The German Biathlon team assembled in Arber for their yearly championships. As most know, the German team doesn’t actually hold winter championships so these are the only chances for German biathletes to win a national champion title. This was the first and only time we’ll see reigning Overall Women’s Champion Franziska Preuss as she aims for another amazing 2025-2026 season. There was the return to competition of Janina Hettich-Walz after her maternity leave last year.
The championships also stand as a significant qualifier for the winter teams as well! The summer national championships account for 40% of the calculation for awarding the open World Cup spots and 50% of the calculation for awarding the open IBU Cup spots. While there is some room for coaches discretion in unusual circumstances they really are going to try to stick to that. That means that athletes that performed well this summer did themselves a very solid bit of work in guaranteeing starts on the World Cup or IBU Cup at least in the first weeks of the season.
Unfortunately there were a few athletes who were not able to start this week including:
– Johannes Kuehn (illness)
– Sophia Schneider (knee pain)
– Johanna Puff (illness)
Fortunately we had a few international athletes join the competitions as well:
– Lukas Hofer
– Alina Stremous
– Lyida Mettler
– Irene Cadurisch
– Michaela Keller-Miller
– Pavel Magazeez
– Tim Cobb
Take Aways
- Janina Hettich-Walz returns from maternity leave and exceeds even the most optimistic hopes and expectations. 🥇in the Short Individual. 🥇in the Sprint. 🥈in the Pursuit. She was just fantastic this weekend. She was 45/50 on the range with four of those misses coming in the Pursuit. That’s actually not all that surprising as she hit 86% or better in three of her last four seasons. More importantly her skiing looked to at the very least be on par with where she was before maternity leave. I can’t imagine there is anything else she needs to do to secure her spot on the World Cup team.
- Justus Strelow was the class of the field for the men. He was the only man to get a medal in every race as he went 🥉,🥉,🥇. Just an all around solid competition.
- Franziska Preuss goes 🥈, 7,🥇. No worries for the defending Women’s Overall Globe champion. She didn’t go out of her way to peak for these championships and she still looked quite good. Full steam ahead for a strong 25-26 season.
- The rest of the top names for the German men after Justus Strelow were up and down. Each of them won at least one medal but they also all had a finish of 10th or worse (besides Fratzscher). In no particular order:
– Philipp Nawrath: 15th, 🥈,🥈
– Philipp Horn: 🥇,10 (DNS for the Pursuit)
– Roman Rees: 10,🥇,4
– Lucas Fratzscher: 🥈,6,🥈 - Vanessa Voigt was lights out on the range. Including the City Biathlon competition she has hit 68 of her last 70 shots. However, just like the City Biathlon races she appears to be behind where we might hope she would be in her ski prep. Regardless, I’m taking the optimistic approach on this weekend. She’s in good spirits and even being behind in her ski preparations she was top 5 in each race. Hopefully a good fall puts her in good position for the season.
- With the depth on the women’s team there is certainly going to be competition for starts on the World Cup and IBU Cup. Selina Kastl has fallen just a bit out of the main list of “top women” on team. This week she definitely showed something with three top 10’s going 8th, 8th, 🥉. This was a very high quality weekend and she’s put herself in line for a chance on the IBU Cup. Now she’s going to need to keep it.
- Speaking of earning chances, Leonhard Pfund is doing that this summer. A very good week at the Blink Festival. This week he goes 6th, 4th, 5th. Coach Reiter has to be very enthused to see him taking steps forward this summer
- Because of the above mentioned competition, Anna Weidel has existed a little bit between the IBU/WC level. Earlier this summer she had an excellent week in Sandnaes for the Blink Festival. This week her shooting wasn’t the best but her skiing was very good.
- Selina Grotian was just fine. There was a bit of a concern when she didn’t have a good Short Individual but she bounced back with a 🥈and 5th.
- Julia Tannheimer, already assured of a spot on the World Cup, didn’t have the greatest week. She actually was just fine with the skiing but she went 14/20 in the Short Individual and 5/10 in the Sprint before a little rebound with a 17/20 in the Pursuit.
- A few other men worth mentioning:
– Elias Seidel finished 7th in each race this weekend.
– Franz Schaxer 5th, 9th, and 5th.
– Benjamin Menz after a significant downturn in performance was 4th in the Short Individual and then 8th and 14th. Not nearly as solid as the above two men but definitely a step in the right direction. - Charlotte Gallbronner is yet another young talented woman in the German ranks. This week she staked a claim to one of the IBU Cup spots for this winter. She had two perfect shooting days to start as she finished 10th and 4th. and then took home 9th in the Pursuit. Nice name to tuck away in your memory.
Short Individual
Things got underway on Friday with the Men’s Short Individual. The Individual is always an event that can produce odd results. However, fittingly, this was a bit of an odd event. It was basically a sprint that was 4 loops instead of 2. Rather than the usual penalty for a missed shot the athletes did a penalty loop instead.
Philipp Horn who has really come into his own over the last 2-3 seasons as he’s become a World Cup regular, and at times arguably as high as #3 on the team, took the gold medal in the first event of the German Summer Biathlon National Championships. We wouldn’t say it was a pristine day on the range for the entire field, so even with four total misses on the day Horn was still able to take the top spot on the podium. Considering Justus Strelow was 18/20 and +29 seconds it says something about the difference in skiing level at this point. Whether that it is more to Horn’s credit or Strelow’s detriment is unclear though. Regardless Philipp Horn takes home the gold medal as the German men’s champ in the Individual for the year!
Lucas Fratzscher was similarly 16/20 for the day and finished 27 seconds back of Philipp Horn. Fratzscher was a perfect 10/10 prone for the race, but just 6/10 standing with two misses in each of his standing shoots. And of course Justus Strelow was 3rd.
The Top 6 was rounded out by a group of young men. Benjamin Menz with his best race in a couple of seasons finished 4th with a 19/20 shooting day. The lone miss was in his last shoot. So close to a perfect day! Franz Schaser (18/20) and Leonhard Pfund (17/20) performed very well also. You might be wondering about Philipp Nawrath and he was 15th after a rough shooting day hitting just 12/20.
| Women’s Results | Men’s Results |
| 🥇Janina Hettich-Walz | 🥇Philipp Horn |
| 🥈Franziska Preuss | 🥈Lucas Fratzscher |
| 🥉Alina Stremous | 🥉Justus Strelow |
| 4) Vanessa Voigt | 4) Benjamin Menz |
| 5) Hanna-Michelle Hermann | 5) Franz Schaser |
| 6) Melina Gaupp | 6) Leonhard Pfund |
| 7) Anna Weidel | 7) Elias Seidl |
| 8) Selina Kastl | 8) Danil Riethmueller |
| 9) Julia Vogler | 9) David Zobel |
| 10) Charlotte Galbronner | 10) Roman Rees |
In the women’s race, Janina Hettich-Walz returned to racing in the most wonderful way imaginable. All afternoon she was magnificent. She started out later than Franziska Preuss, but was running ahead of her for several loops on the tracks, she was a beautiful 19/20. She came to 26 seconds ahead of Preuss’ then leading time to take the gold medal. This while Preuss had the same shooting statistics. They both were well ahead of third place, and perfect on the range, Vanessa Voigt who was +1:43 back of Hettich-Walz and +1:16 back of Preuss.
Coming in 4th with a stunning performance was Hanna-Michelle Hermann, the former now once again biathlete (after a brief change to xc skiing only for season). She looked just like she did at the Swiss Nordic festival a few weeks back with solid skiing and pretty good shooting! 18/20 is nothing to be upset with at all and she finished just 28 seconds off the podium. She was followed by the very young Melina Gaupp who finished in 5th with 19/20 shooting and Anna Weidel who hit just 15/20 but still finished just 14 seconds back of Hermann and in the 6th position.
A few other interesting performances on the day, as noted above Selina Kastl got her championships off right with a 7th place finish. Charlotte Gallbronner got things off well with a perfect 20/20 day. And Julia Tannheimer, even with 6 misses, was in 10th and just 40 seconds back of 4th.
Sprint
On day 2 we got the Sprints. The true Sprints this time. The 3 lap and 2 shoot sprints instead of the 5 lap 4 shoot “Short Individuals” on day 1.
A new day and a new champion for the men. Roman Rees, after a fairly difficult season spent primarily on the IBU Cup, probably felt a little more pressure this season to put up a good performance here. Just getting off to a good start with the formula to set himself up to claim a World Cup spot is probably feeling more stressful than it would have a year ago. He had a 10th in the Short Individual, but the victory in the Sprint was big for his hopes. He had a single miss shooting, the same as his fellow podium members, but he dug deep and pulled out the victory by a slim 1.3 seconds over Philipp Nawrath and 6.7 seconds on Justus Strelow. For Nawrath this was similarly a very nice rebound as he came back from 15th in the Short Individual to finish with the silver medal in the Sprint and (spoiler alert) bronze in the Pursuit.
Coming in 4th was Leonhard Pfund who has continued his tremendous summer with a perfect shooting 10/10 that secured him 4th place, just 5.6 seconds behind Justus Strelow. No complaints here! Simon Kaiser came in 5th, his best finish of the weekend ahead of 6th in the Pursuit and 11th in the Short Individual. Kaiser, to his credit, was the top finishing 8/10 performer on the day. Lucas Fratzscher had his “worst” finish of the week coming in 6th with 3 misses on the day. Also hats off to Benjamin Menz coming in 8th. Solid racing from Elias Seidl with his 2nd of three consecutive 7th place finishes and Franz Schaser.
| Women’s Results | Men’s Results |
| 🥇Janina Hettich-Walz | 🥇Roman Rees |
| 🥈Selina Grotian | 🥈Philipp Nawrath |
| 🥉Lydia Mettler | 🥉Justus Strelow |
| 4) Charlotte Galbronner | 4) Leonhard Pfund |
| 5) Vanessa Voigt | 5) Simon Kaiser |
| 6) Stefanie Scherer | 6) Lucas Fratzscher |
| 7) Franziska Preuss | 7) Elias Seidl |
| 8) Selina Kastl | 8) Benjamin Menz |
| 9) Marlene Fichtner | 9) Franz Schaser |
| 10) Anna Weidel | 10) Philipp Horn |
For the women it was once again Janina Hettich-Walz climbing to the top of the podium. In a day that included five perfect shooters, Janina Hettich-Walz threw up another clean sheet and finished well ahead of the pack as she cruised to a victory. Once again Hettich-Walz was running quite well on the skis and shooting exceptionally well. These two victories back to back were just phenomenal. Seriously there isn’t anything else you could hope to see at this point.
Behind Janina Hettich-Walz was Selina Grotian who rebounded from a subpar effort in the Short Individual to claim the silver medal. Just like Hettich-Walz she was perfect on the range. She’s certainly not targeting these championships for a peak but looked quite good in this race. For the second race in a row it was a non-German woman who climbed the podium. This time it was Lydia Mettler, who we know can ski well, who hit 10/10 and stole the 3rd place position by 1.9 seconds from out of Charlotte Gallbronner’s grasp. Charlotte Gallbronner, meanwhile, followed up her perfect shooting 10th place Individual with another clean shoot to claim 4th. Finishing as the 3rd best German she gets to take home the bronze medal as well!
Vanessa Voigt continued her hot shooting. She hit all 10 shots which ran her current streak up to 50/50 including City Biathlon as well as the German Championships Individual and Sprint. Once again, though, she was just not fast enough to take advantage finishing 39 seconds back of Janina Hettich-Walz and 2.5 seconds back of Charlotte Gallbronner. Stefanie Schere completed the top 6 in the race.
Franziska Preuss was running quite well but her 2 misses on the standing shoot knocked her out of the running for a podium spot. Finishing 57 seconds back she would have been in a tight race with Hettich-Walz for the victory. Selina Kastl continued her good week with a 9/10 shooting to finish 8th just 0.5 seconds back of Preuss.
Pursuit
Finally we come to the Pursuit day. Justus Strelow finished off a very good week of racing by having his third podium of the weekend with a gold medal. The race started off with a the Sprint podium finishers of Roman Rees,Philipp Nawrath, and Justus Strelow all tightly bunched tight grouping with Leonhard Pfund, Simon Kaiser, and Lucas Fratzscher all within 33 seconds. It was bound to be a tight race the entire way.
Strelow, Fratzscher, Nawrath, and Pfund went clean at the first shooting to gain some separation while Rees and Kaiser slipped back with one and two penalty loop each. That was the closest Kaiser would come as he did two penalty loops on three of the four shootings of the race, only going clean in the first standing shoot. Roman Rees similarly was magnetically drawn to the penalty loop as he had a miss on the first, third, and fourth trips to the range. It just kept him from being able to build momentum constantly trying to chase back. Pfund, meanwhile was just not quite able to have the speed to keep up. Those three would eventually finish just off the podium with Rees in 4th, Pfund in 5th, and Kaiser in 6th.
The lead bunch was whittled down to two after the 2nd shooting as Strelow and Fratzscher again went clean to leave Philipp Nawrath behind. Though Nawrath was able to go clean in his first standing shoot and had a chance to come back in the last shoot, he threw two wild for three total misses. That ultimately cost him the top two positions on the podium but he secured the bronze.
Finally it came down to two men, Justus Strelow and Lucas Fratzscher. Ultimately it was Fratzscher who blinked first. He had two misses in the 3rd shoot to fall back behind Nawrath. While Fratzscher went clean in his last shoot which allowed him to pass Nawrath again, the day was won by Justus Strelow. Strelow went a clean 15/15 before finally having a miss in the final shoot. At that stage though he was comfortably far ahead so he could absorb a single miss even with Fratzscher going clean. Justus Strelow was able to cruise to the line for a 12 second win over Lucas Fratzscher. Philipp Nawrath took the bronze at +44.
| Women’s Results | Men’s Results |
| 🥇Franziska Preuss | 🥇Justus Strelow |
| 🥈Janina Hettich-Walz | 🥈Lucas Fratzscher |
| 🥉Selina Kastl | 🥉Philipp Nawrath |
| 4) Vanessa Voigt | 4) Roman Rees |
| 5) Selina Grotian | 5) Leonhard Pfund |
| 6) Marlene Fichtner | 6) Simon Kaiser |
| 7) Julia Kink | 7) Elias Seidl |
| 8) Stefanie Scherer | 8) David Zobel |
| 9) Charlotte Galbronner | 9) Franz Schaser |
| 10) Anna Weidel | 10) Philipp Lipowitz |
In the women’s Pursuit, Franziska Preuss decided to finally throw down and show that she’s still the #1 woman in German biathlon. Without doing the blow by blow as we did in the men’s Pursuit, Preuss went a sterling 20/20 and easily cruised to the win over the rest of the field.
Hettich-Walz, the Sprint winner, came into the race with a 20 second advantage on Selina Grotian in 2nd and a 57 second advantage on Preuss who started in 7th. Even without being being in her top ski form, 4 fewer misses than Hettich-Walz was easily enough to put Preuss in front after the 3rd shooting. From there it was just a matter of avoiding mistakes for Franzi, which she did, and she was able to ease her way to the gold medal on the last loop.
Hettich-Walz, meanwhile, held on to the silver medal by a slim margin over Selina Kastl. While Hettich-Walz had nothing left to prove this weekend after two consecutive victories to star the weekend, Selina Kastl was looking to put a stamp on a very good weekend where he threw her name back into the mix for regular IBU Cup starts. Kastl started the day in 8th place and through perfect prone shoots quickly moved her way up the field. While she had a miss on the 3rd shoot, she went clean in the final trip to the range and was able to get around ahead of Vanessa Voigt for the final medal of the weekend.
Vanessa Voigt was unable to continue her perfect shooting streak. After 50/50 from the City Biathlon race through the Sprint, she had two misses in the Pursuit, Even still, she was able to move up a single position from 5th to 4th. After running in gold medal position at the halfway point of the race Grotian finished in 5th after three misses in the last two shoots. Marlene Fichtner finished in 6th for her best finish of the weekend as well.