Czechia 2025-2026 Team Preview

As the 2025-2026 season prepares to get under way we find the Czechia team in an intriguing spot. On the women’s side a healthy Markéta Davidová can compete with anybody. We saw that last year as she started out the season on fire before a back injury erased the rest of her season. Tereza Voborníková appears to have top 15 and possibly top 10 Overall potential in the next five years. And even younger Ilona Plecháčová and Heda Mikolášová have us all wondering how high the ceiling is. The men, meanwhile, saw a major surprise in the form of Vitezslav Hornig’s breakthrough last seaon. Michal Krčmář remains a steady presence. And young men like Tomáš Mikyska and Jonáš Marecek are showing flashes as well.

So can we expect a massive 2025-2026 campaign from our Czechia team? Let’s see!

Women The Czechia women enter the 2025-2026 season with an intriguing mix of youth, experience, and high ceiling talent. There is Markéta Davidová who has finished top 10 in the World but is returning from a back injury and questions abound. Tereza Voborníková has flashed top 10 level talent. Jessica Jislova has certainly had her moments. Lucie Charvátová can ski fast which gives her potential any given day. And then some unbelievably talented Juniors who will be pushing to breakthrough to the World Cup team. If you can’t tell I’m really curious what we’re going to see from this team. The ceiling is quite interesting, but it’s no sure thing they will reach it.

Coaches: Luca Bormolini and Lucas Dostal
2024-2025 Nations Cup Rank: 9th
2024-2025 Relay Finishes: 9th, 8th, 17th, 11th, 12th (WC), 8th
Quota: 5 Athletes to Start

The World Cup – The Czech women are going to be running 5 women on the World Cup each week. Assuming good health I think we have a pretty good handle on 3 and likely 4 of the selections. Which direction they go with on the 5th selection I think really depends on how aggressive they want to be with the youth movement or if they go with more of a “whoever is hot” strategy. Either way we’ll look at all of women who will likely be in the mix for World Cup time here. Here are the women who will start the season on the World Cup:
– Markéta Davidová
– Tereza Voborníková 
– Jessica Jislová 
– Lucie Charvátová 
– Tereza Vinklarkova

Markéta Davidová (28)

Last year was such a difficult experience for Markéta Davidová . She was so solid and consistent from the 2019-2020 season through 2022-2023. She was anywhere from 14th to 9th in the Overall getting a little better every season. Then came the 2023-2024 season and she just couldn’t seen to get it in gear. Her skiing was still pretty good but her shooting dipped significantly. The result was just five to 10’s, her fewest in five seasons. It was her first without a top 5 much less a podium since 2017-2018.

Then she came exploding out of the gate last season and looked absolutely spectacular. She won the 2nd race of the season, the Sprint in Kontiolahti. It was her first victory since the first race of the 2021-2022 season, a span of 75 races. For comparison her first World Cup victory came in just her 23rd race. In her next three races she went 10th, 7th, and 5th. She was running in the top 5 and on her way to the best season of her career. And then a chronic back problem flared up and she was basically done for the season. She gallantly returned for a single race in Nove Mesto for the home fans, but clearly was not well yet. It was triumph to tragedy in two weeks.

Throughout her career Markéta Davidová has been a very good skier. Since the start of the 2018-2019 season she’s consistently run about 3-3.3% faster than median putting her average course time rank right around 10th for each of those seasons. It’s given her a top 10 overall ski rank every one of those seasons. Long story short, she’s an excellent skier. Low back pain with pain radiating down the legs is pretty hard on the skiing though. As long as the sciatica continues it makes it very difficult to rely on her very good strength.

It was the shooting that made the difference for Davidová last season. After it dipped in 23-24 it surged back to 86.7% with perfectly even splits in her six races last season. That was just slightly below her career peak of 87% in the 22-23 season. Not coincidentally the best season of her career to date in terms of Overall rank as well as top 5 and top 10 finishes.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2017-2018	79.4	71.7	72.4	36.1
2018-2019	81.2	77	79.4	37.9
2019-2020	86.9	73.1	80	35.6
2020-2021	89	76.5	82.8	32.8
2021-2022	85.5	84	84.8	32.6
2022-2023	89.5	84.5	87	27.6
2023-2024	85.2	76.7	81	29.8
2024-2025	86.7	86.7	86.7	29.6

We’ll see what happens with Davidová this season. They’ve been taking it easy with her this summer, making sure to prioritize rest this summer. For this season in particular I’m sure they’re going to target February over everything else. Not that this is unusual in an Olympic season, but especially when her health is a little fragile. Unlike Lisa Vittozzi who has shown us multiple times this summer how good she can look, Davidová hasn’t had that “I’m back” moment. She did have a great race in the Czech Summer Championships Pursuit, but it came after a 7th place finish in the Sprint. It was a very good performance and certainly encouraging, but not quite the same statement as Vittozzi had.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Markéta Davidová missed a weekend or two this winter for managing her symptoms. It’s tricky for the Czech team because while many teams will skip the last weekend of trimester two to start altitude prep for Antholz, the Czechia team will still want to show up for their home fans who are some of the best around. Regardless, the point is that this is not a season for the Overall for Davidová . It’s about getting the body and back ready for the Olympics. Everything else is golden. To know she’s “ready” we’ll want to see her reaching her benchmarks which as we noted above are running about 3% faster than median with top 10 course time ranks and hitting mid to upper 80’s. If she’s in that range she can find podiums including medals at the 2026 Olympic games.

Tereza Voborníková (25)

As Markéta Davidová missed out on the majority of the 2024-2025 season it fell to the young Tereza Voborníková to become the leader of the Czechia women’s team. She did a capable job of shouldering the burden. She finished 21st in the Overall, a slight step down from 16th Overall the season before. But she still put up three to p10’s and 10 top 20’s. While she was still able to find the top 10 at the same rate as the prior season, her floor slipped a little bit with five fewer top 20’s year over year. Either way, it was a solid season for the then 24 year old.

The good news for Voborníková is that her shooting accuracy continued to improve. Historically a very good shooter as she developed on the Juniors level, she’s seen her hit rate improve each year she’s run full time on the World Cup. From 84.1% in 22-23, to 86.9% in 23-24, and then 90.3% last season. That was her best hit rate for a full season on any level. That included a resplendent 91.2% prone. She had the 10th best Overall hit rate on the World Cup last season. That’s certainly a heck of a strength to have.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2021-2022	88.3	90	89.2	30.9
2022-2023	82.8	85.5	84.4	28.5
2023-2024	87.8	86.1	86.9	29.8
2024-2025	91.2	89.4	90.3	29.1

The reason Voborníková’s floor fell a tiny bit was that her skiing wasn’t quite at the same level as it was the year prior. There was really only a small dip, but it was enough. She slipped from 0.8% faster than median to 0.1% faster than median. That let her average ski rank dip from 27th to 38th.

Tereza Voborníková’s star continues to be on the rise. There is every reason to believe that she’ll continue to rise this season. As one of the best shooters in biathlon she is already good enough on the range to be a top 10 Overall biathlete. That’s absolutely within her capabilities. It’s all up to her ability to improve on the tracks. She may not ever be quite as fast as Markéta Davidová, but we honestly won’t know that for several more seasons. There is no reason to believe that her speed from two years ago was her peak though. It’s definitely possible if not even likely that she can get to at least 2% faster than median in the peak years of her career.

For now, let’s see if she can marry up her 23-24 speed with her 24-25 shooting. That would put her somewhere between Milena Todorova and Suvi Minkkinen. That would be a heck of a year!

Jessica Jislová (31)

The 2021-2022 season for Jessica Jislová was a huge breakthrough season. Before that year she had a career best of 59th but that season she surged all the way up to 17th in the Overall rankings. That season she had the best skiing of her career and took a massive leap forward in her shooting. While her skiing slipped a little bit after that, she’s still maintained her position as one of the best shooters in biathlon. And she has still maintained most of the improvement in her skiing that she experienced that year as she continues to ski better now than she did at any point prior to the 21-22 season. As a result, the last three seasons she’s finished 36th, 26th, and 36th again in the Overall. All three of those are well ahead of her career best prior to that magical 2021-2022 season, but she just hasn’t quite managed to get all the way there again.

Jislová is a really great example of how many things have to come together for one of those amazing seasons to take place. You need the skiing and the shooting, and to a lesser but still important extent, the shooting speed to all come together. Regardless of whether she ever finishes higher than 17th in the Overall for the rest of her career, that 2021-2022 season was a major inflection point in her career. She found something that season and used it to propel herself to another level, and then did the hard work necessary to maintain it.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2017-2018	91.8	77.3	84.6	30
2018-2019	84	78	81	31.7
2019-2020	82.5	78.8	80.6	32.5
2020-2021	79.2	75	77.1	31.9
2021-2022	92.5	89.5	91	30
2022-2023	96	85.6	90.8	28.3
2023-2024	88.4	88.4	88.4	29.6
2024-2025	92.3	86.5	89.4	30

We’ll see what Jessica Jislová is able to do from here on out. At this point we can hope and maybe even expect the shooting to be there. It’s now four consecutive seasons of hitting 88.4% or better. There is no reason to expect that to change now. The only question will be can her skiing take yet another step forward. The new coaching staff will have a lot to do with that. And she’s certainly not too old to have a career best ski season. Anything better than median in terms of skiing for the season will put her in that position. And along the way maybe she’ll get another top 10 or two!

Lucie Charvátová (32)

There was a point three and four years ago where it looked like Lucie Charvátová was about to slip down the pecking order on the Czechia team and find herself more regularly on the IBU Cup than the World Cup. After two consecutive seasons in the mid 70’s of the Overall she refused to give in, and pushed herself back up. 2023-2024 was the 3rd best Overall finish of her career coming in at 32nd (just 1 spot away from her 2nd best finish!). She followed that up with a solid 46th place finish last season. Along the way she picked up fifth top 10 finish of her career as well!

It’s not hard to see what makes Charvatova go. She’s a good skier with hit or miss shooting. When her performance slipped a few years ago it was primarily due to a deterioration in her skiing. But she’s recovered that nicely over the last two seasons running 2.5% and 2.1% faster than median with average course time ranks of 19th and 21st. That’s actually near the upper end of where she’s been in her career in terms of skiing. The shooting is the make or break aspect. At her best she hits in the low 70’s.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2017-2018	75	52.5	63.8	28.1
2018-2019	73.8	71.3	72.5	29.7
2019-2020	71.9	68.8	70.3	27.9
2020-2021	73.6	58.2	65.9	29.6
2021-2022	81.4	64.3	72.9	30.2
2022-2023	79.2	67.7	73.5	28.3
2023-2024	82	64.7	73.3	30.1
2024-2025	75	61.4	68.2	29.8

There is nothing too difficult to see here. Her skiing is good enough to routinely be top 20. The shooting, particularly the standing shooting holds her back. Mostly likely what we’ll see is another season of skiing that is good enough to get her there, and when she hits 80% or better in a race she’ll be in the top 20. However, there is still a chance she can find a breakthrough of sorts to the top 25 of the Overall. If she hits anywhere close to 75% (which would be a career best so let’s not expect it) and if the skiing maintains where it was the last two seasons, it will be a career year. However, with her hit rate this low she can’t stand to slip much further in her skiing or she won’t be able to make up as much ground for her misses. Charvatova runs with a very slim margin for error but there is a pathway there for her.

Tereza  Vinklárková (26)

The 2024-2025 season was another solid year for Tereza  Vinklárková on the IBU Cup. She score another top 10, the second IBU Cup top 10 of her career after she first achieved it in the 23-24 season. Her average finish was 38th which was down a bit from 27th the year before. She also got back to the World Cup late in the year and had three races finishing 81st, 90th, and 64th. It wasn’t spectacular. And her performance didn’t really demand to see her move to the World Cup on a more consistent basis.

For Vinklárková while it was another solid season on the IBU Cup, it wasn’t quite as good as she was in 23-24. Her average course time rank slipped from 28th to 37th as she fell from 1.4% faster than median down to 0.4% faster. Her hit rate came down from 81.1% to 74.6% including a pretty rough standing shooting percentage of just 64.6%.

The good news for Vinklárková is that she’s still young. She certainly can ski faster than she did this year. She can certainly shoot better than she did this year. The not as good news is that there are more and more young talented Czechia athletes challenging her for position. This is a big season for her. She had a solid enough showing out of the test races to earn the spot on the World Cup to start out. Now she needs to keep it up. Can she start getting her momentum moving forward again? I sure hope so!

IBU Cup – So there are a number of women on the list above and several of them are starting the season on the IBU Cup. There are still a few more women who are more likely than not going to spend most of the season on the IBU Cup. Including those above here are the women who will start the season on the IBU Cup:
– Ilona Plecháčová
– Heda Mikolášová
– Eliška Václavíková
– Kateřina Pavlů
– Kristýna Otcovská

Ilona Plecháčová (18)

Ilona Plecháčová is only 18 (she turns 19 the day after Christmas) so it seems ridiculous to have her on this list. But when you look at her accomplishments to date it seems impossible to keep her off of it. Heading into last season she already had 5 Junior Cup top 10’s in 15 races including a silver medal at the 2024 Youth Worlds in the Individual. In fact in her six career Youth Worlds races she had that silver medal along with a 6th and a 4th in the Sprint and Pursuit in the 2023 Youth Worlds and an additional 10th in the 2024 Youth Worlds Mass 60.

Then came last season. In 10 races last year she had two wins, four podiums and five top 10’s including a wild Youth Worlds in Oestersund where she won gold in the Individual followed by two bronze medals in the Sprint and Mass 60. She also won 6th in the Junior European Championship Sprint. She also ran four times on the IBU Cup with a career and season’s best of 27th. And she ended the year with her World Cup debut in Oslo.

Plecháčová is in the process of developing very nice speed. Last season she averaged 7.2% faster than the median Junior Cup athlete. She was the fastest Youth women in the Youth Worlds racing against her age cohort. Against the other Juniors she ran with an average course time rank of 14th. Even in her IBU Cup races she was running 1.4% faster than median which is no small feat at her age.

Meanwhile her shooting is coming along nicely. After hitting 73.1% as a Junior two years ago she improved to 78.6% two years ago and 84% last season. She hit 85.3% prone and 82.7% standing. Her average shooting time was 32.6 seconds which for the Juniors isn’t too bad. Still a ways to go for the World Cup or even the IBU Cup, but it’s a solid starting position to be in.

Ilona Plecháčová is still so young, but she clearly is one to keep a very close eye on. If she performs anything like she did last season, and especially if she shows signs of improvement, we’ll at the very least see her get some routine racing on the IBU Cup. On the Juniors level she’ll be in the mix week in and week out and is a threat for medals at Junior European and Junior Worlds. And maybe we’ll get to see her run again on the World Cup. Maybe even in Nove Mesto when a senior or two takes the week off to start Olympics prep? Well in Tereza Voborníková’s 19-20 age season she was 6.1% faster than median and hit 83.6%. Sounds familiar right? Definitely a chance that Ilona Plecháčová is a special one.

Heda Mikolášová (19)

The great thing for the Czechia team is that Ilona Plechacova isn’t the only bright young star to keep watch on this season and the next few seasons. They also have Heda Mikolášová who, while not quite as accomplished as Ilona Plechacova, still has had a bit of success over the last two seasons.

In the 2023-2024 season she won bronze in the Individual at at the Junior European Championship and followed that up with 7th and 9th at Youth Worlds in the Individual and Sprint. Last season she has four top 12 finishes including all three of the the Junior Cup races in Ridnaun-Val Ridanna and the Sprint at Youth Worlds. She also finished 23rd and 18th in the Individual and Mass 60 at Youth Worlds. It’s also worth mentioning that Mikolášová made her IBU Cup debut and finished 14th in the Sprint in Obertilliach.

Mikolášová has been a very good skier the last two seasons as she consistently finished top 7 in ski time as a Junior. That included all six of her Youth Worlds races the last two seasons. She was 8.4% faster than median two years ago and 7% faster than median last year. When she got to the IBU Cup she didn’t disappoint either. In those five races she had a top 33 course time rank in four of the five races running about 1% faster than median.

The brake on her performance has been the shooting. She’s hit 72.7% and 72.9% each of the last two seasons as a Junior. She does hit significantly better prone than standing.

While not quite as good as Ilona Plechacova at this very early juncture in their careers, Heda Mikolášová is no slouch. A very solid skier who just needs to keep up the hard work. If she keeps improving at this rate she’ll be racing alongside Plecháčová on the World Cup before we know it. For this season, though, I would love to see her running even a little bit faster. A bit stronger against the Juniors, and in her IBU Cup racing running 2% faster than median is absolutely possible. That’s where Kristyna Otcovska was last season and Mikolášová, even this young, could make it happen. Even more I would hope to see her shooting rise up after two seasons of 72%. Mid to upper 70’s isn’t spectacular but it would be a big jump! Put those two together and we’re making great progress!

Kristýna Otcovská (25)

After making her World Cup debut at the conclusion of the 2023-2024 campaign, Kristýna Otcovská graduated up and spend most of the season on the World Cup last season. It wasn’t a season without it’s challenges but it certainly showed some significant levels of growth. At first glance you might not be able to tell just looking at results. She has just a single top 40 finish on the World Cup, which came in the first race of the season when she finished 32nd in the Short Individual in Kontiolahti. Her average finish from her first significant World Cup run was 75th.

Otcovská ended up finishing out the season on the IBU Cup and this is where she showed off what she had been working on. She finished 35th, 38th, and 46th at the European Championships. Then she really took off with four top 13 finishes in her last five races including her first podium in a Sprint in Otepaa. It was followed two races later with her first career IBU Cup win in the Mass 60. Talk about turning around the mood of the season!

In those IBU Cup races she had by FAR the best skiing of her career on that level. After running 0.7% faster than median in 23-24 she was 2.8% faster last season. That corresponded to an average course time rank of 20th compared to 31st in 23-24. She also hit 83.8% in those eight races which was a solid improvement above her prior of 78%. While she raced on the World Cup she was 2.9% slower than median with an average course time rank of 71st and a hit rate of 73.6%.

The entirety of her performance got better at the end of the season. Her skiing on the IBU Cup was even better than we would have expected based on her World Cup skiing. Her shooting was obviously much better. Why would that be? Was she not completely health for the first part of the season? Was she putting herself under too much stress? I don’t know if we can truly answer that question.

We do know that the quality of the competition in the last two weekends of the IBU Cup isn’t always as good because some of the athletes go to the World Cup. But look at who was running behind her in her win: Paula Botet, Camille Bened, Gilonne Guigonnat, Voldiya Galmace Paulin, Lara Wagner in order. So even if the total field quality was reduced it was still excellent at the top and she had two awesome finishes that weekend. And it’s not like she had a great Sprint and used that to springboard to a great Pursuit. This was two great races.

Can Kristýna Otcovská use that close of the season as a springboard? Let’s hope so. It was a relatively short sample size but that was easily the best shooting in her career. The first extended stretch hitting above 80%. If she can bring that to next season that’s a massive improvement. Also her skiing on the IBU Cup at the end of the season would more directly translate to about 1% slower than median on the World Cup. That’s a much different athlete than we saw for much of last season. If she does something like she would replicate almost perfectly Susan Külm’s statistics from last season (0.9% slower than median & 81% hit rate) which led to two top 20’s and four top 30’s and 54th in the Overall. I think we would all take that in a heartbeat for Kristýna Otcovská this season.

Kateřina Pavlů (22)

Young Kateřina Pavlů, who last season ran race on both the IBU Cup and the Juniors level, will move full time to Seniors level racing this season. She had decent successes on both levels last year. Moreso that she’s ever had before. In her Juniors racing she accomplished her first career Juniors win with her last career Juniors race, the Junior European Championships Mass 60. She also had three top 10’s last year, tying the most of her Juniors career. That was three of seven races so just under 50%. On the IBU Cup she had three top 30’s in six races with an average finish of 35th. That included three of the four best IBU Cup finishes of her career.

During her Juniors racing she’s primarily been successful with her shooting. She actually was one of the best Juniors shooters in the 23-24 season as she hit 88.6%. Last year she hit only 80% but it was still good enough in enough races to find three top 10’s and the win. To be fair it was really dragged down by one stinker race. If you take out that one race she hit 83% the rest of the year. Meanwhile on the IBU Cup, in similar number of races, she hit 91.3% overall. The truth of her shooting this season was somewhere in between. But regardless she’s still a good shooter, and with her age, potentially very good.

Meanwhile her skiing is okay. She was running around 4.4% faster than median in each of the last two seasons on the Junior Cup. Her Junior Cup average course time rank was just 19th, which is fine but doesn’t knock your socks off. On the IBU Cup she was 1.1% slower than median, a definite improvement from the 23-24 season when she was 3.1% slower than median. Her average course time rank was 50th.

As Kateřina Pavlů makes the full time jump to the Seniors level she’s already got the shooting down. She’s a mid to high 80% shooter if not better on a regular basis. That’s more than good enough to compete. It’s all about maintaining that (which takes work!) and seeing the skiing come along. I’m happy to be patient with her as there is no absolute need to see her on the World Cup right away. Hopefully we see it come along in the next 2-3 seasons so as the current group of veterans starts moving toward retirement this younger group including Plecháčová and Mikolášová and Pavlů are ready for the World Cup.

Eliška Václavíková (26)

It’s a return to the IBU Cup for Eliška Václavíková, her first racing there, or anywhere on the IBU, since the 2023-2024 season. Thus far in her career she hasn’t had overwhelming success. She does have five top 20’s on the IBU Cup with the most recent one coming in the 2022-2023 campaign. Her best Overall finish on that level was 43rd which came in the 2021-2022 season. In her Juniors racing she had a career best 16th in the Sprint at the 2018-2019 Junior Worlds.

Thus far in her career Václavíková has been okay at both skiing and shooting. Her hit rates have been between 73.3% and 80% every year of her career. The prone shooting is pretty consistent around the 80% mark but the standing hit rate seems to vary much more. That appears to be a big key to her success. As a skier she ran right around the median, or a little faster, on the IBU Cup in the 21-22 and 22-23 seasons. However, in her last racing she was running well back at 3.5% slower than median. I was not able to find a good explanation for that.

I am really happy to see Eliška Václavíková back on the IBU Cup. I was worried she was on her way out of the sport over the last two years. She had a really good Sprint race in the test races where she hit 9/10 and finished 14 seconds back of Jessica Jislova. That secured her IBU Cup spot. Unfortunately her Mass Start race was not quite so beautiful as she had eight misses. I will keep my fingers crossed. I really want to see good things for her!

Katerina Gotvaldová (22)

Katerina Gotvaldová remains on the Czechia national training rosters. However, last season, even at just 21 years old, she only raced one time. It was an IBU Cup finish of 78th in a Sprint. So we really don’t know a whole lot more about her than we did this time last year. So here’s basically what I wrote last year:

After another season (2023-2024) of splitting time between the Junior and IBU Cup levels Katerina Gotvaldová had some successes worth celebrating. On the Juniors she had two top 20’s. On the IBU Cup she also scored two top 20’s, twice 16th, for her best finishes of the IBU Cup career, in just five races.

Looking at the statistics from her IBU Cup races you can see a solid improvement in her skiing as she went from 2.4% slower than median biathlete up to the exact median in terms of ski speed. This included an average ski rank improving from 50th to 33rd. Her shooting showed a nearly 10% improvement in hit rate going up from 72.5% to 81.1%. Similar improvements can also be seen in her Juniors levels as well.

For the 2025-2026 season let’s see if we can have some similar improvement in IBU Cup racing this season. If she shows improvement on her 23-24 performances we could see her cracking the top 10 in a race or two!

Svatava Mikysková (22)

I write this not even being sure if we’ll see Svatava Mikysková this season. She posted at the end of last season indicating that she was retiring. But she also posted pictures training this summer including at a biathlon range. But she’s also not on a national training roster this season. So I guess we’ll see!

The 2024-2025 season was Svatava Mikysková’s fourth season of IBU racing. The then 21 year old raced three times on the IBU Cup to start the season. It was an easy transition as she had raced the final two weeks of the year there in 2023-2024. She then went to the Juniors level and immediately had a 9th place finish in the Sprint in Goms. Unfortunately that was the high point for her season. She finished the weekend in Goms with a 22nd in the Mas 60. Junior Worlds were a bit tougher as she finished 31st, 49th, and 42nd.

Her statistics were a bit of a mixed bag. Her skiing was well of where she was in 23-24. On the Juniors level she went from a more than respectable, and becoming intriguing 6.1% faster than median to 2.1% slower. And her hit rate slipped from 83.3% down to 77.5%. Interestingly she had next to no change in her statistics on the IBU Cup level. Her skiing was even year over year and hit rate barely changed.

It’s hard to know what to expect of Mikysková next season. Will it be more like the intriguing athlete we saw in the 2023-2024 season? I sure hope so. There was a lot there to work with. That season she was projecting to be at the least a solid IBU Cup athlete and depending on her growth curve maybe the World Cup. We’ll see though, if and when she races again.

Veronika Novotná (22)

This season Veronika Novotná will turn 23 just at the very start of the season. Thus far in her career she’s raced primarily on the Juniors with a little bit of IBU Cup mixed in as well. Last season was a bit of an oddball season though as she only ran two races and they were at the European Championships. Seems like some odd decision making but clearly she qualified through their qualification process for those races.

In those races she finished 74th in the Individual and 75th in the Sprint. Her course time ranks in those two races were 82nd and 83rd. She’s only run a few races on the IBU Cup previously but when she raced there six times in the 23-24 season she was usually finishing between 50th and 75th in course time rank but did have one race as good as 21st best ski time. So even though she hit 85% and 90% she just couldn’t make up the difference.

Looking back on her Juniors career she did have a little big of success in the 23-24 season, her last of Juniors racing. at Junior European Championships that season she finished 13th and 34th and then at Junior Worlds she finished 24th, 37th, and 46th. Those were some of her best finishes as a Junior in her career.

As a Junior she was showing some progress in her skiing. In that last season when she had more successes she did have her average ski rank improve from the 40’s up to 25th as she ran 3.6% faster than median, easily her best of her Juniors career. She also hit 80% of her shots for the first time in her career, hitting the mark on the number including 90% prone and 70% standing.

If we see Novotná this season hopefully we’ll see her improving on the performances from 23-24. She could ski closer to the median and hit in the low 80’s. Do that and let the results fall where they may. That would be a successful season.

Junior and Up and Comers – Just in case you happen to tune in to a few Juniors races this season and see some Czechia flags I wanted to give you something to look at to help you know a little bit more about them!

Valerie Krizova (19)

– 2024-2025 season was third season of competition. Higher ceiling this year but better average in 22-23 season.
– Finished with one top 5 and two top 10’s
– Youth Worlds: 5th, 24th, 35th
– Best moments: 5th in the Individual at Youth Worlds best finish. Best race probably 9th in Mass 60 in Goms going against entire Junior field.
– Average finish 30th (improved from 51st last year but was 23rd in 22-23)
– Avg course time rank: 33rd (improved from 51st in 23-24 but was 28th in 22-23)
– Shooting percentage: 81% hitting 87.3% prone and 74.5% standing. (Improved from 78.6% in 23-24 and down from 82.7% in 22-23)

Lucie Jandurová (18)

– 2024-2025 season was first season of racing
– Finished with one top 30 and five top 40’s
– Junior European Championship: 33rd in Sprint
– Best moments: 24th in Jakuzsyce Sprint and 33rd in Ridnaun-Val Ridanna Sprint and Junior European Championship Sprint
– Average finish: 41st
– Avg course time rank: 42nd
– Shooting percentage: 73.3% while hitting 80% prone and 66.7% standing

Miroslava Cervena (20)

– 2024-2025 season was second season of racing and first full season and IBU Cup debut.
– Finished with four top 30’s
– Junior Worlds: 34th, 42nd, 30th
– Best moments: Two 28th place finishes in the Sprint and Mass Start in Jakuszyce. Also two 42nd place finishes at the IBU Cup in Arber.
– Average finish: 38th
– Avg course time rank:31st
– Shooting percentage: 74.7% hitting 84.7% prone and 64.7% standing. He was down from 80% total shooting.

Anna Matejkova (19)

– 2024-2025 season was second season of racing
– Youth Worlds: 60th and 62nd
– Best moments: 31st in the Junior European Championship Mass 60
– Average finish: 39th
– Avg course time rank: 43rd
– Shooting percentage: 66.3% hitting 70% prone and 62.5% standing

Agata Moskova (20)

– 2024-2025 season was second season of racing. Raced 23-24 Youth Worlds and last year raced 5 IBU Cup races
– 23-24 Youth Worlds: 24th, 54th, and 47th
– 24-25 IBU Cup finishes: 39th, 50th, 67th, 70th, and 68th
– Average finish: 59th
– Avg course time rank: 65th
– Shooting percentage: 81.4% hitting 88.6% prone and 74.3% standing

Marketa Mihulkova (20)

– 2024-2025 was first season of IBU racing. Raced only IBU Cup
– IBU Cup finishes: 60th, 54th, 45th, 54th, 59th, 62nd
– Avg course time rank: 55th
– Shooting percentage: 73.3% with roughly even shooting

Men The Czechia men will start the 2025-2026 season led by Michal Krčmář, by far their most experienced vet. However last year, for the first time in many years, Krčmář was NOT the top Czech men. That honor went to Vítězslav Hornig who had a great surge. There are also a number of young Czech men who look like they maybe ready to take a step forward. I would love to see this group making a run for a top 5 in a relay this year.

Coaches: Michael Malek and Ondrej Moravec
2024-2025 Nations Cup Rank: 7th
2024-2025 Relay Finishes: 12th, 9th, 7th, 6th, 6th (WC), 10th
Quota to Start: 5 Athletes

The World Cup

The Czechia men will be running five men each week of the World Cup. There are four men who have a leg up on starting spots for every week. It would be a pretty big surprise if these men, barring injury or illness, aren’t present for every week of competition in the 2025-2026 season. Season Opening World Cup Roster:
–Vítězslav Hornig
– Michal Krčmář 
– Jonáš Marecek
– Mikuláš Karlik
– Jakub Štvrtecký

Vitezslav Hornig (26)

While he might have floated a little under the radar for awhile, Vítězslav Hornig ultimately ended up alongside Suvi Minkkinen and Milena Todorova as one of the breakthrough stories of the season. Somehow Hornig might actually be the most impressive of all of them. Suvi Minkkinen had shown a flash of this a couple of seasons ago. Milena Todorova had at least had a prior top 10 in her career. There were only very limited reasons to believe Hornig had this coming.

Before last season Vítězslav Hornig’s career best was 40th. Yes he had scored points in exactly one single race before last season. He went on to have 20…yes 20!…finishes better than 40th last season. The top 20(!!!!) finishes of his career in a single season. That included eight top 20’s, four top 10’s and a career best of 5th in the Ruhpolding Individual. He went from having a single point scored in his career to finishing 20th Overall.

Hornig had a monumental improvement in his skiing last season. The best he had ever been vs the median at any time in his World Cup career was the 19-20 season when he ran 2.6% slower than median. In the 23-24 season he was 3.6% slower than median. In the 24-25 breakout campaign he ran 1.7% faster than median. His average course time rank jumped from 65th in 2023-2024 to 23rd last season. Just a massive leap in skiing. He went from the approximate level of Patrick Jakob to that of Nik Hartweg and Tero Seppälä. Huge improvement.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2023-2024	92.2	88.9	90.6	26.8
2024-2025	85.3	87.7	86.5	25.9

Meanwhile he lost nothing in his shooting. Consistently hitting in the mid 80’s throughout his Senior level biathlon career he shot 86.5% last season including 85.3% prone and 87.6% standing. He even did it while shooting faster than ever. He averaged just 25.9 seconds per shoot. That was good enough for 24th fastest on the men’s World Cup circuit.

The big question looming over Vítězslav Hornig this season…was it real? Can he back it up with another strong skiing season!? He doesn’t have to be quite as good, he just needs to be in the same ballpark to prove it wasn’t a fluke. If he does that I’m going to start to get very excited. He’s still only 26 so plenty of time for growth. And what if he’s even faster? Or shoots even better? Truly one of the athletes in most excited to see this season. I have so many questions and the only way to answer them is real live racing. His peak this season is consistent top 20’s and occasional top 10’s. And for the future? I can’t wait!

Michal Krčmář (34)

Michal Krčmář has had one of the most stable runs in biathlon over the last decade. Starting with the 2015-2016 season he’s finished between 21st and 29th every single season except for his career best Overall finish of 13th in the 2022-2023 season and finishing 17th in the 16-17 season. That’s just a remarkable run of vary small variance when it doesn’t take a very small dip in performance to really make a difference in your finishes. Biathlon is a game with narrow gaps, so to be able to keep up that level of performance, of continually being one of the top 30 men in the world at biathlon for a decade, is remarkable and worth noting and celebrating.

When you look at his statistics you won’t be surprised at all to see such a stable numbers. His hit rate in that stretch has run between 83.1% and 87.8% every single season while usually having excellent prone shooting with pretty good standing shooting. Meanwhile his skiing consistently runs about 0.5% to 1.5% faster than median with an average course time rank between 24th and 28th in each of those seasons. The only season that stands out is his career best 2022-2023 season when he skied 2.2% faster than median with an average ski rank of 17th.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2017-2018	88.2	81.8	85	33.6
2018-2019	87.3	80.5	83.9	32.7
2019-2020	83.8	82.5	83.1	28.6
2020-2021	90	83.1	86.6	29.2
2021-2022	89.5	79	84.3	30.8
2022-2023	89.5	83.3	86.4	30.3
2023-2024	82.8	83.9	83.3	30.9
2024-2025	90	78.9	84.4	30.3

Michal Krčmář has been on such a stable and steady run. He doesn’t have a single super power that he relies on. He’s just pretty good about both. In those instances it takes only mild deterioration of that super power to really cause a drop in finishes. With Krčmář there is no reason to expect that his skiing or shooting is suddenly going to fall off. In fact, should he want to, he could very well continue on in an almost Jakov Fak like fashion for the next several seasons. It’s all a matter of how well his body holds up and for how long he wants to continue to put in the work. If he’s feeling well and working hard, as it appears he has been, then let’s go ahead and expect another top 30 Overall season. The man has earned the trust at this point!

Jonáš Marecek (24)

Jonáš Marecek has been a biathlete on the rise over the last three seasons. The former Junior Worlds gold medalist has just has just gotten better and better since he joined the World Cup full time in the 2022-2023 season. And the results have followed! First top 40 in 2022-2023. First top 30 in 23-24. Last year not only his first top 20 but his first top 10 when he finished 10th in the Antholz Sprint. This was in addition to five other top 30 finishes on his way to finishing 44th in the Overall, easily his best Overall finish yet.

Over the last three seasons Marecek has settled in as a pretty good shooter hitting in the mid 80’s. Last year his 83.9% hit rate ranked 38th best on the World Cup. Meanwhile his skiing has been improving as well. The last two seasons he’s been around 1% slower than the median. That ranked 49th and 56th in overall skiing in each of the last two seasons.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2022-2023	84.7	87.1	85.9	26.3
2023-2024	80.8	83.3	82.1	28.9
2024-2025	82.1	85.7	83.9	29.3

This summer we’ve been seeing some good results as well. He won bronze in the Czechia Summer Biathlon Championship Sprint and came back for gold in the Pursuit. He also combined with Maria Remenova and won gold in the Single Mixed Relay. He also participated in Loop One qualified on time for the finals after finishing 4th in his heat just 0.3 seconds behind Vebjoern Soerum and 4.1 seconds behind heat winner, teammate Vitezslav Hornig.

Jonáš Marecek looks primed to take another step forward this season. His shooting is already solid in the low to mid 80’s, but is hopefully poised to rise a little bit this season. His skiing, which was never the strongest point of his successful Juniors career, at least appears to have improved this summer. We’ll get a better look at it once they get back on snow because of course roller skis are different than skiing on snow. However, there is every indication right now that Merecek will be moving forward again this season!

Mikuláš Karlik (26)

After running a full World Cup season in the 2022 Olympic year Mikuláš Karlik has since slipped back into bouncing back and forth between the IBU Cup and World Cup. Since then he’s run anywhere from 3 races (24-25) to 9 races (23-24) on the World Cup. But regardless during that stretch he’s been running pretty much full time on the IBU Cup over the last three years. Even though last year he ran fewer World Cup race at any time since before the Beijing Olympics, it really seemed like Karlik stated to make some improvements in his performance. In 18 IBU Cup races he had his 2nd career top 10 along with seven top 20’s and 11 top 30’s. Both of those were not only career highs, they were more than he had in his entire career in those categories before last season.

The question then of course is where did he make his improvement? And the answer to that is far from clear. His skiing, which was never a major question, remained solid. On the IBU Cup level he stayed right around where he always has been about 3.5% faster than median. Last season he was 3.8% faster so an ever so slight improvement. For what it’s worth he was was 2.8% slower than the median top 10 compared to 2.4% slower the year prior indicating that the top of the field got faster while the middle was a little slower. So basically what I’m trying to say is even though the numbers changed he really wasn’t skiing all that much faster, he just was relative to the middle of the field.

His shooting was also about where it always has been. He’s a streak shooter and usually comes out to hitting somewhere in the upper 60’s to low to mid 70’s. Last season was no exception as he hit 67.5% with 75% prone and 60% standing. No significant change there and in fact he was down year over year. Even his shooting time was slower at 32.1 seconds.

Mikuláš Karlik, more than any other athlete on any other team I’ve analyzed makes this all feel a bit pointless. By the results he had his best IBU Cup season to date. But there is absolutely no indication as to why that was. No rhyme or reason hidden in the numbers. So here’s my theory. Karlik, for no apparent reason, had a great season in Sprints. His average finish in Sprints on the IBU Cup, not including the European Championships, was 17th. His overall average finish was 29th. And his average finish in Sprints the previously several seasons on the IBU Cup was:
– 24-25: 17
– 23-24: 27.5
– 22-23: 35.2

That’s without any real change in his statistics year over year. So maybe it was all just a fluke. The targets went down in the Sprints which set him up well for the Pursuits and artificially inflated those results as well. Sometimes that’s how it goes!

However, he also had some good run in the test races. He looked okay this summer. Let’s see, maybe last season was just a leading edge indicator that he’s ready to make some big improvements!

Jakub Štvrtecký (26)

A year ago we would have thought that Jakub Štvrtecký was locked in as one of the core members of the World Cup team for the next generation. Right in the same age range with Hornig, Mikyska, and Marecek, Štvrtecký had been racing on the World Cup regularly since the 2019-2020 season when he was just 21 years old. Last year, though, things just didn’t go well. A slide that started in the 23-24 season continued. As a result he ran just three World Cup races, his fewest since the 2018-2019 season.

Štvrtecký ended up running most of a full season on the IBU Cup where he had 10 top 30’s and five top 20’s. It was a solid season but even still clearly not what he would have hoped.

So what happened? It’s a pretty clear picture. His shooting never quite took the next step. For most of his career he’s been sitting in the low to 70’s. He hit a career best 76.5% in the 2019-2020 season and had his 2nd best shooting sesason in 22-23 when he hit 74.3%. It’s not like he was much worse in the last two years hitting 71.5% in 23-24 and 71.8% last year on the IBU Cup.

It was the skiing is what has led to the slip. In the 2022-2023 season it looked like he was ready for the next step. He had an average course time rank of 18th that season while running 2.7% faster than median. The last two years he came back down from there to around 1% faster than median. That meant his average course time rank slipped back to 28th in 23-24.

To be honest part of the reason Jakub Štvrtecký’s was back on the IBU Cup was his own failure to progress in either his shooting or maintain the progress in his skiing. However also the rising performance level of the younger members of the Czechia team, and Adam Vaclavik taking control of his opportunity, just nudged him off of the top level.

For Štvrtecký it’s a real inflection point. How does he bounce back from this adversity. Having had the opportunity to chat with him I think he’s ready for the challenge. Hopefully his legs are ready for it as well. I’m hopeful and ready to be optimistic about Strvtecky starting to re-find the form he had from two seasons ago.

IBU Cup – The Czech men may run a pretty consistent group on the World Cup this season. I’m quite interested to see how many of the men in this group get a start on the World Cup next season. Last year eight men got a chance to start a weekend on the World Cup. I have a feeling that group may be smaller this year (unless they decide to go to Olympic prep camp early as a team). This is a pretty big collection of men though so plenty of guys making a push for a World Cup weekend. Here’s the starting IBU Cup roster for the 2025-2026 season:
–Tomáš Mikyska
–Petr Hák
–Adam Václavík
–Jan Gregor
–Jiří Blaha

Tomáš Mikyska (25)

Is Tomáš Mikyska healthy. That’s the big question here. A healthy Tomas Miksyka has proven to be a strong up and coming young biathlete. Already in his career, with up and down health related to a chronic knee injury amongst other things, he has still been able to put up good finishes. In the last two seasons, since these injuries really started to affect him more, he had seven top 20’s and two top 10’s in 13 IBU Cup races. That included last season’s European Championships going 10th, 17th, and 18th. On the World Cup over the last two seasons he’s run 15 races and finished with nine top 40’s including finishing 10th in the 2024 World Championship Individual in Nove Mesto.

As of now all indications are that he is looking healthy and running well. This summer he raced exceptionally well at the Czechia Summer National Championships where he won gold in the Sprint and silver in the Pursuit while teaming up with Ilona Plechacova for the bronze in the Single Mixed Relay. There have been no setbacks in training this season at all. At least at this point he looks to be going full speed ahead towards the 2025-2026 season.

While being limited in his training he was still able to run between 0-1% faster than median on the World up. Last year in his limited racing his shooting percentage dropped to 78.3% after being in the mid 80’s the prior to seasons. That might have just been aberrant as he his prone shooting dropped from near 90% down to 73.3%.

We’ll see what a full healthy off season leads to for Tomáš Mikyska. I would anticipate his shooting returns to his career norms in the mid 80’s. His skiing should, at least from what we’re seeing, be better than it has been. This should put him near about 1-1.5% faster than median. Running in that range and hitting around 85%? That’s exactly what Michal Krčmář has been doing for 10 years and would put Tomáš Mikyska in the top 30 of the Overall. That might not quite happen this season but it’s absolutely within the realm of possible for this season and especially the next few years.

Aadm Václavík (31)

The 2024-2025 season was a little bit of redemption for Adam Václavík . The on again, off again, World Cup starter had been spending most of his time on the IBU Cup over the last two seasons. In 23-24 he made just six World Cup starts while running 15 times on the IBU Cup, the most in his career. That wasn’t really the direction he wanted to be going when he should have been in the peak years of his career.

After starting the season on the IBU Cup, where he was consistent and steady finishing between 18th and 32nd every race except for a 12th, he returned to the World Cup in Oberhof to start the 2nd trimester and immediately crabbed his chances. He finished 19th in his first race back. It was the 2nd best finish of his career at that time. Later he tacked on a 14th place finish in the Short Individual in Pokljuka to set a new career best. And for his efforts he got to run the Mass Start in Pokljuka, just the second Mass Start in his career. It all led to finishing 54th in the Overall in just 7 races. It was the 2nd best Overall finish in his career.

Interestingly enough there really is no indication as to why it happened. His statistics were just about in line with where he always was. And that goes for both the IBU Cup and the World Cup. Just looking at the WC he skied 1.8% faster than median which was exactly what he did in 23-24 and a little slower than 22-23. His hit rate was 72.5%, nicely between the 75% from 23-24 and 67.1% in 22-23. The same is true of his IBU Cup performance. Nothing flashy.

The only thing that seemed different was when presented with a chance Adam Václavík grabbed it. Maybe it was a little luck. The targets falling on the right day. Maybe it was part of being a veteran, knowing when it’s your moment and rising to the challenge. Maybe it was just variance. The data tells us that Adam Václavík was pretty much the same biathlete he’s always been. A decent skier, regularly finishing as one of the fastest 30 men in the field, who routinely misses too many shots to take advantage of that speed. But this is why we watch sports, because it doesn’t take place on a spreadsheet. And sometimes it comes together and a guy like Václavík can have two top 20 finishes and come within a few seconds of his first top 10. Here’s to hoping for more of that this season!

Petr Hák (22)

Over the last couple of seasons Petr Hák has truly established himself as a real gem for the Czechia team. Racing almost exclusively on the Juniors circuit, which hasn’t been a surprise based on his age, Hák has put up a number of excellent performances. Most recently that includes two bronze medals at the 2025 Oestersund Junior Worlds in the Sprint and Mass 60. That goes along with seven total Juniors top 10’s, with four of those just last season, and including bronze in the 2023 Junior European Championship Sprint.

He also made his IBU Cup debut last season with an 11th place finish in the Obertilliach Sprint. Then he was picked to close out the season on the World Cup in Oslo. He didn’t disgrace himself one bit as he finished 35th and 47th!

Petr Hák is doing a very good job of honing his biathlon skills all around. So far in his career he’s been a bit better of a skier than a shooter. The last two seasons on the Juniors level he ran 5.6% faster than median, which to be fair isn’t too sensational. It’s definitely good but doesn’t project to as good as he’s been. However part of that appears to be a little bit of racing when sick. When he was healthy at the end of the season in the Junior Worlds, against the toughest Juniors competition, his course time ranks were 18th, 6th, and 3rd. When he ran on the IBU Cup his course time ranks were 22nd and 54th. And on the World Cup 50th and 37th. Definitely better than it would appear from just a quick glance at his Juniors statistics.

As a shooter he’s grown from the low 70’s up to the low to mid 80’s over the last four seasons. Last season on the Junior Cup he hit 81.4% and he hit 84% in the 23-24 season. He’s also improved his shooting time from 39.5 seconds per shoot all the way down to 32.7 seconds.

I don’t think it would surprise anybody to see Hák run on both the IBU Cup and the World Cup this season. He’s showing better and better as time goes on. And in his limited racing on Seniors level he’s looked more than up to the task. Based on what we saw last season it wouldn’t surprise any of us to see him skiing about 1-2% faster than median on the IBU Cup and probably right around or just back of median on the World Cup. But I’m more than willing to be surprised if he takes even more of a leap! As for his shooting he’s been very steady in the low to mid 80’s the last two seasons. I’m more than hopeful that we’ll find him in that same hit rate range this season. Let’s let him put that together and see what comes!

David Eliáš (20)

The other half of the young Czechia dynamic duo is David Eliáš. He’s only had two seasons on the Juniors level and only one run at Juniors Worlds (as opposed to Youth Worlds). But he’s shown some intriguing flashes in these two seasons. At the 23-24 Youth Worlds he finished 18th in the Individual and 9th in the Sprint. He started this past season with a terrific weekend in Ridnaun-Val Ridanna finishing 13th, 7th, and 4th. After a brief sojourn to the IBU Cup to get his feet wet, where he had four finishes between 32nd and 55th, he came back to the Junior cup and had four top 20’s in his next four races in Jakuszyce and at Junior European Championships. He finished up at Junior Worlds with a 19th, 42nd, and 29th. So while it hasn’t been all glory, there is enough there to be intrigued.

His skiing has been just a touch slower than Hak as he’s been just right around 5% faster than median with an average cousre time rank of around 20th. His hit rate has been on the rise though as he went from hitting 73.6% two years ago to 80.6% last year. That included improvement in both prone and standing.

Eliáš will likely do another season primarily on the Juniors circuit. However, he’s done more than enough to tag him as one to watch. With expectations and pressure relatively low this season, as he won’t be expected to contribute to the World Cup or Olympic roster right now, hopefully he shows some moderate growth. He doesn’t need to increase another 7% in accuracy, but a couple of points higher would be nice. And every little bit of speed is great to have. We generally target anything about 7% fast than median as a Junior as intriguing ski speed. We’ll see how close to that he can get this season!

Luděk Abrahám (23)

Another young Czechia man with a decent Juniors resume is Luděk Abrahám. Over five seasons of competition on the Juniors level he secured five top 10 finishes in 28 races. But did have some of his best finishes in his last two seasons of Junior Worlds finishes. He proved to be a very solid skier on the Juniors ranks regularly running in the top 10 of course time and skiing between 6.4 and 6.8% faster than the median Junior athlete for his last two seasons. His shooting finally started to come along at the end as well.

Last season, though, he graduated up to the IBU Cup full time. He actually did run most of the season on the IBU Cup in the 23-24 season and had a fair amount of success with three top 20’s and a top 10. Last season his performance slipped a bit as he had only three top 30’s and no finish better than 22nd. The slip was primarily due to his shooting. His skiing stayed pretty steady as his average course time rank finished at 34th vs 31st for the year prior. He was actually a little bit faster against the median though. We’ll call it a mixed bag for the skiing. His shooting dipped a bit as well, dropping from 73.6% down to 70.8%.

We’ll see what Luděk Abrahámhas in store for us this season. For him to reach what I’m sure are his goals, we’ll definitely want to see that shooting rising. It’s more than likely that his skiing will continue to improve. However the shooting has been really stuck in the low 70’s for several seasons now and that’s not near where he’s going to need it to be. Hopefully we’ll see that improve this season. It doesn’t need to be too high, just getting into the mid to high 70’s would be a good sign.

Ondrej Mánek (24)

I’m not entirely sure if Ondrej Mánek will race this season. I couldn’t find confirmation of a retirement, he didn’t race last season, and he’s not on the training roster. But without a confirmation of retirement I’ll leave him here. Here’s what I wrote last season:

The 23 year old Ondrej Mánek has shown his best racing throughout his career at Youth/Junior Worlds. Of his 10 Juniors top 10’s five of them have come at Youth or Junior Worlds. Unfortunately last season he aged out of the Juniors last season. In his first complete IBU Cup season he raced 14 times with 4 top 40’s and a single top 30.

Throughout his young career he’s proven to have good shooting with a little below average skiing. Last year was actually a step back for his shooting as he hit just 81.4%. That was a little below the 82.7% in seven IBU Cup performances the prior year and consistently shooting mid to high 80’s on the Juniors level.

For Mánek to take the next step he needs to take a solid step forward with his skiing while also rediscovering his shooting. While that will probably mean that he is able to find more success on the IBU Cup, it may actually mean that he has a chance at finding a few World Cup starts. If he’s able to do that on the IBU Cup, though, he’ll be able to make a significant jump up the IBU Cup Overall rankings towards Patrick Jacob’s IBU Cup performance which led him to be ranked 34th Overall.

Junior and Up and Comers – Just in case you happen to tune in to a few Juniors races this season and see some Czechia flags I wanted to give you something to look at to help you know a little bit more about them!

Jan Gregor (20)

– 2024-2025 season was third season of competition. Made IBU Cup debut.
– Finished with three top 20’s. No top 10’s after having first in 23-24
– Junior Worlds: 19th, 39th, 40th
– IBU Cup finishes: 54th, 39th, 39th
– Best moments: 19th in the Individual at Junior Worlds. Also finished 12th and 15th at Jakuszyce weekend races.
– Average finish 31st (improved from 34th the year prior)
– Avg course time rank: 18th (improved from 26th in 23-24)
– Shooting percentage: 71.5% with even splits (down from 76.3% the year before)

Jiri Blaha (21)

– 2024-2025 season was second season of competition. Made IBU Cup debut.
– Finished with three one top 20, two top 30’s
– Junior European Championships: 60th, 45th, 31st
– IBU Cup finishes: 79th, 48th, 37th, 66th, and 55th
– Best moments: 16th in the Jakuszyce Mass 60 and 21st in the Sprint
– Average finish 34th (improved from 46th in 23-24)
– Avg course time rank: 35th (improved from 52nd in 23-24)
– Shooting percentage: 76.3% while hitting 80% prone and 72.5% standing (down from 80.7% in 23-24)

Daniel Malusek (21)

– 2024-2025 season was third season of competition.
– Finished with two top 10’s and four top 20’s
– Junior Worlds: 33rd, 49th, and 21st
– Best moments: 6th and 7th in the races in Jakuszyce
– Average finish 30th (improved from 34th the year prior)
– Avg course time rank: 31st (down from 29th in 23-24)
– Shooting percentage: 80% while hitting 87% prone and 73% standing (up from 76.9% in 23-24)

Vladimir Kocmanek (20)

– 2024-2025 season was second season of competition. Made IBU Cup debut
– Finished with one top 5, two top 10’s and four top 20’s in six races
– No Junior European or Junior World Championships
– Best moments: 4th in Goms Sprint and 9th in Mass 60
– Average finish 20th (improved from 40th the year prior)
– Avg course time rank: 26th (improved from 34th in 23-24)
– Shooting percentage: 81.3% while hitting 90% prone and 72.5% standing (up from 71.4% in 23-24)

Matyas Martan (21)

– 2024-2025 season was second season of competition. While still a Junior ran only IBU Cup races including European Championship
– Finished with one top 50
– European Championships: 63rd and 71st
– 2023-2024 Youth Worlds: 48th, 51st, and 47th
– Average finish 59th (improved from 84th the year prior)
– Avg course time rank: 69th (improved from 87th in 23-24)
– Shooting percentage: 81.1% while hitting 82.2% prone and 80% standing (up from 65% in 23-24)

Tomas Sucharda (19)

– No racing in 2024-2025 but remains on training roster
– 2023-2024 season was debut season
– 2024 Youth Worlds: 29th, 34th, and 17th
– Course time ranks: 44th, 36th, 34th
– Shooting percentages: 85%, 80%, and 90%

Feridinand Jansa (20)

– No racing in 2024-2025 but remains in training roster
– 2023-2024 was second season of racing and raced only two times finishing 38th and 37th
– 2023 Youth Worlds: 23rd, 37th, and 28th
– Avg course time rank: 31st in 22-23 and 26th in 23-24
– Shooting percentages: 72.5% in 22-23 and 70% in 23-24 with even splits both years