Antholz, Italy is almost universally beloved by the biathlon family both athletes and fans. Antholz, Italy is one of the most beautiful venues on the World Cup circuit. And almost most importantly Antholz, Italy is the host of the rapidly approaching 2026 Olympic competitions. It is no surprise, then, that the Italian Summer Biathlon Championships became one of the competitions of the summer.
The week leading up the championships promised high level competition with some of the top athletes in biathlon taking to the course for competition. Dorothea Wierer was expected to be out due to an altered summer training schedule. But we were still expecting to have a handful of the biggest names in the sport with the Italians, the Norwegian women, the Finnish team, the Austrian women, the Swiss team, and a handful of others joining in.
Unfortunately it wasn’t to be. First Lisa Vittozzi got sick and announced she would miss the races. Then Lisa Hauser and Lena Haecki-Gross got sick as well. Emilien Claude had a flare of his back troubles and ultimately ended up having surgery this week. Ida Lien missed out on the races due to continued back trouble. Lea Meier, after a solid Sprint race, went home early due to illness as well. Even still it was a tremendous weekend of racing!
Take Aways
- 🇮🇹 Tommaso Giacomel was the obvious favorite on the men’s side of the field and he looked like it. These were two relatively easy gold medals and there is no reason to suspect anything other than continued ascendency from Giacomel.
- 🇫🇮 The Finnish men have to be happy with what they saw from Hiidensalo and Invenius. While Seppala went home to compete in the National Championships, these two World Cup stalwarts were top 6 in each race including taking 2nd and 3rd in the Pursuit.
- 🇮🇹 The women’s field was hit by illness but still provided some fun and dynamic racing. While the Italian women continue to be dominated by Lisa Vittozzi and Dorothea Wierer, as the younger Italians haven’t yet been able to really separate from each other. However, if this is anything to go by, it looks like Hannah Auchentaller and Rebecca Passler may be getting ready to show us something bigger
- 🇳🇴 While this is just speculation, I like to think that it is at least slightly informed, the Norwegian women came into this race off of some heavier training and it showed. The women likely had some dead legs. None of them nor the coaches seem too terribly upset with the results which included just a single top 10 in each race and Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold finishing a rather pedestrian 33rd and 29th.
- 🇮🇹 Birgit Scholzhorn had some nice moments on the IBU Cup last year but this was the best we’ve seen her yet. Hopefully this is the first of even more coming this winter!
- 🇫🇮 Suvi Minkkinen had an absolutely stunning breakthrough in the 2024-2025 season. She’s credited her training in the Alps last summer for that success. She’s following the same plan this summer and these early results are promising once again.
- 🇦🇹 Really nice weekend from Anna Gandler. Last season was a struggle for her and she’s continued to have recurrent illnesses. However, the rise in the Pursuit to find the podium was magnificent.
- 🇨🇭 The Swiss team came and didn’t have their top stars competing with Nik Hartweg, Sebastian Stalder out for the men and Lena Haecki-Gross out for the women. Still Lea Meier continued her strong summer finishing 4th in the Sprint while the Swiss men stuck three men in the top 10 of the Sprint.
Sprint Races
The weekend started with the Sprint races on Saturday. While it was a little less exciting with the loss of some of the top A-list stars, there was still plenty to be excited about for biathlon on a Saturday in August.
The victory in the Sprint went to a superlative Birgit Scholzhorn who was perfect on the range and then quick enough to beat out teammate Hannah Auchentaller who was similarly 10/10 with the rifle. The 21 year old Scholzhorn had a solid 24-25 season primarily on the IBU Cup. Week in and week out she was finishing in the 20’s. She did peak later in the season with both of her IBU Cup top 20’s coming at the European Championships with an 18th in the Sprint and 8th in the Pursuit. In the 24-25 season Scholzhorn was running around top 20-30 in skiing on the IBU Cup. This shows the potential for a higher level, if she can shoot well and improve on her 80% hit rate from last season.
Fellow youngster Hannah Auchentaller took home the silver medal. She also hit 10/10 but was 10 seconds behind the time of her teammate. Just 2 seconds back of Auchentaller’s time was one of the best stories of the 2024-2025 season, Suvi Minkkinen. The sharpshooter had just one miss on the range. Minkkinen, meanwhile, continue her independent summer training in the Alps this season. She did join her teammates for a recent training camp in France but otherwise she’s follosing the same training schedule that worked so well for her before last season.
Rounding out the top six were Lea Meier, Rebecca Passler, and Marthe Krakstad Johansson. Noted earlier that Meier only competed in one race this weekend but she really made it worthwhile. Hitting only 7 of 10 shots she finished 24 seconds back of Suvi Minkkinen and the last podium spot. Meier has had a pretty solid summer so far. She showed very good ski speed in the Swiss Nordic Weekend. Even though we don’t have access to ski splits at this event, we can tell Meier skied well because she hit just 7 shots and was 4th in the race above many athletes that shot better than that.
A few others worth noting
– Samuela Comola was 9/10 in 8th place
– Anna Gandler set herself up well for the Pursuit with a 9/10 to finish in 9th and exactly 1:00 back of Birgit Scholzhorn
– Aita Gasparin 14th hitting 10/10
– Juni Arnekleiv in 15th hitting 6/10
– Amy Baserga in 16th hitting 7/10
– Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold in 33th with 7/10 shooting. She was +2:57
| Women’s Top 10 | Men’s Top 10 |
| 🥇Birgit Scholzhorn 🇮🇹 (10/10) | 🥇Tommaso Giacomel 🇮🇹 (9/10) |
| 🥈Hannah Auchentaller 🇮🇹 (10/10) | 🥈Lukas Hofer 🇮🇹 (8/10) |
| 🥉Suvi Minkkinen 🇫🇮 (9/10) | 🥉Olli Hiidensalo 🇫🇮 (10/10) |
| 4) Lea Meier 🇨🇭 (7/10) | 4) Marco Barale 🇮🇹 (10/10) |
| 5) Rebecca Passler 🇮🇹 (9/10) | 5) Anton Vidmar 🇸🇮 (10/10) |
| 6) Marthe Krakstad Johansson 🇳🇴 (10/10) | 6) Otto Invenius 🇫🇮 (8/10) |
| 7) Anna Juppe 🇦🇹 (7/10) | 7) Daniele Cappellari 🇮🇹 (9/10) |
| 8) Samuela Comola 🇮🇹 (9/10) | 8) Jeremy Finello 🇨🇭 (7/10) |
| 9) Anna Gandler 🇦🇹 (9/10) | 9) James Pacal 🇨🇭 (8/10) |
| 10) Lara Wagner 🇦🇹 (8/10) | 10) Joscha Burkhalter 🇨🇭 (9/10) |
The men’s field wasn’t nearly as hit as hard by illness with almost all of the expected stars lining up to start. Really the only one that you might have expected to be there that wasn’t was Tero Seppala who instead chose to return to Finland and compete in the national championships while the rest of the A team stayed in Italy.
The Sprint title went to the biggest of the big stars in the field. Tommaso Giacomel was not to be challenged as he went 9/10 and finished 21 seconds ahead of teammate Lukas Hofer. The Italian stars held serve against the field to make sure that the Italian flag remained at the top of the standings of their own national championships races. Hofer had a single miss more than Giacomel and finished about 1 penalty loop behind him. Hofer, meanwhile, was 7 seconds ahead of the perfect shooting of Olli Hiidensalo who finished in 3rd for team Finland’s pride.
Finishing in 4th, by just 1.3 seconds, and taking the bronze medal for the Italian team, was a strong Marco Barale. He was the 3rd men in the standings to hit 10/10. You really couldn’t ask for more from him! He was followed by Anton Vidmar. The Slovenian was also 10/10! Rounding out the top 6 was Otto Invenius to give the Finns two in the top 6. He was 8/10 and just 13 seconds back of the podium. It was really tight from 3-6!
Also worth noting:
– James Pacal has been having a solid summer finished 9th hitting 8/10
– Didier Bionaz finished 12th hitting 6/10
– Elia Zeni finished 13th shooting 8/10
– Patrick Braunhofer 15th hitting 8/10
Pursuit Races
Just like the Sprint races, the Pursuit races were raced under near pristine conditions. Really, the organizers couldn’t have asked for a better set up. Unfortunately, though, with Vittozzi, Hauser, and Haecki-Gross etc. already missing the Sprint they weren’t able to race the Pursuit so they remained out. Additionally Lea Meier fell ill after the Sprint and was unable to run the Pursuit either. So the 4th place finisher from the Sprint was unable to fight for a podium finish.
Regardless of the loss of Meier or the continued absence of the other big name athletes, the there was good racing taking place on that Sunday in Antholz.
The women’s races led off the day. Immediately we saw it was a new day and a new race. The Sprint Champion Birgit Scholzhorn had a difficult time on the range and was unable to defend her title. In fact she fell entirely out of the top 10. However, the other way around Rebecca Passler and Anna Gandler combined solid shooting, and very good skiing, to rise up the standings significantly. Rebecca Passler was 19/20. Her lone miss came in the final shoot, but she was safely ahead with more than enough margin to spare. She carried that away for the victory. Gandler, meanwhile, was also 19/20. She, however, had her lone miss in the first shoot of the day. She was perfect the rest of the day and continued to rise up the field until she pulled away in lap 5 to secure the podium.
Unmentioned above was the silver medal which went to Suvi Minkkinen. Suvi was the lone woman to repeat on the podium from Sprint to Pursuit. Halfway through the race the race was Minkkinen’s to lose. She started out a clean 10/10 and she was well away for the win. However, she had two misses in the first standing shoot to let Rebecca Passler through to the lead. She then had an additional miss on the last shoot to finish 17/20 so she was unable to take advantage of Passler’s own miss. She still finished a more than satisfying 2nd for the day.
Michela Carrara had a magnificent day. After finishing with 7 of 10 shots she was 11th in the Sprint. In the Pursuit, though, she got off to a sterling start hitting all 10 of her prone shots. She had to have dreams of the podium at that point as she was coming up the field. Unfortunately she had a miss in each of the final standing shoots and she wasn’t able to hold off Anna Gandler.
Hannah Auchentaller finished in 5th after she finished 2nd in the Sprint. Her 16/20 shooting held her back from two podiums this weekend. Lara Wagner completed the top 6 with an 18/20 shooting performance to rise from 10th to 6th.
Finally a few others you might be interested in:
– Birgit Schoelzhorn in 11th hitting 15/20
– Anna Juppe in 12th even as she only hit 13 of 20 shots.
– Aita Gasparin in 13th hitting 17/20
– Amy Baserga in 14th hitting 19/20
– Alina Stremous finished in 17th after starting 31st even with 2 misses on the day
– Juni Arnekleiv was 18th with 16/20 shooting
– Anna Andexer finished 20th with 3 standing misses to finish 17/20 on the range
– Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold finished 29th with 4 misses
| Women’s Top 10 | Men’s Top 10 |
| 🥇Rebecca Passler 🇮🇹 (19/20) | 🥇Tommaso Giacomel 🇮🇹 (17/20) |
| 🥈Suvi Minkkinen 🇫🇮 (17/20) | 🥈Olli Hiidensalo 🇫🇮 (18/20) |
| 🥉Anna Gandler 🇦🇹 (19/20) | 🥉Otto Invenius 🇫🇮 (18/20) |
| 4) Michela Carrara 🇮🇹 (18/20) | 4) Marco Barale 🇮🇹 (16/20) |
| 5) Hannah Auchentaller 🇮🇹 (16/20) | 5) Daniele Cappellari 🇮🇹 (17/20) |
| 6) Lara Wagner 🇦🇹 (18/20) | 6) Anton Vidmar 🇸🇮 (16/20) |
| 7) Samuela Comola 🇮🇹 (17/20) | 7) Elia Zeni 🇮🇹 (17/20) |
| 8) Marthe Krakstad Johansson 🇳🇴 (17/20) | 8) Lukas Hofer 🇮🇹 (13/20) |
| 9) Dunja Zdouc 🇦🇹 (19/20) | 9) Patrick Braunhofer 🇮🇹 (18/20) |
| 10) Maren Kirkeeide 🇳🇴 (16/20) | 10) James Pacal 🇨🇭 (15/20) |
The men’s Pursuit race saw a much more stable race than the women’s. Tommaso Giacomel started with a 21 second lead on Lukas Hofer. Hofer started with three misses on the first shoot while Giacomel had a single miss. That was about as close as anybody ever got to Giacomel the rest of the day. He wasn’t even perfect for the rest of the race as he had a single miss in each standing shoot to finish 17/20. Still he finished with nearly a full minute advantage over the rest of the podium.
The Finnish contingent of Olli Hiidensalo and Otto Invenius each went 18/20. Interestingly enough, while Hiidensalo had a single miss in the first of each of the prone and standing shoots, Invenius had a single miss in each of the second prone and standing shoots. Regardless, their good days allowed them to easily ease past Lukas Hofer and hold off any of the chasers. Hiidensalo finished +52 and Invenius finished +1:00.
Behind the two Finns came Marco Barale. The young Italian was 4th in the Sprint and repeated it in the Pursuit. He was just 16/20, but on a day where outside of the top three the shooting was not quite as accurate as you would hope, it was more than enough to hold on to his position. Danielle Cappellari hit 17/20 to move up from 7th to 5th. The Slovenian Anton Vidmar slipped from 5th to 6th after he had 4 misses in the race.
Elia Zeni and Patrick Braunhofer were two of the big risers of the day. Zeni moved from 13th to 7th on the back of 17/20 shooting. Braunhofer was in 9th after finishing 15th in the Sprint after hitting 18/20. The real big riser of the day, though, was Jaako Ranto who soared from 27th to 11th as he hit 20/20.
A few other men:
– Didier Bionaz finished 12th in the Pursuit just as the Sprint with 16/20 shooting
– Joscha Burkhalter slipped from 10th to 14th with 5 misses
– Jeremy Finello struggled on the range falling from 8th to 17th with a 10/20 hit rate
– Florent Claude finished 18th hitting 17/20