Oberhof 2024-2025 Preview

Dates: January 1, 2024 – January 7, 2024

Schedule:
– Thursday January 9: Women’s Sprint
– Friday January 10: Men’s Sprint
– Saturday January 11: Women’s Pursuit + Men’s Pursuit
– Sunday January 12: Single Mixed Relay (M+W) + Mixed Relay (M+W)

Course Overview:

Above you’ll see the entire complex with all of the courses overlaid on each other. Below I’m going to put each course and the corresponding race. You’ll note that several of these races use the same courses. I struggled to decide if I should just put the 3 individual course or if I should lay them out by race like I have in the past. I’m opted to put repeat images and lay them out by race like I have in the past and they’ll all be identified when you click on the images. They are listed in chronological order so the top left corner is the Men’s Sprint followed by Women’s Sprint followed by Men’s Pursuit etc.

– Stadium altitude: 814 meters
– Maximum altitude on course: 844 meters
– Lowest altitude on course: 787 meters
– Stadium capacity: 16,500 spectators

Weather:

– Average Temperature for mid December: High 0C and Low -4C.
– In general cloudier with precipitation on about 1/2 of days in January
– Winds can be variable and quite strong at times

The crew at Oberhof is able to work wonders and make the course usable even in much worse conditions that what is expected this year. And boy do they have experience with it. Just look at the weather from last year during the World Championships. We had snow. We had fog. We had sun and warmth and mashed potatoes snow. And did I mention we had fog and rain? We even almost lost a whole relay (or rather would have awarded medals for the relay run in Oestersund) due to wind.

The weather this year actually is looking pretty darn good. There was just some snow over the weekend in Oberhof and the course was looking very pretty. This week its supposed to continue right around or just under freezing with a little more snow…right up until Thursday. On Thursday the weather is supposed to get a little bit warmer with rain. However, after a very brief warm front the cold weather is supposed to come in right around when the races start. The rain is supposed to change to snow and the wind is supposed to pick up.

The women’s sprint could be pretty tricky depending on when the rain to snow transition happens. If it happens before the race starts then there will be heavy wet snow potentially accumulating on the course. If it happens mid race that could make getting the wax incredibly difficult. The wax techs will need to try to get the timing of the rain/snow transition just right especially as the top athletes are now starting in the 3rd grouping.

The rest of the week the weather looks absolutely perfect. A couple of degrees below freezing with a little snow and the wind calming throughout the week. It sounds terrific and I absolutely cannot wait!

News and Notes:

1.Norwegian men: After being able to start seven men for the first two weeks of the season the Norwegian men had to cut down to six starters for the Sprint in Annecy-le Grand Bornand. They chose to start Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen and rest Tarjei Boe for the Sprint/Pursuit. Of course Tarjei Boe returned for the Mass Start and won. This week Tarjei Boe is racing and Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen will be sitting out. He should have enough points to qualify for the Mass Start which would be his next opportunity to run on the World Cup. That looks like it could be his last stand for this season. If he isn’t able to put out a huge effort like Tarjei Boe was able to do in Annecy, then he might be off the World Cup for the rest of the season barring injury/illness/collapse in form by one of the other men.

2.French women: After an absolutely stellar start to the season on the IBU Cup, Paula Botet gets the call up to the World Cup for Oberhof. After showing immense potential in the lead up to the 2022 Winter Olympics, Botet had a chronic lower leg inflammation that significantly reduced her capacity for training and high level performance. Midway through last season she finally found a way around that issue. She entered this season with her best form and feeling since 2022. She has finished top 4 in seven of the eight races so far this season including two wins and six podiums. Unfortunately for one to go up one has to go down, and even with a podium in Hochfilzen, Sophie Chauveau hasn’t quite had the same performance this season. Hopefully she finds herself on the IBU Cup.

3.Lisa Vittozzi – On the eve of the Oberhof races we received a sad update from Lisa Vittozzi and the FISI. Even after director Klaus Höllrigl had expressed optimism just days ago that Vittozzi would be on the starting line in Ruhpolding, the news today is that she will not race at all this season. This all stems from a back injury suffered in a fall in the final weeks of preseason training. No word on exactly what the injury was. However, regardless of the exact nature of the injury, Vittozzi was rehabbing and doing some training at home with her coach. According to her announcement as they tried to increase the intensity her back pain increased as well. She acknowledged that her overarching goal of this period of her career is the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics and for her to have the best chance at winning Olympic medals on home snow she will end her season early. It’s a sad but completely understandable decision. It’s made especially difficult not just because she’s the defending Overall Champ but because she looked so good this summer. It felt like she was on the verge of a magnificent season. Hopefully by focusing completely on the back and not worrying about this season she can get back to 100% health and be amazing next season!

4.Health updates:
– Good news first…Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold looks to be ready to return this week! She missed Hochfilzen and Annecy-le Grand Bornand after having difficulties with her supraventricular tachycardia. However, after having an ablation it sounds like she’s back and ready to go.
– Marketa Davidova is out again this week after missing Annecy with a back injury. No news on when she might be able to return at this time.

Recent History

Men’s Top 5 Finishers Last 5 Competitions (Includes 2 weeks in 2020-2021 and World Championships in 2022-2023)
– Does not include retired or ineligible athletes

Athlete	Finishes
Sturla Holm Lægreid	🥇🥈🥈🥈🥈🥈🥉🥉🥉,4,4
Johannes Thingnes Bø	🥇🥇🥇🥇🥇🥉,4,5
Tarjei Bø	🥇🥈🥈🥉🥉,4,4
Sebastian Samuelsson	🥇🥈🥉🥉
Lukas Hofer	4,4,5
Quentin Fillon Maillet	🥇,4
Martin Ponsiluoma	🥈
Emilien Jacquelin	🥈
Felix Leitner	🥈
Johannes Kuehn	4
Fabien Claude	4
Jakov Fak	5
Dmytro Pidruchnyi	5
Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen	5
Andrejs Rastorgujevs	5
Roman Rees	5
Simon Eder	5

Women’s Top 5 Finishers Last 5 Competitions (Includes 2 weeks in 2020-2021 and World Championships in 2022-2023)
– Does not include retired or ineligible athletes

Athlete	Finishes
Julia Simon	🥇🥇🥇🥈🥉,4,4,5
Hanna Oeberg	🥇🥇🥈🥈🥈🥉
Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold	🥈🥉,4,4,5
Justine Braisaz-Bouchet	🥇🥈,4
Lisa Theresa Hauser	🥉🥉🥉
Franziska Preuss	🥈🥈
Lisa Vittozzi	🥉,5
Dorothea Wierer	🥈
Sophie Chauveau	🥉
Anna Magnusson	4
Elvira Oeberg	4
Samuela Comola	4
Lou Jeanmonnot	5
Sophia Schneider	5
Marketa Davidova	5
Janina Hettich-Walz (maternity leave)	5

Recent Memorable Moments/Performances

Oberhof holds an interesting place in my memory. It is one of the most famous biathlon arenas and always has great fans. However, other than that I just don’t have many memories of Oberhof. It’s just a hole in my memory. I’ll have to revisit some races in my spare time this week!

2023 JT Bø Worlds: I think it’s fair to lump these all together as one. In a season that was the greatest season we have ever seen from any male biathlete ever the Oberhof Worlds stood out as the peak of his year. He was absolutely dominant winning gold in the Sprint, Pursuit, and the Indiviual with a bronze in the Mass Start. The Individual was particularly awe inspiring as he was just a machine on the course. In sunny and warm conditions he absolutely chewed up the track. He ended up going 18/20 while Sturla Holm Lægreid went 19/20. However JT Bø won the race by 1:10. Yes, Bø could have had two more misses than Lægreid and still won. Remember Lægreid was an incredible 2nd Overall last season. When you consider an Individual is a 1 minute penalty per miss that’s just mind blowing stuff. He was 1:46 faster than Jeremy Finello who was 2nd fastest on the day. There were 12 men within 1:46 of Jeremy Finello including Lægreid. Oh yeah, and we also saw the celebration of the season pictured above.

22-23 Hanna Öberg Worlds: I don’t want to forget to mention that Hanna Öberg had a pretty special World Championships last season too. She scored silver in the Sprint and gold in the Individual and the Mass Start. The Mass Start gold in particular was special Having been known as a an athlete who can struggle with the last shooting she came into the last shooting 16 seconds back of Julia Simon who was on the way to winning the Overall Globe. Öberg went 5/5 in 21.5 seconds and skied off the range with a 4.5 second lead on Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold. After some tense moments on the course Öberg was able to hold off Tandrevold and skate home for another gold. After having a little bit of a slow start to the season it was an absolutely top notch moment for her.

2023 Worlds Women’s Mass Start: See how I said the 2023 Worlds are plastered in my memory? Okay this will be the last thing I promise. Just take a look at the top 15 at the Mass Start for Worlds. I love it.

Knotten in 6th
Lunder in 7th
Comola 10th
Haecki-Gross 11th
Kebinger 12th
Jeanmonnot 15th

It was a great moment for both some top career races for Comola and Lunder and a sign of things to come from Knotten, Haecki-Gross, and Jeanmonnot. A nice encapsulation of this era of women’s biathlon.

2022 Single Mixed Relay: Kind of an odd one to put in here but Lotte Lie and Florent laude managed a 6th place finish to put Belgium in the flowers! I will never forget Lotte Lie absolutely pulling as hard as she could down the stretch to keep Belgium in the top 6 and the pure joy and exahustion when she crossed the finish line. Really a fun race!

2021 Oberhof Week 1 Pursuit: JT Bø, as will surprise nobody, won the Sprint on this weekend with a solid 10 seconds over his older brother Tarjei. Lægreid finished 3rd 21 seconds further back with Hofer 4th and Dale-Skjvedal 5th all within 35 seconds. That’s some top talent but the money was definitely on JT Bø completing the sweep. At the very least you would expect that he would be able to finish on the podium. I mean this is JT Bø we are talking about, and he was wearing Yellow on the way to a (very narrow) Overall Globe over Sturla Holm Lægreid. But he didn’t win or finish on the podium. He wasn’t even top 5. He finished 8th with seven, yes seven, penalty loops. He missed 1 each on the prone shootings. Then on the first standing shooting he went 1/5. Really bizarro world. And we may never see anything quite like that again.

2020 Martin Fourcade: Over the last stretch of dominance by Martin Fourcade, he pulled off the double win in the Sprint and Mass Start for the first two victories of four straight wins on German snow. He was taking advantage of JT Bø’s paternity leave but he still went out and won the races. After leaving Ruhpolding he had just two more wins in his career: The World Championships Individual in Antholz and the season ending Pursuit.

Random Notes:
– Sturla Holm Lægreid has run 12 races in Oberhof. He’s finished outside the top 4 just once when he finished 12th. This is kind of an odd stat but it’s his best top 4 percentage of any course.

– Julia Simon has nine straight top 10’s in Oberhof with seven being top 5’s. She has had very good success here. That includes five podiums and three wins one of which was last season when she went from 10th to first in the Pursuit.

– Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold with just one podium and three top 5’s in 17 races in Oberhof not to mention having to abandon the Sprint race in Oberhof in 2021. Coming off of the heart related tie away from the World Cup on a difficult course I’m not sure that this is going to be a massive return for her.

– Hoping for a return to form for QFM? History doesn’t suggest it. Just one podium and two top 5’s in 22 career races in Oberhof.