Think summer biathlon is boring? Think again baby!!! Whoo boy did City Biathlon 2025 come through with the drama. The women’s race came down to a lunge at the finish. The men’s race came down to a shocking final sprint, poles being slammed, and angry teammates. Boy did the 2nd edition of City Biathlon in Dresden deliver!
After 10 years in Puttlingen, and 5 years in Wiesbaden, the annual City Biathlon event moved to Dresden last summer. The races in 2024 were a rainy event, but with clear sunny skies, the course along the Elbe river brought us some phenomenal summer biathlon action. I’m going to put the take aways up top if you just want to read those. Then the race recaps will be below.
Take Aways
Women’s Races:
- Lotte Lie with the win! Not surprising to see her have good shooting. She’s been one of the best shooters on the World Cup for the last several years. It was fun to see her win a finishing sprint. However her skiing was actually pretty good all day long. Not going to read too much into that as it’s August and on roller skis, but it was great to see her do it!
- Milena Todorova was one of the breakout stars of the 2024-2025 season as she had two podiums and seven top 10’s after having just one top 10 in her career prior to last season. Today, in a race with two French stars and several other high level athletes, she looked like one of the strongest women. She shot well, but on the skis she did tremendous work. She spent a good chunk of the race at the front. But it was her work on lap 4 to catch up a little bit, and her surge on lap 5 to go from +15 to the lead in less than half a lap that really did it for me. She didn’t ultimately take the top spot on the podium but she is certainly a winner of the race.
- Karoline Knotten continues to show that even training on her own, outside of the Norwegian federation organization, she’s having good results. She showed very well at the Blink festival. Now this week, eschewing the Italian Championshps where most of the Norwegian competed, for another all star type exhibition event Knotten once again showed very well. I don’t have her final shooting stats on hand but I believe she was 17/20 on the day.
- Vanessa Voigt with an impressive 20/20 shooting, the only woman to accomplish this in these races. She ultimately didn’t have the ski power down the stretch to hold the podium. However, considering the struggles she’s had so publicly the last few seasons with burn out and depression, the real win was hearing her talk after the races about how proud she was of her performance and how happy she was to be there.
Men’s Races:
- Don’t worry about the drama. More on that below… The real take away for the French is that Eric Perrot and Quentin Fillon Maillet were the class of the field. Justus Strelow had the lead on lap 4 but Perrot and QFM were clearly strong enough on the skis to do some serious damage to the field. The French coaches have to be quietly very enthusiastic about their situation as they head to the final 2.5 months of prep before the season.
- Jakov Fak is just not aging. After eight top 10’s, including his first win since 2015, Jakov Fak doesn’t appear to be losing anything this summer. He’s on the podium once again and will continue to be an outside threat for the podium this year.
- Justus Strelow with a great shooting day to get himself into the lead. He may never be a competitor for the Overall, but I still think he’s going to win himself a few races in his career. I’m hoping we’ll look at last year as a dip in an overall upward trend.
- I’ve been hoping that Felix Leitner could have the Suvi Minkkinen type season for the last several years. Very good to excellent shooter with a history of good performances when he was younger. He’s somehow still only 28. If he could just find the magic touch for his skiing he can be a real threat. I may be the last one of the bandwagon but I’ll be here!
Race Recaps
The day started out with the “qualifier” races. They really are just preview races. They serve to set the starting grid of the finals but with such a small field it really doesn’t matter all that much. They weren’t shown on television and there are only spotty reports on social media. With so much drama in the finals we’re just going to focus on the main event.
It is worth mentioning the Legends Race featuring Johannes Thingnes Boe, Tarjei Boe, and Benedikt Doll. The event was taken by JT Boe but it was largely ceremonial. The real event here was the interview afterwards. It seems like the boys were having a great time. JT Boe went 10/10 and afterwards he joked that he hadn’t been training so he was shocked that he did so well. He and Tarjei laughed that they may make a comeback for the Olympics. All in all it was a good time.
The women led off the main event with their finals. The opening lap wasn’t too combative. Out of the 10 women it was just Vanessa Voigt, Milena Todorova, and Yulia Dzhima who went clean at the first shooting to take the early lead. Oceane Michelon had one miss and dropped her pole on her way to the penalty box. Fortunately it didn’t cause too much trouble as she was able to pick it up on her way out.
Milena Todorova and Vanessa Voigt quickly dropped Dzhima on lap 2. Dzhima was eaten up by a chase group that included Julia Tannheimer and Marketa Davidova with Lotte Lie and Lou Jeanmonnot within 15 seconds as they hit the range. Voigt and Todorova held their leads narrowly as they went clean again. Jeanmonnot and Lie went clean as well to trim the gap down to just 4 seconds at the start of lap 3. Jeanmonnot and Lie quickly closed the gap to make it a lead group of 4. Marketa Davidova was just 11 seconds back as well.
The first standing shooting turned the entire race around. While everybody else had 1-3 misses Vanessa Voigt took a loooooong pause before shot 4, and made sure to go clean. This put Voigt out in the lead. Lotte Lie had a single miss and left the penalty box just 8 seconds back. Lou Jeanmonnot had 2 misses and Marketa Davidova 1 miss to put them around 23 seconds back. Karoline Knotten who had been toiling well back went clean to be just behind Knotten. Milena Todorova with a 3 miss effort fell back to +30. But she wasn’t out of the race yet!
Vanessa Voigt was able to hold the lead all alone on lap 4 but the gap continued to narrow from the chasers. It was a bunch of clean shooting on the final trip to the range with Vanessa Voigt the only woman to go a clean 20/20. Lotte Lie came off the range just 5 seconds back. Karoline Knotten was +15 and Milena Todorova put herself back in the mix with a clean shooting as well.
With just one final lap to run the race was on, and Milena Todorova was up to the moment. She put in a big time effort early on loop 5 to pull not only herself, but Knotten and Lie up to the front of the pack. She put in another surge mid lap trying to shake free. Lie and Knotten initially let a little gap form before closing it up straight away. Voigt, unfortunately, wasn’t able to hold the level and fell back.
Todorova kept up a very strong pace through to the finishing stretches. The finishing stretch in Dresden has a couple of small turns in it, and in coming around the final bend Todorova left the door open allowing both Lie and Knotten, who had been drafting off of her for most of the final lap, to come around. It came down to a furious sprint between Lie and Knotten. At the line Lotte Lie stretched out just a few centimeters further than Knotten to take the 2025 City Biathlon Women’s Title!
| Women’s Race | Men’s Race |
| 🥇Lotte Lie 🇧🇪 | 🥇Eric Perrot 🇫🇷 |
| 🥈Karoline Knotten 🇳🇴 | 🥈Quentin Fillon Maillet 🇫🇷 |
| 🥉Milena Todorova 🇧🇬 | 🥉Jakov Fak 🇸🇮 |
| 4) Vanessa Voigt 🇩🇪 | 4) Justus Strelow 🇩🇪 |
| 5) Oceane Michelon 🇫🇷 | 5) Felix Leitner 🇦🇹 |
| 6) Lou Jeanmonnot 🇫🇷 | 6) Michal Krcmar 🇨🇿 |
| 7) Julia Tannheimer 🇩🇪 | 7) Thierry Langer 🇧🇪 |
| 8) Marketa Davidova 🇨🇿 | 8) Vitalii Mandzyn 🇺🇦 |
| 9) Anamarija Lampic 🇸🇮 | 9) Philipp Horn 🇩🇪 |
| 10) Yulia Dzhima 🇺🇦 | 10) Philipp Nawrath 🇩🇪 |
If that wasn’t enough the men’s race delivered even more drama. It didn’t get off to a banging start, but it delivered in the end. For the first half of the race it was mostly Quentin Fillon Maillet and Eric Perrot out front along with Justus Strelow. At the first standing shooting of the day it was Justus Strelow who went clean and fast to overtake his French rivals. Eric Perrot was a few seconds behind. Meanwhile QFM went to the penalty box after one miss and was +18. Close behind him were Jakov Fak, Thierry Langer, and Felix Leitner.
At the final shooting the German hopes were dashed as Justus Strelow had a couple of misses and fell out of the mix for the podium. The French fans were delighted, though, as QFM went clean quite quickly to take over the lead. Perrot had a single miss, but even after his time in the penalty box was just a handful of seconds back of his teammate. The two of them were well ahead of Jakov Fak and Felix Leitner who were about 30 seconds behind.
The final loops of the race at first didn’t appear to auger much drama. It was QFM holding off Eric Perrot. They were seemingly matching each other and Perrot couldn’t gain any ground at all. Coming into the final stretch, with the small turns and then the final straight away, the final loop of the race had been so stable that QFM thought he had it in the bag. He started celebrating with the crowd and waving to the fans. Perrot, though, never got the message that the race was over. As soon as he saw QFM take his foot off the gas, Perrot put in a vicious sprint to the line. By the time QFM was aware the Perrot was charging, he had lost momentum and with just meters to go he wasn’t able to restart his engine. Eric Perrot breezed by his compatriot on the left and crossed the line for the City Biathlon Title.
To say Quentin Fillon Maillet was miffed would be to put it mildly. As he was crossing the line he was gesturing angrily. Perrot, to his credit, tried to come around and say something to QFM. QFM, was too upset at that moment to be responsive to the gesture at that time. He ignored Perrot while continuing to express his frustration before angrily slamming his poles on the ground.
While this was going on Jakov Fak quietly crossed the line to finish up the podium, just ahead of Justus Strelow and Felix Leitner.
In the end, my major take away regarding the finishing episode with Perrot and QFM is that it is great to see these guys care so much about an exhibition race in August/September. For Perrot to actually put in the effort to take the win is awesome. And for QFM to care so much that he had that reaction tells you how much these guys want to win. I can’t pretend to know how either of them will react to this moment. Hopefully it’s a situation where Perrot can buy dinner for the team, they can share a few drinks, and they’ll laugh about it later. Maybe QFM can get his “revenge” by outsprinting Perrot in a race later this winter. Regardless, I don’t want anyone to believe I think this is major or real drama. I believe that this more shows just how much these guys care about these races.