2025-2026 Hochfilzen Preview

Dates: December 12th – December 14th, 2025

Schedule:

– Friday December 12: Men’s 10km Sprint + Women’s 7.5km Sprint
– Saturday December 13: Men’s 12.5km Pursuit + Women’s 4x6km Relay
– Sunday December 14: Men’s 4×7.5km Relay + Women’s 10km Pursuit

Course Overview:

– Stadium altitude: 1,010m
– Maximum altitude on course: 1,035m
– Lowest altitude on course: 997m
– Stadium capacity: 10,500 spectators

The way I always remember the Hochfilzen course is it has the tight nearly 180 degree curve. Almost every year there are one or two athletes who just have a little too much speed into that curve and if we’re ever going to see an athlete go off the course this season this may very well be it. The other thing I always think about are all of the climbs on this course. It feels like everything is either uphill or downhill. Just very little flat in this course. So you better like climbing!

I would love to go as a spectator some time. At least on television the course feels very exposed so that there must be vantage points where you can see large portions of the course. Would be fun especially during the Pursuits!

Weather:

– Avg Temp for late November and early December: High 0C and Low -5C

Weather looks to be a touch warm. Thankfully it is still supposed to be below freezing at night which will help. Doesn’t look like we’ll be seeing any snow (or rain!) though which will be nice for the athletes!

News and Notes

1) Norway Makes A Change – the Norwegian men lost the Boe brothers to retirement but they remain they remain a very solid team. Even still, though, there are changes to the roster after just one week.

We will see Vebjoern Soerum return to the World Cup. He was prequalified before the season but suffered physical setbacks in Geilo. The Norwegian federation has a policy that they try to respect where if an athlete was selected for a competition, but was unable to compete due to weather, they will have preference for the position when healthy. Endre Stroemsheim didn’t have great week in Ostersund and he is the man out.

Johannes Dale-Skjevdal has a magnificent week on the IBU Cup finishing 1st, 1st and 1st. You really cannot ask for more than that. While it is tough for Isak Frey, who wasn’t bad finishing 31st, 19th, and 10th, it would be even more difficult to deny Dale-Skjevdal the opportunity. In all seriousness it would spark significant controversy if they kept him on the IBU Cup. It’s hard for Isak Frey, but it was the decision they had to make.

The Norwegians will cut down to six after this week so another cut will have to be made. Even so, Isak Frey is so talented that he will undoubtedly will fight his way back!

On the women’s side Aasne Skrede earns the promotion to the World Cup over Siri Skar and Frida Dokken. While Skar and Dokken are ranked ahead of Skrede in the IBU Cup Overall, Skrede had a podium while those two did not and in the Norwegian federation that takes precedence. Ragnhild Femsteinevik is going home to recover as she was struggling last week.

2) French Roster Changes – France will also be experiencing a major roster change this season. Julia Simon will be returning to the World Cup squad after her suspension has come to an end. Amandine Mengin is the odd woman out to make room for the return of Simon. That will keep the French women at seven for one more week. An additional cut down will come after this week. At this point it looks like Gilonne Guigonnat is the one most in peril of losing her position after Camille Bened’s magnificent week. But there is a big week of racing to come!

On the men’s side Oscar Lombardot comes up to the top World Cup after claiming a podium in each of the three races in Obertilliach. He will switch positions with Antonin Guigonnat. Remember that in the Geilo races Lombardot and Guigonnat were very similar with unimpressive starts.

3) Franziska Preuss – The reigning World Cup Overall champion had some subpar races to start the week in Östersund before she missed the Sprint/Pursuit due to illness. She announced this week that she actually ended up with both Covid AND Flu proving that once again that, outside of the 24-25 season, she may be the most unlucky person in biathlon. She is listed on the roster but she left her participation open and we’ll see if she is able to go. Regardless, if there was any doubt that her focus was more on the Olympics than repeating as Overall Champion we now know because in all likelihood she is going to be too far back at this point.

Recent History

Men’s Multiple Podium Finishers Last 5 Competitions

Athletes	Finishes
Sturla Holm Laegreid	🥈🥈🥈🥉🥉, 4
Emilien Jacquelin	🥈🥈🥈🥈🥉
Sebastian Samuelsson	🥉🥉,4, 5, 5
Quentin Fillon Maillet	🥇🥇🥈, 4
Fabien Claude	🥉🥉, 5
Martin Ponsiluoma	🥈, 4
Endre Stroemsheim	4
Vebjoern Soerum	5
Martin Uldal	5
Andrejs Rastrogujevs	5
Niklas Hartweg	5

Women’s Repeat Podium Finishers Last 5 Competitions

Athletes	Finishes
Elvira Oeberg	🥇🥈🥉, 4, 4
Julia Simon	🥇🥉🥉, 5
Marketa Davidova	🥈🥉, 5, 5
Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold	🥇🥈🥉
Franziska Preuss	🥇🥉🥉
Hanna Oeberg	4, 5, 5
Lou Jeanmonnot	🥇, 4
Justine Braisaz-Bouchet	🥈🥉
Lena Haecki-Gross	🥈, 4
Karoline Knotten	🥉, 5
Lisa Vittozzi	4, 5
Vanessa Voigt	🥈
Ella Halvarsson	4
Selina Grotian	5
Anamarija Lampic	5

Recent Memorable Moments/Performances

Maybe it is just me, but if you ask me to think of specific races from Hochfilzen, I just struggle to do it. Maybe it’s because it falls right in the middle of the first trimester. Maybe it’s because of how compressed the week always is with six races in two days. I just don’t remember a lot of what happens here. So here are just a few things I do remember from recent race weekends.

19-20 Men’s Relay: Even for Team Norway this is one of the wildest comebacks of all time. After a strong first leg by Dale-Skjvedal gave them a lead, Erlend Bjoentegaard had quite the adventure on the range that led to a penalty loop. It put Norway 53 seconds behind Germany. While Arnd Peiffer raced well, Tarjei Boe was able to trim off 10 seconds. Still going into the last leg Benedikt Doll had a 43 seconds advantage on JT Boe. Even with JT Boe that was a solid lead. It wasn’t enough though. JT Boe and Doll both cleaned the prone shooting and Doll was still up by 36 seconds. That was down to 25 going into the last shooting which was enough if Doll could clean…but he couldn’t. But neither could JT Boe. They both had two misses but JT Boe was a solid 8 seconds faster. Quick fingers on the reload! With just a 13 second advantage Doll couldn’t hold off the freight train forever. He caught him with just around 1km remaining and swept past him down the stretch for the victory.

20-21 Men’s Relay: In this moment I distinctly remember thinking that Sebastian Samuelsson was going to be a star. They started the last lap tied and stayed neck and neck until the final shooting. Samuelsson had two misses but held it together while JT Boe headed to the penalty loop. Samuelsson showed a lot of grit to hang with the man who was on the way to an Overall Globe!

21-22 Women’s Pursuit: This was primarily a race between two women that we won’t see one second of this season. Hanna Sola entered the Pursuit with a commanding 46 second advantage. Yellow bib Marte Olsbu Røiseland though was always a threat in a Pursuit race. Sola did a tremendous job holding her off, but Røiseland was not to be denied. The last lap was actually something to behold. Sola entered the final shooting with a 35 second advantage. However, she had 1 miss opening the door just a touch. Røiseland cleaned and moved within 12 seconds of Sola. The last lap was either painful or exhillirating depending on who you were pulling for. It felt like Sola was moving in slow motion compared to Røiseland . Finally with just 400 meters to go Røiseland moved past Sola. It was an incredible comeback and truthfully showed her strength in what proved to be her crowning Overall winning season.

21-22 Men’s Pursuit: The race started with a nice bunch at the top. Johannes Kuehn was coming off his first career win but there were seven men within 25 seconds to start. QFM did what would become his calling card during his Overall Globe winning season as he came back and stole the victory. He was still a few seconds behind after shooting 3 but he closed the gap on Kuehn before the final shooting. He went clean and raced away for the victory. It was really a tone setter for the rest of the season as he claimed the Overall title.

23-24 Women’s Pursuit: The Women’s Sprint ended in a bit of heartbreak for Lena Haecki-Gross. She finished 0.3 seconds off the podium. She had started out the season so strong, and we weren’t yet sure if she was going to be able to keep i tup for the full season. It felt cruel that she would come so achingly close to a podium. The next day in the Pursuit, though, Haecki-Gross left no doubts. She hit 19/20 shots with her only miss coming in the 3rd shoot. It actually knocked her down to 3rd and she was 16.3 seconds back of Tandrevold. It didn’t matter. Lena Haecki-Gross was a woman on a mission. She came to the range for her last shoot and knocked them down in 20.7 seconds while Tandrevold struggled, hitting 5/5 but taking a loooooong 41 seconds. Haecki-Gross broke loose on the last lap and came home with a triumphant second place. It was just the start though as she went on to have four more podiums including her first two career wins!

24-25 Women’s Sprint: For several years it felt like Franziska Preuss was hurt. For one, she missed heaps of time with illnesses. But even more than that, when she was racing it seemed like she was cursed to always finish achingly close to glory. She has seemingly endless hard luck finishing so close to either a podium or finishing in 2nd only for somebody else to have an incredible race and edger her out. Honestly it was a lot like Lena Haecki-Gross. In this race Franzi wasn’t perfect as she did have a miss in the standing shooting, but she was more than able to offset that with her ski speed and shooting speed beating Sophie Chauveau by 7.7 seconds with Karoline Knotten grabbing the third podium of her career. This proved to be the launchpad as Preuss went on to have four more wins (after having just one in her career before 2024-2025) on her way to a very memorable Overall Globe!