Women’s Overall Big Picture

As the first trimester comes to a close it is hard to look at the women’s Overall picture and not think about “What if?” It’s not that we don’t have a worthy Overall leader. It’s not like the top 3 in the Overall can’t compete for the Globe. It’s just that this season has seen some of the big names and contenders in biathlon taken down by injury or illness or just poor form.

Lisa Vittozzi, the reigning Overall Champion has yet to run a single race due to a back injury suffered in training just prior to the season. Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold raced in two relays along with the Short Individual and the Sprint in Kontiolahti before putting a hold on her season due to persistent but non threatening heart problems. Julia Simon came into the season not quite on her top form which saw her have some struggles early in the season that set her Overall contention back a step. And Justine Braisaz-Bouchet has just not been able to find her accuracy again as she’s hitting 8% worse than last season and has tumbled back to her career norm in the mid 70’s. That’s four of the top five from last season’s final Overall rankings.

Taking advantage of this is Franziska Preuß who, healthy and strong for the first trimester, has built a significant advantage of nearly 200 points in the Overall. Seeing her being the consistent force in women’s biathlon to start this season has been a nearly out of body experience. It’s certainly one of the biggest surprises to me this season. It seems like at every step she’s been tripped up by a disease or a poorly timed injury. This season she’s just chugging along, consistently finding podiums and building a lead.

However, as we turn to 2024, this Overall race is far from over! It’s only eight races in and there are 13 more to go!

Lou Jeanmonnot and Elvira Öberg can both win races in bunches and Julia Simon has been getting stronger and stronger. And Franziska Preuß has never been known as the picture of perfect health. The best argument for one of these women making a comeback is actually Lou Jeanmonnot just last season. At this stage of the 2023-2024 season she was in 10th place a total of 149 points off the lead and 108 points behind Lisa Vittozzi. She went on a tear and ended the season in 2nd place just 23 points off the lead. That’s nearly a miraculous comeback. If she did it once can she do it again?

So, who is going to take this Overall Globe in Oslo? While we know it won’t be Vittozzi or Tandrevold, let’s take a look at the top 10 and separate out the true contenders.

Athlete	Current Score
Franziska Preuß	565
Elvira Öberg	371 (-194)
Lou Jeanmonnot	352 (-213)
Julia Simon	315 (-250)
Vanessa Voigt	307 (-258)
Suvi Minkkinen	285 (-280)
Justine Braisaz-Bouchet	268 (-297)
Jeanne Richard	260 (-305)
Ella Halvarsson	250 (-315)
Selina Grotian	235 (-330)

For the purposes of this exercise I cut down the “real contenders” list to the women who I believe would have the best chance of winning the Overall should everything go right for them the rest of the way. We’re going to pretend that everybody has good health the rest of the way including no injuries or illness as that has already affected the Overall race far too much!!

We’re really going to focus on the top five women on this list but I’m going to give a few notes on the women in slots 6-10. However, I don’t think they are “realistic” options or threats to win the Overall at this point. Then we’ll hit the top 5 women who I believe have a real chance, even if that chance is very small.

Selina Grotian – Selina Grotian is having a great year. Sometimes it’s hard to remember she is still only 20 years old! Just 20! That’s so young! She already has her first career victory in difficult conditions in Annecy-le Grand Bornand where a steady rain turned into a heavy wet snowfall. Even in that she went 19/20 and passed her teammate and Overall #1 to grab her first win! That was her third top 5 already this season. That’s a very strong start to the season and has landed her in the top 10! The difficult thing for her is that when she hasn’t finished in the top 5 she’s finished 50, 48, 23, and 15. That’s just nowhere near consistent enough to challenge for the Overall especially starting off 330 points back. It’s a great season and hopefully she hangs on to the top 10 but she’s not making a run for the big Globe this year.

Ella Halvarsson – One of the big stories of the week in Kontiolahti, Ella Halvarsson has maintained her position in the top 10 of the Overall at the end of the first trimester. If not for another woman a bit higher on this list, Halvarsson’s position in the top 10 would be the most surprising inclusion on this list. Halvarsson came right out of the gates and teamed with Sebastian Samuelsson to win the Single Mixed Relay on the opening day of competition. She then had a stunning 2nd place in the Short Individual as she hit 19/20 and was the 4th fastest woman on the course. It was a shocking finish and it had us all buzzing! Since then she’s still been really good…just not quite good enough to continue to challenge. She did have a great Hochfilzen Pursuit where she came back from 16th to 4th, but she just started from too far behind. Other than that she has just three finishes between 15th and 19th and the rest outside the top 20. Just not enough to preserve a spot this high I. The standings much less make a run at the Overall. I am still loving this season from her! She’s skiing well and hitting 88.5% and just 25 years old. I think she’s got a great career ahead of her. She may not finish top 10 this season but I think she has at least a couple of top 10 seasons still to come in her career and maybe higher!

Jeanne Richard – While Ella Halvarsson was one of the big stories of Kontiolahti, Jeanne Richard was one of the big stories out of Annecy-le Grand Bornand. Unfortunately part of that was because she lost her first career podium but a ski top as she just wasn’t aware of Paulina Batovska Fialkova making a wild charge to the finish. But also because she had back to back 4th place finishes which both mark the best finishes of her career. Last season the now 22 year old started out with some seriously good racing on the IBU Cup before making her World Cup debut in Oberhof with an 8th and a 9th. She didn’t exactly struggle the rest of the way but she just didn’t quite recapture the magic. This season she is skiing just as well with a average course time rank of 18 putting her at 19th fastest on the World Cup, but she more importantly has had a huge shooting improvement as she is now hitting at a 93.1% clip. The result is seven top 20’s in eight races. So why then does she have a 0% chance at challenging? Out of those seven top 20’s just two are top 10’s, the two 4th place finishes in Annecy. The ski speed just isn’t quite there yet to make the difference. For comparison Richard is 2.1% faster than the medical biathlete while 2.6% faster and that, plus a few percentage points of shooting makes all the difference. Not to worry, Jeanne Richard is just 22 and I feel her peak potential is something like Marte Olsbu Røiseland and I feel like that turned out pretty well!

Justine Braisaz-Bouchet – In Annecy, Justine Braisaz-Bouchet showed us she still has the juice and can pull off the win. That was actually a really important race. Braisaz-Bouchet lit up the early and mid part of last season as she had six wins and just seemed to be beaming the entire year. We hadn’t seen that a whole lot so far this season. She was still skiing exceptionally well, running only behind Anamarija Lampic and Elvira Öberg. However, the shooting that made last season’s wonderful run possible has been absent. She’s hitting just 74.6% this season compared to 82.9% last year including a 10% drop in standing shooting. She’s only hit 80% or better in half the races, and 85% or better in just two of the eight races. By comparison she hit 80% or better in 20 of 25 races last year. She would have to hit that mark or better in all but one race the rest of the year to hit that mark. So, long story short why can’t Justine Braisaz-Bouchet challenge for the Overall? She just isn’t shooting well enough. I full expect her 2nd and 3rd trimesters to be better than the 1st. It’s a minor miracle that she’s even this high in the rankings. But to surpass all of the women ahead of her and make up a 297 point lead gap she would have to be winning a ton of races and it just doesn’t appear to be happening this season. I sincerely hope she rediscovers her shooting and she can challenge for the Overall once again next season!

Suvi Minkkinen – Suvi Minkkinen is the pleasant happy surprise of the season so far. A woman who has been an exceptional shooter and held back only by her less than exemplary ski speed has found a level of ski speed she’s never been able to access before. The result is an absolutely explosive breakthrough season. Her best Overall finish to date is 27th from the 2022-2023 season. Even if she doesn’t score one more point this year she’s practically guaranteed of surpassing that simply through what she did in the first eight races of the season. She had one career top 10 prior to this season in 108 races. This year she has four in eight races including two top 5’s and her first career podium, a thrilling 3rd place in the Kontiolahti Sprint. She is once again shooting better than 90%. She’s at 91.5% and if she keeps this up it’s her fourth consecutive year hitting over 90%. It’s all been about this skiing breakthrough. Her average ski rank is 23.8. The best in her career before this season was 44 in the 2022-2023 season. She’s 1.3% faster than the median biathlete this season when the best she’s been before this year was 2.1% slower. That’s just a HUGE improvement. I have been a big fan of hers for years now and this is way better than I could have ever hoped! Even I, as her biggest cheerleader and an optimist, don’t know how this can continue at this rate. I sure hope it can though!!!

Okay…now on to the women who at least have an argument at being in the race! They are ordered by how likely I think they are to win in ascending order (most likely is at the bottom of this list). I’ve assigned them a “percent chance” of winning the Overall globe. There is no analytics at play here. These are all just numbers I came up with off the top of my head just based on their situation right now. If you were to crunch the numbers I’m sure these wouldn’t be strictly accurate but I feel they do a good job of giving a picture of where we are now and their chances of winning this thing. (And yes, they do add up to 100%!)

Vanessa Voigt

Statistic	Current Rank
Overall Rank/Points	5th / 307 (-258)
Average Finish	10.4 (Rank = 2)
Podium Percentage	28.6%
Overall Ski Rank	13th
Back from Median	-2.63%
Shooting Percentages	96.4/98.2/94.5 (Rank = 1)
Shooting Speed	32.6 seconds (Rank = 57)

I am so happy to see Vanessa Voigt in the top 5 right now. And let’s be honest, had she not missed the Mass Start in Annecy-le Grand Bornand due to illness she would have likely easily held on to 4th place. Even missing the race Julia Simon only surpassed her by 8 points.

Last season and over the summer she talked about how she had received negative comments from “fans” on social media and how that affected her mental state. I hate that for anybody, but especially somebody so young and so talented. With her winning the IBU Cup Overall in 2020-2021 and then following that with such a fantastic rookie season the following year, expectations have been sky high for her. It’s unfortunate that sometimes we as fans get too over excited for athletes and want them to advance on our timeline. Well Vanessa Voigt has been advancing on her own timeline and it’s taken her to the top five in the early stages of this season.

How’s she doing it? You’ll be shocked to know (well no I don’t suspect you will be) that she’s doing it with outstanding shooting. Ever since her rookie season she’s hit 91% or better making her one of the top shooters each and every season. This year, she’s at the very top. She’s hitting 96.4% of her shots making her the very best shooter on the World Cup. Voigt has missed just 1 prone shot and just three standing shots. That’s an outrageous hit rate.

However, after slowly but surely getting faster the last few years she’s finally climbed to the point where it makes a difference. She currently ranks 13th in skiing running 2.63% faster than the median biathlete and with an average ski rank of 14.3. Interestingly it’s not that her top level is necessarily faster. It’s actually that she has just gotten more consistent. Over the last few seasons she would have some top 10 ski ranks but also several days where she was outside the top 20. This season she has just one race where her ski rank was outside the top 20 and it’s when she ranked 22nd fastest in the Kontiolahti Sprint.

That improved ski consistency has helped significantly improve her floor and oftentimes in the Overall race it’s about limiting the bad days as much as getting on the podium. This season she has five top 10’s in seven races along with a 12th and a 37th that occurred in the Kontiolahti Sprint. Amongst those top 10’s she has three top 5’s and two podiums. That’s already tied for the most podiums in a season in her career and the 2nd most top 5’s in a season in her career.

Can Vanessa Voigt win the Overall? This season probably not unless she has some significant pending additional ski improvement. In the future she certainly could if her skiing keeps improving. However, if somebody is shooting 96.4% you can’t rule them out at all. Just think of how much time she’s saving herself by avoiding the penalty loop that much. So can she win the Overall this season? Not likely. But my interest in her as an Overall contender in the next few seasons remains quite high.

Chance of winning the Overall Globe: 5%

Julia Simon

Statistic	Current Rank
Overall Rank/Points	4th / 315 (-250)
Average Finish	14.8 (Rank = 8)
Podium Percentage	25%
Overall Ski Rank	14th
Back from Median	-2.62%
Shooting Percentages	83.8/83.1/84.6 (Rank = 41)
Shooting Speed	23.9 seconds (Rank = 1)

After a slow start in Kontiolahti, possibly related to a calf injury suffered during the Women’s Relay, Julia Simon is right back to where we always expected her to be. After eight races she’s sitting in 4th position and once again in the Overall race for the third consecutive season. You can really divide her season into a before and after for Kontiolahti. There were the first two races right after the calf injury where she finished 31st and 47th. Since then, over the subsequent six races, her average finish is 6.7. That puts her right back near where she was the last two seasons when her average finishes were 5.5 and 6.7. Where did she finish those two seasons? Well she won in 2022-2023 and she was 5th last season. Right now she’s in 4th.

The interesting thing to me is that her skiing still doesn’t seem to be getting quite to where she was the last two seasons. Those opening two races when you would expect her to be most affected by the calf injury her ski ranks were 15th and 25th. Since then her avg ski rank is 10.2. That’s certainly better but still a dip below 6.0 and 8.4 the last two seasons.

The bigger issue for Simon has been her shooting. So far this season she’s hitting 83.8% which is down from 88.3% in 2022-2023 and 86.9% last season. It’s much slower to the 81.5% she shot in 2021-2022 the year before her Globe winning performance when she was really good, and showing the first signs of improved shooting, but wasn’t quite consistent enough. Looking more closely the drop is entirely related to her prone shooting. After hitting 93% and 91.4% the last two seasons she’s down to 83.1% prone which is almost exactly the 83.5% prone hit rate she had tin 2021-2022. Her standing shooting is actually a tick better at 84.6% compared to 83.5% and 82.4%.

Even with that poor start in Kontiolahti she is in better shape now than she was last season. Last year there were five women who had shown incredible form with Vittozzi, Tandrevold, Braisaz-Bouchet, and even Elvira Öberg and Lena Haecki-Gross had shown top level ability. Working in Simon’s favor this season is that nobody outside of Franziska Preuß has shown consistent high level biathlon. Elvira isn’t shooting well enough right now and Lou Jeanmonnot has shown some uncharacteristic weaknesses in high leverage shooting moments. To be fair Preuß has been sensational this season but she doesn’t always have the best track record when it comes to staying healthy. I think that these women can’t be happy to see Julia Simon officially lurking in the 4th spot. Simon is a hunter. I know she has outwardly stated the Overall Globe isn’t in her sights, but I can’t help but feel that she’s going to look at this knowing with a superb 2nd trimester she can be in position to take home another Overall Globe.

Chance of winning the Overall Globe: 10%

Lou Jeanmonnot

Statistic	Current Rank
Overall Rank/Points	3rd / 352 (-213)
Average Finish	12.3 (Rank = 6)
Podium Percentage	25%
Overall Ski Rank	7th
Back from Median	-3.29%
Shooting Percentages	90/95.4/84.6 (Rank = 12)
Shooting Speed	29.1 seconds (Rank = 30)

Overall Lou Jeanmonnot has looked really really good once again. Just look at these stats! She’s 7th in skiing and 12th in shooting with a 90% overall hit rate! That’s phenomenal stuff. It’s no wonder she finds herself in the midst of an Overall race once again. She absolutely is one of the most talented biathletes in the world. When she’s racing well she’s a pure joy to watch. It’s actually a little surprising that she’s not even closer to the top right now…

If you’re going to point to a possible warning sign with Lou Jeanmonnot it is going to be her recent shooting troubles. Don’t get me wrong she’s not shooting poorly at all. However, there have been just a few moments where she’s had an opportunity late in a race and she had uncharacteristic standing shooting misses:
– Kontiolahti Sprint: Came to the standing shoot with the 3rd best time and had 2 misses. Finished 17th
– Hochfilzen Sprint: Came to the standing shoot with the 3rd best time again, had a miss and finished 4th
– Hochfilzen Relay: Shooting side by side with Preuß. Preuß goes clean and Germany wins for the first time in three years while Jeanmonnot had two extra rounds
– Annecy Sprint: Came to standing shoot with 5th best time and had three misses. Her worst standing shoot since 2022. She finished 35th
– Annecy Mass Start: Came to the final shoot in 3rd position +14 on Richard and +8 on Preuß. She had two misses and finished 14th.

You can look at this two ways. First you can see a worrying trend that the shooting, particularly the standing shooting, isn’t free and easy anymore. That maybe it’s starting to creep into her consciousness just a touch and the standing misses are starting to pile up. Already this season it’s kept from at least three podiums. Or you can think, well she’s had her down moment for the year It’s out of the way and now she’s ready to dominate. Look out because Jeanmonnot is going to be a monster the rest of the way.

I won’t lie, the trend certainly does have me worried. However, I tend to be an optimist. Lou Jeanmonnot has been such a good shooter for awhile now. She doesn’t appear, at least on the surface, to be somebody that is easily affected by something. She truly does appear to be an easy going spirit. It would not shock me in the least if she put this standing shooting blip behind her and was the best biathlete in the world for the next three months. It really is the only thing holding her back from challenging Preuß right now. It’s important to note that being 213 points back that even if she does correct it, she’s still going to need at least a little drop in form from Preuß to claw back the full deficit. But look at what she did last season? Maybe she has an even bigger comeback in her arsenal this season? It’s much more fun to be an optimist!

Chance of winning the Overall Globe: 12.5%

Elvia Öberg

Statistic	Current Rank
Overall Rank/Points	2nd / 371 (-194)
Average Finish	10.8 (Rank = 4)
Podium Percentage	37.5%
Overall Ski Rank	2nd
Back from Median	-5.43%
Shooting Percentages	81.5/80/83.1 (Rank = 47)
Shooting Speed	28.9 seconds (Rank = 28)

It is so nice to have Elvira Öberg once again back amongst the top women on the World Cup. There is something just comforting having Elvira Öberg racing like Elvira Öberg. It’s actually pretty amazing because she is so young. Still just 25 years old (25!!) I expect to see her blue and yellow Swedish kit fighting at the top of the pack. It was hard last season as she had her fewest podiums and top 5’s in three seasons since she declared herself as a top woman on the World Cup. This season she feels like Elvira Öberg again though. She is blazing fast again skiing faster than anybody not named Anamarija Lampic. She already has a win and three podiums and is on pace for one of the most successful season of her career!

Unfortunately she also is shooting like Elvira Öberg. Actually it’s even worse than that as she is hitting just 81.5% on the year. If she ends the season there it would be her worst season in a full season on the World Cup.

There was a moment in the 2nd trimester of the 2022-2023 season where I actually got really excited for Elvira Öberg. Over a stretch of eight races covering all of the races in Annecy, Pokljuka, Ruhpolding, and Antholz Elvira hit 124 of 130 shots. That’s 95.4% over a period of 8 of the 25 total races that season. So not a huge sample size but at the time her shooting was getting better every season. It feels like she was making a similar breakthrough that Julia Simon had started to experience the year prior and ultimately led to her Overall Globe winning season that very year (2022-2023). Unfortunately it occurred at the very time that she was dealing with illness and actually having some of the “slowest” skiing in her career. She still walked away with three wins, five podiums, seven Flower ceremonies and no finishes outside the top 8 in those eight races. It actually remains one of the two most successful stretches of her career.

That’s a long way of saying that Elvira Öberg will always leave me with hope. I will be forever optimistic that she is going to eventually pair up the shooting we saw in that stretch with the skiing we’ve always known she has. When she does that (not if, when) she will go on an absolutely hellacious tear. I don’t think it is going to happen this season, but it can never be ruled out. She doesn’t need to shoot nearly that well either. 95% is insane. If she just gets to the upper 80’s she’s going to be very difficult to beat. To make the comeback she’s going to need to do it. It’s not impossible but highly unlikely. However, just like Jeanmonnot I would much rather be optimistic!

Chance of winning the Overall Globe: 12.5%

Franziska Preuß

Statistic	Current Rank
Overall Rank/Points	1st / 565
Average Finish	2.6 (Rank = 1)
Podium Percentage	75%
Overall Ski Rank	4th
Back from Median	-3.56%
Shooting Percentages	92.3/98.5/86.2 (Rank = 5)
Shooting Speed	26.6 seconds (Rank = 10)

What Franziska Preuß has accomplished so far this year is nothing short of remarkable. You look at Lou Jeanmonnot being 7th in skiing and 12th in hit rate and you think that’s pretty darn good. Preuß is just flat out better. She’s 4th in skiing and 5th in shooting along with 10th in shooting speed. Nobody can hold a candle to her so far this season and it shows. Her average finish is 2.6 meaning she’s averaging a podium every single race. No surprise when she’s got a 75% podium rate along with two wins! This is just flat out great biathlon.

If you go back and look at the last handful of women’s Overall Globe winners, what Preuß is doing right now is not just on par with them, but even exceeding it.

Year	Athlete	Avg Finish	Ski Rank	Hit Rate
2024-2025	Franziska Preuß	2.6	4th	92.3%
2023-2024	Lisa Vittozzi	5.6	9th	93.3%
2022-2023	Julia Simon	5.5	3rd	88.3%
2021-2022	Marte Olsbu Roeiseland	3.6	4th	90.8%
2020-2021	Tiril Eckhoff	8.5	1st	84.5%
2019-2020	Dorothea Wierer	8.5	7th	83.8%

The Franziska Preuß that we have seen thus far in the 2024-2025 season has been phenomenal and no matter how it plays out she is putting her stamp on this season. Regardless of whether wins the Overall or not this has been a fantastically fun stretch watching her conquer some demons. At the end of the year when I think of my highlights of the season, watching Franziska Preuß fight off illness and win the Pursuit in Annecy for her 2nd win of the season will be right up there at the top.

As the second trimester kicks off she has a 194 point lead. That feels like a very healthy lead. We only have one other year with this scoring system with which to compare and last year Justine Braisaz-Bouchet had a slim 10 point lead on Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold and neither of them won the Overall! Nope, instead it was Lisa Vittozzi who at this juncture of the season was in 4th, but to be fair just 41 points behind. Last year Lou Jeanmonnot was absolutely phenomenal and she was only able to bring back 85 points on Lisa Vittozzi. For somebody to come back on Franziska Preuß it would take one of three scenarios:

• 1) The simple scenario is Preuß gets sick or injured and misses at least one if not two weekends
• 2) Jeanmonnot or Elvira go absolutely wild and have about 7 wins over the final 13 races while Preuß ‘ form slips just a little bit so she’s not making the podium quite as often
• 3) Preuß suffers a total collapse similar to Tandrevold losing her ability to hit standing shots at the very end of last season.

Right now Öberg and Jeanmonnot are the closest to the lead at just around 200 points back. For Öberg to take the Overall lead she needs to average 15 points more per race than Preuß over the last 13 races of the season. For Jeanmonnot to take the lead she needs to average 16.4 points more points per race than Preuß . Those numbers are certainly possible, but with how Preuß has been racing that’s going to be very difficult. Remember Preuß ‘ average finish is 2.6. No matter how good Öberg or Jeanmonnot are they are going to need her to take a step back. Preuß is certainly not infallible either.

The part that has all of us holding our breath is that Franziska Preuß has never been known to have the best health. I know I said at the top that we’re going to pretend good health for everybody, but it’s just such a difficult thing to do when it comes to Preuß because we haven’t seen her have good health for an entire season in so long now. In each of the last three seasons she’s missed large chunks of the season with at least two weekends missed each time. I desperately want good health for everybody this season. In my opinion, if Preuß stays healthy the Globe is hers to lose. If her health issue creep in again, it’s wide open.

Chance of winning the Overall Globe: 60%

So what’s the take away? Franziska Preuß has a huge lead, but her history indicates that this race is far from over. The race really does rest on her rifle though. She has done the work in the first trimester to make herself the solid favorite. Now it’s all about what she does. If she continues to run even within 5% of what she has been doing it’s over and Franziska Preuß, just like Lisa Vittozzi last year, will win a very popular Overall Globe. However, if her history creeps up and grabs her, then there are several women who are eagerly awaiting their chance to take it home!