Germany 2025-2026 Team Preview

When you think of German biathlon what comes to mind first? Is it one of their great athletes like Sven Fischer or Magdalena Neuner? The forests of Oberhof? The Ruhpolding stadium with the fans right on top of the shooting range? Or is it the fans, just exploding with biathlon passion? While Norway, France, and even Sweden and Italy have more recent biathlon success Germany and biathlon are just linked.

The history of biathlon is full of German athletes. Looking at the top 100 winners in biathlon history (men and women combined) and over one quarter of them are Germans. But more recently things haven’t been as rosy. Entering last season the Germans had one Overall title in the last 12 seasons, the last of Magdalena Neuner’s three Overall titles. That one title was the glorious 2016-2017 season of our biathlon comet Laura Dahlmeier. Over that same stretch the Norwegian and French teams sucked up titles like an out of control vacuum. The Italians won three with Wierer and Vittozzi. The Finns, Czechs, and Belarusians even got in on the action. That’s not to say that the Germans were bad, they certainly weren’t. They just weren’t at the top where we were so used to seeing them.

Well they weren’t until Franziska Preuss put an emphatic end to that by winning one of the most thrilling, nailbiting, and heart wrenching Overall titles in recent memory. It’s one we’ll talk about for years. And even though the final margin was razor thin between Preuss and Lou Jeanmonnot, it doesn’t mean that Preuss wasn’t a sensational and worthy Overall title winner.

So now as the biathlon world turns the page to the 2025-2026 season we have Franziska Preuss running as the reigning Overall winner. It certainly isn’t a one woman show. The Germany women are showing intriguing signs of young talent. And for the first time in ages it looks like the German men, with Tobias Reiter now at the helm, are showing fresh signs of life as they try to transition to a new generation of talent.

Let’s take a deeper look and see what we can expect and hope for this season!

Women

Women’s biathlon is in a great spot right now. Let’s just start with this: they have the reigning Women’s Overall champion on the roster. That right there is pretty damn good. Beyond Franziska Preuss, though, the German women have a deep pool of talent. Because of this the number of World Cup “locks” is probably not as big as you would think. Because with this much talent you have to leave the door open a little bit for some roster turnover. Then you have another deep run of women who will compete for limited IBU Cup spots. And then even more Juniors!

– Head Coach: Sverre Olsbu Roeiseland
– National Coach: Kristian Mehringer
– 2024-2025 Nations Cup Rank: 3rd
– 2024-2025 Relay Finishes: 7th, 1st, 1st, 8th, 5th (WC), 3rd
– Quota: 6 Athletes to Start (7 in Oestersund and Hochfilzen) – Thanks to the new rules, the German women are awarded the extra bib in honor of Franziska Preuss’ Overall title. This eases the burden on coach Svere Roeiseland in having to trim the roster…for at least a couple of weeks.

World Cup Locks – There are a handful of names that are locks for the World Cup. Not just for the first week or two but at least as far as we can see, should be for the full season. We’re going to keep this list a little more limited than you might expect. So even women that are already awarded World Cup spots to start the season may appears in subsequent categories. For what it’s worth here is the World Cup roster to start the season (not all are going to be discussed in this category):
– Franziska Preuss
– Selina Grotian
– Julia Tannheimer
– Vanessa Voigt
– Janina Hettich-Walz
– Marlene Fichtner
– Anna Weidel

Franziska Preuss (31)

At this time last season I wrote the following regarding Franziska Preuss: “At this stage I can’t help myself, I still feel like if she can race a full season then she can contend in the top 5 of the Overall. I just desperately want to see her do it!”

Well…I wasn’t wrong! She did finish in the top 5 in the Overall. Boy did she. We just witnessed the Franziska Preuss that we have all been dreaming about since she finished 3rd in the Overall in the 2020-2021 season. Since then, when healthy, she continued to look like one of the top women on the World Cup. But we all know the story. She seemingly couldn’t go a full trimester without getting sick. She used up an entire lifetime of bad health luck in just a couple of years.

And yet when healthy she kept teasing us with this tantalizing ability. In the 23-24 season she had the third best average finish. The problem was she only raced 15 times that season as she finished 11th in the Overall. You could just see it wearing her down. It was a real question that if her luck kept up like this how long would she keep going.

Then we got last season. One beautiful majestic season. Basically healthy for an entire season, and even when she got a little sick she raced through it with great success. Even with all of the great racing in her career she had only one career win before last season. Last season she had five including the final race of the year to clinch the Overall Globe. It wasn’t her wins that won her the Overall though, it was her incredible consistency. In 25 races including World Championships she finished in the top 5 19 times. 19!!! In the last decade the only other two women to reach that number were Marte Olsbu Roeiseland with 19 in her Globe year and Laura Dahlmeier when she was soaring to the top in 2016-2017.

From a statistical point of view she really wasn’t any better than she had been before. She skied 3.3% ahead of median actually slightly less than she was in her limited racing the year before at 3.5% ahead. Compared to the median top 10 she was 0.9% back which was roughly the same as the season before and the 2020-2021 campaign. Her average course time rank of 10th was also very close to where she was in 20-21 and 23-24.

Last season she hit 92.1% which was almost exactly the same as she did in 2023-2024. In fact she had exactly the same prone hit rate as she did the year before at 95.2%. The only difference was that while she hit 90.4% standing in 23-24 she hit “only” 89% in 24-25. And her average shooting time of 27.4 seconds was right where she was the prior to seasons of 27.3 seconds and 27.1 seconds.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2017-2018	95.5	79.4	87.4	27.9
2018-2019	90.6	78.9	84.7	27.2
2019-2020	90.4	86.7	88.5	26.7
2020-2021	93.8	79.1	86.4	29.2
2021-2022	89.6	82.2	85.9	29
2022-2023	92.7	76.4	84.5	27.3
2023-2024	95.2	90.4	92.8	27.1
2024-2025	95.2	89.1	92.1	27.4

Franziska Preuss just put an exclamation point on what we already knew, that she is one of the best women to compete in biathlon over the last decade. When able to finally put her health issues behind her she flew to the top and engaged in a battle for the ages with Lou Jeanmonnot. The concern with Preuss will be the same, can she stay healthy. We’ve seen her do it again though, and she’s following the same health strategy this season as last year. While she has made no secret of the fact that her absolute priority this season will be the Olympics, she is still so good that we’re going to be seeing plenty of her on the podium this season before and after that!

I’ll be open, as I usually am, I’m a fan of Franziska Preuss. I absolutely loved seeing her race so well last season. While I would have been so very happy for Lou, I am really really happy that Franzi put the amazing finishing touches on her season in Oslo to take home the Overall Globe and in such breathtaking fashion. The whole weekend was full of tension but we don’t need to revisit all of that. I hope that she races tension free this season and adds a solo Olympic medal or two to her career. As a fan, that’s one of my biggest wishes in all of biathlon this season.

Selina Grotian (21)

I cannot believe that as the 2025-2026 season is getting under way Selina Grotian is still only 21 years old. I feel like we’ve been hearing about “the next Laura Dahlmeier” for years now. Last season she certainly didn’t race like a 20 year old last season. In her second full World Cup season she is ready. Grotian had her first career win in the Mass Start in Annecy-le Grand Bornand giving us the beautiful picture above. She also had two total podiums, six top 5’s and 11 top 10’s on her way to 9th Overall. She finished 3rd in the u23 Globe race behind just Oceane Michelon and Jeanne Richard (the French talent is insane!).

Everything about Grotian looked ready for the big stage. She got better in every conceivable manner. She skied faster as she moved up from 29th overall skiing to 17th. She skied 2.3% faster than median and 2.0% slower than the top 10 median. This was an improvement from 1.3% faster than median and 3.9% slower than the top 10 median. Want any easier way to think about it? Her average course time rank improved from 25th to 18th.

Grotian’s shooting continued to improve as well. Her year over year hit rate improved from 81.4% to 84.7%. This included her prone shooting improving from 79.3% to 84.2%. As a result she improved from 56th in terms of total World Cup accuracy up to 34th. And she did it while shooting faster averaging just 26.7 seconds vs 28 seconds the year before.

We have every reason to believe that this is just the beginning for what should be a years of great performances from Selina Grotian. As a Junior she was one of the fastest women out there. Her last time she raced as a Junior she was running 11.2% faster than median. While there is no direct comparision from Juniors to World Cup, when you look back, young men and women who ski in that realm almost always translate to very fast World Cup skiers as they grow and develop on the big stage. While we certainly won’t expect that to be this year, that is coming in the next 3-5 seasons. That is something we should absolutely expect.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2023-2024	79.3	83.6	81.4	28
2024-2025	84.2	85.3	84.7	26.7

It’s all about can we see her shooting continue to improve. Last season’s 84.7% was about the best we’ve ever seen from her. I love that we saw her prone and standing shooting improving to be on roughly equal footing. I’m quite hopeful that we’ll see that take another step forward this season. While it’s no sure thing, at least we are already seeing improvement!

Selina Grotian is looking to follow in Franziska Preuss’ footsteps and become yet another German women to hoist the Overall Globe. At this point she seems to have the physical talents and the potential to be able to get herself into that position. Actually making it happen is such an incredibly difficult thing to do. We certainly won’t expect to see her in that position this season, but we can have every hope that Grotian will continue to improve and continue to cement herself as one of the top women in biathlon for the next decade.

Janina Hettich-Walz (29)

After missing the entire 2024-2025 season as she became a mother for the first time, Janina Hettich-Walz has returned to stake her claim to a World Cup spot. Whenever somebody is gone for a season there is always going to be a question on whether they can reclaim the magic. We’ve seen some excellent examples of women coming back after maternity leave and looking as good or better than ever including of course Justine Braisaz-Bouchet and Milena Todorova.

When we last saw Janina Hettich-Walz she was reaching heights we had never seen from her before. In the 2023-2024 season she finished 10th in the overall and had eight top 10’s (more than her entire career combined to that date), along with three top 6’s and two podiums. Those two podiums included the silver medal in the Individual at the 2024 Nove Mesto World Championships. It was a spectacular season and a huge leap forward for Hettich-Walz. Then her life got even more exciting when she and her husband brought home their baby girl almost one year after that silver medal performance!

It should come as no surprise that during that majestic 2023-2024 campaign Hettich-Walz showed her best statistical biathlon performance yet. Always a very good shooter she hit 87.8% that season, the second best total hit rate of her career. That included 94.5% prone which was is simply superb. Meanwhile her skiing continued to improve as she skied 1.7% faster than median with her average course time rank improved from 28th in 22-23 to 20th in 2023-2024. She also got significantly faster with her shooting improving from an average shooting speed of 30.1 seconds in the 2021-2022 season to 26.7 in 23-24.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2019-2020	73.3	68.3	70.8	30.8
2020-2021	93.9	83.3	88.6	31.7
2021-2022	92.5	76.7	84.6	30.1
2022-2023	93.3	79.2	86.3	28.1
2023-2024	94.5	81	87.8	26.7

It’s fair to wonder if Janina Hettich-Walz will be able to compete at that level again. It was a career best season and then she had a life changing event becoming a mother. Well, the early results are pretty good. This summer she competed at the German National Championships and she was simply terrific taking gold in both the Individual and Sprint and silver in the Pursuit. All of the normal caveats apply as it was September with roller skis, but she pretty much couldn’t have given a better first impression.

It certainly won’t be simple and smooth for Hettich-Walz in her return. How could it be. But all of the indications are that she will be competitive. That’s not to say that we’ll see her winning races or even on the podium this year. But there certainly is no indication that she’s going to take a massive step back after her career best 2023-2024 season. She is definitely one of the athletes I’m most excited to see this season and I cannot wait to cheer on her successes. It truly does look like she has the ability to return to being a top 20 Overall athlete (at least!) this season and that would be a definite success worth cheering for!

Julia Tannheimer (20)

Julia Tannheimer is probably the “softest” addition to this list. Mostly because she doesn’t have nearly the results (yet) that the women above her have. However, the talent is absolutely undeniable. Tannheimer is a three time Youth and Junior World Champion who flashed all world speed as a teenager. She went to the IBU Cup in the 2023-2024 season and had a VERY short learning curve. It took her just three races to earn her first top 10 and just eight races to get her first IBU Cup victory. In total she has seven top 10’s in 14 races.

Tannheimer made her World Cup debut that same 23-24 season in Ruhpolding. She finished 15th in her first career race. Last year she started the season on the World Cup and raced the whole season on the top level. She started the season hot with a 6th and a 5th in the first two races. The rest of the season didn’t quite go as well with just one more top 10 the rest of the season. However, considering she was a 19 year old racing on the World Cup you really can’t consider finishing 31st Overall with three top 10’s and eight top 20’s anything but a magnificent success. Also, it would be a mistake not to mention that she did this while not even racing for three weeks. So yeah, let’s not be too down on

After being a super speedster on the Juniors level, Tannheimer showed that it wasn’t just a matter of being a big fish in a small Juniors pond. She skied 2.3% faster than median, again as a teenager still, and had an average course time rank of 18th. She ended the season ranked 16th in overall skiing. On the range she hit 83% with even splits. That was pretty good but it looks even better when you see that it was up from 76.2% the year prior on the IBU Cup. And she did it while shooting much faster. After averaging 36.2 seconds per shoot during the 23-24 season she averaged 29.3 seconds last year. An improvement of nearly 7 seconds per shoot is remarkable.

At just 20 years old Julia Tannheimer has already shown more than enough for me to consider her a lock for the full season on the World Cup. There is every reason to expect her to continue to get faster. She was incredibly fast as a Junior and already is one of the fastest women on the World Cup now. Her shooting took a significant year over year improvement while also shooting at a speed she’s never been close to before. Julia Tannheimer’s career trajectory is on quite the steep rise right now. It’s hard to expect her to make a similar year over year improvement but with somebody so talented and so young, the sky really is the limit. She’s still so incredibly young so I don’t want to heap too much pressure on her already. So for now let’s just hope that we see further improvement and the inevitably come along. But if her career does follow her current trajectory she should find herself in the u23 mix.

Vanessa Voigt (28)

The 2024-2025 season got underway with the best start of Vanessa Voigt’s career. Ever since her first full season in 2021-2022 we’ve been hoping to see that version of Vanessa Voigt. She was constantly in the mix. She had five top 10’s in the opening siven races including three top 4 finishes with two podiums. Then she got sick during the weekend of competition in Annecy-le Grand Bornand and she just didn’t really recover. She came back for two races, one each inf Oberhof and Ruhpolding, but she was nowhere near her prior level finishing 68th and 70th.

After hitting 4th in the Overall after that Pursuit in Annecy it felt like Voigt was finally on her way to a very high Overall finish. And then it just wasn’t to be. In fact it felt very much like another German women’s recent history: Franziska Preuss, The glimpse of intriguing talent only for it to be robbed away from her.

The Vanessa Voigt we saw to start the season was excellent. Always one of the absolute best shooters in biathlon, she hit 93.6%, the best of her career. It was the best overall hit rate on the World Cup by 0.15% over Yulia Dzhima. That included 94.3%, the best in biathlon and the best of her career. But we also saw pretty good skiing. In those first seven races her average course time rank was 14.3 which would have been a career best over her average course time rank of 18th in 23-24. The only mid level part of her biathlon was averaging 33.4 seconds per shoot including 32.7 seconds standing shooting time. It ranked 81st in shooting speed. There were only seven women who averaged a slower standing shoot last season.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2021-2022	91	91.5	91.25	35.5
2022-2023	93	89	91	32.7
2023-2024	95.2	91.4	93.6	32.5
2024-2025	92.9	94.3	93.6	33.4

And then of course Voigt was gone. She missed the rest of the season. She’s been quite open that she has struggled significantly with her mental health. It’s wonderful that so many athletes are being so open with this aspect of their lives. Not that they need to or have to, but for a lot of people, especially young people, it shows them that it can affect anybody. Even our heroes. I love that she’s been able to express herself so openly about this. I also hate that there clearly have been so many people who say awful and negative things to our biathletes on social media. Lou Jeanmonnot herself has posted many such comments in her Instagram stories. She does a good job of brushing them off but it piles up. And not everybody is built the same, so it will absolutely affect some more than others.

As Vanessa Voigt returns once again this season, we won’t know what her performance will look like until we see it first hand. That’s why she lands in this category and not the one above. The Vanessa Voigt from last season is a 100% lock for the World Cup. However, she’s been pretty open about taking a different approach this season. She’s rested a little bit more. As a result she may not be at the same level. We’re only going to find out when the racing gets underway in the next few days.

If Vanessa Voigt is healthy and in form, the has the ability to be one of the best women in biathlon. Her shooting, always an incredible strength, will continue to give her performance a solid floor. But as we saw last January, even the best shooting in the world can’t protect you if the form simply isn’t there. So there remains a huge question. She’s about as high variance as we have in the German team this season. Her peak performance, looking like she did in the first trimester of last season if contending for top 5 in the Overall. If her form isn’t ready, or she’s not healthy, it could be a struggle.

My prediction, which is just a guess really, is that we’ll see her start the season slow and build towards February. The results in November and December may not look all that great as she still gets her body in shape. When she comes back in January in Oberhof and Ruhpolding I think we’ll start to see more of what she truly looks like, a top 10 contender who can find the podium on the right day.

Battling for the World Cup – It’s going to be a tough decision every week for this coaching staff. There are definitely more than six deserving candidates for the World Cup roster, but they have to make the cut somewhere. Any woman who doesn’t make the World Cup cut should be contending for high finishes on the IBU Cup. This group includes some women who are actually starting the season on the World Cup but their positions aren’t locked in for the full year…they have to earn it. I want to make clear that outside of Vanessa Voigt being at the top of this list because she has the most baseline talent, there is no particular order of the women after her. It’s not a projection of how I expect them to finish or anything so don’t read too much into it. I put the two World Cup starters at the top of the list, and then the IBU Cup starters after that. This seems as good a place as any to list the IBU Cup squad to start the season:
– Julia Kink
– Stefanie Scherer
– Charlotte Gallbronner
– Lisa Spark
– Sophia Schneider

Marlene Fichtner (22)

Marlene Fichtner is yet another of the young German women. She just turned 22 years old at the tail end of last season yet again she feels like been racing for the Germans for years now. As a Junior, while not quite as decorated as Johanna Puff just above her on this list, or some of the other women, she still was very good. She had 14 top 10’s in 24 races including three podiums and six top 5’s. Her best Junior Worlds finish was 7th in the Sprint in the 2024 Junior Worlds. That same season she made her IBU Cup debut and almost immediately had her first top 5 finishing 5th in the Pursuit at the 2024 European Championships. She closed out the season with another top 10 on the IBU Cup as well in the season ending Mass 60 in Obertilliach.

Last season she started out the season directly on the IBU Cup and by the second weekend of the season in Geilo she got her first podium with a 2nd in the Sprint and then won the Pursuit the very next day. That won her a call up for her World Cup debut in Hochfilzen where she finished 46th and 50th. She ended up running four more weekends on the IBU Cup accumulating nine more top 20’s in 11 races. That included winning the silver medal in the Individual at the 2024 European Championships. Then she closed out the season on the World Cup with three more races.

Marlene Fichtner’s statistical profile looks A LOT like Johanna Puff. She has been a good to very good shooter for entire career. hitting 87% of above every season of her career. That includes last year hitting 90% on the IBU Cup and 88.8% on the World Cup. She’s also been a slightly slower shooter than some of her contemporaries as well averaging in the high 20’s to 30’s per shoot. Her skiing, meanwhile, has obviously been fast enough to get her to the podium, and even the top step, on the IBU Cup. She’s skied 2.7% faster than median on the IBU Cup giving her an average course time rank of 24th. On the World Cup she had an average course time rank of 70th last year as she skied 4.5% slower than median.

Early in the year we’ve seen some really good improvement in the ski speed. In the test races in Ruhpolding she was the fastest woman out there. Of course the other World Cup locks weren’t out there, but this was a really good step up for Fichtner. Clearly she has been putting in the hard work. The shooting is already good enough to be highly successful at any level. We just need to see her skiing start to catch up to her shooting. The improvement that we’ve already seen will hopefully continue not just this year but into the next several years. I could actually see Fichtner on a trajectory to sooner rather than later find a way to replicate Maya Cloetens’ performances. Last season Maya Cloetens skied 0.16% slower than median and shot 91.3%. That’s probably a stretch for this season but that would be a beautiful season as Maya Cloetens finished 35th Overall last season with an average finish of 29th. If Fichtner is able to do that in the next 1-3 seasons it would be a successful step on the road to where she wants to go.

Anna Weidel (29)

You know Anna Weidel just keeps on fighting. Even with the emergence of so many young stars, and the path to the World Cup seemingly getting more and more crowded, Anna Weidel just keeps showing up and working hard to give her best. Weidel was a full time World Cup athlete in the 21-22 and 22-23 seasons finishing as high as 29th in the World Cup Overall in 2022-2023. That year she had a career best five top 20’s including finishing 5th in the first Sprint of the season, the best finish of her career.

After the best season of her career 2023-2024 just didn’t go right. She was sick. And then sick again. And then sick once again. She ended up racing only three times before shutting down the season. Again, with the rise of the young talent it would be understandable for Weidel to feel pushed out. That’s not her game though. Starting the season on the IBU Cup she had three straight top four finishes to start the season. In total, while racing nearly the full season on the IBU Cup she had eight top 10’s in 16 races. That included closing the season with four consecutive top 10’s. She ended up 11th on the IBU Cup Overall.

Anna Weidel did that while performing at the best level of her career. She has always been a great shooter. She hit 91.2% on the IBU Cup, her best ever. In her handful of World Cup events she hit 96.7%. She also averaged just 24.2 seconds per shoot which was some of the fastest shooting of her career. Weidel has never been a particularly fast skier, but last season was the best skiing of her career. On the IBU Cup Weidel ran 3.2% faster than median and had an average course time rank of 18%. In her World Cup racing she had an average course time rank of 50th while skiing 1.1% slower than median.

She keeps on fighting. If she keeps on improving then she absolutely has the ability to reclaim a spot on the World Cup this season. For Weidel it will be about the skiing. Her shooting is good enough to be one of the best. She just needs to be a little bit faster. Last year was the fastest of her career so she’s already improving. And hopefully this season shows her taking another step. Her potential ceiling this year would be top 25 in the Overall. She’s been close to that before, and if she is able to shoot like we know she can, and ski a little bit faster, she’ll be right there.

Sophia Schneider (28)

You know I feel about Sophia Schneider a lot like I do about Anna Weidel. Easy to see how she might feel squeezed out by the incredible rising talent in the German women’s team, but she just keeps on grinding. The two seasons prior to last year she was full time on the World Cup and finished 31st and 27th in the Overall in 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 while earning four top 10’s. Last season after starting out the season on the IBU Cup she fought back to the World Cup and after returning to the top level in January she didn’t relent. She started the season with four top 10s in eight races on the IBU Cup. On the World Cup she had seven top 30’s in 13 races. That included 11th in the World Championship Sprint her best of the season. While it wasn’t her best season to date it was another solid year.

From a statistical perspective Schneider was good but not quite as good as she has been. Her average course time rank was down from 17th two seasons ago (the fastest of her career) to 23rd last season. She skied 1.7% faster than median, about the same as 23-24 but down a touch from 22-23 when she was 2.4% faster than median. Meanwhile her hit rate was 79.5%. That was right in line with where she has been the last three seasons between 79% and 82.9%. Her average shooting time is also roughly unchanged around 32 seconds per shoot.

While she’s further along in her career, Sophia Schneider certainly isn’t old, and she certainly has every aspiration to fighting for another World Cup spot. She averaged 10.2 points per race last year which, in a full season, would have had her finishing in the mid 30’s of the Overall, or just a slight step back from the prior two seasons. And we know she can be a little faster than she was last season as well and a touch more accurate. All said though it’s going to be tough to see her racing the full season on the World Cup with such a competitive roster. Her pathway to more World Cup racing is going to be through improvement which we unfortunately haven’t seen in a couple of seasons. Running it back again just like last season probably won’t do it. A little faster though or a little more accurate shooting, just like in 2023-2024, and she would be on pace for a top 30 Overall season and that would likely be enough for an World Cup spot.

Johanna Puff (23)

Another the hoard of young talented German women is Johanna Puff. The 23 year old already has 14 World Cup races to her credit including seven last season. Before that, though, she had a successful Juniors career that included 14 top 10 finishes in 30 races with three victories and five podiums. Unfortunately World Championship glory always seemed to be just out of reach so she never quite got a medal in Youth or Junior Worlds.

After graduating from the Juniors level after the 22-23 Junior Worlds she has split time the last two seasons on the IBU Cup and World Cup including the above mentioned 14 World Cup races. She’s been very good on the IBU Cup. In 15 races she already has three career wins. That includes becoming the 2025 European Champion last season in the Individual. In total she has nine top 10’s in those 15 races including 7th and 9th in the Sprint and Pursuit at last seasons European Championships.

And on the World Cup she’s just starting to scratch the surface. She has a career best of 18th. She attained her second best finish with a 22nd in last season’s World Championship Individual. In total she has five top 30’s.

It’s also worth noting that over the last few seasons she’s been sick recurrently. So not only is she so young, and not only is she just starting to scratch the surface of her promise from that perspective, but she still hasn’t been able to show us everything she has because of being sick so frequently. And STILL she was the 2025 European Champion in the Individual.

Thus far in her career, Johanna Puff has been a very good shooter. On the World Cup the last two seasons she has hit 87.3% and 87.5%. She’s been even better on the IBU Cup hitting 90.8% and 93.3% the last two seasons. Her skiing, meanwhile, is still coming along. After flashing a touch of speed in her last Juniors season as she ran 7.1% ahead of the median that year, with an average course time rank of 9.8, she’s been working to find that type of speed on the Seniors level. Last season on the IBU Cup she was just 1.6% faster than median compared to 4.8% faster than median on that level the year before. That translated to average ski ranks of 16th and 28th. On the World Cup she’s been between 2-3% slower than median with average course time ranks consistently in the 50’s.

There is no reason to expect that we’ve seen the peak of Johanna Puff already. The best thing she has going for her is that she is already very very strong at shooting. She doesn’t have to get one bit better at shooting to be competitive. For Puff it will be all about bringing along the skiing. She flashed that ski speed in her last Juniors season. What she needs to do is find a way to follow the Suvi Minkkinen plan. Maybe she doesn’t need to wait all the way until she’s 30 to be the best skier she can be, but that’s the model. Keep the shooting where it is, and find her path to improved ski speed.

It won’t happen all at one but it can certainly happen. Hopefully we’ll see the first step along the way this season. With her shooting talent even just a little bit faster, say around 0-1% slower than median, would be big. Last season Maya Cloetens skied 0.16% slower than median and shot 91.3%. That’s probably a stretch for this season but that would be a beautiful season as Maya Cloetens finished 35th Overall last season with an average finish of 29th. If Puff is able to do that in the next 1-3 seasons it would be a successful step on the road to where she wants to go.

Stefanie Scherer (29)

Hands down, Stefanie Scherer was the biggest surprise for me on the German Women’s Senior team last season. Scherer raced 0 times on the IBU level between week 5 of the 2020-2021 IBU Cup season and week 4 of the 2023-2024 IBU Cup season. That was basically three full seasons. She immediately came back and finished in the top 10 for three consecutive races. She closed out the season on an absolute heater including six top 10’s in 12 races with three top 5’s and her first IBU Cup win since the 2019-2020 season.

So why was I surprised that she raced well last season? Well after so long away I just wasn’t sure that she would come back and make it happen again. She certainly did! Scherer raced the entire season on the IBU Cup, all 22 races. She had 17 top 20’s, eight more top 10’s and another win, the 4th IBU Cup win of her career. From the start of the 2nd trimester to the end of the season her worst finish was 21st. Over the last seven races of the season every one was a top 13. She also ended up racing four times on the World Cup with all of them being top 60’s including a 23rd place finish in the Individual in Ruhpolding and 33rd in the Oslo-Holmenkollen Pursuit.

If you just looked at her statistics, knowing nothing else about her history or her age, you would project her to be a regular member of the World Cup this season. Last year on the IBU Cup her average course time rank was 22nd as she skied 2.9% faster than median. On the World Cup her course time ranks were usually in the 50-60’s. On the range she was sterling hitting 90.9% across the full season of racing. It was the 7th best hit rate on the IBU Cup last season. The only negative to her performance was her average shooting speed as she averaged 33.8 seconds per shoot.

She may not be the fastest woman, but her hit rate is pretty impressive. We’ve seen in the last few seasons that gaining ski speed in your late 20’s and early 30’s is not impossible. Her hit rate is enough for her to compete for a World Cup spot, and once on the World Cup for some solid top 20-30 finishes especially in the Individuals. She’s a classic in between athlete. I really hope she’s a little faster this season and we see her running regularly on the World Cup. If we don’t though I’ll absolutely be pulling for her to put up another great IBU Cup Overall campaign!

asons. For a reminder Cloetens skied 0.16% slower than median on the World Cup and shot 91.3%. Again that’s a stretch goal but a good rough model to replicate. Maya Cloetens finished 35th Overall last season with an average finish of 29th. If Fichtner is able to do something like that it would be a successful step on the road to where she wants to go.

Julia Kink (21)

And yet another very young woman on the German team with high aspirations is Julia Kink. The two time Youth/Junior World Champion, with the most recent coming in the 2024 Junior World Mass 60, had a very solid run on the Junior circuit with seven top 10’s in her 16 races. Five of those top 10 finishes happened in the Youth and Junior World Championships. Over the last couple of seasons, though, Kink has turned her eyes to the Senior circuit.

Kink made her IBU Cup debut at the start of the 2023-2024 season and by the second race of her IBU Cup career she already had her first top 5. She ended up running 18 IBU Cup races that season and scored nine top 20’s with six top 10’s including two podiums and her first IBU Cup win. She even made her World Cup debut at the end of the season as well.

She continued on the World Cup to start out the 2024-2025 season and raced there for the first several weeks of the year. She had some health troubles early in the year and per her own reports she just wasn’t really able to get herself into racing shape. All of that includes Lyme disease from the offseason a concussion, and recurrent illness. She ultimately finished up her season early after the European Championship and racing in Ridnaun-Val Ridanna. It was certainly not the season that she hoped for. But from all appearances she’s been training like crazy to prep for this season.

Looking back to her success in her Juniors seasons and her good run on the IBU Cup in the 2023-2024 season, Julia Kink’s success came in her speed. In fact you might look at her as the opposite of Puff and Fichtner. In the 23-24 season in her Juniors races her average ski rank was 2.7. In her last seven Juniors races she finished top 3 in course time rank six times. The other time she was 6th fastest. When she raced on the IBU Cup that season her average course time rank was 9th. And that was against even better competition. She ran on average 5.4% faster than median. Speed is the key to her success.

In the shooting, though, she could still stand to see some improvement. For the most part she’s been shooting in the 70’s in her career. On the 2023-2024 season on the IBU Cup, even with all that success, she hit just 71.1%. She did some some better shooting on the World Cup, though, as she hit 85% in her limited racing during the 23-24 season, and 81.1% in her six World Cup races last year. Like most young women she hasn’t quite gotten her shooting speed up to the top levels yet. She’s averaging about 32 seconds per shoot the last two seasons.

Julia Kink shows exceptionally good ski talent. Much better than pretty much every other woman on this list. It’s just a different path to biathlon success though. If she can keep up her skiing development she should develop eventually into one of the 10-20 fastest women in the world. Being just 21, though, she is still several years away from that now. The key for Kink is going to be that, while still developing her skiing, she continues to bring along her shooting. She definitely showed good signs of that last year. It’s going to be important to see that continue.

For Kink next season I’m hopeful that we see her skiing fast again. Back up to her level. On the IBU Cup I would love to see her with an average course time rank in the top 10. On the World Cup skiing in the range of about 1.5-2% faster than median would be ideal, giving her an average course time somewhere in the low 20’s. For her shooting a hit rate in the low 80’s I think would be a great mark to hit. Last season Ella Halvarsson had an average course time rank of 21.3 while skiing 1.6% faster than median. She paired that with a hit rate of 85.7% and obviously had a terrific season. That would be a big stretch goal for Julia Kink but it’s not completely out of the realm of possibility. Maybe it won’t happen next season but she can absolutely get there in the next few seasons. And that performance but on the IBU Cup would be a great season.

IBU Cup – The women listed below likely won’t be seen on the World Cup this season. However, I’m willing to be surprised! And all of these women have talent!

Charlotta De Buhr (22)

The only reason I’m listing Lotta De Buhr in this category and not the one above is honestly just to bring attention to her. I think more people will see her in the top of one category rather than the bottom of another. Also with just two IBU Cup races so far in her career it’s unlikely for her to make a World Cup start this season, but with her skiing it’s not impossible. With that said…

After racing just three times in her debut season in 2023-2024, and to be fair with all three finishes between 7th and 11th, Lotta De Buhr returned last year and ran a successful season on the Junior Cup. And to cap off the year she made her IBU Cup debut! While on the Juniors she raced nine times and finished with five top 10’s and a podium. She saved some of her best racing for Junior European Championships where she finished 4th in the Sprint and 7th in the Mass 60. At Junior Worlds she once again had her best race in the Sprint as she finished 7th along with 14th in the Individual and 16th in the Mass Start. She concluded her season with two races on the IBU Cup in Otepaa. After finishing 40th in her debut she really looked like she belonged finishing out the season with a 14th in the Sprint.

Lotta De Buhr’s strength is easy to see, it’s her skiing. Her average course time rank in her Juniors racing is 4th. She had a course time rank slower than 5th just twice in her 12 Juniors races. She consistently skied 8-9% faster than median. And that translated immediately to the IBU Cup. In both of her IBU Cup races she had a course time rank of 12th.

Her shooting meanwhile has been pretty decent. It certainly hasn’t been as good as Johanna Puff or Marlene Fichtner, but it’s not a major weakness. She shot 77.9% last season in her Juniors races. But she hit less than 80% just twice in ten races which is actually pretty solid.

There is a lot to like about Lotta De Buhr. Her ski strength is clearly present. There is no reason to believe that is going to fall apart, and in fact should only get stronger. She’s already shown ski speed good enough to be a consistent threat for the top 10 on the IBU Cup. If she makes a normal and expected improvement on that, and she cuts out those subpar shooting days, she could easily finish top 10-15 in the IBU Cup Overall. In fact one of the things that might get in the way of that is if she gets a call up for a week or two on the World Cup.

Charlotte Gallbronner (22)

She may have just 15 races under her belt but it’s time for Charlotte Gallbronner to become a big girl as she graduates up to the Senior level this season. She leaves behind a pretty successful Juniors career including a win she earned last season and four total top 10’s with three of those, her three best ever finishes, coming in the 24-25 campaign. She also made her IBU Cup debut last season. She raced a Sprint and Pursuit in Arber finishing 25th in both races.

Throughout her Juniors racing she proved herself to be a solid skier and a solid shooter without being tremendous, or struggling, with either. She generally skied about 4-5% faster than median on the Junior Cup and had average ski ranks in the mid 20’s. She shot pretty well too, hitting 82.1% this past season on the Junior level. She confirmed that level in her two IBU Cup races as well. Her course time ranks were 33rd and 27th in those races and she hit 80% and 85%.

This was a pretty solid summer for Charlotte Gallbronner as well. She performed very well at the German National Championships. She finished 3rd in the Sprint just 37 seconds back from the top spot and 16 seconds back of Selina Grotian. And any time you finish ahead of Franziska Preuß is a good day too! She also had 10th in the Individual and 9th in the Pursuit. Add on a 4th and 5th in the races at the Belgian Championships. As always it was roller skiing but she flashed some nice potential this summer!

Just 22 years old this looks like it should be a solid season of racing on the IBU Cup for Gallbronner. It would not surprise me that in the least to see her regularly in the top 20 and frequently in the top 10. If she hits near the mid 80’s this season while skiing 2+% faster than median, with course time ranks in the low to mid 20’s, she’ll be meeting my checkmarks. That will get her the results we are hoping for and will keep her on a good career trajectory.

Alina Nussbicker (21)

And yet another young German woman who is graduating out of the Juniors this year is Alina Nussbicker. She’s competed in 18 races on the Juniors level over the last two seasons with 10 in the 2023-2024 campaign and eight last season. In that time she has a win, four podiums, and eight top 10’s. Not to diminish the importance of those, every single one of those high finishes occurred at regular Junior Cup events. She’s raced five times at either Junior Worlds or Junior European Championships and four of those finishes are included in her five worst career finishes. Her 2024 Junior Worlds finishes were 22nd, 28th, and 38th.

When you look at her statistics it is pretty clear that she was skiing very well in every race except for the Championships. She went from regular top 10 course time ranks to having ski ranks in the 20’s and 30’s in the Championships. However, she also admits that she was not physically fit for those races as well. This is the problem with such small sample sizes. It doesn’t take much to throw everything off. For Alina Nussbicker at least, it looks like a small amount of bad luck has her career looking significantly different than it might had she been healthy. Meanwhile her shooting has actually been quite good. The last two seasons she hit 83.6% and 87.3%. That’s excellent especially where she is at this early stage in her career.

I’m quite intrigued by Alina Nussbicker. She’s going to need to find a way to get some racing on the IBU Cup this season, but it really feels like she has an intriguing potential. That shooting level already at 21 years old is very very good. If, the skiing is more like she has been at the Junior Cup events, she could very well be on the path to being a very good World Cup athlete. Fingers crossed that’s the “real” Alina Nussbicker. No matter what, she’s an excellent shooter and she’s certainly not slow. I’m really hoping to see her come along over the next few seasons.

Lisa Marie Spark (25)

Coming out of the 2021-2022 season Lisa Marie Spark, while maybe not profiling as a superstar at least had the looks of somebody who had the World Cup in her future. She closed out that season at the 2022 Junior Worlds winning gold in the Individual, bronze in the Sprint, and 4th in the Pursuit. This was coming on the heels of bronze at the Junior European Championship Pursuit. The following season she went to the IBU Cup and continued to show some signs of growth as she had seven top 10’s and two podiums including gold at the European Championships in the Individual.

Since then though things have sort of stalled out. She’s still 25 but the growth we were seeing has not quite continued at the same rate. The last two seasons she’s been back on the IBU Cup racing 13 times in each season. She’s had eight top 20’s in both seasons. However after having a win in 22-23, and another the following year, she’s had just a total of five top 10’s the last two seasons. Compare that to the seven she had in 2022-2023.

What’s happened is that her skiing, which was the strong point of her Juniors racing, has not continued to improve significantly. A year after being one of the fastest Juniors, Spark had an average course time rank of 22nd in the 2022-2023 season. The last two seasons she’s seen that improve slightly to 19th in 23-24 and then 17th last season. Her shooting remains stuck tethered to 80%. Over the last three seasons her overall hit rate has been 82.2%, 78%, and 80%.

Lisa Marie Spark is nowhere close to too old. Maybe compared to many of her teammates she’s closer to the middle of her career than the beginning, but really she’s still young. There is plenty of time to be hopeful. However, with the young talented women continuing to bubble up out of the Juniors, Spark is going to need to show that her trajectory is still forward and upward. As long as she continues to get faster that’s step one. The real improvement needs to come with the shooting. Moving towards the mid 80’s would be a big step for Spark. While it still probably wouldn’t get her to the World Cup with the current shape of the team, it would indicate that she could still be on her way there.

Selina Kastl (24)

On most other squads, Selina Kastl would have finished up her Juniors career at the end of the 2022-2023 season as one of the most anticipated Juniors on her way up. Regular top 20 finishes along with two top 10’s and a podium is a solid overall resume. Plenty to be proud of, and as I said, if she were Finnish or Estonian, or Belgian there would be much more excitement around her. On the German team, though, she was out shown by the huge talent balance on the team. As a result, somebody that might have been a closely watched youngster on the IBU Cup ended up only making five starts on the IBU Cup last year, her second Seniors season, all of which came at the end of the season in Otepaa. No surprise, her performance was solid with all five finishes between 13th and 34th.

So far in her career, while she has no true weaknesses, she’s been a better shooter than a skier. As a Junior she hit 84.6% and 84% in her last two seasons. In her five starts last year on the IBU Cup she hit an even better 87.5%. Although to be fair that was a smaller sample size. Regardless, at the early point in her career she’s good enough on the range to compete. As a skier, on the Junior level she had average course time ranks in the high teens as she ran around 3-4% faster than median. In her five IBU Cup races her average course time rank was 31st running around 1% faster than median.

As with most of these women, it’s just a lot of competition for just a handful of starting spots on the IBU Cup or higher. Kastl will need to prove that she’s earning that position. She already has pretty good shooting and hopefully she can see that continue to improve. That could be her pathway to earning starts by hitting in the high 80’s. What would be especially helpful though is continuing to advance her skiing. Running 2-3% faster than median would be ideal putting her average course time rank nearly 10 positions faster. Either way, the 24 year old is still young in her career, but would definitely benefit from showing progress in one area or another.

The good news is that we may already have a hint. She was chosen to race at Loop One. That doesn’t mean she’s a World Cup lock. But in this huge group of women that they could have chosen from, it at least means she’s continuing to put in work and hopefully signs of progress are there!

Emily Schumann (23)

In March of 2024 Emily Schumann was finishing up her first full season of IBU racing. After racing a grand total of 0 Junior Cup races she went straight to the IBU Cup in November of 2023 and immediately proved she belonged with eight top 22 finishes in the first trimester. That run included two top 10’s and an 11th place finish as well. She earned her first podium in the Martell-Val Martelo Short Individual to open the second trimester and earned a second podium of her season and career in the season closing Mass 60 in Obertilliach. All in all she finished 5th on the IBU Cup Overall and was clearly an athlete to keep very close tabs on.

Then almost immediately after that she tore her ACL. Within weeks of finishing out a terrific debut IBU Cup season and establishing a claim on a position and future with the ultra strong German women’s team, Schumann’s 2024-2025 season was already gone. She spent the summer rehabbing her injury and last winter recovering her form. Now as the 2025-2026 season is about to get underway we get to wonder what version of Emily Schumann we are about to see. We have so little history with her already but what we saw was so promising. Will she be able to do that again? Will her performance be down a bit due to lose time. Will it actually be better…?

In the one season that we saw her Emily Schumann was a very good skier. She was 4.1% faster than median on the tracks and just 2.4% slower than the median top 10 on the IBU Cup. Her average course time rank was 16th which was quite solid especially considering she was just 21 years old! Meanwhile she shot 80% with an 84.6% prone hit rate. There was nothing fluky about her performance, she was just a solid biathlete that season.

The question will come back to her recovery. An ACL is generally a 9 month and 18 month injury. 9 months to get back to full activities. 18 months to get to full performance. In general you see athletes able to perform on the highest level after about 9 months. But you don’t see their consistent “A” game until 18 months. As the season gets under way she’s going to be right around 18 months.

I have every reason to believe that her body is ready to perform at it’s highest level. But still, it’s been a year and a half since she was racing. And she had just a single IBU season of competition. It’s a huge question mark. Overall I am quite optimistic about Emily Schumann and her future. She’s under the radar and hopefully that lets her build up towards her full strength. I really think that we’ll be seeing Emily Schumann on the World Cup in the future. This season I hope she gets at least close to a full season on the IBU Cup to build herself back. She’s so young so plenty of time ahead of her!

Mareike Braun (25)

This is another “how are you already 25!?!” It feels like Braun should still be like 19. She had that nice 2021-2022 season where she had five top 10’s and four top 5’s in nine races. That included a 4th place finish in the Junior Worlds Individual. The following season she raced 17 times on the IBU Cup with eight top 20’s, two top 5’s and her first podium finish on that level. Since then, though, we’ve seen her just six times with all of those coming last season. She only finished three of those races as she was lapped in both Pursuits and one of the Mass 60’s she raced. Her three finishes were 41st, 29th, and 41st.

As a Junior Mareike Braun’s success came when her skiing improved. Her great Juniors season she had an average course time rank of 4th. Since then, though, her skiing has seemed to plateau. She ran 2.7% ahead of median in the 2022-2023 season with an average course time rank of 16th. Last season, though, she was just 0.8% faster than median and had an average ski rank of 30th. Her shooting, though has improved at least a little bit. Her hit rate is up from the mid 70’s as a Junior to 80% in her last two seasons of racing.

Braun feels like she’s in a tight spot. To be fair to her, she’s had some lung issues the last few years and it’s been capping her performances. In the last few seasons she has a handful of DNF’s too. But again as we’ve mentioned so many times there is a huge boom of young talent with the German women. Braun at 25 is nearing a point where she needs to show it or she’ll be completely bumped out. While it’s not a make or break season yet it’s getting close. As with pretty much everybody on these lists I’ll be rooting for her to make some progress!

Juliane Früwirt (27)

It’s hard for me to believe that we haven’t seen Juliane Früwirt on the World Cup since Ruhpolding in the 2022-2023 season. For awhile there she was just one of hose women you would expect to see pop up from the IBU Cup if there was a late injury or an illness. Never a consistent World Cup starter, but she was good enough on the IBU Cup to earn the promotions. For several seasons in that stretch in the early 2020’s she was good for 9-10 IBU Cup top 20’s and a handful of top 10’s every season. She even had five top 20’s and a podium as recently as the 23-24 campaign. Last year, though, she lined up to race just twice on the IBU Cup.

The three time former Junior Cup champion and 2019 Junior World silver medalist, has always been successful on the strength of her skiing. When she had her best performances it was when she was having an average course time rank of just 6th on the Junior Cup. However, that early speed has not continued to develop like we might have hoped. For the last five IBU Cup seasons she has been between 2.3% and 2.6% faster than median. That’s basically no change. Her shooting has been consistent as well but it’s been between 77-83% each season on the IBU Cup with one exception, when she hit 88.6% while racing 15 times in the 2020-2021 campaign.

With so little variation in her performance over the last half decade it’s fair to wonder if this is just Juliane Früwirt’s performance has plateaued. If so, it’s more than respectable. Of course I’m sure that she still works hard aiming to return to the World Cup, but there is no shame in the form that Früwirt has shown these last several seasons. There is always a chance that she can show us a higher level and we’ll keep our hopes for that. The biggest thing that would point us in that direction is that she had a big crash in March of 2024. She needed months to recover from that! So let’s still give her some grace and patience this season. Even if she doesn’t though, a consistent IBU Cup level performer is a great thing to be.

Julia Vogler (23)

Julia Vogler ranks so far down this list only because we’ve seen so little of her it’s hard to know who she is at this stage. She is 23 years old as the season gets underway and will be 24 in February. So far we’ve seen her race nine whole IBU races with seven on the Junior Cup and two on the IBU Cup. On the Junior Cup she has two top 5’s including one podium, both of which came in the 2024 Junior Cup races in Jakuszyce. She has two additional top 20’s. In her IBU Cup races, which were in Obertilliach in February of 2024 she finished 29th and 34th.

Statistically she’s been a decent skier and a decent shooter but not enough to stand out at either. As a Junior she skied 6.8% ahead of median with an average course time rank of 22nd. On the IBU Cup her course time ranks were 42nd and 35th. On the range she appears to hit in the low 80’s as she hit 81% on the Junior Cup and in her two IBU Cup races hit 80% and 85%.

She didn’t race at all last season as she was beset by illness. She did feel well enough to compete at the military games in March though. This summer she raced at the Belgian championships and won bronze in the Mass Start. She also finished 9th in the Individual at the German Championships. From all accounts it is full steam ahead towards the upcoming season. If healthy she should get at least a few starts on the IBU Cup and should definitely get her first top 20’s this season. Overall though we’ll just wait and see what she’s able to bring!

Hanna Kebinger (27)

Hanna Kebinger is one of the most heartbreaking recent runs in biathlon. In the 2022-2023 season she was such an inspiring story as she went from the German national cup to winning on the IBU Cup to nearly making the World Cup podium to close the season. Over the last 12 races of the season she had the 10th best average points per race on the World Cup. She putting up to top 10-15 course time ranks and shooting well. There was every reason to believe that she had found something in her performance and might be on her way to a top 20 Overall season the following year.

The last two seasons though it just hasn’t worked. She started out slow on the World Cup in the 2023-2024 season and after recurrent sicknesses she called an early halt to her season. After expressing optimism before last season she started out on the IBU Cup and honestly didn’t look bad. She had four top 21 finishes including a top 10 in the first six races. But then her season was ended again due to illness. She’s openly discussed her struggles with depression as well. And it’s completely understandable. To have been have tasted that success on the highest level but being unable to capture it again and feeling let down by her body.

At her best Hanna Kebinger was a good skier. We noted above her World Cup ski success. She was of course excellent on the IBU Cup in skiing as well. Well she’s also been a good shooter as well. On the IBU Cup consistently hitting in the low to mid 80’s. On the World Cup she hit near 90% on her miracle season.

The thing that is different about Kebinger than so many of the other women on this list is that we’ve already seen it. Already in her career she’s proven to be a top 10-20 Overall athlete on the World Cup. The difficult thing is that we haven’t seen it in two full seasons now as she struggled with health both mental and physical. She’s a wonderfully happy person and so easy to cheer for. I want nothing but success for her this season. Right now I would take a full season of health and showing consistently solid to good racing on the IBU Cup. If she does that I’m going to be so happy. And she’s still just 27. Plenty of time for her to return and grow.

Hanna-Michelle Herrmann (25)

Is Hanna-Michelle Herrmann back? After taking some time to focus on cross country skiing it looks like the speedster is back in the biathlon fold for this season. She raced again in summer biathlon races. If we do see her we know what to expect. She’s fast. That’s never been in doubt. The last time she finished outside the top 10, regardless of level, in course time rank was at the Junior European Championships in 2019. The question will be can she shoot. She’s been a low 70% shooter for most of her career. Her speed makes her intriguing, so if she can show advancement in her shooting we’ll start to get very excited.

Juniors: Finally we come to the young women on the roster on the roster. I tried to put the most “interesting” names at the top. Regardless these are the young women we might see make some noise in the IBU Cup and Juniors competitions this season.

Alma Siegismund (20)

– 2024-2025 season was second season of racing and first at Junior Worlds vs Youth Worlds. Raced a full season.
– Junior Worlds: 12th, 18th, and 26th
– Best moment: Jakuszyce weekend she finished 2nd and 3rd
– Career Best Moment: 2024 Youth Worlds she finished 1st, 5th, and 5th
– Avg course time rank: 17.4 (down from 10.1 but also that included Junior Worlds vs Youth Worlds so slight decrease expected)
– Shooting percentage: 82.8% compared to 95% in 23-24. Hit 86.7% prone and 78.9% standing

Melina Gaupp (17)

– 2024-2025 season was second season of racing. Raced Youth Worlds and one additional race
– Youth Worlds: 31st, 17th, and 4th
– Best moment: 4th at Youth Worlds Mass 60
– Career Best Moment: bronze in 2024 Youth Worlds Sprint as a 15 year old
– Avg course time rank: 14.8 (down from 8.7 in 23-24)
– Shooting percentage: 75% compared to 80% in 23-24. Hit 90% prone and 60% standing

Lena Siegmund (19)

– 2024-2025 season was debut season on the Junior Cup. Raced full season
– Youth Worlds: 12th, 31st and 2nd
– Best moment: Silver medal in Youth Worlds Mass 60. Probably more impressive finish was 2nd in one of the Sprints at the Ridnaun-Val Ridanna Junior Cup against slightly higher level of competition
– Avg course time rank: 18.7
– Shooting percentage: 82.9% hitting 88.6% prone and 77.1% standing

Sydney-Lauren Wusterling (17)

– 2024-2025 season was debut season on the Junior Cup.
– Youth Worlds: 20th, 65th, and 6th
– Best moment: 6th and 9th in the Sprints at the Jakuszyce weekend of competition on the Junior Cup. Also finished 6th in the Youth Worlds Mass 60.
– Avg course time rank: 18.7
– Shooting percentage: 72.2% hitting 68.9% prone and 75.6% standing

Karla Gehrmann (20)

– 2023-2024 season was debut season on the Junior Cup. Did not race IBU level races in 2024-2025
– 2024 Youth Worlds: 34th, 24th, and 6th
– Best moment: 6th in the Jakuszyce Sprint and 6th in the 2024 Youth Worlds Mass 60
– Avg course time rank: 18.7
– Shooting percentage: 82.2% hitting 88.9% prone and 75.6% standing

Sophie Patz (20)

– 2024-2025 season was second season of racing. Raced full 23-24 campaign and just three races in 2024-2025.
– Junior European Championships: 47th
– Best moment: 8th in Mass 60 at Jakuszyce
– Career Best Moment: In 23-24 had two 8th place finishes on the Junior Cup and 10th at Youth Worlds
– Avg course time rank: 14.8 (down from 8.7 in 23-24)
– Shooting percentage: 82.5% compared to 85.7% in 23-24. Hit 90% prone and 75% standing

Johanna Lehnung (20)

– Raced only regional races during 2024-2025 season in Pokljuka, Arber, and Nove Mesto
– Best moment: Won the Short Individual in Arber and the Sprint in Nove Mesto
– Previously raced at 2023 Youth Olympics and finished 20th and 10th in the Sprint and Individual
– Shooting percentages: 90%, 80%, 95%, 70%, 95%, 100%

Leni Dietersbuerger (19)

– 2024-2025 season was her debut. She raced at Youth Worlds
– Youth Worlds: 15th, 20th, and 22nd
– Course time ranks: 23rd, 19th, and 23rd
– Shooting percentages: 85%, 80%, and 80%

Lea Zerrer (19)

– 2024-2025 season was her debut. She raced only at the Jakuszyce weekend on the Junior Cup
– Finishes: 26th, 15th, and 16th
– Course time ranks: 8th, 3rd, and 7th
– Shooting percentages: 50%, 85%, and 70%

Ina Lickert (16)

– Raced only regional races during 2024-2025 season in Pokljuka and Arber
– Best moment: 2nd in the Sprint in Arber. Other finishes: 8th, 15th, and 9th.
– Shooting percentages: 60%, 40%, 55%, 90%

Giovanna Nicolussi (18)

– Raced only regional races during 2024-2025 season in Pokljuka and Arber
– Best moment: Won the Short Individual and Sprint in Arber. Other finishes: 4th and 8th
– Shooting percentages: 100%, 100%, 100%, 90%

Janne Linnea Weigelt (17)

– Raced only regional races during 2024-2025 season in Pokljuka and Arber
– Best moment: 1st in Arber Sprint. Other finishes: 6th, 4th, and 2nd
– Shooting percentages: 90%, 70%, 70%, 90%

Hanna Beck (18)

– Raced only regional races during 2024-2025 season in Pokljuka and Arber
– Best moment: 3rd in Arber Short Individual. Other finishes: 9th, 5th, and 8th
– Shooting percentages: 70%, 80%, 90%, 80%

Carlotta Noessler (16)

– Raced only regional races during 2024-2025 season in Pokljuka and Arber
– Best moment: 1st in Arber Short Individual. Other finishes: 5th, 3rd, 3rd
– Shooting percentages: 90%, 100%, 85%, 100%

Antonia Seidl (16)

– Raced only regional races during 2024-2025 season in Pokljuka and Arber
– Best moment: 3rd in Polkjuka Sprint. Other finishes: 20th, 14th, and 11th
– Shooting percentages: 80%, 60%, 60%, 60%

Katharina Staller (18)

– Raced only regional races during 2024-2025 season in Pokljuka and Arber
– Best moment: 2nd Arber Short Individual and Sprint. Other finishes: 10th and 3rd
– Shooting percentages: 70%, 100%, 95%, 100%

Anna Thaurer (17)

– Raced only regional races during 2024-2025 season in Pokljuka and Arber
– Best moment: 6th in Arber Short Individual. Other finishes: 7th, 23rd, and 30th
– Shooting percentages: 90%, 60%, 75%, 60%

Jana Duffner (18)

– Raced only regional races during 2024-2025 season in Pokljuka and Arber
– Best moment: 1st in Pokljuka Sprint. Other finishes: 7th, 9th and 18th
– Shooting percentages: 80%, 100%, 65%, 50%

Luisa Walter (18)

– Raced only regional races during 2024-2025 season in Pokljuka and Arber
– Finishes: 32nd, 31st, and 32nd
– Shooting percentages: 80%, 90%, 60%

Men

The men’s team is embarking on a new journey. Last March, following a disappointing World Championships, and continued difficulty in effectively replacing retiring athletes, Uros Velepec abruptly resigned mid season. He was replaced immediately, and for the foreseeable future, by Tobias Reiter. The names look very similar to the ones we saw the last couple of seasons…will the results?

– Head Coach: Tobias Reiter
– National Coach: Jens Filbrich
– 2024-2025 Nations Cup Rank: 4th
– 2024-2025 Relay Finishes: 4th, 5th, 7th, 3rd, 🥉 (WC), 4th
– Quota: 6 Athletes to Start

World Cup Squad – Well who will make up this World Cup team? Are there any true “locks?” Probably just Justus Strelow? But as we saw last season with Roman Rees, if you aren’t up to the level you can find yourself on the IBU Cup. We’ll start with a breakdown of the men who will start the season on the World Cup squad in Oestersund.
– Justus Strelow
– Philipp Nawrath
– Philpp Horn
– Danilo Riethmueller
– Lucas Fratzscher
– Simon Kaiser

Justus Strelow (28)

As Justus Strelow enters what could be the best physical years of his career he’s starting to stack together some solid seasons. After a big jump in performance brought him up to 21st Overall in the 2022-2023 season, Strelow followed that up with a 14th and 16th Overall. He earned his first career podium in the 23-24 season, a 2nd place finish in the season opening Individual that year, along with nine top 10’s the last two seasons and establishing himself consistently in the top 20 week in and week out. Long story short, as we enter the 2025-2026 season Justus Strelow is firmly established as one of the top 20 men in the biathlon world.

Strelow is reliant on his excellent shooting to give him such a high floor in his performance level. Each of the last three seasons he has hit 88.7% or better. That includes consistently being one of if not the best prone shooter in biathlon including two of those seasons having a prone hit rate better than 95%. His skiing isn’t too bad either. Not that anybody is going to confuse him with Sebastian Samuelsson any time soon, but he doesn’t hurt himself too much. The last two seasons he’s had average course time ranks of 36th and 39th.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2022-2023	97.5	82.5	90	25.3
2023-2024	95	93	93.8	24.6
2024-2025	91.6	85.8	88.7	23.3

Justus Strelow is entrenched as one of the leaders of this team. And considering his age you would expect that he’s got another level to go. He has the new coaching staff led by Tobias Rieter on board that will hopefully be able to booster that skiing to a new level. There is definitely potential for him to find the top 10 in the Overall in the next few seasons. We’ve seen an athlete make exactly this type of improvement recently in the great success of Suvi Minkkinen last season. I might be biased as we’ve had Justus Strelow on the podcast a couple of times but this would be one of my favorite things to see in the next few seasons.

Philipp Horn (31)

I have nothing but the utmost respect for Philipp Horn. As the 2023-2024 season got underway, when he was 29 years old, he was looking at starting the year once again on the IBU Cup. It would be easy to understand why he would be frustrated. He was coming off of one of the best seasons of IBU Cup career as he finished 7th in the Overall rankings on that level. Didn’t seem to bother Philipp Horn. He raced the first two seeks on the IBU Cup and finished top four in every race. He came to the World Cup and immediately finished 4th, his best career finish and he’s never looked back spending the rest of that season and all of the 2024-2025 season on the World Cup as he finished 20th in the Overall in the 23-24 season and 23rd last year.

Philipp Horn has been a bit of an inverse of Justus Strelow. While the strong point of Strelow’s performance is his shooting, for Horn it is absolutely his skiing. He’s finished 14th and 15th in overall skiing in the last two World Cup campaigns. Meanwhile his shooting has been okay but not excellent. He’s hit in the low 80’s for each of the last several seasons only hitting slightly better prone and standing. He has somewhat mid range shooting speed as she averages around 29 seconds per shoot the last three seasons. Last year that gave him an overall shooting time rank of 60th.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2019-2020	71.7	83.5	77.7	29.6
2020-2021	71.7	83.3	77.5	31.1
2021-2022	72	94.7	83.3	29.8
2023-2024	85	79.3	82.1	29.2
2024-2025	83.1	79.4	81.3	28.9

With Philipp Horn we know he’s a very good skier and we know his shooting is good enough. Really the strongest part of his performance seems to be his mindset. Just a levelheaded guy that isn’t overwhelmed by the moment. His finishes have been remarkably steady, proving to have a relatively limited ceiling with just five top 10’s the last three seasons, but a very solid floor as he only finished outside the top 30 on five occasions as well. It’s actually a pretty compressed range of finishes for somebody who isn’t one of the top in the sport. It would seem that barring a significant improvement in his shooting that’s probably about where we’ll find him once again, competing as a very solid World Cup athlete right around the edges of the top 20 in the Overall.

Philipp Nawrath (32)

As the recent generation of high performing German men headed to retirement Philipp Nawrath was looked at as one of the men who would hopefully be able to replace them. He came up and began racing full time on the World Cup again in 2021-2022 after running just 21 races over the prior three seasons. Since then Nawrath is a steady presence for the German men. Outside of finishing 28th in the Overall in the 22-23 season he’s finished between 14th and 18th each of the last three seasons.

Nawrath, like Horn, is really a great example in continuing to work hard. He earned his first career World Cup win in Oestersund the opening weekend of the 2023-2024 season. It even allowed him to briefly pull on the yellow bib! He went on to have a career best three podiums that season as he was in his age 30 season. He’s had five top 5’s over the last three seasons as well as having 3-6 top 10’s in each of the last four seasons.

Nawrath, like Horn, relies on his skiing for his successes. He’s been top 22 in overall skiing each of the last four seasons with average course time ranks generally between 11th and 16th. Shooting, meanwhile, continues to be like Philipp Horn as well, as he consistently hits in the upper 70’s to low 80’s. The only real difference between the two Philipps is that Nawrath shoots a little faster averaging 27.4 seconds per shoot last season.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2021-2022	86.7	72.2	79.4	32.3
2022-2023	91.1	75.6	83.3	30.4
2023-2024	85	77	81	28.6
2024-2025	89.5	78	83.8	27.4

The two Philipps are very similar competitors. Nawrath is generally a tiny bit faster and a tiny bit more accurate. That’s given him a slightly higher ceiling and as a result he’s been getting Overall ranks in the teens vs Horn being just outside the top 20. Really they are very similar biathletes though. Barring injury, health issue, or a sudden decline in performance (which there is no indication of) Nawrath should continue to be the same guy that he has been.

Danilo Riethmueller (25)

One of the young(er) men that the German men have been hoping will raise the level of performance back to the Overall levels they have been used to is Danilo Riethmueller. After a Juniors career replete with top 10’s including a Junior World gold and four total Youth/Juniors medals Riethmueller was definitely one to watch. He made a relatively smooth transition to the IBU Cup in the 2023-2024 season with 12 top 10’s in 17 races including four podiums and a win. That was enough to earn him a late season promotion to the World Cup races in North America. Even that wasn’t too much for him as he finished top 30 in every race including two top 10’s.

The 2024-2025 season arrived and Danilo Riethmueller went straight to the World Cup to start the season. By the third race of the season he had a new career best finishing 4th in the Mass Start in last season’s Kontiolahti weekend. He seemed to like Mass Starts as he scored his first podium when he finished 2nd in the Annecy-le Grand Bornand Mass Start just two weeks later. The rest of the season he never quite got back to the top 10 consistently finishing in the 20’s. All in all he finished up the season ranked 26th Overall with an average finish of 33rd which was a bit lower than his average finish of 18th the season before.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2023-2024	85	88.3	86.7	33.7
2024-2025	77.6	78.8	78.2	30.3

From a statistical perspective it was a mixed bag. Riethmueller skied a little bit faster than he had the season before. He had an average course time rank of 18th, improved from 21st in his seven races in the 23-24 season. The bigger issue though was the shooting. After having a career season shooting hitting 85.6% on the IBU Cup and 86.7% on the World Cup, that dropped significantly down to just 78.2% last season. When you look at just the first trimester, when he had all of his best finishes, he shot 85.4%, so right around his 2023-2024 mark. That’s much closer to his career averages. His average shooting time was a relatively slow 30.3 seconds per shoot.

The Danilo Riethmueller that we saw in the latter portion of the 2023-2024 season and the first trimester of the 24-25 campaign is a real threat. He was quite clearly skiing well enough and shooting well enough to find the top 10 on a regular basis and the occasional podium. That version of Danilo Reithmueller, skiing well and hitting 85%, would be a welcome sight for the German men. He would certainly be a top 20 Overall and would have an outside chance at the top 10. We’ve seen him do it for an extended stretch. For Riethmueller it’s going to be about finding that shooting form again. If he does that the German fans will be quite happy!

Simon Kaiser (26)

Another member of this young(er) generation for the DSV men is Simon Kaiser who earned his first career World Cup racing last season. Kaiser has thus far in his career been on a gradual rise. After minimal Junior Cup racing he came to the IBU Cup and has steadily risen up the Overall rankings from 42nd in 2021-2022 to 17th and then 8th in the 2023-2024 season in which he had the first win of his career. After starting the season with six straight top 10’s to open the 2024-2025 season he went straight up to the World up. On the World Cup it wasn’t immediate success but he also didn’t look overwhelmed. He raced nine times with all but two of those finishes coming between 38th and 47th. The two outside of that were 25th in the Hochfilzen Pursuit and 71st in the Antholz Sprint. He ended the IBU Cup season with more success and actually finished 8th in the Overall, a one place improvement, even with fewer races year over year.

Simon Kaiser profiles thus far in his career as a much better skier than shooter. The last three seasons on the IBU Cup his average course time ran has been 11th or better including an average ski rank of 5th last season. In his IBU Cup races he was 7% faster tha median last year. On the World Cup he had an average course time rank of 20th last season, which is more than respectable. That put him ahead of guys like Sivert Bakken, Isak Frey, Oscar Lombardot, and Fabian Muellauer.

His shooting, though, has been improving. When he started his IBU Cup career he was hitting just 69.2% of his shots. Last season that was all the way up to 80% on the IBU Cup. On the World Cup, though, it was closer to where he has been most frequently in his biathlon career, the low 70’s.

Simon Kaiser’s ski speed and relatively young age makes him an intriguing athlete for the German team. So man of these men are in their early 30’s already. Kaiser at just 26 still has room to grow. And the ski speed is getting into a good place already. If that ski speed can just come along a little bit over the next few season’s he’ll be in a really good spot. The shooting though needs to get better in a hurry. In those 15 IBU Cup starts last season he looked so much better. Hitting 80%, while not incredible, is still better and showing signs of improvement. Fingers crossed we see more of that this year. I want to see that skiing a little bit faster, like 3+% faster than median on the World Cup, and his hit rate in the low 80’s. That would be everything I want to see from Kaiser. Anything else I’ll take as a big bonus!

Lucas Fratzscher (31)

Every season I see Lucas Fratzscher on the IBU Cup and I think to myself, man he looks good enough to make it to the World Cup. He’s become an IBU Cup machine. He finished 2nd and then 1st in the Overall in the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 seasons. I thought he was going to continue that on to the World Cup then. But now. He finished 4th and 2nd in the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 seasons. I thought for sure now he was ready for the World Cup. Still no. No Fratzscher has been 7th on the IBU Cup each of the last two seasons. But finally, finally, now Lucas Fratzscher is going to have his chance! After a solid week in Idre Fjall including winning one of the races he will start out the season with the top squad in Oestersund.

The man is just a force on the IBU Cup. Anywhere from 10-17 top 10’s on the IBU Cup over his last six seasons on that level. He only finishes outside the top 20 a couple of times per season if at all. And yet, with the German team being good but certainly not dominant he’s never scratched out more than five World Cup starts in a single season. I guess it’s fair. When he gets there the results aren’t there. Just two career top 20s and just six career top 30’s.

Lucas Fratzscher’s statistics look a bit like David Zobel. On the IBU Cup he’s been a pretty good skier. He’s been faster than Zobel running between 4.5-5% faster than median with average course time ranks of between 8th and 13th the last four seasons. His hit rate has usually been a little bit lower hitting between 80.9% and 85.5%. Not terrible by any means, but not quite as consistent. Interestingly, like Zobel, he hits near 90% prone. Unfortunately it just doesn’t translate when he gets to the World Cup. With those skiing statistics you would think he would be actually pretty decent still on the World Cup even if not fast. Instead, though, he’s actually consistently run slower than median on the World Cup for whatever reason. And it really shouldn’t work out that way.

If this is the peak of Lucas Fratzscher’s career, it’s nothing at all to be upset about. He’s a consistently strong performer on the IBU Cup to a point that allows him to be immensely successful on that level. But you do, or at least I do, feel bad that it never quite translated to even moderate World Cup success. He’s so close he can taste it. I just hope that he has one really great season this season or next where it all comes together, he hits a little above 85%, he has his best skiing yet, and more importantly shows it on the World Cup. I just want him to get to show the best of what he has on the highest level.

World Cup/IBU Cup Squad – Those are the six guys who will start the season on the World Cup. We’ll see how consistent they are with that squad though. If they perform they’ll stay. We’ll see what Tobias Reiter’s strategy is, but last year the German men had eight men in total race at least one time on the World Cup. If I had to guess I would take more than eight this season, but we’ll see. Listed below are the IBU Cup squad to start the season in Obertiliiach and a few other men I think might be in the mix.
– Johannes Kuehn
– Roman Rees
– David Zobel
– Leonhard Pfund
– Elias Seidl
– Linus Kesper

Johannes Kuehn (33)

Yet another German man in his 30’s is Johannes Kuehn (the German men are really surprisingly old). It seems like there should have been some younger men coming up as the Peiffer, Doll, Schemp, and Lesser group retired. And I guess they were, this group was all in their mid to late 20’s. But now they are in their early 30’s. Of those men Johannes Kuehn has been the most consistent presence on the World Cup racing continuously on the World Cup dating back to the 2017-2018 season.

Over that stretch of now eight seasons Johannes Kuehn has, just like Philipp Nawrath, been a very steady presence for the German men. He’s had three finishes where he came exceedingly close to the top 10, most recently finishing 12th in the 2023-2024 season, and four seasons where he was between 26th and 32nd in the Overall. And in the outlier season he finished 48th Overall.

Johannes Kuehn is much more like Horn and Nawrath than he is like Strelow. Throughout his time on the World Cup his average course time ranks are regularly between 9th and 13th. The only two seasons outside that range were that 2020-2021 season when he finished 48th Overall and then last season when he had an average course time rank of 18th. His shooting at least has progressed markedly throughout his career. After hitting consistently in the low 70’s to start his career he’s advanced up to the upper 70’s and even hit a career best 83.6% in the 2023-2024 season.

Johannes Kuehn is the longest running consistent starter on the World Cup for the German men. He suffered from missing the summer German National Championships so he needed to earn his way onto the team in Idre Fjall and he wasn’t quite able to do it. The bad news for Kuehn is that there are signs of talent beginning to come up from the younger ranks in the German system and last season, he did seem to show some signs that his skiing may be slowing. If that trend continues then he will sooner rather than later get to a point where the skiing won’t be able to overcome the shooting in the high 70’s. Will that happen this season? Possibly. But he’s not a young man and time catches up with everybody eventually. At 33 years old he’s not that old yet, so while likely this won’t be the season where the bottom drops out, he is in the last several years of his high performance career.

Roman Rees (32)

After becoming a full time World Cup team member to start the 2020-2021 season Roman Rees seemed to be in no hurry to leave it. He improved in three consecutive seasons with his overall finishes starting at 28th and improving to 16th and 9th. He even grabbed the first win of his career in the early days of the 2023-2024 season, winning the Individual in Oestersund that season. Since then, though, he hasn’t quite been able to recapture that magic. He had just one additional top 10 that season and seven total top 20’s which were his fewest since the 2020-2021 season.

Last season he was sick in the last weeks of training camp and it impacted his ability to participate in the selection races. He ended up starting out the year on the IBU Cup. And then starting out the season on the IBU Cup became racing the full season on the IBU Cup. To be totally fair to Roman Rees he wasn’t bad. He finished 23rd in the first race of the season and then finished top 8 every race until the European Championships. That weekend didn’t quite go how he would hae wanted to with finishes f 29th, 26th, and 10th. But after finishing the season on another run of five straight top 8 finishes, including two podiums, he came up over to Oslo to end the year.

Roman Rees’ statistical profile is much more like Justus Strelow than the Horn or Nawrath. When he was having his peak seasons he was shooting in the high 80’s or even low 90’s. The last two seasons though he’s seen that slip back to the mid 80’s. Meanwhile his skiing just isn’t good enough to overcome that. He skis well enough with average coure time ranks, at his best in the high teens to mid 20’s. The problem for him more recently was that he has seen his skiing decline with his average course time rank of 30th in the 2023-2024 season. That slide, in conjunction with a dip in his hit rate, contributed to his overall drop in performance.

We’ll see what Roman Rees is able to do this season. As with so many of these German men, he’s certainly not so old to be “over the hill.” But at 32 years old it’s hard to believe his best days are ahead of him. That doesn’t mean he’s going to drop off for sure, but a good season for him is going to look more like returning to his prior levels of production closer to the 2022-2023 season rather than setting new career bests. Skiing closer to an average course time rank in the mid 20’s and hitting in the upper 80’s is probably what we’ll be hoping for this year.

David Zobel (29)

I mentioned frequently above with several of the women that I couldn’t believe how old they are. David Zobel is like that times 10. How on Earth is he already 29? He’s going to be 30 after this season. That just seems improbably. It feels like just last year I was feeling like he was getting close to taking a step forward and becoming a solid World Cup athlete. He did that in the 2022-2023 season running a full year on the World Cup. Unfortunately since then he’s raced just 20 total World Cup races the last two seasons and has largely been back on the IBU Cup.

In that one World Cup season he wasn’t bad. He finished 33rd on the Overall. That’s not amazing, but it’s certainly not bad. Most of that was on the strength of his first, and still only, career podium. But he also had three to p10’s and eight top 20’s. Again, not amazing, but not bad. Since then he has just three top 20’s and one top 10 in those 20 races. Back on the IBU Cup he’s been solid finishing in the top 10 in over half of his races (15 of 24) including six top 5’s, two podiums, and a win. However, since he’s still been getting World Cup races his IBU Cup Overall is lower than it would be otherwise.

Zobel is a classic solid at both skiing and shooting, but not good at enough at either or both to make a big World Cup impact. He consistently shoots in the mid 80’s both on the IBU Cup and World Cup for the last several seasons. He’s actually a very good prone shooter regularly hitting in the 90’s. However he just struggles a bit more with the standing. Regardless, hitting in the mid 80’s is good. As a skier on the IBU Cup Zobel runs consistently 3-4% faster than median which gives him course time ranks in the teens. On the World Cup, though, he’s just a little faster than median with average course time ranks mid 20’s to mid 30’s. Again, certainly not bad.

The problem thus far for Zobel is that a fast skier with a mid 80’s hit rate he could compete for top 10’s and top 20’s. With his speed and hitting in the high 80’s or better he could compete for top 20’s. But where he is he just isn’t quite good enough at either. And also, he’s just not showing significant improvement over the last 2-3 seasons. Not that he can’t improve. Just that he hasn’t improved. It really feels like the time is now or never. I’m not going to predict major improvements for Zobel, but I would be more than happy to see it happen!

Leonhard Pfund (22)

It’s hard to “win” a summer, but it really felt like Leonhard Pfund did that this summer. Really every time we saw him he seemed to show off a new level of form that we hadn’t seen before. He was excellent at Blink. At the German championships he was top 6 in every race with a high finish of 4th in the Sprint. He skied faster and shot better than he had previously. Everything just looked *better.*

The former Junior World Champion, having won the gold medal in the Individual at the 2024 Junior Worlds enters this highly anticipated 2025-2026 season having already raced most of last season on the IBU Cup. In 10 races last season the young man already had three top 20’s, and one near miss with a 21st. He only really had two races I’m sure he wasn’t happy with on that level. He made a detour to the Junior Cup for the Jakuszyce weekend and Junior Worlds and had three top 10’s, including 7th in the Junior World Sprint, and five top 15’s in those six races.

As a Junior he was a very good skier with an average course time rank in the top 10. In fact last season he had just two Juniors course time ranks outside the top 7. On the IBU Cup he put up an average ski rank of 36th while skiing 1.6% faster than median. While not blazing, certainly good enough for his age to be intriguing. His shooting, meanwhile, has generally been quite good. In 17 career IBU Cup races he’s hit just less than 87%. On the Juniors he hit 85% in 23-24 and 76.7% last season. The significant evidence is that Pfund is a pretty good shooter.

As Leonhard Pfund enters his age 22 season, there is every reason to be very optimistic about his future. He’s shown more than enough shooting at this point to make the reasonable conclusion that he projects to be a good to very good shooter with an outside chance at being excellent. His skiing is good enough that he should be okay on that end as well. At this point his career his on the Justus Strelow trajectory except likely a higher overall ceiling. He’s still so young though, and with the new coaching staff his future could be even brighter. I think it’s clear that I’m all in and excited about Pfund. For now though he’s 22 and on the IBU Cup and I cannot wait to see what he brings us this season!

Linus Kesper (22)

Speaking of intriguing young Germans whose first names start with “L,” Linus Kesper comes to the Senior level full time this season. He leaves behind a pretty successful Juniors career including 10 top 10’s, five podiums, and two wins, both in the 2024-2025 season, in 19 total Juniors races. Unfortunately for Kesper, with all of that success, he “only” took home one Junior Worlds medal, the 2024 Sprint bronze medal. He also had a 6th in the Individual that season. Last season his Junior Worlds were a bit of a disappointment (his words not mine!) as he finished 12th, 14th, and 50th. He also raced five times on the IBU Cup during the 23-24 season and had two top two finishes including 18th in the Sprint at the European Championships that season.

Checking out his statistics on the Juniors level and they are a a little bit up and down. Even within the same weekend. For example in Jakuszyce last season he had the 16th best course time in the first sprint but just a couple of days later he had the 6th best course time rank. In general though he was usually in the top 10 of course time ranks until the Junior Worlds last season when it fell off a little bit. He doesn’t say that he was sick but there were a large number of sick men that week so it wouldn’t surprise me.

His shooting has similarly been consistently inconsistent. Both seasons he hit a little above and a little below 80%. However in his entire Juniors career he only had five of 19 races hitting in the 80’s. He was just as frequently 90% or above as he was 75% or less. It was quite a spread. But specifically he hit 83% in the 23-24 season and 79.4% in the 24-25 season.

Linus Kesper has more Juniors podiums, top 5’s, and top 10’s than Leonhard Pfund, but in looking at the statistics it’s kind of hard to figure out how that happened. Leonhard Pfund has been more steady (for example he shot either 80% or 85% in more than half of his Juniors races) whereas Kesper as been more boom or bust. And they are the two most highly anticipated of the youngest Senior men.

It’s hard to know what to expect from Linus Kesper this season. Leonhard Pfund we have a more solid and stable performance and a trajectory we can make some inference off of. Kesper has been so up and down I’m a little more hesitant to be 10 toes down on him. However, he has flashed great speed and he’s had several more 90+% shooting days than Pfund. So the ceiling is certainly there. I truly think that what Kesper needs more than anything is more racing. Hopefully he gets a lot of IBU Cup run this season. Hopefully we’ll see his skiing settle out into consistently top 30 or even top 20 course time ranks. And hopefully we see him eliminate some of those sub 75% shooting days from his performance. That would be a solid positive step this season.

Elias Seidl (21)

Elias Seidl is making the move to the Senior level this season. He was very good in Ruhpolding and qualified directly for the IBU Cup. It’s not hard to see why. The young man has already raced on the IBU Cup and had three top 25 finishes. He definitely looked faster in Ruhpolding than he was last here as well. Here’s what we’ve seen from him so far:

– 2024-2025 season was fourth season of racing. Raced Ridnaun-Val Ridanna as well as Junior European and World Championships. Also raced two weeks on IBU Cup.
– Junior Worlds: 23rd, 56th, and 10th
– Best moment: Silver medal in Junior European Championshiop and won Sprint in Ridnaun-Val Ridanna
– IBU Cup Finishes: 59th, 24th, 43rd, 15th, and 24th
– Juniors Avg Course Time Rank: 19th (back from 12th in 23-24)
– Juniors Shooting Percentage: 77.9% (up from 70% in 23-24 and down from 81% in 22-23) while hitting 67.1% prone and 88.6% standing

Fabian Kaskel (22)

As Fabian Kaskel prepares to start his first season as a full time Senior I believe that he leaves as the current holder as German with the most Juniors races competed. He’s raced a whopping 37 times since his first race at the 2020 Youth Worlds. In those 37 races he has accumulated one win, which made him the 2025 Junior European Sprint Champ, two podiums (both last season), and 13 top 10’s for a slightly better than 1 in 3 top 10 rate. He leaves after arguably his best season to date with those two podiums, three top 5’s and five top 10’s. He also had his best Junior Worlds finish with a 7th in the Individual.

Kaskel also raced nine times on the IBU Cup over the last two seasons. Outside of two races I’m sure he would like to ignore, he has otherwise had all of his finishes between 15th and 34th. Considering his age that’s not bad at all.

Fabian Kaskel at his most successful, thus far, has been a tremendous shooter and a good enough skier. For most of his career his shooting has been come and go with very good days and not good days. However, in the 2023-2024 IBU Cup racing and last season on the Juniors season he started to corral the rifle a little more consistently. Hit shot 89% during those IBU Cup races and then he hit 86% last season. He had shown the ability to shoot well before this season, but it finally become the normal for him.

His skiing meanwhile, like I said, has been good enough. The last two seasons as a Junior he’s skied between 5.5 and 6.3% faster than median. That’s translated to an average course time rank of 13th and 18th. Good enough, but not to the point where he would identify himself as a sure thing potential World Cupper. When he was on the IBU Cup in the 2023-2024 season he had an average course time rank of 44th.

At this point, and I want to emphasize how early it is in Kaskel’s career, it really does look like his path to where he wants to go, and where we all are rooting for him to go, is by being an excellent shooter. We’ve seen him hit in the mid to high 80’s already in his career. We know he’s capable of it. Let’s hope that this season we see him continue to get more and more steady and consistent with that shooting. More boom and less bust. The skiing will need to come along as well. It might not happen all right away, but he can do it. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and remember to be patient with him while he does it. For this upcoming season if he can start having consistent IBU Cup course time ranks in the 30’s and better I’ll feel like he’s making solid progress.

Franz Schaser (23)

After a largely unremarkable Juniors career Franz Schaser made the transition to the IBU Cup and all in all it wasn’t half bad. That’s not meant to denigrate Schaser, but coming out of the German federation he had just three career Juniors top 10’s and a single podium. He did have 14 top 20’s in 21 races so a 66% top 20 rate. But again, when looking at German Juniors we are so used to seeing higher finishes than that so it was easy for Schaser to slip under the radar.

Last season he raced a full season on the IBU Cup with 22 races and had seven top 20’s and 17 top 30’s. So while he had a relatively limited ceiling as a 22 year old he had a pretty solid floor to his performance. All in all, thanks to his reliably firm level, and that he didn’t miss races, Schaser rode it to a 16th place Overall IBU Cup finish last season.

On the IBU Cup last season Schaser was a bit like Fratzscher and Zobel. He was good enough at both shooting and skiing but not exceptional at both. His average course time rank was 26.5 as he skied 2.2% faster than median. It was good enough to rate 42nd best skiing on the IBU Cup. He shot 80.6% with slightly better prone than standing shooting. That was good enough for 51st most accurate on the IBU Cup. Overall a decent overall showing.

What we see next from Franz Schaser is going to be interesting. Expectations are actually pretty low. He’s certainly not one of the big names to watch. Hopefully that allows him to race pressure free. In order to move up either in the IBU Cup pecking order or some day to what I’m sure are his World Cup dreams, he’ll need to find a way to improve at one or hopefully both skiing and shooting. This summer we may have gotten a hint that he’s doing that as he finished top 10 in all three events at the German National Championships. In Ruhpolding for the selection races he flashed some goods ski speed as well putting him as one of the faster men in the field. Hopefully the very young man takes advantage of his opportunities and keeps slowly building himself forward.

IBU Cup – Beyond that large group of men listed above there are even more who will likely spend the season on the IBU Cup or fighting for spots on the IBU Cup.

Hans Koellner (23)

Coming out of his Juniors career Hans Koellner showed signs of being a strong candidate to watch hopefully progressively rise through the IBU Cup with a chance to be a solid even if not excellent World Cup athlete. As a Junior he was the 2023 Junior European Individual champion and he had 12 top 10’s and three podiums in 34 races. In his last season on the Junior Cup he was very good putting up eight top 11 finishes. The only blemish on his record, if you want to call it that, is a lack of success at the Junior Worlds with his best finishes being 13h and 15th coming in the 2023 Junior Worlds. Since then Koellner has raced 11 times on the IBU Cup including five races in 2022-2023 and six in the 2024-2025 seasons. In those races he has two top 20’s and four top 30’s.

Koellner has performed as a very good shooter with skiing that has been just good enough to bring him the success he has had. In his Juniors career he consistently hit in the mid to high 80’s. On the IBU Cup he hit 85% in his five races in the 22-23 season and 81.7% in his six races last season. When he was a Junior he was running around 4-6% faster than median, which as we’ve discussed is good, but doesn’t normally project to high level World Cup level skiing. That is seen again on the IBU Cup as he has had course time ranks in the 30’s and 40’s for most of his IBU Cup racing.

Hans Koellner is still so young. He has a really strong attribute to rely on with his shooting. That alone gives him a leg up. It’s not that he doesn’t need to continue to work on the shooting, but all he needs to do is be where he has already been, in the high 80’s, and he can be good enough to compete at the high levels of the IBU Cup and even onto the World Cup. For Koellner its about bringing along the skiing.

We’ve seen this story, the good shooter who finally gets the skiing to match his shooting, play out a few times recently, most prominently with Suvi Minkkinen last season. That’s not to expect Koellner to be a medalist at a future World Championships. However, when somebody is this good a shooter at this young of an age I can’t help be but hopeful that sooner rather than later we’ll see that skiing match up with the shooting. And when that happens I’ll be so happy to for Koellner. For this year, I’m hoping that we see Koellner run at least half of the races this season on the World Cup. I’m hoping for high 80’s shooting around 87-88%. From his skiing I would love to see him running closer to 2% faster than median with course time ranks more in the 20’s and low 30’s. If he does that, then regardless of results, I’m going to be pleased.

Benjamin Menz (23)

There was a time, really not that long ago, where Benjamin Menz appeared poised as the top German man in the group that is now between 22-25 years old. Over the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 seasons he had three wins including the 2023 Junior Worlds Individual gold medal. In total he had 13 top 10’s in 26 races. When he wasn’t finishing in the top 10, though, he had relatively low floor including finishes of 29th, 30th, and 49th at the 2024 Junior Worlds. He had a difficult 2024 of training and last season never quite got it in gear. He wasn’t able to crack the IBU Cup roster at all last season.

As a Junior his performance was a real rollercoaster. He would have stretches of racing, including the 2023 Junior Worlds (so it wasn’t just against the regular Junior Cup competition), where he was running top 5-10 in terms of ski times. And then he would have a week or two in a row where his course time ranks were nowhere close to that. And really with no real pattern or expectation.

Interestingly his shooting was very consistent especially the last two seasons. Over 17 races he only hit below 80% two times while hitting 90% or better nine times. That’s reflected by his overall hit rates being 86.7% and 85.7% in his last two seasons of competition.

If you had asked me two years ago I would have said that by now we would have seen some high finishes on the IBU Cup from Benjamin Menz and he would be getting ready for his World Cup debut likely in the next season or two. Today, though, I have no idea what to expect. The history still looks really good. But the present Benjamin Menz just doesn’t look the same. Not even that he hasn’t progressed but not living up to the same standard that he set. I’m going to stay hopeful for him though!

Philipp Lipowitz (26)

Philipp Lipowitz, the third Philipp on the German team, has so far in his career been a bit stuck in neutral. He had a little bit of success in his Juniors career including winning the gold medal in the Individual at the 2021 Junior Worlds. He also had a 6th place in the Sprint that season. It was a great way for him to exit the Juniors! Since then he’s raced 13 times on the IBU Cup including most recently in the 2023-2024 season. In those 13 races he has three top 20’s and a top 10.

He’s so far been good enough to stay on the training roster, but not quite good enough to breakthrough and maintain the consistent run on the IBU Cup. In his IBU Cup statistics he’s been okay in both skiing and shooting but not great at either. His average course time rank in his last racing on the IBU Cup was 33rd as he skied just slightly faster than median. Meanwhile he shot 82.5% that season which is about in line with the 85% he hit in limited racing in the 2021-2022 season. Looking back at his Juniors and he was moderately fast, but not fast enough to profile as a speedster. His shooting as a Junior was generally in the 70’s.

Lipowitz is really stuck in between. It’s pretty clear he’s good enough to get occasional racing on the IBU Cup. However it’s also clear why he hasn’t been more consistently racing on the IBU Cup. He’s pretty good, but just not quite good enough to demand more consistent racing. The trick for Lipowitz is that he doesn’t have a real strength. Pretty good at both but doesn’t have that one thing that he can rely on to carry him through. Hopefully that changes this season or we see general broad improvement.

Juniors: Finally we come to the Juniors on the roster. I tried to put the most “interesting” names at the top. Regardless these are the guys we might see make some noise in the Junior competitions this season.

Lukas Tannheimer (18)

– 2024-2025 season was second season of racing. Raced in Jakuszyce as well as Junior European and Youth World Championships
– Youth Worlds: 10th, 1st and 5th
– Best moment: Youth Worlds Sprint gold medal. Also 2nd place in Jakuszyce Junior Cup
– Juniors Avg Course Time Rank: 24th. A little context his course time ranks for the season for each race were: 58th, 45th, 1st, 47th, 6th, 2nd, 7th. That is a young man with good speed that is still finding his footing
– Juniors Shooting Percentage: 76.7% hitting 83.3% prone and 70% standing
– There are some other highly talented young men on this list but Lukas Tannheimer is possibly the most talented. He has a ski speed that is undeniable. I cannot wait to watch what he does this season.

Korbi Kuebler (19)

– 2024-2025 season was second season of racing. Raced in Youth Worlds in each of the last two seasons
– Youth Worlds: 4th, 4th, and 26th
– Best moment: 4th place in each of the Individual and Sprint
– Course Time Ranks: 17th, 18th, and 27th
– Juniors Shooting Percentage: 95%, 90%, and 70%

Luca Anding (18)

– 2024-2025 season was debut season. Raced at Youth Worlds
– Youth Worlds: 36th and 7th
– Best moment: 7th in Mass 60 at 2025 Youth Worlds
– Juniors Course Time Ranks: 22nd and 35th
– Juniors Shooting Percentage: 70% and 90%

Tim Nechwatal (21)

– 2023-2024 season was third season of racing. Did not race in 2024-2025
– 2024 Junior Worlds: 23rd, 18th, and 53rd
– Best moment: 3rd in Ridnaun-Val Ridanna Sprint
– Juniors Avg Course Time Rank: 18th (roughly the same as 22-23)
– Juniors Shooting Percentage:80% (improved from 69.1% and 74% prior two seasons) while hitting 85.7% prone and 74.3% standing

Albert Engelmann (20)

– 2024-2025 season was third season of racing. Did not race in 2023-2024. Did not race 2025 Junior Worlds
– Junior European Championships: 27th and 38th
– Best moment: 12th in Sprint in Jakuszyce weekend of racing
– Career Best Moment: 2022 Youth Worlds finished 3rd, 3rd, and 2nd. Followed up with 9th, 5th, and 2nd in 2023 Youth Worlds.
– Juniors Avg Course Time Rank: 10th (stable over three seasons of racing)
– Juniors Shooting Percentage: 69.1% (down from 74.2% in 22-23 and 82.5% in 21-22) while hitting 80% prone and 58.2% standing

Erik Hafenmair (20)

– 2024-2025 season was second season of racing. Raced 2023 Youth Worlds and then Ridnaun-Val Ridanna weekend in 24-25 season.
– 2023 Youth Worlds: 12th, 7th, and 6th
– 2024-2025 finishes: 7th, 22nd, and 41st
– Juniors Course Time Ranks: 32nd, 19th, and 27th
– Juniors Shooting Percentage: 95%, 80%, and 60%

Nils Schneiderling (20)

– 2024-2025 season was second season of racing. Raced Ridnaun-Val Ridanna and Jakuszyce weekends of racing. Has never raced Youth/Junior Worlds
– Finished with three top 10’s
– Best Moment: 6th in 2nd Sprint in Jakuszyce
– Juniors Avg Course Time Rank: 11th (Improved from 15th in 23-24 season)
– Juniors Shooting Percentage: 72.5% (improved from 68.9% in 23024) while hitting 82.5% prone and 62.5% standing

Hannes Lipfert (17)

– Raced only regional races during 2024-2025 season in Pokljuka
– Best moment: Won both Sprints in Pokljuka
– Shooting percentages: 100% and 100%

Karl Julian Schutze (20)

– 2024-2025 season was premier. Raced at Junior Worlds
– Junior Worlds Finishes: 50th, 32nd, and 37th
– Juniors Course Time Ranks: 40th, 41st, and 30th
– Juniors Shooting Percentage: 75%, 90%, and 70%

Finn Zurnieden (19)

– 2024-2025 season was premier. Raced at Youth Worlds
– Junior Worlds Finishes: 34th, 41st, and 22nd
– Juniors Course Time Ranks: 25th, 21st, and 25th
– Juniors Shooting Percentage: 80%, 70%, and 90%

Clemens Bohme (19)

– Raced only regional races during 2024-2025 season in Pokljuka and Arber
– Best moment: 3rd in Pokljuka Sprint. Other finishes: 5th and 8th
– Shooting percentages: 70%, 60%, and 60%

Bjoern Ole Hederich (18)

– Raced only regional races during 2024-2025 season in Pokljuka and Arber
– Best moment: 4th in Pokljuka Short Individual. Other finishes: 12th, 22nd, and 10th
– Shooting percentages: 80%, 70%, 80%, 70%
– Also raced 2024 Youth Olympics in Gangwon where he finished 7th and 10th

Kilian Pfaffinger (18)

– Raced only regional races during 2024-2025 season in Pokljuka and Arber
– Best moment: 3rd in Pokljuka Short Individual. Other finishes: 13th, 10th, and 13th
– Shooting percentages: 80%, 70%, 85%, 70%

Hugo Winter (19)

– Raced only regional races during 2024-2025 season in Pokljuka, Arber and Nove Mesto
– Best moment: 2nd in Nove Mesto Sprint. Other finishes: 6th, 4th, 8th, and 12th
– Shooting percentages: 60%, 80%, 60%, 50%, 45%, 80%

Paul Achatz (16)

– Raced only regional races during 2024-2025 season in Pokljuka and Arber
– Best moment: 2nd in both Arber Short Individual and Sprint. Other finishes: 15th and 13th
– Shooting percentages: 60%, 60%, 75%, 80%

Justus Hoevel (19)

– Raced only regional races during 2024-2025 season in Pokljuka and Arber
– Best moment: 6th in both Pokljuka Sprint. Other finishes: 30th, 7th, and 11th
– Shooting percentages: 70%, 40%, 60%, 80%

Pepe Scheffler (19)

– Raced only regional races during 2024-2025 season in Pokljuka and Arber
– Best moment: 3rd in both Arber Sprint. Other finishes: 9th, 5th, and 5th
– Shooting percentages: 70%, 70%, 70%, 80%

Yannick Schraag (16)

– Raced only regional races during 2024-2025 season in Pokljuka and Arber
– Best moment: 7th in both Arber Sprint. Other finishes: 16th, 21st, and 16th
– Shooting percentages: 60%, 50%, 75%, 70%

Kilian Simon (18)

– Raced only regional races during 2024-2025 season in Pokljuka and Arber
– Best moment: 2nd in both Arber Short Individual. Other finishes: 9th, 14th, and 11th
– Shooting percentages: 100%, 80%, 80%, 60%

David Schmutz (20)

– Raced only regional races during 2024-2025 season in Pokljuka and Arber
– Best moment: 9th in both Pokljuka Sprint. Other finishes: 13th, 23rd, and 17th
– Shooting percentages: 60%, 60%, 50%, 40%