Nestled into the Southern Alps lies one of the most beautiful nations that so many people never think of. Slovenia never fails to absolutely stun. A photographer would struggle to take a bad photo there! We are so lucky that the the nation contains the world class venue in Pokljuka so we get to visit there almost every season. Well maybe we weren’t so lucky last season when the weather was absolutely dreadful.
The Slovenian biathlon team has on occasion, stunned on the snow as well. There have been moments of excellence from this federation including the two podiums that the women’s team achieved in the mid 2000’s on the strength of Tadeja Brankovic and Teja Gregorin. And more recently the stubborn persistence of Jakov Fak, who even at age 37 put up another top 10 overall season last year.
Do the Slovenians have more fun and excitement in store for us in this Olympic season? Well it’s certainly possible. They’ve got the horses to compete for a couple of medals! Let’s dive in!
Women – The women’s team is in a fascinating place. There is Anamarija Lampic whose speed means she could win nearly any race she lines up for. Polona Klemencic has shown flashes of solid racing. Then we have young athletes coming along like Lena Repinc. And now even a couple of Junior women who have flashed potential. While it might be a little too early to see much from the Slovenian women’s relay team, the bones are there for a potentially solid team in time for the 2030 Olympics!
Head Coach: Janez Maric
2024-2025 Nations Cup Rank: 12th
2024-2025 Relay Finishes: 4th, 16th, 9th, 8th (WC)
Quota: 4 Women to Start
World Cup – Assuming good health we know three of the women who should take up those four starting positions. Lampic, Polona Klemencic, and Repinc will be there week and week out. But who will join them for the additional starts and round out the World Cup relay? Well to start the season in Oestersund this is who we’ll see at the starting line:
– Anamarija Lampic
– Lena Repinc
– Polona Klemencic
– Ziva Klemencic
Anamarija Lampic (30)
Anamarija Lampic (SLO) – IBU World Cup Biathlon, mass start women, Pokljuka (SLO). http://www.biathlonworld.com © Svoboda/IBU.
We’ve now seen three full seasons of Anamarija Lampic and the story is pretty much the same. Lampic on skis has been as we all expected she would be considering she was a cross country skiing Sprint champion. She’s absolutely blazed. Also not surprising, it’s been a rough transition to add the shooting component to the mix. She has moments where she hits and you see her in all of her biathlon glory. Last year she scored her first two career podiums including 3rd in the Annecy-le Grand Bornand Sprint and 3rd in the hometown Pokljuka Mass Start. She also had four total top 10’s, the most in a season in her career. But while the flashes of potential are there, the same pitfalls remain including six finishes outside the top 50.
Clearly the strength of Lampic’s performance remains her skiing. Unlike Stina Nilsson, whose skiing slipped precipitously during her brief tenure in biathlon, Lampic has remained entrenched as the fastest woman in the sport since her first race. Probably more artifact and point of interest than actually something important, but last season, while still the #1 overall skier, she had more individual races outside of the top spot than she has had before. She was still the fastest in 13 of the 24 races she lined up for last year, but that was down from 15 out of 24 the year prior. Again, as I said, more interesting factoid than actually important data point. The fact remains, Anamarija Lampic, barring injury, is the fastest woman in biathlon.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2022-2023 | 76.7 | 46.7 | 61.7 | 34.6 |
| 2023-2024 | 67.5 | 60 | 63.8 | 32.4 |
| 2024-2025 | 75.5 | 53.5 | 64.5 | 29.9 |
So for her it all comes down to hitting the targets. So far in her career she’s failed to break 65% in any of her three seasons. While last season was her 2nd out of those three years that she hit 75% prone, she still struggles to hit more than 50% of her standing shots. That’s really what it all boils down to. Last season she hit 70% of above in her standing shooting six times and these were her results:
– Hochfilzen Sprint: 8th (70%)
– Oberhof Pursuit: 18th – up from 22nd (80%)
– Ruhpolding Mass Start: 10th (80%)
– Lenzerheide Worlds Sprint: 14th (70%)
– Nove Mesto Sprint: 21st (70%)
– Pokljuka Mass Start: 3rd (95%)
Not coincidentally those are almost all of her top finishes with just the Annecy 3rd place Sprint outside of that list. She hit 6/10 and still made the podium! So, as always the key for Lampic is find the targets. Do that and we’ll see her top 20 (at least!). And with that speed she’s always a threat for a top 10 or podium!
Lena Repinc (22)
Ema Kapustova (SVK); Julia Tannheimer (GER); Lena Repinc (SLO); (l-r) – IBU Youth and Junior World Championships, individual junior women, Otepaeae (EST). http://www.biathlonworld.com © Osula/IBU.
Just 22 years old we can say that Lena Repinc is now solidly a member of the Slovenian World Cup team. She already had 54 combined solo and relay races over the last four seasons including a career most 14 solo races last year. That included two top 20’s, the first two of here career. She set her career best of 18th right out of the gate in the season opening Short Individual in Kontiolahti. She matched it at the open of trimester 2 in the Oberhof Sprint. Her three top 30s and five top 40s were also easily a career best as she surged to 64th Overall in the rankings, up significantly from 85th the season prior. Repinc also led off a relay team that finished in 4th in Hochfilzen, the best women’s relay finish for Slovenia since the 2007 World Championships. In that relay Repinc started strong and handed off in 4th place so it wasn’t lie the team rallied after Repinc’s leg and finished strong in spite of her.
When looking at Repinc’s statistics there wasn’t a significant year over year jump in her performance for skiing or shooting. Her overall skiing rank moved up slightly from 60th to 54th as she improved from 1.6% slower than the median biathlete up to 0.7%, or put another way from 8.1% back of the median top 10 to 6% back. Really not a huge leap. Her shooting was basically the exact same as she hit 78.2% overall in the 23-24 season compared to 77.6% in the 24-25 campaign.
The real improvement came in shooting speed. It’s all the rage lately and for good reason. Pretty much everybody is working to get faster on the trigger. Repinc succeeded going from an average shooting speed of 32.5 seconds to 29 seconds. That resulted in going form 72nd in shooting time rank to 36th. All that without losing anything off of her shooting accuracy year over year.
At just 22 years old (she won’t turn 23 until April) it’s hard to know what Repinc will offer us in the way of improvement this year. As a Junior Repinc was a significantly better shooter than she has been thus far in her World Cup career. Almost every season she ran significantly on the Juniors level she hit 85% or better. We can hope that she has a regression to her personal mean this year. Also, based on her Juniors skiing we can hope that there is more in the way of improvement to come there as well. She had several race at Youth/Junior Worlds where she finished top 3 in ski time rank against the best women of her age range. That’s usually a pretty good indication of her peak potential.
Repinc is one of those athletes that we’ve seen quite a bit of over the last 4-5 seasons. But really she’s just starting to show us what she can do. We aren’t even close to seeing what she’ll be as a finished product. It may not even bloom for several more years. This year I’m hoping to see another little progression. A few more top 20’s and moving closer to a top 10. I would love to see her Overall come in the top 40. Maybe her first run in a Mass Start? I’m definitely high on her potential yet to come.
Polona Klemencic (28)
Another April birthday on the Slovenian team is Polona Klemencic. After her career year (to date) in the 2022-2023 season, she backslid slightly the last two years. That tremendous season when it all came together for her Klemencic reached a career best 28th Overall in the year end rankings. And while things haven’t gone quite as well the last two years, her finished of 63rd and 55th are still well above where she was prior.
In 2022-2023 Klemencic combined her best skiing season along with her first career World Cup season hitting above 80%. The rest was her only two career top 10s, eight top 20’s and 12 top 30s. All huge career bests. Last season she started to move back in that range. While her skiing slipped down further from her 22-23 peak, she hit 80.4%, her 2nd career season in the 80’s. Even the 23-24 season, which was a slip from 22-23 peak, she hit 77.1% which stands as the third best shooting season of her career.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2018-2019 | 82.4 | 69.4 | 75.9 | 31.4 |
| 2019-2020 | 70.7 | 64 | 67.3 | 30.5 |
| 2020-2021 | 75 | 75 | 75 | 29.1 |
| 2021-2022 | 77.6 | 73.6 | 75.6 | 30.1 |
| 2022-2023 | 82.1 | 81.4 | 81.7 | 30.9 |
| 2023-2024 | 78.6 | 75.7 | 77.1 | 28.5 |
| 2024-2025 | 83.2 | 77.6 | 80.4 | 26.9 |
There is clearly a trend in a positive direction with her shooting. Three consecutive seasons hitting 77% or above with two of those in the 80’s. It is not impossible to think that she can improve upon that further as the trajectory is definitely up. The real question mark remains around her skiing. In her career 22-23 season she was running 2% faster than the median biathlete. The last two seasons was exactly the median biathlete. That is still significantly better from anything prior to 22-23 but not nearly as good as she has shown she can be.
The one undeniable area of improvement is her shooting speed. Over the last three seasons she’s gone from an average shooting speed of 30.9 seconds to 28.5 seconds and now 26.9 seconds. That includes shooting speed rankings improving from 55th to 14th overall.
Recently we’ve seen another woman who had an until then career year in 2022-2023 have a surge. Last year Suvi Minkkinen improved up on her 22-23 best of 27th up to 7th last year (after a 42nd in between). For Minkkinen it was about harnessing her untapped ski potential to combine with her excellent shooting accuracy. For Klemencic the path to another career year is not quite as simple. (Importantly I say simple and not easy!). Klemencic has turned herself into one of the faster shooters in the women’s field. Now if she can continue her shooting trajectory up to 82 or even 83% that’s anther step in the right direction. Maybe she can combine that with skiing about 1% faster than median. That’s a big ask. However if you do that you get a season roughly in line with what Lena Haecki-Gross did last year when she was 0.9% faster than median and hit 83.1% of her shots on the way to 19th overall. I think Polona Klemencic would take that in a heartbeat!
Ziva Klemencic (24)
The younger Klemencic is only 24 years old and will be 25 in January. However that still makes her older than most of these young Slovenian competitors. Last season she was the most consistent 4th member of the Slovenian World Cup roster as she competed on that level on five different weekends including the Lenzerheide World Championships. Her best World Cup finish last season was a 66th in the Worlds Sprint when she finished 16 seconds behind teammate Lena Repinc for the last spot int he Pursuit. In addition to her World Cup run she raced in nine IBU Cup races with a single top 30 and two top 40’s.
Unfortunately for the younger Klemencic her trajectory has been flat at best. In her World Cup career only two of her top 10 career finishes have come in the last two seasons. Her best seasons by average finish were 21-22 when she had an average finish of 65.5 and 22-23 when she had an average finish of 62. Those two years line up some of her best Juniors finishes. In those two seasons on the Juniors level she had five top 10 finishes at Junior Worlds including two top 5’s in the 2023 Shchuchinsk Junior Worlds. In total she had seven top 10’s in Juniors races across the two seasons.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2022-2023 | 90 | 64.3 | 77.1 | 37.8 |
| 2023-2024 | 78.5 | 73.9 | 76.2 | 32.6 |
| 2024-2025 | 78.2 | 60 | 69.1 | 29.3 |
Since the 21-22 and 22-23 seasons when she had those very good Juniors finishes and the best World Cup finishes she hasn’t quite been able to regain that form. During those seasons she was consistently hitting 75-78% of her shots. The last two seasons she’s hit 76.2% and 69.1% on the World Cup and 66.7% and 64.6% on the IBU Cup. Either way you look at it a precipitous decline.
Meanwhile, looking at her skiing level on the World Cup from 22-23, her best season to date, she ran 2.4% slower than median. That came out to an average ski rank of 62. However the last two seasons she’s been 4.4% and 3.7% back from median and an average ski rank of 78. Looking back to her Juniors time Ziva Klemencic certainly has potential to be a solid World Cup athlete. As a Junior she reached her peak skiing 5.4% and 7% faster than median in her last two Juniors seasons. During those seasons her course time rank average was between 9th and 10th on the Juniors level. Looking at that, at the very least we can hope that she has potential to run near the median of the World Cup range. Even if she doesn’t get to that level there is certainly hope that she can build back towards at least what we already know she is able to do in her career.
Her course towards locking down that 4th position on the World Cup roster is to combine that prior ski form with a return to hitting 75% or better of her shots. If she does that this season she won’t be an all star, but she can certainly consistently finish top 60 and likely score the first points of her World Cup career. After that we can start dreaming about moving back towards her future potential.
IBU Cup – While the top three on the World Cup should be pretty locked in for most of the season, it is not hard to see the 4th position rotating for much of the year. The Slovenian team could easily go to the “hot hand” of the week. There should be a decent number of women in the contest for that 4th spot throughout the year. When not on the World Cup they’ll continue to battle on the IBU Cup as well. I’ll list below a number of women who we’ll likely see on the IBU Cup and may even take that 4th position as well. Here’s who will start the year on the IBU Cup:
– Kaja Maric
– Ela Sever
– Manca Caserman
Kaja Maric (22)
Thus far in her career Kaja Maric has primarily run on the Juniors level. At 22 years old she’s not going to be racing at that level any longer. It’s all IBU Cup and above from here on out. Thus far in her career her Juniors racing has been a mixed back. She’s usually had about one top 20 every season and a handful of top 30’s. She actually had her career best finish on the Juniors last year, finishing 12th in the Individual during the weekend of racing in Ridnaun-Val Ridanna. She only had two other top 30’s last season including a 30th in the Junior Worlds Sprint, her best finish at those competitions. Earlier in her career she has two 18th place finishes at Youth Worlds as well as a 24th and 25th.
Unfortunately for Maric her trendline has been going in the wrong direction. Those best finishes she had at Youth Worlds occurred in 2020 and 2022 and that overall trend is reflected pretty plainly in her statistics. She peaked as skier several seasons ago and has been slipping since then. She went from mildly faster than the median biathlete to slightly slower than at a time when she presumably should have been getting faster. Her average ski rank has fallen from 23rd as an 18 year old down to 44th last season. Unfortunately her shooting hasn’t changed much at all as she’s been stuck between 70% and 71.6% total hit rate each of the last four seasons.
Unclear what to expect from Kaja Maric. I would love to see her trendline reverse. You want to see some good news? This summer she had a very good roller skiing season of racing. In the three Slovenian national championship events she finished 5th (Sprint), 2nd (Pursuit), and 4th (Individual). In those races she hit 70%, 95%, and 70%. So the hit rate was roughly the same, but an indication then that the skiing is moving in a good direction.
Ela Sever (19)
Sever Ela (SLO) – IBU Junior Cup Biathlon, mass start 60 junior women, Goms (SUI). http://www.biathlonworld.com © Authamayou/IBU.
Ela Sever is just 19 years old (20 in February) but you might as well include her in this list as well. Last season she had a run of four Junior Cup top 10’s in five races across the Goms and Jakuszyce weekends of racing with a season’s best of 2nd in the Jakuszyce Sprint. Before this she had three Juniors top 10’s in the prior two seasons of racing as well. Interestingly, outside of that hot streak in the middle of the season, she only had one other top 30 the entire season, a 29th in one of the Sprints at Ridnaun-Val Ridanna.
What Sever has going for her is her skiing. She’s consistently been a good to very good skier. Her average course time rank each of her three seasons of Juniors racing was between 11th and 14.5 and she ran between 5.3% and 8.3% faster than median on that level. Last season she had seven top 10 ski ranks in 11 races including 6th and 8th in two of her three Junior European Championship races, the highest quality field she competed against all season. The year prior she had ski ranks of 12th, 14th, and 11th at Youth Worlds. Sever is held by back her shooting. She has hit 73.3%, 64.3%, and 64.4% in each of the last three seasons.
More than likely she is going to see racing on both the Junior Cup and the IBU Cup this season. It’s definitely worth mentioning her as being in competition for the World Cup though. This summer she finished 2nd, 1st, and 3rd in the three Slovenian national championship races. In doing so she hit 70%, 90%, and 70%. She absolutely has the potential to see the World Cup this season. And if not this season, assuming she can make some progress with her shooting, with her skiing ability, we’ll see her at the top level sooner rather than later.
Manca Caserman (19)
Manca Caserman (SLO) – IBU Junior Cup Biathlon, sprint junior women, Goms (SUI). http://www.biathlonworld.com © Authamayou/IBU.
Having just turned 19 years old Manca Caserman is the youngest of the Slovenian women on this list. She’s definitely deserving though. Last year, in her 18 year old season, she had three top 5’s on the Junior Cup in 13 races. That included a bronze medal in the Youth Worlds Individual as well as a 4th in the Gosms Sprint and 5th in the first Sprint in Jakuszyce. She also finished 13th in the Youth Worlds Mass 60 and had six top 20’s in those 13 Junior Cup races.
Last season Manca Caserman was solid in skiing. Her average ski rank was 15.5 which was roughly in line with where she was in 2023-2024 when her average course time rank was 16.2. Her shooting percentage the last two years was 72.7% and 70.5%. The big improvement year over year was her shooting time which improved 3 seconds from 36.9 to 33.9. That included a HUGE improvement in average prone shooting time from 42 seconds to 29.6 seconds. She finished top 10 in shooting time in eight races last season with only one race finishing worse than 20th.
Caserman is still so early on in her career that it’s hard to make too many declarations on what direction she’s going to go. The potential is there and she certainly appear capable of putting in the hard work like she did with he shooting time. This summer she finished 6th in the Slovenian Championship Sprint and 3rd in the Pursuit while missing the Individual. For the 2025-2026 season we will more than likely see her primarily on the Junior Cup and the IBU Cup while she continues to hone her skills. However if she sees a surge in shooting or ski speed we may see her start a weekend of two on the World Cup.
Klara Vindisar (22)
Last season Klara Vindisar was one of just five total women who ran a solo race on the World Cup for the Slovenian team. She competed in the Hochfilzen weekend finishing 95th in the Sprint but also participating in the relay team that finished in 4th place. The rest of her races last season were on the IBU Cup. It was a relatively short season for her as she raced just eight times on that level before ending her season early after the IBU Cup races in Arber in January. In those eight races she attained five top 40’s with a season’s best of 29th which was a career most in top 40’s and easily her best top 40 percentage.
Her statistics last season on the IBU Cup were not significantly different than her career averages. She hit 77.3% of her shots while skiing just a bit slower than average as she ran at 0.6% slower than median. That was actually good enough for her best skiing on the IBU Cup.
Just 22 years old she’s still very young so it’s easy to look back at her Juniors performance to get an idea of what we might be able to hope for. In her last season racing on the Junior circuit, 2023-2024 as as 20 year old, she put up two top 20’s including a career best 5th in the Junior European Championships Individual. That season she finished 22, 13, and 32 in the Junior Worlds. The year prior she had her best Junior Worlds finish, an 8th in the 2022 Individual.
As a Junior she was a moderately good skier. She had an average course time rank between 17-25 in her last few seasons of Juniors competition. Her hit rate, though, was actually a little better than she did in 24-25. She hit 85.6% and 82.5% in those two seasons before hitting 77.3% last year.
What can we hope for from Vindisar this season? Well I guess that remains to be seen if we’ll see her at all. Her Instagram page went silent last January around the time of her last competition. She didn’t compete in the summer Slovenian races either. I did not see an official announcement of retirement but I just don’t know if we can expect to see her this fall. If we do see her I am hopefully she gets some extended IBU Cup run. She has potential to grow into her position and was doing so last season. If she can get back to hitting consitsently in the low 80’s and if she can run close to median, or possibly better than median, she has a chance to not only put up another pile of top 40’s but could set a few more career bests.
Juniors and Up and Comers – A few Juniors were noted in the group above because they really could make it to a World Cup start this season. However there are a few other Juniors worth noting as well
Nina Pogacnik (20)
– 2024-2025 season was 2nd of Juniors racing. Ran 13 races including Junior European Championships and Junior Worlds. Also raced twice on IBU Cup
– Avg finish improved from 57th to 46th
– Junior Worlds: 57th and 72nd
– Best moment: 21st in 1st Sprint in Jakusyce
– Avg course time rank: 56th (improved from 60th in 23-24)
– Shooting percentage: 76.3% with 84.2% prone and 68.4% standing (up from 72% in 23-24 primarily with standing shooting improvement)
– Four IBU Cup races over the last two seasons: 67th, 62nd, 82nd, and 69th
Nikita Funda (18)
– 2024-2025 season was 2nd of Juniors racing. Ran 12 races including Junior European Championships and Youth Worlds
– Had best three finishes of career: 39th, 43rd x2. Avg finish up from 54th to 58th
– Youth Worlds: 63rd, 43rd, and 49th
– Best moment: 39th in 2nd Sprint in Jakusyce
– Avg course time rank: 69th (down from 62nd in 23-24)
– Shooting percentage: 71.8% with even splits (down from 80% in 23-24)
Kiara Hace (20)
– 2024-2025 season was 3rd of Juniors racing. Ran 12 races including Junior European Championships and Junior Worlds
– Avg finish down from 37th to 65th
– Junior Worlds: 49th, 68th, and 56th
– Best moment: 37th in 2nd Sprint in Jakusyce
– Avg course time rank: 61st (down from 37th in 23-24)
– Shooting percentage: 65.3% with 75.3% prone and 55.3% standing (down from 81.7% in 23-24)
Ajda Spitalar (18)
– 2024-2025 season debut season. She ran six total races including the Youth Worlds
– Avg finish down from 41st
– Junior Worlds: 42nd, 28th, and 51st
– Best moment: 26th in Ridnaun-Val Ridanna Individual + 28th in the Youth Worlds Sprint
– Avg course time rank: 55th
– Shooting percentage: 81% with even splits
Nika Pelan (17)
– Raced only regional races two races each in Arber, Borjomi, and Pokljuka
– Arber finishes: 33rd and 29th. Borjomi finishes: 10th and 30th. Pokljuka finishes: 12th and 25th
– Shooting Percentage per race: 70%, 80%, 90%, 80%, 65, 30%
Men – As we enter the 2025-2026 season the Slovenian men are in roughly the same position as they have been for quite some time. Jakov Fak proved last year he can still win a race and find a podium. They have some veterans who are solid. And then we are waiting for the next group of young men to establish themselves. Let’s see what they’ll be working with this season.
2024-2025 Nations Cup Rank: 9th
Head Coach: Janez Maric
2024-2025 Nations Cup Rank: 9th
2024-2025 Relay Finishes: 11th, 4th, 5th, 12th, 13th (WC), 8th
Quota: 5 Men to Start
World Cup – Jakov Fak is going to be competing in his age 38 season yet he remains the key leader of this men’s team squad. In all liklihood he’ll be joined week in and week out by Miha Dovsan, Lovro Planko, and Anton Vidmar. The 5th man in the order will be up for grabs. It leave a good opportunity for a lot of these young guys to challenge themselves at the highest level and get a little bit more experience as they develop. To start the 2025-2026 season the World Cup roster is as follows:
– Jakov Fak
– Miha Dovzan
– Anton Vidmar
– Lovro Planko
– Matic Bradesko
Jakov Fak (38)
Jakov Fak (SLO) – IBU World Cup Biathlon, short individual men, Pokljuka (SLO). http://www.biathlonworld.com © Svoboda/IBU.
While Simon Eder gets all the love as the old man of the biathlon family, Jakov Fak isn’t doing too poorly himself. At age 38 he’s run 334 individual events and 426 total. That puts him at 6th most of all time. His 9 wins and 28 podiums aren’t too shabby. And the most wild part is that last season, at age 37, his 19th season of World Cup racing, he finished 10th Overall. It was his best Overall finish since the 2017-2018 season and just the fouth time in his career he’s finished in the top 10. It was also the first season in which he won a race since he won four races in the 2014-2015 season his way to 3rd in the Overall. Long story short, at 37 years old Jakov Fak had one of the best seasons of his career.
The long tail on Fak’s career has been thanks in large part to his ability to continue to be one of the top shooters on the men’s World Cup. He has been top 10 in shooting in four of the last five seasons including finishing as the 3rd most accurate shooter each of the last two seasons as he hit 90.7% in the 23-24 season and 90.9% last year. He’s also continued to get a little bit faster shooting every year. Last year was his quickest with the trigger yet as he averaged just 25.9 seconds per shoot.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2017-2018 | 92.2 | 91.2 | 91.7 | 31 |
| 2018-2019 | 83.9 | 88.5 | 86.2 | 28.8 |
| 2019-2020 | 91.9 | 86.3 | 89.1 | 26 |
| 2020-2021 | 93.8 | 87.6 | 90.7 | 27.2 |
| 2021-2022 | 83.3 | 84.4 | 83.9 | 29.4 |
| 2022-2023 | 91 | 88.3 | 89.7 | 27.5 |
| 2023-2024 | 94.2 | 87.1 | 90.7 | 28.6 |
| 2024-2025 | 92.9 | 89.1 | 90.9 | 25.9 |
While his shooting has continued to be some of the best in biathlon, he’s actually done a remarkable job of holding on to his skiing speed. Outside of his down year in 2021-2022 when every part of his performance slipped, his skiing has stayed in a very small range. Starting in the 2017-2018 season through last year his overall ski rank has stayed between 29th and 41st including finishing 32nd last year. In each of those years (again outside of 21-22) his average course time rank has been between 21st and 28th and his average ski position has been between 0.6% and 1.5% faster than the median. That’s a very steady run that has thus far shown no signs of stopping.
Jakov Fak continues to fight on and defy the odds. As noted above he just had the 4th best season of his career and just the 5th season in which he won a race. At any point his performance could start to slip. That’s just what happens when you reach this age. However, he showed no signs of that last season. In the right environment and on the right day Jakov Fak can absolutely contend for a top 5. At least at this point we have to say that he could have a miracle shot at contending for what would surely be a fan favorite medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Miha Dovzan (31)
Miha Dovzan is one of those guys that makes the biathlon world roll on. He’s not spectacular but he’s there fighting hard every single year. Interestingly enough he’s achieved something that feels impossible. He’s finished exactly 50th in the Overall for the last three consecutive seasons. It’s one thing to finish in the exact same position three years in a row, but 50th on the nose is pretty special. Two seasons before that he quite nearly did it for a 4th time in five years when he finished 47th!
Over the last several years Dovzan has turned himself into something of a shooting specialist. Particularly the last two years as he hit 90.5% and 89.6% respectively. And he’s done that while becoming the fastest man on the trigger. He was the 2nd fastest overall shooter in the 2022-2023 season and apparently that really irritated him. He’s been the fastest shooter on the range the last two seasons as he averaged 23.7 seconds per shoot in 23-24 before an absolutely guns blazing 22 second average last season. He was the fastest shooter in eight of the 17 races he ran last season.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2017-2018 | 89.6 | 80 | 84.8 | 26.9 |
| 2018-2019 | 86.7 | 72.4 | 79.5 | 26.5 |
| 2019-2020 | 88.9 | 84.4 | 86.7 | 25.4 |
| 2020-2021 | 92 | 84 | 88 | 25.3 |
| 2021-2022 | 95.2 | 85.2 | 85.2 | 25.8 |
| 2022-2023 | 94 | 79 | 86.5 | 23 |
| 2023-2024 | 95.2 | 85.7 | 90.5 | 23.7 |
| 2024-2025 | 93.9 | 85.4 | 89.6 | 22 |
Not surprisingly then, the thing holding him back is his skiing. In his career the best skiing he’s ever had was the 2022-2023 season when he had an average course time rank of 58th and was 1.6% back from the median skier. While he has not fallen a lot in the two seasons since then, at 2.6% and 2.8% slower than median, and with average course time ranks of 63rd and 62nd, it’s just been too much of a hole to make up. So even being such a great shooter he’s only accomplished one top 20 and seven top 30’s over the last three seasons.
The story is simple with Miha Dovzan. Exceptional shooter and average skier. If he’s able to hold on to his shooting, any improvement at all in skiing would give him a chance at top 20’s on a more regular basis. Will he do it? Only time will tell. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and our hopes high!
Lovro Planko (24)
After veterans Fak and Dovzan lead the way, the Slovenian team is going to be relying on youngster Lovro Planko to continue his upward trajectory and take another step forward. Althout last season was a little bit of a step backward, overall there are encouraging signs that Planko can keep marching forward towards establishing himself regularly in the top 40 of the Men’s Overall if not higher.
Last season was a slight step backward for Planko. In the 2023-2024 season he had his first career top 10 as he finished 9th in the Lenzerheide Sprint. He added three additional top 30’s to that on his way to 40th in the Overall rankings. Last season he had just a single top 30, but there were signs that he was still on the rise even if the results weren’t all there.
The good news for Planko is that even if the results weren’t where he hoped they might be, his skiing continued to show improvements. His average ski rank moved from 39th up to 38th and went from 0.1% back of the median biathlete to 0.5% faster than the median biathlete. Another way of looking at it he moved from 5.8% slower than the median top 10 biathlete up to 4.6% back which is no small thing. In total skiing he moved up from 43rd to 35th. That’s all good news. As a Junior he was a very good skier regularly finishing top 10 in course time rank including course time ranks of 2nd, 6th and 1st at the 2022 Junior Worlds.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2021-2022 | 77.9 | 66.3 | 72.1 | 33.6 |
| 2022-2023 | 84.3 | 72.9 | 78.6 | 33.3 |
| 2023-2024 | 86.4 | 76.4 | 81.4 | 31 |
| 2024-2025 | 80.7 | 75.7 | 78.2 | 28.1 |
That of course means there must be something holding him back, and in this case it’s the shooting. Even at the Juniors level he was never an amazing shooter. In his last three seasons of Juniors competition he hit 76%, 74% and 71.3%. He’s been better than that on the World Cup over the last three seasons but he remains stuck in the upper 70 to low 80% range over the last three seasons. And as you can see his prone/standing splits are staying about the same. To be fair that did happen with his average shooting time improving from 33.3 seconds to 28.1 seconds.
Planko is still a very young man. His Juniors skiing indicates that his skiing should continue to improve to a little ahead of median. Hopefully his shooting moves at least back to where it was two seasons ago. Anything in the low 80’s is going to be good and lead to more top 30’s and even top 20’s. I’m going to be optimistic and hope that we see him with a top 40 season this year.
Anton Vidmar (25)
After two consecutive top 50 Overall seasons, last year was a slight step backward for Anton Vidmar. He was still a solid member of the Slovenian World Cup team, but after compiling eight total top 30’s over the prior two seasons, last year he missed the top 30 entirely and had just three top 40’s. Overall he ended up with just 13 points last season compared to 64 points the year before. And that’s even with one extra race in 24-25 compared to 23-24. However, that really oversells any sort of step back for Anton Vidmar.
When looking at the statistics, Vidmar is a really good example how how narrow the gap is in the middle of the World Cup field. Over the last three seasons his average course time rank did slip from 40th to 46th and then 50th last season. That corresponds with falling from 0.1% slower than the median biathlete in 2022-2023, his top performing season, down to a full 1% slower than median last year. However his shooting, as you can see below, was just about as good last season as it was in 2022-2023. Meanwhile his average shooting times have not changed all that much over the last few seasons, averaging between 29.9 seconds and 30.5 seconds.
| Prone % | Standing % | Total % | Shooting Time | |
| 2021-2022 | 77.1 | 74.3 | 75.7 | 32.1 |
| 2022-2023 | 83.1 | 86.9 | 85 | 30.5 |
| 2023-2024 | 76.8 | 80.8 | 78.8 | 29.9 |
| 2024-2025 | 86.2 | 83.1 | 84.6 | 30 |
The gap in performance and finishes in the middle of the men’s biathlon field is so narrow. Often it’s just a few seconds in a few races that can make a big difference in the middle of the final Overall rankings. Vidmar has proven in this early portion of his career that he can be a fairly good shooter. Two of the last three seasons hitting near 85% is good enough to be a top 40 Overall athlete. We know he can ski at least average. Also, as he enters the peak physical performance years of his career we can hope that might even improve a little bit more. If he shoots like he we he has, and returns to form for his skiing, a first career top 40 Overall is in reach.
Matic Bradesko (22)
The newly 22 year old Matic Bradesko is another young man who will be moving up to the IBU Cup full time. Over the last three seasons he’s run 23 IBU Cup races with three top 50’s including a career best 42nd in the Obertilliach Mass 60 last year. He also had one of his other top 50’s last year. Interestingly he only had a handful of finishes better than that on the Juniors level in his career over the last four years. This included a 26th and 28th in two Sprints last season. His best Junior Worlds finish also came last year with a 36th in the Individual in Oestersund.
Bradesko is a bit stronger of a skier than a shooter. But thus far in his career he hasn’t excelled at either. Last season as a Junior he ran 0.2% slower than median and on the IBU Cup he was 2.3% slower than median. Obviously we’re dealing with relatively few races but he’s a very interesting care in that in the 23-24 season he was 2.7% faster than median as a Junior and 4.8% slower on the IBU Cup. Just odd. Shooting wise, though, its all consistent. Throughout his career he’s been between the 60’s and the low 70’s in hit rate.
For Bradesko the goal is the same as most of these men on this list. Keep working. Get a little faster. Get a little more accurate. No miracles over night. But he can get a little better and we’ll see where that leads.
IBU Cup – While the top four on the World Cup should be pretty locked in for most of the season, it is not hard to see the 5th position rotating for much of the year. The Slovenian team could easily go to the “hot hand” of the week. While my suspicion is that Matic Repnik will take a fair number of the starts, there should be a handful number of men in the contest for that 5th spot throughout the year. When not on the World Cup they’ll continue to battle on the IBU Cup as well. I’ll list below a number of men who we’ll likely see on the IBU Cup and may even take that 4th position as well. Here’s who will start out on the IBU Cup:
– Matic Repnik
– Mark Vozelj
– Tadej Repnik
– Jaka Kracman
– Ruj Simic Groselj
Matic Repnik (24)
During the 2024-2025 season Matic Repnik got the most World Cup experience of his career as he ran 5 races at that level. However, he still ran the vast majority of his season on the IBU Cup so we’ll focus there for these purposes. He ran 15 IBU Cup races and compiled 10 top 40’s (more than he had in his career before last season) and four top 30’s. That being said he still only had one of his top six career finishes last year, when he finished 24th in the Pursuit in Ridnaun-Val Ridanna.
Looking backward before we look more thoroughly at the 24-25 season, Matic Repnik had a solid if not spectacular Juniors career. In his last season of Juniors competition in 2022-2023 he did have a 4th in the Pursuit at the Junior European Championships along with three additional top 10 finishes that season. As a Junior, as he has been throughout his career, he succeeded primarily due to his shooting. Every year he competed as a Junior he hit 87.5% or better overall. He was only his last season of Juniors racing that he hit better than 2% faster than median.
Considering that, last year on the IBU Cup was roughly reflective of what we would expect. Repnik once again shot well hitting 88.1%. His skiing was back of median running 1.6% slower than the median biathlete on the IBU Cup. Which again, is about in line with expectations based on his prior. It was also, not surprisingly as he gets older, the fastest he’s been in his IBU Cup career.
So what do we hope from Matic Repnik this season? Well first things first, let’s keep the strength the strength. Shooting like he does is wonderful. If he was on the World Cup he would have been top 15 in hit rate. Not bad in the least! So let’s keep working on the improvement in the skiing. If he can do that he can possibly crack his first top 20’s in the IBU Cup or higher depending on the race. For this season I think that’s a decent goal.
Mark Vozelj (23)
For the 23 year old Mar Vozelj, the 2024-2025 season was the year he was forced to move up from the Juniors level to full time competition on the IBU Cup. After a moderately successful Juniors career with just a single top 20, which came at the 2021 Youth Worlds, and six total top 40’s, his transition to the IBU Cup was understandably a little bumpy. Last year he scored just four top 60’s in 13 races with a career best and season’s best of 50th coming in the weekend of competition in Ridnaun-Val Ridanna. This was easily thebest weekend of the season for him as he scored three of his top 60 finishes in that single weekend.
Vozelj ran 3.4% back of the median biahlete last year. That was the best season of skiing in his IBU Cup career. As a Junior his best skiing came in the 20-21 season when he was 3.2% faster than median. But he’s been slower each successive season. So him reaching 3.4% back of median last season was a nice step forward. After hitting in the 60% range for most of his Juniors career he his 71.2% last season, after hitting 73.3% the year prior. That’s now two consective seasons in the low 70’s which provides something to build off of.
Expectations for Vozelj won’t run very high next season. Let’s aim for more progress at the very least. Running a little closer to median and shooting closer to the mid 70’s would be a step forward. We’re not looking for wins and top 10’s. For now we’ll hope for a few more top 60’s, running a few more Pursuits, and maybe scoring his first IBU Cup points.
Tadej Repnik (21)
Tadej Repnik, the younger of the two Repnik’s thus far in the season, has been primarily a Junior Cup biathlete thus far in his career. He’s run 42 career IBU races and just four of those have been on the IBU Cup. As a Junior he has four career top 20’s and seven career top 30’s. The good news for Tadej Repnik is that eight of the 10 best finishes of his Juniors career came last season. This included the best finish of his career when he finished 13th in the Individual in the Junior European Championships in Altenberg.
The improvement came along with across the board statistical improvements. He had a career best skiing season as he ran 0.2% slower than median on the Juniors level. That’s of course not what we would hope to see but it’s moving in a good direction. It was improved from 3.2% back of median in the 23-24 season. His shooting took a very big jump from 71.8% up to 78.9% last season. Primarily this occurred via prone shooting improving from 70.9% to 83.2%.
So where does Tadej Repnik go from here? Well aside from the IBU Cup hopefully upward. In his four IBU Cup races he’s finished between 73rd and 83rd every time. Hopefully he’s able to continue getting a little bit faster. After having course time ranks of 83rd and 94th in his two races on the IBU Cup last season, we’ll want to see that improve significantly. The shooting also will need to continue to be more accurate as well. 78.9% is better. The low 80’s would be better yet. Do that and just get some experience racing against some pretty good competition on the IBU Cup. Hopefully that leads to a couple of top 60’s and maybe a Pursuit or two this year.
Jaka Kracman (21)
Jaka Kracman wins the one of the spots to round out the Slovenian IBU Cup team in Obertilliach. So far we only have his Juniors racing to look at. Below is a brief summary of what he’s been able to do so far:
– 2024-2025 season was 3rd season of racing. Has run only Juniors through last year. Last year ran 10 Juniors races including Junior European Championships. Then ran first four IBU Cup races including one European Championship race.
– Had seven of the top eight Juniors finishes of his career last season
– Junior European Championships: 31st, 64th, 48th
– Best moment: 31st in Individual at Junior European Championships
– Avg course time rank: 60th (improved from 66th in 23-24)
– Shooting percentage: 69.3% with even splits (up from 64.6% in 23-24)
– IBU Cup finishes: 112, 81, 82, 85
Ruj Groselj Simic (20)
The other big winner out of the gate for Slovenia was Ruj Groselj Simic. He, like Jaka Kracman, has only raced in the Juniors previously. Here’s a brief summary of his IBU racing to date:
– 2024-2025 season was 4th season of racing. Ran 11 Juniors races along with 3rd and 4th career IBU Cup races last year.
– Junior Worlds: 82nd & 72nd
– Junior European Championship: 20th in the Individual
– Best moment: 14th in Goms Mass 60 (career best)
– Prior career bests all at 2022-2023 Youth Worlds: 18th, 18th, 19th
– Avg course time rank: 45th (improved from 67th in 23-24. Was 46th in career best season of 22-23)
– Shooting percentage: 73.8% hitting 77.5% prone and 70% standing. (Previously hit 78.7% in 22-23 and 85% in 23-24)
– IBU Cup finishes: 102nd & 65th in Arber
Juniors and Up and Comers – A few Juniors were noted in the group above because they really could make it to a World Cup start this season. However there are a few other Juniors worth noting as well
Alex Omejc (19)
– 2024-2025 season was 3rd season of racing. Ran 12 Juniors races last season.
– Had two best finishes of his career and four of the top five of his career in the 2024-2025 season. This included first two top 10’s (both 10th) as well as a 15th and 17th.
– Junior Worlds: 53rd & 57th
– Junior European Championship: 108th & 51st
– Best moment: 10th in Sprint AND Mass 60 in Goms
– Now has six career top 20’s in Juniors racing including 12th in the 2023-2024 Youth Worlds Sprint
– Avg course time rank: 31st (improved from 32ndin 23-24 and 44th in 22-23)
– Shooting percentage: 72.4% hitting 63.5% prone and 81.2% standing. (Previously hit 77.1% in 23-24 and 82% in 22-23)
Jaka Pilar (18)
– Has raced the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 Youth Worlds
– 2023 Youth Worlds: 75th and 71st
–2024 Youth Worlds: 27th, 53rd, and 22nd
– Avg course time rank: 38th (improved from 66th at the 2023 Youth Worlds)
– 2023 Shooting: 60% in both races
– 2024 Shooting: 75% in the Individual, 60% in the Sprint, 75% in the Mass 60
Drejc Meglic (18)
– 2024-2025 season was first season of IBU racing. Raced 5 total races including the Junior Cup weekend in Ridnaun-Val Ridanna and at Youth Worlds
– Ridnaun-Val Ridanna Finishes: 33rd and 98%
– Youth Worlds: 37th, 20th, and 53rd
– Avg course time rank: 72nd. At Youth Worlds course rank average was 55th
– Shooting percentage: 81.3% total. Hit 95% prone and 67.5% standing in the five races.
Gregor Rupnik (18)
– 2024-2025 season was first season of IBU racing. Raced at Youth Worlds
– Youth Worlds: 79th and 61st
– Course Time Ranks: 42nd and 44th
– Shooting percentages: 45% and 60%
Gaspter Ozbolt (20)
– 2024-2025 season was 4th season of racing. In total has run 24 Junior Cup races including eight in the 24-25 season. Has also run three IBU Cup races with one in the 23-24 season and two last year
– Set new career best in the 24-25 season finishing 25th in the Individual at the Junior European Championships. Prior career bests came at the 2022 Youth Worlds when he finished 34th and 38th.
– Three of seven best career finishes were in the 24-25 season
– Junior European Championships: 25h, 70th and 56th
– Avg course time rank: 72nd (basically unchanged over last four seasons)
– Shooting percentage: 81.5% hitting 86.2% prone and 76.9% standing. Every year of career has been between 75% and 82.5%. Always better prone than standing shooter
– IBU Cup finishes: 72nd and 106th
Nejc Einhauer
– Raced only regional races two races each in Pokljuka, Hochfilzen, and Arber
– Arber finishes: 6th and 5th. Hochfilzen finishes: 14th and 17th. Pokljuka finishes: 38th and 33rd
– Shooting Percentage per race: 90%, 80%, 60%, 75%, 60%, 60%
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