjoen. He unleashed a balistic final lap that saw him nearly take the victory away from Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen. We’ve since seen him do the same several times this season. It will not be a surprise at all that Soerum sits near the top of the men’s ski rankings. Right now he is actually third behind just two of the acknowledged fastest men in biathlon: Johannes Thingnes Boe and Sebastian Samuelsson. That’s some good company.

Long story short, if you’re going to ski that fast, as long as you’re not a very poor shooter like Jeremy Finello you’re going to be amongst the best in biathlon. No surprise then that Vebjoern Soerum has not only moved himself to #6 in the men’s Overall but also established himself as, for now anyway, a safe member of the most exclusive team in biathlon, the Norwegian men’s World Cup team.

Suvi Minkkinen

Age	30
Current Overall Rank	6
Career Best Rank	27 (22-23)
Overall Career Races	116
Key Stat	Avg Ski Rank: 23.8

Suvi Minkkinen in 2024-2025 is the very definition of breakthrough. You could make a much shorter version of this article focusing just on her and making 2-3 other athletes this season. It’s one of the most surprising but also one of the most fun breakthrough stories of the last several season. At age 30 with over 100 World Cup races under her belt she found something that she’s never had before which is decent ski speed.

For almost her entire career Suvi Minkkinen has been an excellent shooter. Over the last three seasons she’s his over 90% making her one of very few women to accomplish that feat. However, even with that amazing shooting talent she had just one top 10 and 11 top 20’s in her entire career. Again that was over 100 races.

This season nearly the entire Finnish women’s team has started in the best ski form of their careers. Chief amongst these has been Suvi Minkkinen. No matter what way you look at it her skiing is so much better than it has ever been before. Compared to the median athlete her career best ski performance before this season was 2.1% slower. This season she is 1.3% faster. Compared to the median top 10 biathlete her career best before this season was 7.6% slower. This season she is just 2.6% slower. For reference just three women are faster than the median top 10. Her career best avg course time rank before this season was 44. This season her course time rank is 23.8. That’s just unbelievable improvement in skiing!

In terms of results, through the first eight races of the season she has:

• Currently 6th in the Overall. Career best Overall finish is 27th.
• First career podium
• Four top 10s compared to just one in her entire career before this season
• Seven top 20’s compared to just 11 in her career before this season. The most she ever had in a season before this year was six and she already has seven!
• The three best finishes of her career and the six of the eight best finishes of her career this season.

Suvi Minkkinen currently has 285 points. At the end of last season Yulia Dzhima had 283 points and finished 24th Overall. That means that even if Suvi Minkkinen competes in no races the rest of the season she still might have the best Overall finish of her career just based on what she did in the first trimester. But boy I hope this continues!

Jeanne Richard

Age	22
Current Overall Rank	8
Career Best Rank	39 (23-24)
Overall Career Races	20
Key Stat	Standing Percentage: 87.7%

I struggled with what to do with Jeanne Richard. Is is a breakthrough or is it just her having improvement that we might have expected based on her prior successes at lower levels. Well she’s top 10 in the Overall and I like to celebrate people so lets celebrated Jeanne Richard!

She is just a 22 year old with high pedigree based on her immense race success on the IBU Cup last season. Prior to joining the World Cup she had five top 5’s in eight race. In the 22-23 season as a 20 year old she had six top 20’s in as many races. She made her World Cup debut in Oberhof last season and immediately had two top 10’s. Aftr that though she had four top 20’s in 10 races which is nothing to be upset by but her best in that stretch was 15th. This season she looks like a new athlete.

So far in the 2024-2025 season Richard has seven top 20’s in eight races including the first two top 5’s of her career, both 4th place finishes in Annecy-le Grand Bornand to close the first trimester. A little more context shows that each of those top 20’s is better than 15th. The big improvement for Richard has been in her shooting. So far this season she is hitting 93.1% of her shots including an outrageous 98.5% prone. That means she has exactly 1 prone miss this season. So she is basically starting out every race going perfect through the first half of the shooting. If you do that you’re going to give yourself a lot of chances.

Of course hitting 93.1% overall you know she’s shooting decently well standing as well and at 87.7% she’s clearly not doing herself much damage there either. So the 22 year old is currently the third best shooter on the World Cup which gives her a very high floor on her performance. This explains why she has just one finish all season outside the top 15!

Jeanne Richard has always been a decent but not great shooter. So far this season she’s seen a HUGE improvement in her shooting. If you want to argue that this is just a normal improvement in her performance from a highly talented 22 year old athlete I won’t argue with you. But I personally consider this much improvement in a single aspect to be a breakthrough. She might fall back towards her career averages later in this season but for now she’s a top shooter on the World Cup and running 8th in the Overall!

Ella Halvarsson (R)

Age	25
Current Overall Rank	9
Career Best Rank	N/A
Overall Career Races	10
Key Stat	Skiing vs. Median: -2.3%

This year I decided to put the rookie biathletes in this list as well. By definition the rookies aren’t exactly breakthrough athletes. However, when a rookie comes in and does something spectacular we need to celebrate them too. Our first rookie on this list is Ella Halvarsson who really shook up the biathlon world when she came right out of the gates looking amazing in Kontiolahti.

She looked AMAZING in Kontiolahti. She teamed up with Sebastian Samuelsson to win the Single Mixed Relay. Then in her first solo race of the season all she did was finish 2nd. While she has just one additional top 10 this year, a 4th in the Hochfilzen Pursuit, she has been solid all season with six total top 20’s and hasn’t finished lower than 30th.

Halvarsson, not surprisingly for a Swedish athlete early in the season, came out hot on the skis. She had the 4th best course time in the magical 2nd place Short Individual. However she’s been top 11 in skiing in four of the eight races and has an average course time rank of 14.8 For comparison, her average course time rank on the World Cup this season is better than her best average course time rank for any season she ran on the IBU Cup. For the season she is running 2.3% faster than the median biathlete this season. So far that ranks her 17th overall in skiing. Her best ever on the IBU Cup was just 1.8% faster than the median biathlete. By this measure you really can make the argument that she’s having a breakthrough!

We’ll see what she’s able to accomplish for the rest of the season but so far she’s had a magnificent rookie season!

Selina Grotian

Age	20
Current Overall Rank	10
Career Best Rank	29 (23-24)
Overall Career Races	25
Key Stat	Wins: 1

Being one of the talented young Germans Selina Grotian is inevitably burdened by comparisons to Neuner and Dahlmeier. Prior to this season she had accomplished her first top 10 of her career in the Individual at last season’s Nove Mesto World Championships. Following that breakthrough finish she actually finished the season with five consecutive top 20’s which was easily her most consistent success for the then 19 year old.

Now at the ripe old age of 20, Selina Grotian has taken yet another step. In this case she qualifies as a “breakthrough” because in the first eight races of the season she has quadrupled her career top 5 total including a magnificent first win as she passed her teammate and Yellow bib Franziska Preuss to win the Annecy-le Grand Bornand Mass Start.

Grotian is just a little bit better at everything this season. Her skiing is a bit faster as she has moved from 1.3% faster than the median biathlete to 2.5% faster which comes along with her avg ski rank improving from 24.9 to 16.6. Her shooting is a touch more accurate as she’s hitting 83.6% this season compared to 81.4% last year. She’s also improved her average shooting time from 28 to 26.7 seconds.

It’s not a massive statistical breakthrough, but Grotian is getting herself into the top 5 on a more regular basis and when that comes along with her first career win, it certainly qualifies!

Oceane Michelon (R)

Age	22
Current Overall Rank	12
Career Best Rank	N/A
Overall Career Races	12
Key Stat	Avg Ski Rank: 7.3

Our second rookie on the list is Oceane Michelon. Just like with Halvarsson, Michelon is a rookie so it’s not really a breakthrough as much as a tremendous step up. However, once again it’s worth celebrating.

She ran four races last season with each of her finishes coming between 28 and 40. This season she has run all 8 possible races and has six top 20s and three top 10’s including a career best 7th in the Short Individual in Kontiolahti. In total she finds herself in 12th in the Overall rankings at the end of the first trimester.

The key to Michelon’s success this season is her skiing. Michelon, at just 22 years old, appears to be yet another very fast French woman. This season her average course time rank is 7.3 which is good enough for 4th best on the World Cup. She is running 3.39% faster than the median woman on the World Cup. That’s not just fast for being 22, that’s just flat out fast. At this stage she is running faster than Franziska Preuss, Lou Jeanmonnot, Sophie Chauveau, and Julia Simon.

At this point it seems more likely than not that she’s going to reach the Flower Ceremony this season if not the podium!

Martin Uldal (R)

Age	23
Current Overall Rank	9
Career Best Rank	N/A
Overall Career Races	7
Key Stat	Top 5 Percentage: 60%

Yet another rookie on the list is Martin Uldal. Uldal did something exceptionally difficult this season. He is a Norwegian man who came up from the IBU Cup to the World Cup midseason and appears to be locked in to World Cup team now. The Norwegian men were able to start the season with seven starters on the World Cup thanks to Mats Oeverby’s IBU Cup Overall win last year. So the Norwegian men already had to drop one man from the World Cup roster. That Uldal was able to force himself up (with a little help from Johannes Dale-Skjevdal’s back problem) is actually quite remarkable.

Martin Uldal started the year on the IBU Cup with five podiums and two wins in his six starts. After that he moved up to the World Cup for the Hochfilzen World Cup and finished 7th and 5th. Then in Annecy-le Grand Bornand, his third start of the season and 5th World Cup start ever, he beat Johannes Thingnes Boe by 1.7 seconds for his first career victory.

This season he has run five races. He has finished top 5 three times and top 10 four times. That’s 60% of his races in the top 5. He missed all three races in Kontiolahti and he still is up to 9th in the Men’s Overall. He’s right now running 6th fastest on the World Cup at 3.73% faster than the median biathlete and an average course time rank of 10.6. His shooting speeds are also blinding fast averaging 24.1 seconds per shoot including some truly insane standing shooting times.

Look, Martin Uldal fought his way to the World Cup on the Norwegian men’s team and has secured his position. That’s all you need to know!

Danilo Riethmueller

Age	25
Current Overall Rank	14
Career Best Rank	37 (23-24)
Overall Career Races	14
Key Stat	Podium: 1

Danilo Riethmueller provides the German men with something they are a little desperate for at the moment, hope for the future. Riethmueller made his World Cup debut last season in Antholz for one weekend and then returned for Soldier Hollow and Canmore. Last year he showed some promise with a 7th in the Short Individual in Antholz and 9th in the Canmore Sprint. This season, while still lacking some consistency, he has proven once again to have a high ceiling with three top 10’s: 4th in the Kontiolahti Mass Start, 7th in the Annecy Pursuit, and the first podium of his career, 2nd in the Annecy Mass Start. He also gets to wear the Mass Start red bib when the Mass Start returns in Antholz.

Riethmueller is running a bit faster this season. Last year he was 1.8% faster than median and this year he’s up to 3.0% faster than median. This has led to his average course time rank moving from 20.7 to 13.7. He’s also dramatically improved his shooting time from a pedestrian 33.7 second after shoot to 29.2 this season. His shooting accuracy has remained steady.

Riethmueller and Justus Strelow, while not super young at 25 and 28, at least show some new blood for German biathlon fans to turn to as the older generation is phasing out. Both of them, Strelow this season and Riethmueller this season, are showing that they can reach the top 10. Hopefully we can see both of them in the top 10 several more times this season, especailly in Oberhof and Ruhpolding!

Campbell Wright

Age	22
Current Overall Rank	16
Career Best Rank	31
Overall Career Races	53
Key Stat	Avg finish: 16.8

Campbell Wright’s breakthrough happened in the third trimester of last season. I’m still going to celebrate it, though, because it’s pretty cool to see the step up that he made!

Since the start of Ruhpolding last season, roughly halfway through last year, he has run 21 races. Over that stretch he has 17 top 20’s. Just this season he has six top 20’s in eight races. His average finish just continues to rise. Two years ago it was 45.1. Last year it was 30.5. This year it’s up to 16.8. That lands him currently at 16th in the Overall. His average finish of 16.8 ranks 13th on the World Cup and puts him just behind Tommaso Giacomel and just ahead of Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen. That’s pretty good company!

Campbell Wright has done this with improvement pretty much everywhere. He’s skiing faster than he ever has in his career with his avg ski rank of 24.6 better than ever. He’s hitting 86.9% which represents an improvement over last season’s career best 84.3%. The only thing he’s not doing better is shooting speed which is basically stable at 27 seconds over the last three seasons.

The biggest thing is just what we noted above though, Wright, since the middle of the 2nd trimester of the 2023-2024 season, is just finding the top 20 on a very regular basis now. Campbell Wright at the old old age of 22 is on pace for the best finish in the Overall by a US biathlon man since Lowell Bailey’s 8th place Overall in 2016-2017.

Thierry Langer

Age	33
Current Overall Rank	22
Career Best Rank	56 (2023-2024)
Overall Career Races	102
Key Stat	Total Hit Rate: 90%

Thierry Langer’s success to start this season is one of those things I never would have predicted. He’s 33 years old and has run 102 career races across 13 seasons including running full time on the World Cup since the 2019-2020 season, and he’s having BY FAR the best season of his career.

Before this season Langer had a grand total of 0 top 10’s, one top 20, and nine top 30’s. This season Langer has:

• A career best of 9th which is his first top 10
• Five top 20s (remember he had just one before this season)
• Seven top 30’s compared to just nine in his entire career before this season.

Just like Suvi Minkkinen, this is the very definition of a breakthrough season. Minkkinen at least had the incredible shooting history to fall back on. Not surprisingly there just isn’t a history from Langer that could have led you to predict this. Here’s what he’s done this year compared to his prior career:

• Avg course time of 28.9. Best in his career before this season was 44.6 in the 22-23 season.
• Total hit rate 90% with 90.8% prone and 89.2% standing. Best full season hit rate before this year was 81.7% in the 21-22 season during which he hit 81.1% prone and 82.2% standing.

Thierry Langer current sits at 22 in the Overall. With 157 total points right now he has accumulated the same amount of points as Antonin Guigonnat had last season (155) when he finished 36th in the Overall. Thierry Langer’s career best is 56 which he accomplished last season with 41 points. It’s safe to say that Thierry Langer is on track for a major career year.

Sara Andersson

Age	21
Current Overall Rank	17
Career Best Rank	49 (23-24)
Overall Career Races	20
Key Stat	Skiing vs. Median: -1.6%

After making her World Cup debut in 2022-2023 and then running 11 of 21 World Cup races last season, Sara Andersson has run each of the eight races this year. So she’s not quite a rookie but she is certainly a very young both by age and in her career.

Sara Andersson has, for the last several years, been an intriguing young member of the Swedish developmental women’s team. Now she has graduated to intriguing young woman of the Swedish World Cup team! This season she has four top 20’s and her first career top 10, a 7th in the Kontiolahti Sprint, and currently ranks 17th in the Overall.

Dating back to the 2021-2022 season she’s shown her potential on the skis. That season on the IBU Cup she ranked 7th in skiing as an 18 year old. While she wasn’t quite as spectacular the last two years, she has still been intriguing. This year she’s really taken a step in that regard. She’s moved from 1.5% slower than the median biathlete in her World Cup action last season, up to 1.6% faster than median. Her avg course time rank has moved from 48.5 to 22.1.

While it would be too much to expect her to burst into the top 10 of the Overall this season, it does look likely that she’s going to continue to score top 20’s and maybe the occasional top 10 this season.

Natalia Sidorowicz

Age	26
Current Overall Rank	20
Career Best Rank	50 (23-24)
Overall Career Races	43
Key Stat	Top 20’s: 3

Natalia Sidorowicz is a lot like Campbell Wright. We’ve seen her do what she is doing this season just last year. However, the difference is that she’s just doing it more consistently this season and she’s raised her ceiling. Last year, for example, she had seven top 30’s and three top 20’s. She’s already matched those numbers this season in just eight races compared to 20 races she ran last season. She also set a new career best of 4th in the Kontiolahti Short Individual when she finished 12 seconds off the podium. She has three of her four best career finishes this season as well.

She’s overall just a little bit better:

• She’s skiing right around the median biathlete at 0.2% slower than median. That’s an improvement from 1.3% slower than median in the 23-24 season. This has bumped her average course time rank from 46.3 to 34.8.
• Shooting is actually down a little bit at 83.8% total hit rate compared to 86.1% and 86.3% each of the last two seasons.
• Shooting time is improved by about 1 second on average.

The end result is she currently sits 20th in the women’s Overall. Last season was her career year to date when she finished 50th. She’s already matched her totals for top 30’s and top 20’s from last season, and nearly matched her top 40’s. It’s not a stretch to see her finishing the season top 25 Overall.

Hannah Auchentaller

Age	23
Current Overall Rank	26
Career Best Rank	60
Overall Career Races	33
Key Stat	Prone Percentage: 96.4%

At the beginning of the season I speculated which woman would be able to separate themselves from the large number of talented young Italians and join Dorothea Wierer and Lisa Vittozzi as leaders of the squad. Well so far nobody has quite done that, but Hannah Auchentaller, currently sitting at 26th in the Overall has made the biggest leap. Over the last two seasons the 23 year old Auchentaller has raced 13 times and 12 times each as she’s split time between the World Cup and the IBU Cup. This year she started on the World Cup and shows no signs of going backward as she not only raced every Individual, Sprint, and Pursuit, but also qualified for the Annecy-le Grand Bornand Mass Start.

Already in just seven races she has matched her career total of top 20’s (3 this season) and is one off of her career total of top 30’s (6 this season vs 7 the last two years combined). Clearly something changed for her to make this improvement, so where did it come from? Well she is skiing a little bit faster. She’s gone from 1.8% slower than median up to 0.2% faster than the median biathlete. In more practical terms that an average course time rank moving from 43.9 to 35.3. Her average shooting time is 0.4 seconds faster but still not great as she averages 30.9 seconds per shoot. However the big change is in her shooting accuracy. Her total hit rate is up to 91.8% including a tremendous 96.4% prone and 87.3% standing. Not surprisingly each of these are career bests by a wide margin.

That incredible shooting accuracy is responsible for raising the floor of her performance. The next step for her will be the skiing coming along. Once she can get just a little bit faster we’re going to see her not only regularly in the top 20 as she is nearly 1/2 of the time so far this season, but we’ll see her fighting for the top 10. While we might not see that this year, and I still think that later this season we might see a surge, I think she’s on an excellent trajectory for next season and the 2026 Olympics.

Venla Lehtonen

Age	29
Current Overall Rank	31
Career Best Rank	87
Overall Career Races	53
Key Stat	Skiing vs. Median: -0.6%

Just like her teammate Suvi Minkkinen, Venla Lehtonen is a perfect example of a true breakthrough. Lehtonen, at 29 years old, entered this season having raced at least on the IBU Cup since the 2016-2017 season including 47 races on the World Cup. Before this season she had a career best finish of 18 on the IBU Cup and 36 on the Word Cup. Her top career Overall finishes were 88th on the IBU Cup and 87th on the World Cup.

This season she has the two best finishes of her career, regardless of level, with a 13th in the Annecy-le Grand Bornand Sprint followed by 7th in the Pursuit. She also qualified for the first Mass Start of her career where she finished 22nd. Altogether she sits in 31st in the Overall and is secured of the best Overall finish of her career regardless of what happens the rest of the season.

The first hints that she had the makeup for a good season was in the very first relay of the season. She was on the 2nd leg of the women’s relay. Last year in the relays she was a part of she was regularly running well back of the fastest women on the leg that she happened to be on. For example in Oberhof last season she was 11th fastest on leg 2 and was 1:40 back of Justine Braisaz-Bouchet in course time and in the Nove Mesto Relay, again on leg 2, she was 10th fastest and ran 1:25 seconds slower in course time. In the Kontiolahti relay she was once again in leg 2, and once again Justine Braisaz-Bouchet was fastest. This year, though, Venla Lehtonen was 7th fastest and just 37.9 seconds slower than JBB.

This ski speed improvement has been seen again and again this season. So far she is running 0.6% faster than the median biathlete. That’s an improvement over last season, her career fastest season when she ran 1.7% slower than median. In practical terms her avg ski rank has improved from 56 to 33.3. If Lehtonen can hit her shots, like she did in Annecy, then she has a great chance at collecting a few more top 30’s this season and really setting a very high career best season!

Maya Cloetens (R)

Age	22
Current Overall Rank	28
Career Best Rank	84 (22-23)
Overall Career Races	19
Key Stat	Prone Misses: 1

On the Penalty Loop Podcast we were fortunate enough to get to interview Lotte Lie two seasons ago. During that interview she referenced a young woman on the Belgian team that she was really excited about. Now in the first trimester of the 2024-2025 season we’re starting to see what had Lotte Lie so excited. Maya Cloetens is now 22 years old and after running five World Cup races in 2022-2023 and seven races last season, she is a full time member of the World Cup squad.

In her seven races this season Maya Cloetens has three top 20’s, with a new personal best of 12th in the Hochfilzen Pursuit, and has been outside the top 30 just once. She is currently 28th in the Overall. The best ever finish for Lotte Lie, which is the best ever finish for a Belgian woman to date, is 28th. Lotte Lie for her credit is currently in 19th in the Overall at the end of the first trimester. So, without Lotte Lie’s current season, Maya Cloetens is having the best season in the history of Belgium women’s biathlon.

She’s really doing well across the board, but I specifically wanted to highlight her shooting. Cloetens is currently hitting at a 92.7% clip. It’s her prone shooting that is outrageous though. Through seven races she has hit 54 of her 55 prone shots good for 98.2%. So basically she is getting through the first half of the race without a penalty loop every season. That makes life a lot easier! She has a very good chance at some day having the best season in Belgium women’s biathlon history…and sooner rather than later!

Vitezslav Hornig

Age	25
Current Overall Rank	28
Career Best Rank	92
Overall Career Races	29
Key Stat	Avg Ski Rank: 24.4

Vitezslav Hornig is having one of the most surprising ski improvements that I can remember in recent history. Prior to this season his best avg course time rank on the IBU Cup (not the World Cup!) was 24.6 in the 2022-2023 season. His best avg course time rank on the World Cup was just 65.6 which he accomplished last season. This year, with the new coaching staff seemingly hitting all the right notes for him, his average course time rank is 24.4. That’s even better than his best IBU Cup season!

This season his worst course time rank was 35th in the Annecy-le Grand Bornand Pursuit. Again, that was his *worst*. Prior to this season the BEST course time rank of his career was 45th. So his worst course time rank this season is 10 positions better than the best in his career was before this season.

When comparing himself to the median biathlete on the IBU Cup, his best season to date was again 2022-2023 when he was 1.8% faster than median. On the World Cup it was last year when he was 3.6% slower than median. This season he is running 1.7% faster on the World Cup. That’s just wild!

No surprise at all this is having a tremendous effect on his results. So far this year in seven races he has five top 30’s and his first career top 20, a personal best of 15th in the Kontiolahti Mass Start. He has the six best finishes of his entire career already this year. He currently sits 28th in the Overall with 93 points. Before this season he had scored a grand total of 1 point in his entire career. This is a massive improvement for Hornig and I’m really curious where his season goes from here!

Blagoy Todev

Age	23
Current Overall Rank	39
Career Best Rank	69 (23-24)
Overall Career Races	42
Key Stat	Skiing vs. Median: 0.6%

As we get down to the bottom of the list we see some athletes who are not exactly having massive breakthroughs. These are the athletes in the category of starting to regularly score points. Blagoy Todev had a total of four top 40s in his 34 career races before this season. This season he has three top 40s alone in six races. In his prior races he had scored 22 total points. This season he has 47 points.

For the 23 year old Todev the biggest improvement was made in his skiing. His average ski rank is up from a career best 73.8 last season to 50.2 this season. So he’s not exactly blazing but that’s still a large improvement. Compared to the median biathlete he’s gone from 3.8% slower to 0.6% slower. At just 23 years old that’s a pretty good improvement! Meanwhile he’s hitting an excellent 91.1% up from a career best 88.9% in 2022-2023.

Blagoy Todev is not (yet) a threat to be breaking into the top 20 on a regular basis. However when you’re hitting over 90% that’s a pretty high floor. Just a small further improvement skiing will bring him more regularly to the top 20 level. I’m sure we’ll see that in the next couple of seasons!

Simon Kaiser (R)

Age	25
Current Overall Rank	48
Career Best Rank	N/A
Overall Career Races	5
Key Stat	Avg Ski Rank: 19

Simon Kaiser is worth mentioning here because of the full body of work this season on the IBU Cup and the World Cup. Kaiser started out the season on the IBU Cup where he raced in Idre Fjall and Geilo. In those six races he was in the top 10 every race including four top 5’s. Over that period he was the best non-Norwegian man on the IBU Cup which is certainly worth applauding. After that he got the call up to the World Cup where he made his debut in Hochfilzen. He raced four times on the World Cup finishing 38, 25, 39, and 47.

Looking strictly at his IBU Cup racing, he had previously raced 50 times on the World Cup and had a total of six top 5’s. Again, this season he had three top 5’s in six races. He also had a podium, the fourth of his career.

Kaiser has come right into the World Cup and has been skiing very well. His average ski rank has been 19 with course time ranks of 20, 11, 20, and 25. That’s very reassuring. The difference form the IBU Cup to the World Cup is that while he was racing on the IBU Cup this season he was hitting 86.7%. So far on the World Cup he is hitting 76.7%. That 86.7% on the IBU Cup is well above his career norms. The last two seasons on the IBU Cup he hit 72.3% and 73.1%.

It will be interesting to see how Kaiser performs the rest of the season. The skiing is good enough for him to have some good results. Was the IBU Cup shooting from this season fool’s gold? Or was it a sign of what he has still to come? I guess we’ll see!

Jan Gunka

Age	22
Current Overall Rank	53
Career Best Rank	87 (23-24)
Overall Career Races	30
Key Stat	Top 40’s: 2

Finally we come to Jan Gunka. The 22 year old Polish man has two top 40’s this season including his first career top 30, a career best 29th in the Hochfilzen Sprint. Prior to this season he had two top 40’s over 25 career races. It’s not a massive breakthrough but getting into the points about one time per weekend is definitely worth noting!

Gunka has improved his average course time rank from 55.7 to 47.6. Meanwhile his shooting percentage is up from last season’s career best 76.8% to 82.9% this year.

The young man is just 22 years old. He along with Konrad Badacz, who is starting to have some better World Cup finishes, and 17 year old Grzegorz Galica who is impressing on the Junior Cup represent an intriguing future for the Polish men’s team!