Antholz Recap

The Winners – Top Performers of the Week

Nations Medal Table for the Week

Nation	Medals
Norway 🇳🇴	🥇🥇🥈🥈🥈🥈
France 🇫🇷	🥇🥇🥇🥈🥉
Germany 🇩🇪	🥈🥉🥉
Sweden 🇸🇪	🥇🥉
Italy 🇮🇹	🥉🥉

Athlete Medal Table for the Week

Athlete	Medals
Lou Jeanmonnot 🇫🇷	🥇🥇
Tarjei Boe 🇳🇴	🥇🥈
Sturla Holm Laegreid 🇳🇴	🥇🥈
Franziska Preuss 🇩🇪	🥉🥉
Tommaso Giacomel 🇮🇹	🥉🥉
Selina Grotian 🇩🇪	🥈
Julia Simon 🇫🇷	🥈

Women’s Athlete of the Week: 🇫🇷 Lou Jeanmonnot – Lou Jeanmonnot didn’t just win both solo races, she won both races and looked amazing while doing so. In the Sprint she was a perfect 10/10. It’s not like she was the only person to go 10/10 either as 15 women went perfect that day. It’s also not like Jeanmonnot was the only top contender to go perfect as her top rival for the Overall Globe Franziska Preuss hit all of her shots as well as Selina Grotian and Jeanne Richard. No, it’s that Lou Jeanmonnot was perfect shooting and quite nearly the fastest woman on the course. She missed holding that distinction by finishing 0.1 seconds back of Anamarija Lampic on the course. That’s just phenomenal.

Jeanmonnot has never finished a race as the fastest skier on the day. She had been 2nd one prior time in a Mass Start and her best in a Sprint or Individual was 3rd which she did in the Soldier Hollow Sprint last season. Not coincidentally that was the last time we saw her close to this level of form when she closed out the season with 6 straight podiums. That day she was more than 0.1 seconds back of the top ski time so this goes down as her best ski day of her career! Also to be that close to Lampic any day is a magnificent accomplishment.

The Sprint was Jeanmonnot throwing down the gauntlet. She declared herself loud and proud as the top woman of the moment. She was unbeatable. But she wasn’t done for the weekend.

Two days later Jeanmonnot came back and looked just as good, if not better. While she didn’t hit 100% of her shots in the Pursuit, she waited until the very end of the race to throw a shot wide. By that point she was so far ahead it really didn’t matter anymore. After starting with Grotian and Preuss both within 16 seconds, Jeanmonnot didn’t wait at all before pushing her advantage. By the end of lap 1 Grotian had fallen from +7 to +18. Preuss even further back to +25. It was clear Jeanmonnot wasn’t going to let anybody hand around.

She kept up that skiing for the next four laps. In the meantime she hit her first 15 shots. The only woman who could even stay within 1 minute of her was Julia Simon, and Simon was only able to do it because she was shooting ultra fast on the range. Jeanmonnot, never the fastest shooter, was taking her time though because by the 2nd shooting it was clear the only way she was going to lose was if she started spending too much time on the penalty loop. By the time she came to her last shooting she had a 47 second advantage on Julia Simon. The next closest were Jeanne Ricahrd and Franziska Preuss around 1:14 back. That’s peak JT Boe level stuff. She made the race boring!

Lou Jeanmonnot threw down the gauntlet in the Sprint and proved herself the best in the world right now in the Pursuit. Peak Lou Jeanmonnot, as we saw this weekend, is nearly untouchable even for her peers. It may come to be that we learn that peak Lou Jeanmonnot has no peers. As it is though, with four wins in the last five races she has climbed right back into the Overall race and it has potential to be an epic final trimester!

Men’s Athlete of the Week: 🇳🇴 Sturla Holm Laegreid – Sturla Holm Laegreid started the week by finishing 2nd just 0.4 seconds off the top spot on the podium. He then won the Pursuit with a perfect race. In the process he took the Yellow bib away from JT Boe and then consolidated it. Yep, I would say he’s the athlete of the week!

Sturla Holm Laegreid in Yellow is no fluke. In his last five races he’s finished 1, 16, 2, 2, 1. That’s some damn good biathlon. That’s what we expect to see from JT Boe. In short, that’s what we expect to see from somebody who is winning the Overall Globe.

To accomplish this, over this streak Laegreid has continued to ski at a decently high level. After an oddly slow Individual in Ruhpolding his course time ranks were 4th in the Mass Start and 3rd in the Antholz Sprint. It was just 12th in the Pursuit but that was affected by the dynamics of the race.

In the meantime Laegreid is having an insane shooting year. He hit under 90% just one time this entire season. Over this stretch he’s hit 84 of his 90 shots for a 93.3% hit rate. That may sound incredible but he’s hitting 92.6% this season so it’s not exactly out of the norm for him. He’s just having another phenomenal shooting year.

Sturla Holm Laegreid is fantastic biathlete. He has been for several years now. The only thing in his way has been JT Boe. Now JT Boe is having a down trimester and Laegreid is surging forward to fill the space. Sure, it is very possible that Boe returns to his normal form for Worlds and ends the season on top. However, this is going to be a fight just like it was in 2020-2021.

Women’s Young Athlete of the Week: 🇩🇪 Selina Grotian – It looked like Franziska Preuss had solidified a very solid 2nd place finish behind Lou Jeanmonnot to limit the damage. It looked like Dorothea Wierer had claimed her first podium of the season to indicate that she is very much alive for a World Championship medal. Selina Grotian said “It looks like you forgot about me!” Grotian came charging in from bib 64 with a perfect shooting and the 4th best course time to snatch the 2nd place spot.

It was her 2nd podium of the year which is more than Jeanne Richard and Oceane Michelon. So while she hasn’t been as consistent as those two have been, she has already shown a repeatable high ceiling. She currently sits 3rd in the u23 Globe a mere 44 points back of Jeanne Richard in 1st. That also puts her just 44 points out of 5th in the Overall and 48 points out of 4th.

All three of these women are absolutely phenomenal talents. All three of these women look like they could contend for the Overall in the future. It’s going to be so much fun to watch them grow up over the next few years and start to fight for the big globe probably sooner than later. Richard is the best shooter. Michelon is the fastest. Grotian is the fastest shooter. At the end of the day right now it shakes out that Grotian has achieved the highest ceiling while Richard and Michelon especially have remarkable consistency. I love watching all three of them!

Grotian did finish in 6th place in the Pursuit which put her one spot behind Michelon and two spots behind Richard. However, you have to celebrate her as the top young woman of the week as she found her 2nd podium of the season!

Men’s Young Athlete of the Week: 🇺🇸 Campbell Wright – We choose Campbell Wright today because…well we had to choose somebody. It wasn’t a great weekend for the young men. Campbell Wright appears to be still struggling to recover from his illness in Ruhpolding. He finished 55th in the Sprint and then 40th in the Pursuit.

Women’s Race of the Week: Relay – Even before the race started the women’s relay seemed to be set up for an interesting finish. The German team which had won the two most recent relays, was holding out both Preuss and Grotian, resulting in Johanna Puff and Marlene Fichtner coming over from the European Championships prep. Sweden was missing Elvira Oeberg who was sick. The Norwegian team has been up and down all year. It just seemed like there could be something exciting that happened.

Ultimately it was something exciting that happened. It just wasn’t what we wanted to see. The race for the win came down to Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold and Hanna Oeberg. After some really great racing from Karoline Knotten, Ragnhild Femsteinevik, and Maren Kirkeeide, Tandrevold was handed off the lead with Hanna Oeberg just 10 seconds back at the final exchange. That advantage was gone after the first shooting. The two women stayed side by side the entire remainder of the race even matching each other shot for shot in the final trip to the range. Well, not exactly shot for shot as Hanna Oeberg missed her first two targets while Tandrevold missed target 4 and needed 2 extra rounds to get it down. Regardless, they left for their final lap together and 11 seconds clear of Julia Simon.

The two women raced along matching each other on the final lap and pulling away from Simon. It finally was coming down to a final sprint between the two. Tandrevold made a little move to get in the lead. Then, as the course was narrowing, Hanna Oeberg made an effort to come around her. Unfortunately this is where it all went wrong.

As mentioned above this is where the course was narrowing. Tandrevold had, smartly from a racing perspective, planted herself in the middle of the course. The course narrowed signficantly from the right and a little from the left. Oeberg made the move to go around on the left. Unfortunately Tandrevold also started shifting left at the same time. Likely Tandrevold did not know that was exactly where Hanna Oeberg was coming around at that moment. Hanna Oeberg had the initiative and had put in the surge. At this point, with both women being very tired from hard racing it is understandable that both just wanted to keep the momentum. If you voluntarily slow down at this stage of the game it’s going to be very hard to get back up to full speed and regain the initiative. What happened was contact was made. It wasn’t any one person’s fault. Ultimately Oeberg’s pole ended up between Tandrevold’s skis and Tandrevold went down.

Hanna Oeberg went ahead and finished off the race with the win. Tandrevold got up and still stayed ahead of Julia Simon. Hanna Oeberg wasn’t exactly jumping for joy as she crossed the line, clearly upset that she won under such circumstances. Tandrevold, understandably, was quite upset as she crossed the line and just wanted to get out of there. Being the good people and good sports that they are, they did share a hug and an Instagram post later. Ultimately both are tremendous competitors and understand that nobody intended to cause harm. It is unfortunate that we were robbed of what was about to be such a thrilling finish. Personally I think Hanna Oeberg was going to win but we just won’t know. Hopefully they get a chance to go head to head later this season!

Men’s Race of the Week: Sprint – It was a race where the top three were separated by 2.4 seconds. That’s really all you need to know. As far as Sprints go that is about as good as it will ever get. It was even more exciting because you had Tarjei Boe and Sturla Holm Laegreid separated by just two bib numbers. Tarjei kept putting something great up there and Laegreid kept on matching it. Tarjei hit his shots, then Laegreid matches it. The only separation on the day was Tarjei 10/10 and Laegreid 9/10.

On the last lap though it was exceptionally even. Tarjei a good section of racing and Laegreid matches it. The last few checkpoints on the last lap were so tense as Laegreid was gaining time on Tarjei until the very end when Tarjei just held on. A few more hundred meters and maybe Laegreid wins.

The wild thing is just behind them was Tommaso Giacomel, racing on home snow, and the fastest man on the course, put on a monster late charge. Even with 2 misses he was gaining time nearly until the very end. Ultimately Tarjei Boe and Laegreid just kept themsleves out front but it was a close close close race!

We also saw Martin Uldal return from illness and somehow show no negative effects. After suffering dearly in the Oberhof Pursuit, Uldal missed the entire week in Ruhpolding. You wouldn’t be able to tell in Antholz where, even at atltitude, he finished in 4th for this 6th top 5 in 9 races. Dmytro Pidruchnyi with another finish in the Flowers was in 5th. Jakov Fak’s terrific season rolled along as he finished 6th in the Sprint and 5th in the Pursuit. Vitezslav Hornig had his third consecutive top 10 as he finished 7th. And he was joined in the top 10 by Jonas Marecek.

Super Sprints – A super quick hop through some top stories

Yellow Bib Updates

1) Women’s Top 5:

Athlete	Total (Points Back)
Franziska Preuss 🇩🇪	879
Lou Jeanmonnot 🇫🇷	787
Elvira Oeberg 🇸🇪	571
Julia Simon 🇫🇷	530
Jeanne Richard 🇫🇷	526

As noted above you can’t have a better week than Lou Jeanmonnot did as she won both the Sprint and the Pursuit to take the maximum of 180 points from the weekend. Franziska Preuss did a marvelous job of limiting the damage to *just* 50 points but that’s still a big chunk to lose in just two races. With those two having a tremendous weekend, and Elvira Oeberg not racing due to illness, it really makes it a two woman race. While Elvira could technically still come back she’s not over 200 back of Jeanmonnot in 2nd place and over 300 back of Preuss. She would not only need to go on an unbelievable streak of wins but also hope that Jeanmonnot and Preuss fall off of their own incredible paces.

2) Men’s Top 5:

Athlete	Total (Points Back)
Sturla Holm Laegreid 🇳🇴	854
Johannes Thingnes Boe 🇳🇴	806
Eric Perrot 🇫🇷	585
Emilien Jacquelin 🇫🇷	567
Tarjei Boe 🇳🇴	553

Well it happened. Johannes Thingnes Boe lost yellow to Sturla Holm Laegreid. JT Boe hasn’t been racing well by his enormously high standards since his illness over the holiday break, Laegreid also has been racing exceptionally well. Laegreid didn’t just stumble into the leaders bib, he stole it straight off of JT Boe’s shoulders. Meanwhile Tarjei Boe has had a massive surge with four top 2 finishes in the last seven races to come from outside the top 10 to 5th. He’s not within 32 points of 3rd in the Overall and at this rate will be there by the end of Nove Mesto, the first weekend after Worlds.

3) 🇳🇴 Tarjei Retirement Announcement – It’s another week and another retirement announcement by a Boe brother. Tarjei’s retirement was less surprising for a number of reasons. First, he is 36 years old and for that reason alone was closer to the end. Also he had hinted that he was coming to the end last season and we were already playing it year by year. We always hoped that he would go through the 2026 Olympics but that just wasn’t going to be. The second reason it was less surprising is simply that JT Boe already announced his retirement. It was just hard to imagine the World Cup with Tarjei Boe still racing while JT Boe wasn’t there any longer.

And so after winning the Antholz Sprint by a ultra slim 0.4 seconds of Sturla Holm Laegreid, his 2nd win of the year, Tarjei Boe made the announcement that once again brought our biathlon family to tears: He will be joining his brother in retirement following the final weekend of the season in Oslo.

While this may not have been as surprising as JT Boe’s midseason announcement, it was no less of a gut punch. As a whole the biathlon family loves Tarjei Boe. He always seems to have a smile on his face and be ready to celebrate others. For me, one of the top memories of Tarjei Boe’s career is going to be something that has nothing to do Tarjei or even the Norwegian team. It is the 2021-2022 weekend in Annecy-le Grand Bornand when in the Mass Start Emilien Jacquelin and Quentin Fillon Maillet went 1-2 and Tarjei Boe celebrated them at the finish waving the the French flag. It was absolutely the epitome of what Tarjei Boe is to the biathlon family. A tremendous athlete in his own right that takes as much joy in the success of others as himself. I’m going to miss seeing him out there cheering on everybody else.

I have already written about Tarjei Boe and what he means to me at length. If you wouldn’t mind please check this out when you have a chance: Tarjei Boe: My Living Memory

4) 🇫🇷 French Men Dominate – Before this season the longest winning streak in relays for the French men was two. They now have four consecutive wins. It’s not like the French have the greatest collection of talent they have ever had before. It’s that when they get into the relays they take their collective talent, which is very good, and take it to a new level. This week they had just four misses in the entire relay and that does a phenomenal job of elevating your team performance. Less time spent on reloads and no penalties is always helpful! However, they also skied exceptionally well.
– Fabien Claude was just 8 seconds slower than Sturla Holm Laegreid on leg 1.
– QFM was 5 seconds faster than Tarjei Boe on leg 2
– Eric Perrot just 7 seconds slower than JT Boe on leg 3.
– So through 3 legs the French lost just 10 seconds on the course to the Norwegians. You do that and you have 8 fewer misses and you’re going to win easily…and they did.

Basically ever race the French are holding serve with the Norwegians in terms of ski speed and they are shooting better in every single race. The Norwegians are struggling to find a team that can balance the ski speed and the shooting. That doesn’t mean they can’t do it in Lenzerheide but so far no matter what combination the Norwegians throw out there, and they have now tried four different relay lineups, they just can’t crack the French team.

5) 🇮🇹 Italy’s Test Run – There is a way to read the Italian team’s strategy this season as a test run to prep for the 2026 Olympics where the biathlon events will be run at the home venue of Antholz. It also happens to coincide with coming to a peak level of performance right before Worlds so it works out nicely with success for this season as well. When you look at some of the major players on the team, notably Tommaso Giacomel and Dorothea Wierer, you can especially see their ski form coming along very nicely and reaching their best performances this last week. Giacomel, in fact, was the fastest man on the course for the Sprint, the first time he has had that distinction. Meanwhile Dorothea Wierer was 3rd fastest in the Sprint, her best of the season and her best course time rank since Antholz in 2022 when she won the Mass Start just before the Olympics.

We also saw Didier Bionaz have his 2nd best individual finish of the season as he finished 16th in the Sprint and follosed that up with 23rd in the Pursuit. The Italian men finished 4th in the relay which was their best finish of the season by far. Put it all together and it looks like the Italian team did a pretty good job of getting ready for Antholz this season. Hopefully they can repeat that performance next season and take home some medals!

6) Junior European Championships – While the World Cup athletes were competing in Antholz the Junior athletes came together in Altenberg, Germany for the Junior European Championships. These can be very fun events and are a chance where many, if not all, of the top Junior athletes come together, second only to the Junior Worlds. So let’s take a look at some of the top performances and athletes from the Junior European Championships:

• 🇫🇷 The French had a great week. They won 7 medals, easily the best at the Junior European Championships. This included one gold medal won by Anaelle Bondoux in the Sprint to go along with her 4th in the Individual, as well as four silver medals and 2 bronze won by the rest of the team. Camille Grataloup Manissolle was the top performer for the French men. He finished 4th in the Individual, bronze in the Sprint, and 10th in the Pursuit.
• 🇵🇱 Grzegorz Galica, the 17 year old Polish young man continued his phenomenal season with two gold medals. These were his first IBU Levels wins. Including this week he has three podiums and eight top 10’s in 10 Juniors races. Even more impressively he continues to be one of the fastest Junior men including being the fastest man in the Junior European Sprint and Mass 60. Grzegorz Galica is absolutely one to keep an eye on and was the single star of these championships.
• 🇬🇱 Sondre Slettemark may sound like a familiar name. The 20 year old younger brother of fan favorite Ukaleq Slettemark, took home the silver medal in the Mass 60 event. He continued to show his top notch Juniors speed as he’s been top 10 course time rank in every race. This week his ski ranks were 7th, 5th, and 2nd.
• 🇩🇪 Germany had an up and down week but finished with four medals on home snow including Fabian Kaskel and Elias Seidl going 1-2 in the Sprint with Linus Kesper coming in 6th that day. They were followed by Charlotte Gallbronner and Lotta De Buhr going 3-4 in the Women’s Sprint.
• 🇨🇭 Matthias Riebli had by far the best weekend of his career. He had the 2nd and 3rd top 10’s of his career finishing 4th in the Sprint and 7th in the Mass 60. Prior to this he had only three top 20’s in 19 Juniors races. He had easily the best skiing of his Juniors career with ski ranks of 11th, 6th, and 4th. Prior to this week he had just two top 10 ski ranks in Juniors races, both of which came earlier this season. Certainly an exciting weekend for the Swiss athlete!

Flower Ceremony – We’ll recap some top finishes from the week!

7) 🇨🇿 Vitezslav Hornig – Not a career best only because just last week he finished 5th in the Ruhpolding Individual. However, it’s worth remembering that before last week he had no top 10 finishes. Now he has three. Before this season he had 0 top 30’s. Now he has 10 in 13 races. What a breakthrough year!

8) 🇨🇭 Aita Gasparin – On the same week that her sister announced her retirement at the end of this season, Aita Gasparin joined the surge in Swiss performance by matching her career best of 8th in the Pursuit. She has not finished 8th twice after previously finishing in that position in the Soldier Hollow Sprint last season. This is her 5th career top 10.

10) 🇨🇿 Jonas Marecek – The Antholz Sprint was a great day for Czech men as they put two in the top 10 for the first time since the Nove Mesto Mass Start in the 2018-2019 season when Ondrej Moravec and Michal Krcmar finished 8th and 10th that day. Here Jonas Marecek finished in 10th to join Vitezslav Hornig. Marecek’s prior career best was 21st in this season’s Annecy-le Grand Bornand Sprint.

14) 🇨🇭 Joscha Burkhalter – Joscha Burkhalter finished 14th in the Antholz Sprint which is his 3rd top 15 in a row and his 4th of the season. Prior to this year he had just a single top 15 when he finished 10th in the 2021-2022 Ruhpolding Sprint. Definitely the best racing of his career right now!

22) 🇸🇪 Emil Nykvist – 27 year old Emil Nykvist has not been a consistent World Cup starter, but he did have 20 starts over the last four seasons. This week in Antholz he had his best collective weekend as he finished 27th in the Sprint which tied his career best he had accomplished twice before, most recently in the Oberhof Pursuit. He set a new career best in the Antholz Pursuit hitting 22nd!