2025 Annecy-le Grand Bornand Recap

The Winners – Top Performers of the Week

Nations Medal Table for the Week

Nation	Medals
France 🇫🇷	🥇🥈🥈🥈🥈🥉🥉
Norway 🇳🇴	🥇🥇🥇🥈🥉🥉
Italy 🇮🇹	🥇🥉🥉
Sweden 🇸🇪	🥈
Finland 🇫🇮	🥇

Athlete Medal Table for the Week

Nation	Medals
Lou Jeanmonnot 🇫🇷	🥇🥈🥈
Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen 🇳🇴	🥇🥉
Johannes Dale-Skjevdal 🇳🇴	🥈🥉
Emilien Jacquelin 🇫🇷	🥈🥉
Dorothea Wierer 🇮🇹	🥉🥉
Hanna Öberg 🇸🇪	🥇
Johan-Olav Botn 🇳🇴	🥇
Tommaso Giacomel 🇮🇹	🥇
Maren Kirkeeide 🇳🇴	🥇
Eric Perrot 🇫🇷	🥈
Suvi Minkkinen 🇫🇮	🥈
Justine Braisaz-Bouchet 🇫🇷	🥉

Women’s Athletes of the Week: 🇫🇷 Lou Jeanmonnot – This entire week just felt like Lou Jeanmonnot’s week. The lead in to the week was so much about how she has raced at le Grand Bornand without really much success to speak of. She was coming off of a win in Hochfilzen but really hadn’t been as good as we all expected her to be…yet. Lou wasted no time in Annecy coming within 3.3 seconds and a tremendous Hanna Öberg performance of her second win of the season. She made up for that with a spectacular race that we’ll discus in more detail later to get her first career Annecy win. She finished off the week finishing second to the spectacular Maren Kirkeeide in the Mass Start. After taking on Yellow after the Pursuit she confirmed it and will take a 68 point lead to the second trimester. The only question now is will anybody be able to take it from her the rest of the season or will she turn Lou’s week into Lou’s season?

Men’s Athlete of the Week: 🇳🇴 Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen & Johannes Dale-Skjevdal – I really had to put these two men together. They each had 2 podium finishes with Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen taking the win the Sprint and a come from behind 3rd in the Mass Start while Johannes Dale-Skjevdal continued his strong run since returning from the IBU Cup with a second in the Sprint and third in the Pursuit. Both of these men have at different times struggled to hang on to their World Cup spots with the rising talent in the Norwegian federation. Both have come in to this season on a mission to prove why they can’t be discounted and stamp their ticket to Milan 2026.

Christiansen started on the World Cup and has the win in the Sprint this week, the two podiums this week, and six top 10’s. He finishes the first trimester 5th in the Overall and the second best Norwegian behind only Johan-Olav Botn.

Dale-Skjevdal, meanwhile, was (fairly) demoted to the IBU Cup to start the season after the qualification process. However, he forced a return to the World Cup after three straight wins to open the IBU Cup season in Obertilliach. Since returning he has finishes of 16, 5, 2, 3, and 6. That is enough to move him to 10th in the World Cup Overall meaning that as of this moment he is in the top 10 in both the World Cup and the IBU Cup as his three wins still hold up as 5th Overall there. At this point it is very hard to imagine Dale-Skjevdal not making the Olympic roster even if only as a reserve. Very happy for both of these men to show their strength so far this season!

Young Women’s Athlete of the Week: 🇳🇴 Maren Kirkeeide – Oh my goodness. We’ve know how good Maren Kirkeeide is for awhile. She already has a World Championship silver medal to her credit. And she’s shown even more power this season including a particularly strong Sprint in Hochfilzen where she finished within 15 seconds of Lou Jeanmonnot even with a miss vs Jeanmonnot’s clean shooting. This was a different animal though.

After an early miss in the first shooting of the Mass Start Kirkeeide went 10/10 to climb back into the mix. However with Justine Braisaz-Bouchet and Lou Jeanmonnot leading the pack it looked like it might be too much to overcome. But both JBB and Jeanmonnot had a miss in the last shoot while Kirkeeide went clean. She exited the range right with those two French powerhouses. They still had to track down Camille Bened, but the three did that with relative ease. Then, rather than letting up and letting it come down to a late race tactical sprint, Kirkeeide just shifted into 5th gear. She put in a gap on Justine Braisaz-Bouchet and Lou Jeanmonnot. Those two good friends, even working together were never able to cut down the gap as Kirkeeide stubbornly stated about 2-4 seconds ahead of them the entire race. It was a massive show of confidence and strength to not only make the move but stay aware. And it’s worth reiterating this was Justine Braisaz-Bouchet and Lou Jeanmonnot, two of the top skiers in biathlon, and she they couldn’t close her down at all. Maren Kirkeeide stayed away the rest of the way and got her first career win to solidify her hold on what was expected to be a tough u23 Globe race!

Young Men’s Athlete of the Week: 🇵🇱 Konrad Badacz – Once again not a tremendous showing from our u23 men including Isak Frey who was back due to further illness within the Norwegian squad. I wanted to use this moment, then, to shine another light on the young Polish squad. In this case Konrad Badacz. Coming into this season he had just one career top 30 and seven top 40’s. This season he has two more top 30’s including one this week and an additional top 40 which came this week as well. Badancz set his new career best in the Sprint in Hochfilzen when he finished 25th. He then matched that in the Pursuit in le Grand Bornand as he moved up from 43rd to 25th with the 16th best Isolated Pursuit. Badacz currently sits 45th in the Overall and is well on his way to a new career best Overall finish. Put him along with 23 year old Jan Gunka and 18 year old Grzegorz Galica and this is a very interesting core as we move to the back of half of the 2020’s

Women’s Race of the Week: Women’s Pursuit – The Women’s Pursuit was an absolutely clinical race by Lou Jeanmonnot. She started the 3.3 seconds back of Hanna Öberg and, even though Hanna is a strong veteran, Lou was like a lioness stalking her prey. She pounced after the first shooting and took the lead. She was solid on the skis all day long but never put in a wild burst to push away. She just slowly and steadily build a nearly 1 minute lead. She was nearly perfect on the range (just one miss in the last shoot) but never flashy with a QFM of Simon-like 18 second standing shoot. The result was that when she left the range for the final lap she had a 25 second lead and was in absolutely no stress. It allowed her to really enjoy the final lap of her first career victory at le Grand Bornand and the fans rewarded her with what amounted to a low stress victory lap.

Behind Jeanmonnot Suvi Minkkinen survived a vicious final lap push by Dorothea Wierer, who finished 3rd, Julia Simon, and Paulina Batovska Fialkova. Poowoman was suffering from a stomach virus this week and you could see the exhaustion on her face on that last lap. But at the end of the day she took home her 3rd podium of the season to match lats season’s career best total already in the first trimester!

Men’s Race of the Week: Men’s Sprint – The IBU has to be thrilled with how the new start process has been working. Having the “big names” go in the middle and early second half of the start order has only heightened the excitement of the Sprint and Individual races. This week was no exception. While Johannes Dale-Skjevdal didn’t yet have a high enough Overall ranking to “earn” one of those later starts, he went out 22nd it allowed him to put up a top time for the other men to try to chase down. The result was that when the high profile men started to to come through it was a near steady stream of men who were shooting for a potential chance at the win including Christiansen, Jacquelin, Samuelsson, Botn, Bakken, and Perrot. Then when a few of them went clean in the standing shooting it was constantly checking the splits to see if they were gaining or losing on Dale-Skjevdal’s time. Honestly, it was thrilling and I’m a big fan of the new set up (even if not all of the athletes are!). In the end we saw Jacquelin leave the range with a lead but tire late to fall short of Dale-Skjevdal’s time. Meanwhile Christiansen came on like a tank and took the lead late in the lap to secure his first victory of the season.

Super Sprints – A super quick hop through some top stories

Yellow Bib Updates

1) Women’s Top 5

Athlete	Total (Points Back)
Lou Jeanmonnot 🇫🇷	481
Maren Kirkeeide 🇳🇴	413 (-68)
Dorothea Wierer 🇮🇹	363 (-118)
Anna Magnusson 🇸🇪	363 (-118)
Suvi Minkkinen 🇫🇮	353 (-128)

We are now 3 weeks into the season and you can really start to take a look at where things stand. In fact we’ll have a whole piece that we’ll put up the week of Oberhof. Right now though I would say that Lou in Yellow is a scary thing for everybody else. But real quick, how fun is that top 5? Young Maren Kirkeeide, the Queen Doro Wierer, and two underdogs Anna Magnusson and Suvi Minkkinen! What diversity!

2) Men’s Top 5

Athlete	Total (Points Back)
Johan-Olav Botn 🇳🇴	560
Eric Perrot 🇫🇷	447 (-113)
Tommaso Giacomel 🇮🇹	431 (-129)
Sebastian Samuelsson 🇸🇪	385 (-175)
Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen 🇳🇴	369 (-191)

Johan-Olav Botn with another great week heads to the end of the first trimester with a 113 point lead on Perrot and 129 on Giacomel. Nobody is surprised to see those two men in the mix…the surprise of course being Botn’s early season dominance. How about Vetle getting into the top 5 though! Fun!

3) Women’s Shooting Masterpiece – The Women’s Sprint showcased absolutely unreal shooting. To be fair the situation was great with comfy temperatures, good light, and absolutely no breeze. The situation didn’t change much all week but the shooting in the Women’s Sprint was insane:

Top 5: 50/50 (100%)
Top 10: 98/100 (98%)
Top 15: 147/100 (98%)
Top 20: 195/200 (97.5%)
Top 25: 242/250 (96.8%)
Top 30: 287/300 (95.7%)

Having a hard time thinking of a better shooting day!

4) 🇺🇸 Deedra Irwin Enjoying Her Season – Deedra Irwin’s season got off to a bumpy start in more ways than one. It began at the US trials in October when she had a crash that affected her ability to compete. She didn’t race great but still made her way to the European trials. She earned her way to the World Cup but still wasn’t on the front foot to the point where she was actually benched for the Sprint in Östersund. Since then she’s been on a mission!

In Hochfilzen she had back to back top 17 finishes. The fist time in her career with top 20’s in back to back races. She outdid herself in le Grand Bornand. She finished 10th in the Sprint, the 3rd best finish of her career. She followed that up with a solid 25th in the Pursuit. With those performances she was up into the top 25 of the Overall and qualified for the Mass Start where she 13th!

In just 6 races she already has 4 top 20’s which matches the most she’s ever had in a season. She is easily on pace for the best season of her career. Way to go Deedra!

5) 🇦🇹 OId Man Eder – I will always love Simon Eder. He’s 42 years old, he’s raced 545 times on the World Cup, and yet he’s still capable of making his way to the top 10 as he did in the Pursuit at le Grand Bornand. It’s his first top 10 since the 2022-2023 season to go along with his three top 20’s. As the first trimester ends he’s up to 21st in the Overall. Pretty wild for a man who has been competing on the World Cup almost as long as Isak Frey has been alive.

Flower Ceremony – Some Personal Top Finishes (not comprehensive but I tried!

1) 🇳🇴 Maren Kirkeeide – As noted above Maren Kirkeeide used her prodigious power to pull away from Justine Braisaz-Bouchet and Lou Jeanmonnot late to clinch her first win of her career. It certainly won’t be the last!

10) Deedra Irwin – While not a career best for Deedra Irwin who own’s a 7th place finish at the 2022 Beijing Olympics (the best Olympic finish in US biathlon history!) it was her first top 10 since 2023-2024.

10) 🇨🇭 Joscha Burkhalter – Worth noting what a phenomenal year Joscha Burkhalter is having completely under the radar. He has his 3rd career top 10 and he has five top 20’s, already the most in his career. He’s made a huge improvement in his shooting up from 83.8% to 90.8%. He’s running 18th in the Overall. If Nik Hartweg can get back healthy and Sebbe Stalder can get back to his form of a couple of seasons ago the Swiss men have the makings of a nice solid core!

11) 🇮🇹 Rebecca Passler – While Lisa Vittozzi has taken the Phoenix as he emblem, Rebecca Passler is doing a pretty good emergence from the ashes as well. Passler ran on the World Cup for two full seasons and looked like a strong part of the Italian women’s core. But then last year she came into the season sick and never quite regained her footing. She started this season on the IBU Cup but fought her way back up. This week he had her two best career finishes coming in 13th in the Pursuit and 11th in the Mass Start. Her prior career best was 17th.

13) 🇵🇱 Jan Gunka – The young Polish men continue to rise! Jan Gunka, Konrad Badacz, and Grzegorz Galica are really showing some good stuff. This a new career best beating out his 17th from earlier this season and his 4th top 30 of the season. He’s in 27th Overall!

24) 🇨🇿 Mikulas Karlik – The 26 year old Czechia athlete has had two of his three best career finishes this season. He finished 27th in the Sprint in Östersund and then 24th in the Pursuit this week. He’s having the best skiing of his career as he’s skiing 2.4% faster than median with an average ski rank of 19.6. His shooting is up to 78.2% as well after normally shooting in the low 70’s.

24) 🇦🇹 Anna Andexer – In le Grand Bornand Anna Andexer had three of the four best finishes of her career: 24th in the Sprint, 26th in the Pursuit, and 25th in the Mass Start.

25) 🇵🇱 Konrad Badacz – Discussed at length above but he set his career best in Hochfilzen and matched it again this week!