The Blink Festival held annually in Sandnes, Norway is usually the first time where the biathlon family perks up its ears and tunes in. Though primarily comprised of Norwegians, some of whom most biathlon fans likely don’t recognize (due to their insane depth), it does usually draw at least a handful of top international competitors. As a result it consistently is one of the top 2-3 fields of the summer season. The rare instance where we actually get a chance to measure some top athletes against themselves…at least where they are in August. Fair warning, Blink is only a little closer to the next season than the prior season, but it’s still fun to take a look at what we saw and what it *might* (heavy emphasis on might) mean.
There are 3 main sections:
– Some short thoughts and take aways from the weekend
– Short competition breakdowns
– Full list of results for the top competitors from the weekend
Top Thoughts from the Full Weekend
- Lisa Vittozzi is Back! – It was our first look at Lisa Vittozzi in nearly a year. As we all know after taking home the 2023-2024 Overall Globe Vittozzi was out the entire 24-25 season due to a back injury. How was she going to look? Was it going to be incredibly rusty? Was she going to just look “off?”
Absolutely not. In fact if I had fallen into a coma in late March of 2024 and woken up just this weekend I wouldn’t have thought anything strange. In fact I would have been enthused to see her once again in good form mid summer. She finished no lower than 2nd in each biathlon competition. Yes that’s right she was top 2 in each of the Super Sprint races and all three of the Mass Start competitions. Her shooting was tremendous. She hit 28/30 in the two Super Sprint competitions. And though the stats seem to have disappeared from the site my memory of her in the Mass Start was her hitting at least 9/10 in each of the quarters and I believe 17/20 in the final. On top of that she seemed at the very least on a level close to that of Lou Jeanmonnot.
So can we say that Lisa Vittozzi is ready to contend for the Overall again? Of course not. It’s August. We have no idea where Vittozzi and Jeanmonnot and the rest were in their respective training regimens. What we can say is that this is the optimal outcome. At the very least she is showing no significant restrictions from the back injury and looks like she’s going to be able to give it a full go come November! (Okay that will be the longest…everything else shorter from here). - Lou Jeanmonnot looked like Lou – That’s really all there is to say. She won the Super Sprint competition in a tight battle over Vittozzi. She was 2nd in each of her Mass Start races (and may have pushed harder to win the quarters and semis if she actually needed to win to advance). Jeanmonnot has become reliably great which is something very difficult to attain. It’s a level restricted to only the greatest of the sport. Long story short she looks like herself and when Lou looks like Lou that’s trouble for everybody else come the winter.
- Eric Perrot is one of “The Guys” now – As a dual Norweigian/French citizen, not to mention the reigning #3 in the Men’s Overall race, of course Eric Perrot was going to be one of the featured and headlined athletes this week. This is completely subjective but he just looked so comfortable in that role. He won the Super Sprint with a last second ski throw across the line. However he really dominated the race until the last shoot. He had 2 misses while Laegreid and Jacquelin went clean allowing them to push him on the last lap. Misses are misses yes, but his 2nd miss was right on the edge. One millimeter inside and he wins with ease. Then in the final she made a nice comeback from early misses to finish 2nd behind a resplendent Martin Uldal.
It’s hard to explain but Perrot had a different “look” this year than last year. I’m not saying he’s a shoo in for the Overall this year, but it reminds me to how Lou looked two years ago at Blink. Just a different ease with being one of the top athletes. That prediction (an easy one to make to be fair!) paid off. I believe this one will too! - Karoline Knotten Looking Good – At the end of last season it was announced that Karoline Knotten was going to be going out on her own for training this offseason. There was a disagreement in how to set up her offseason training program. She wanted a bit more independence. So since March she’s been making her own path and training program. This was our first chance to see where she stacks up against competition and how it’s going.
First impressions? Quite good. She finished 5th and 6th in the two Super Sprint races and then 1st and 2nd in the two Mass Start races she ran. Unfortunately there was an incident on the range and she was given a 6 minute penalty that knocked her out of the final. Other than that, though, she looked great. Her fitness looked quite good actually. She has to be feeling pretty optimistic for how this summer is progressing for her! - Juni Arnekleiv (and Marthe Johansen!) With a Great Blink Festival – A bit under the radar but Juni secretly had the third best performance of all of the women at Blink. She was 8th in the Super Sprint qualifier race. After that she was top 3 in every race the rest of the way finishing in the bronze medal position in each of the Super Sprint and Mass Start finals! She shot decently and her ski form, at least on roller skis, looked better than I would have hoped for. Great weekend for Juni Arnekleiv! Oh, and not to mention, she matched her beau Emilien Jacquelin finish for finish!
Also worth noting that, while not quite as good as Juni, Marthe Krakstand Johansen with a solid week as well. She finished 3rd in the Super Sprint qualifier and then 5th in the Super Sprint final and then went 1st, 5th, 5th in the Mass Start races. - Leonhard Pfund the Surprising German – The 22 year old young German looked impressive all weekend. He started the competition by getting 4th in the men’s final in the shooting duels. Pfund followed that with an even more impressive Super Sprint showing going 6th and 4th in the qualifiers and finals. He started the Mass Start competition out well when he won his quarter final. Unfortunately that was the end of his good run. He finished 11th in his semi final. Regardless of that race though it was a great showing for Pfund and he definitely raised his profile for the winter season.
- Polish Women – Coach Tobias Torgersen brought a portion of his team to the Blink Festival for the first time and they aquitted themselves well. Joanna Jakiela, Anna Maka, and Anna Nedza-Kubiniec made the finals of the Mass Start with Natalia Sidorowicz just missing out. Having 3 of the 14 finalists is no small feat! Jakiela finished a very nice 2nd, 3rd, and 9th in the Mass Start races. Anna Maka finished 4th in the quarters and semis before finishing 12th in the finals. Anna Nedza-Kubiniec, meanwhile, finished 14th or better in every race the entire weekend.
- A few women that had some pretty good competitions this week:
– Anna Weidel overall looked solid all weekend including a Super Sprint qualifier win. In the finals she was cruising along with a calm, comfortable race until 3 late misses. Still a great race!
– Gro Randby was one of just 10 women to qualify each of the races this weekend. She finished 9th and 10th in the Super Sprint and then 7th, 7th, 6th in the Mass Starts.
– Gunn Tvinneriem finished 18th in the Super Sprint qualifer but then went 8th, 3rd, and 11th in the Mass Start races
– Guro Femsteinevik finished 13th and 7th in the Super Sprint races and then 9th and 8th in her two Mass Start competitions
– Une Christine Kvelvane had finished of 12th and 14th in the two Super Sprint competitions before finishing 3rd in the Mass Start quarterfinal and ended her weekend 9th in the semis. - A few men that had some pretty good competitions this week:
– Martin Uldal had three top 2 finishes in five races including 2nd in the Super Sprint qualifier, 1st in the Mass Start quarter final and winning the Mass Start final. Not to mention winning the shooting competition!
– Lucas Fratzscher was the only German man to race in each of the five biathlon competitions. He finished 1st in the Super Sprint qualifier and 5th in the finals. Then he went 2, 8, 9 in the Mass Starts
– Petter Austberg Bjorn had a very good weekend. Not a lot of great opportunities out there for a 27 year old Norwegian biathlete who isn’t a regular on the national team to find some shine. This week he finished 4th in the Super Sprint qualifier to stamp his spot in the finals where he finished 12th. He then finished 6th and 8th in his two Mass Start races.
– Einar Hedegart was the top biathlete in the Lysebotn Opp but did not race the rest of the weekend
– Mats Oeverby one of just eight men to race every race this weekend. Finished 7th and 11th in the Super Sprint followed by 4, 2, and 10 in the Mass Starts.
Short Race Breakdowns
- Lysbotn Opp
– Women’s Competition: Julia Kink was the first biathlete up in 20th position. She was followed close behind by teammates Lotta De Buhr and Anna Weidel
– Men’s Competition: Einar Hedegart cruises to the finish in 5th position just 36 seconds back of the winner Simen Kruger. Ole Suhrke with a very strong 6th place finished showed well too. Next up was Eric Perrot in 12th a very nice +1:45 - Shooting Duels:
– Early on it looked like lane 1 was a little bit of a tricky one. Right next to the building it appeared to have more tricky winds. As a result some of the bigger “names” who were given the honor of being in lane 1 got tripped up early one and out of the competition including Lou Jeanmonnot and Justine Braisaz-Bouchet.
– Eline Grue came out on top of the women’s competition winning both her quarterfinal and finishing 4th in the semis. She had the fastest women’s shoot of the day with a 12.8 second masterpiece to win the title over Marthe Krakstad Johansen and Stefanie Scherer. Anna Weidel and Karoline Knotten rounded out the top 5.
– On the men’s side nobody will be surprised that Martin Uldal was the eventual winner. However the early star was Oliver Alm who was quicker on the draw than Uldal in both the quarterfinal and the semifinal. Ultimately in the finals it was Uldal defeating Emilien Jacquelin and Martin Nevland in the finals. Leonhard Pfund and Lucas Fratzscher were 4th and 5th respectively. The one true oddity of the competition was Sturla Holm Laegreid being eliminated in the quarterfinal. The strange part is actually that he hit his first 4 shots and was on his way to winning the quarter before be couldn’t knock down the last shot.
– The Super Final between Martin Uldal and Eline Grue when to Martin Uldal with a spectacular 10.5 second 5/5 to take the title. - Super Sprint
– Women’s: While many top “names” were pre-qualified right to the final that didn’t stop them from competing in the qualifier race. Even still it was Anna Weidel who came out on top alongside Lisa Vittozzi with clean shooting, follwed closely by Marthe Krakstad Johansen and Lou Jeanmonnot. Halfway through the final it was Anna Weidel who was in control of the race once again. She looked so cool and confident in the 2nd and 3rd shoots as she build herself a solid lead. But she couldn’t quite shake Lou Jeanmonnot and Lisa Vittozzi. When Weidel wobbled with misses in the final shoot those two killers leapt up and stole it away. They battled each other to the line with Jeanmonnot holding off Vittozzi by less than 1 second! Junie Arnekleiv completed the podium with a solid race and Anna Weidel finished amore than respectable 4th!
– Men’s: Unlike the women’s competition, it was a good thing that so many of the top names were automatically assured of spots in the finals. Otherwise Perrot, Jacquelin, Christiansen, Dmytro Pidruchnyi and Endre Stroemsheim would not have been in the finals at all! The finals were a tremendous race though. Eric Perrot went to the front early and was in charge through the entire race. With it being such a short race though he could never quite shake off Laegreid and Jacquelin. Then when Perrot had 2 misses (one right on the edge!) in the last shoot Laegreid and Jacquelin pounced on the opportunity going clean. It was a tight battle down the stretch ultimately coming down to a sprint between Perrot and Laegreid. Perrot got the tip of his roller ski across the line just ahead of Laegreid to take the win! The crowd was NOT upset with that race!! - Mass Start
– Womens: The women’s competition ultimately came down to what everybody hoped to see, another competition between Lou Jeanmonnot and Lisa Vittozzi. But there was plenty that happened before that!
The quarterfinals were fairly uneventful. Lisa Vittozzi of course won hers (over Siri Skar and Juni Arnekleiv) as she swept her way to the title. Meanwhile Marthe Krakstad Johansen (over Lou Jeanmonnot and Une Christine Kvelvane) and Karoline Knotten (over Joanna Jakiela and Justine Braisaz-Bouche), two Norwegian women I previously mentioned had a good week, started out their Mass Start competitions with wins as well.
The semi finals had some pretty good races with Lisa Vittozzi once again winning her race. Behind her though it was a great competition with Juni Arnekleiv, Joanna Jakiela, and Anna Weidel having great races to round out the automatic qualifiers. The second semifinal completely turned on its head in the 2nd shoot. Jeanmonnot was cruising but had several misses to mix it all up. She still held on for 3rd at the line but Maren Kirkeeide and Karoline Knotten came through ahead of her and Gunn Tvinnerim right behind her. Ultimately, though, Knotten’s successful weekend came to an end due to crossfiring.
The final was exactly what we wanted to see. After the first shoot Lisa Vittozzi and Lou Jeanmonnot led the field with Juni Arnekliev and Joanna Jakiela around 10 seconds back. Lisa Vittozzi gave herself a major cushion by going 15/15 while Jeanmonnot had 3 misses in the first standing shoot. Vittozzi was around 30 seconds ahead of the pack of Johansen, Jeanmonnot, Arnekliev, and Weidel. Vittozzi herself had her only slip up of the entire weekend with 3 misses in her last shoot. Ultimately she still left the range with 8 seconds on Jeanmonnot and held off for the win. Juni Arnekleiv came across in 3rd.
– Mens: Martin Uldal took home is his second title of the weekend in the Mass Start. The quick shooter won his quarterfinal easily and placed 5th in the semis won by Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen to advance comfortably. Then he led a podium of top 10 World Cup athletes to take the victory!
The early rounds saw some good performances by some unexpected names. Polish athlete Wojciech Skorusa finished just behind Christiansen in the 2nd quarterfinal while his teammate Jan Gunka won the 3rd quarter. In the 4th quarter Leonhard Pfund and Fabian Kaskel went 1-2 to carry the flag for team Germany.
In the semis it was a Norwwegian masterpiece with the previously mentioned Christiansen winning the first semi over Sivert Bakken, Herman Borge and Sivert Gerhardsen. The second semi final was won by Vebjoern Soerum alongside Mats Overby and Martin Nevland with Isak Frey and Emilien Jacquelin close behind.
The final was a very exciting race. Martin Uldal started the final with a miss early but was in touch with the lead pack including Perrot, Soerum, Aspenes, Bakken and Borge after the 2nd shoot. Uldal matched Jacquelin going clean in the 3rd shoot before Jacquelin starting doing Jacquelin things. Emilien put the pedal down and pushed out to a substantial lead heading to the last shoot. Jacquelin then unfortunately did more Jacquelin things and had 2 misses to give up the lead. Uldal with 1 miss surged to the front just ahead of Perrot who came up with a clutch clean standing shoot to get into the comptition. Uldal led Jacquelin and Perrot by about 5 seconds back as the last lap started. Uldal held them off the rest of the way to cruise home with the victory while the French duo rounded out the podium.
Top Competitors
Top Women’s Performers
| Athlete | Super Sprint Qualifier | Super Sprint Final | Mass Start Quarterfinal | Mass Start Semi Final | Mass Start Final |
| 🇮🇹 Lisa Vittozzi | 2 | 🥈 | 1 | 1 | 🥇 |
| 🇫🇷 Lou Jeanmonnot | 4 | 🥇 | 2 | 2 | 🥈 |
| 🇳🇴 Juni Arnekleiv | 8 | 🥉 | 3 | 2 | 🥉 |
| 🇳🇴 Karoline Knotten | 5 | 6 | 1 | 14 | DNS |
| 🇳🇴 Marthe Krakstad Johansen | 3 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 5 |
| 🇩🇪 Anna Weidel | 1 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 7 |
| 🇫🇷 Justine Braisaz-Bouchet | 6 | 8 | 3 | 5 | 4 |
| 🇳🇴 Maren Kirkeeide | 10 | 9 | 8 | 1 | 8 |
| 🇵🇱 Joanna Jakiela | 20 | DNS | 2 | 3 | 9 |
| 🇵🇱 Anna Nedza-Kubiniec | 11 | 13 | 9 | 7 | 14 |
| 🇳🇴 Karoline Erdal | 14 | 12 | 4 | 6 | 10 |
| 🇳🇴 Gro Randby | 9 | 10 | 7 | 7 | 6 |
| 🇵🇱 Anna Maka | 22 | DNS | 4 | 4 | 12 |
| 🇳🇴 Gunn Tvinneriem | 18 | DNS | 8 | 3 | 11 |
| 🇳🇴 Une Christine Kvelvane | 12 | 14 | 3 | 9 | DNS |
| 🇳🇴 Guro Femsteinevik | 13 | 7 | 9 | 8 | DNS |
| 🇩🇪 Stefanie Scherer | 7 | 11 | 8 | 14 | DNS |
| 🇳🇴 Guro Ytterhus | 16 | DNS | 6 | 6 | 13 |
| 🇳🇴 Aasne Skrede | 15 | DNS | 5 | 10 | DNS |
| 🇳🇴 Siri Skar | 27 | DNS | 2 | 10 | DNS |
| 🇵🇱 Natalia Sidorowicz | 19 | DNS | 7 | 12 | DNS |
| 🇳🇴 Eline Grue | 30 | DNS | 4 | 8 | DNS |
Top Men’s Performers
| Athlete | Super Sprint Qualifier | Super Sprint Final | Mass Start Quarterfinal | Mass Start Semi Final | Mass Start Final |
| 🇫🇷 Eric Perrot | 21 | 🥇 | 4 | 7 | 🥈 |
| 🇳🇴 Martin Uldal | 2 | 7 | 1 | 5 | 🥇 |
| 🇫🇷 Emilien Jacquelin | 30 | 🥉 | 3 | 5 | 🥉 |
| 🇳🇴 Vetle Christiansen | 23 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| 🇳🇴 Isak Frey | 5 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| 🇳🇴 Sivert Bakken | 14 | DNS | 3 | 2 | 6 |
| 🇳🇴 Vebjoern Soerum | 17 | 14 | 3 | 1 | 7 |
| 🇩🇪 Leonhard Pfund | 6 | 4 | 1 | 11 | DNS |
| 🇩🇪 Lucas Fratzscher | 1 | 5 | 2 | 8 | 9 |
| 🇳🇴 Mats Oeverby | 7 | 11 | 4 | 2 | 10 |
| 🇳🇴 Sturla Holm Laegreid | 10 | 🥈 | 8 | 7 | DNS |
| 🇳🇴 Petter Austberg Bjorn | 4 | 12 | 6 | 8 | DNS |
| 🇳🇴 Svere Aspenes | 19 | DNS | 6 | 6 | 8 |
| 🇩🇪 Fabian Kaskel | 15 | DNS | 2 | 6 | 11 |
| 🇳🇴 Herman Borge | 9 | DNS | 5 | 3 | 12 |
| 🇳🇴 Martin Nevland | 42 | DNS | 2 | 3 | 13 |
| 🇳🇴 Sivert Gerhardsen | 41 | DNS | 3 | 4 | 14 |
| 🇵🇱 Wojciech Skorusa | 12 | DNS | 2 | 10 | DNS |
| 🇳🇴 Joergen Saeter | 16 | DNS | 5 | 9 | DNS |
| 🇳🇴 Ole Surhke | 14 | DNS | 5 | 10 | DNS |
| 🇵🇱 Konrad Badacz | 3 | 13 | 9 | DNS | DNS |