Oslo-Holmenkollen 2025-2026 Preview

Dates: March 19, 2026 – March 22, 2026

Schedule:

Thursday March 19th: Women’s 7.5km Sprint
Friday March 20th: Men’s 10km Sprint
Saturday March 21st: Women’s 10km Pursuit + Men’s 12.5km Pursuit
Sunday March 22nd: Women’s 12.5km Mass Start + Men’s 15km Mass Start

Course Overview:

In the above pictures you see the courses and profiles for in order:
– 2.5km loop: Women’s Sprint + Men’s Pursuit + Women’s Mass Start
– 3.3km loop: Men’s Sprint
– 2km loop: Women’s Pursuit
– 3km loop: Men’s Mass Start

Oslo Holmenkolen is one of the great spectacles in biathlon. The view of athletes skiing by with ski jump in the background always gets me. The camera crews always do a fantastic job in framing their images. It’s magnificent. The rest of the course, interestingly enough, fades from view. There are no dramatic steep climbs that separate the wheat from the chafe. It is also notable for traditionally having an easier shooting range. Of the regular World Cup stops it regularly ranks as one of the three best shooting ranges.

Weather:

Checking pretty much all of the weather sites and they look something like this. It’s going to be quite warm on Thursday for the Women’s Sprint before cooling down nicely for the rest of the weekend. They did get a nice little snowfall of about 5 inches just last night (Sunday night into Monday) so that should help. If the tracks can survive the Wednesday training and Women’s Sprint we’ll be good. Really wish it would get below freezing those nights though. Wind looks nice and manageable!

Globe Races: It’s the last week of the season meaning a pile of globes ready to be given out!

Overall – We know who is going to win the Overalls. It’s going to be a French sweep. But there is a battle for pride behind them!

Athlete	Score
Lou Jeanmonnot 🇫🇷	1009
Suvi Minkkinen 🇫🇮	808
Anna Magnusson 🇸🇪	739
Elvira Oeberg 🇸🇪	737
Hanna Oeberg 🇸🇪	720

Lou Jeanmonnot may not be on her absolute peak “A” game right now but she doesn’t need to be. She’s clearly been the best woman all season long and she’s taking the Overall globe that only just eluded her the last two seasons. This is going to be a VERY popular Overall win this season both with the fans and I would say even more so with the athletes. Lou Jeanmonnot seems to be nearly universally beloved amongst her competitors.

Last week Suvi Minkkinen did a great job of defending her 2nd position in the Overall including taking 2nd in the Otepaa Pursuit. She holds nearly 70 points on Magnusson and Elvira. She’ll need a solid Sprint but she clearly has the ability right now to defend that. 2nd Overall would be an amazing result for Suvi! Sweden, meanwhile, holds 3rd through 5th and would love to pack the top of the Overall with the Swedish flag.

But they all need to watch very closely to the women in 6th and 7th. Lisa Vittozzi and Julia Simon are charging hard and could absolutely surpass every single one of these women from 2nd through 5th.

Athlete	Score
Eric Perrot 🇫🇷	1058
Sebastian Samuelsson 🇸🇪	814
Tommaso Giacomel* 🇮🇹	797
Johan-Olav Botn 🇳🇴	783
Sturla Holm Laegreid 🇳🇴	749

Eric Perrot is absolutely crushing the field right now. He’s going to win a very deserving Overall. I absolutely LOVE what he’s done this season. So happy for him!

Behind Perrot, Sebastian Samuelsson has moved up to 2nd, finally surpassing Tommaso Giacomel last week. However, he’s barely holding on as a hard charging Sturla Holm Laegreid and Emilien Jacquelin are nearly on top of him. And Johan-Olav Botn is still holding on to 4th as well. For Sebbe, 2nd place would be the best finish in his career. For Laegreid finishing 2nd would just be the icing on the cake showing that, while he didn’t take the Overall this season, his peak performance was beyond all others and that he’s coming to regain his crown next season.

Sprint

Athlete	Score
Lou Jeanmonnot 🇫🇷	376
Suvi Minkkinen 🇫🇮	285
Hanna Oeberg 🇸🇪	255
Elvira Oeberg 🇸🇪	255
Lisa Vittozzi 🇮🇹	248

Lou Jeanmonnot has the Sprint globe all wrapped up. She doesn’t even need to show up to the start in Holmenkollen and she’ll take the globe. Don’t worry though, she’ll be there.

Athlete	Score
Sebastian Samuelsson 🇸🇪	315
Tommaso Giacomel* 🇮🇹	309
Eric Perrot 🇫🇷	270
Sturla Holm Laegreid 🇳🇴	266
Philipp Nawrath 🇩🇪	256

Sebastian Samuelsson has a grand total of 0 discipline globes in his career. Not a single one. But he enters the last Sprint of the season with a 45 point advantage on Eric Perrot. That’s a very nice bit of comfort to have. He already has an Olympic medal this season. This would be a great memento of a very good season!

He has that 45 point advantage on Perrot, but almost more concerning is the 49 points on Stula Holm Laegreid. It would take Laegreid winning and Samuelsson finishing outside the top 7. That’s entirely possible. What a wild journey that would be for Laegreid to come all the way back for the Sprint globe!

Pursuit

Athlete	Score
Suvi Minkkinen 🇫🇮	362
Lou Jeanmonnot 🇫🇷	342
Hanna Oeberg 🇸🇪	282
Lisa Vittozzi 🇮🇹	281
Elvira Oeberg 🇸🇪	258

This mid to late season career surge for Suvi Minkkinen has been nothing short of sensational. The podiums, the wins, the World Championship bronze medal. The Olympi bronze medal that even Kaisa Makarainen wasn’t able to achieve. How amazing would it be if she added a discipline globe to that? Well she’s going to need to run a hell of a Pursuit in Oslo. She has just a 20 point margin of error on Lou Jeanmonnot who would love nothing more than to collapse her trophy case with 2025-2026 globes!

Athlete	Score
Eric Perrot 🇫🇷	337
Sebastian Samuelsson 🇸🇪	314
Tommaso Giacomel* 🇮🇹	296
Johannes Dale-Skjevdal 🇳🇴	294
Emilien Jacquelin 🇫🇷	251

The Pursuit battle for the men also looks like one that might come straight down to the finish. Perrot is only up 23 on Samuelsson and 43 on Dale-Skjevdal. Hard to see, absent the wild winds of Otepaa, Perrot having a terrible race. But this is still going to be one where there might be some rapid calculations to figure out the exact numbers!

Mass Start

Athlete	Score
Julia Simon 🇫🇷	200
Lou Jeanmonnot 🇫🇷	155
Oceane Michelon 🇫🇷	146
Camille Bened 🇫🇷	128
Anna Magnusson 🇸🇪	115

Julia Simon took the Mass Start win in Konthiolahti and in doing so gave herself a massive advantage going into the final race. With 45 points in hand she can finish in 6th and still finish tied with Lou Jeanmonnot for 1st if Lou wins. So it’s not all wrapped and done, but Julia Simon is in a great situation now.

Athlete	Score
Eric Perrot 🇫🇷	240
Johan-Olav Botn 🇳🇴	146
Campbell Wright 🇺🇸	144
Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen 🇳🇴	130
Tommaso Giacomel* 🇮🇹	120

This one is officially over. Eric Perrot is up by over 90 points and even if he doesn’t race he’s taking home the globe.

Nations Cup – In the Nations Cup there are four main areas you want to watch:
– The Winner
– 5th place – top 5 get to start 6 in Sprint/Individual on the World Cupf
– 10th place – positions 6-10 get to start 5 in the Sprint/Individual
– 17th place – 11-17 get to start 4 in the Sprint/Individual

So let’s take a look at these battles with 2 weekends still to play. I’m going to focus on the teams that are really still in the mix to either move up or down a category. It will make sense when you look at it.

Women’s Nations Cup Order
1) France 🇫🇷 6517
2) Sweden 🇸🇪 6512
…
5) Germany 🇩🇪 5453
6) Finland 🇫🇮 5264
7) Czechia 🇨🇿 5233
…
10) Poland 🇵🇱 4516
11) Slovakia 🇸🇰 4492
…
16) Bulgaria 🇧🇬 3502
17) Canada 🇨🇦 3402
18) Latvia 🇱🇻 3309

1st Place Battle – This is as tight as it could possibly be. That DSQ in the Single Mixed relay certainly didn’t do them any favors. No predictions here!

5th Place Battle – Germany looking pretty solid in the 5th position. Hard to see that slipping at this stage of the game. But, well I’ve said that before. It’s all numbers until the race gets started.

10th Place Battle – This was a seesaw all weekend. Poland surged well ahead then Slovakia came back. It’s a 24 point battle with one race to go for a crucial 5th starter in the 2026-2027 season!

17th Place Battle – Right now Canada holds 100 points on Latvia for the automatic 4 starters for Sprints and Individuals. Can’t they tie and both get 4 starters next season please?!?

Men’s Nation’s Cup Order
1) Norway 🇳🇴 7028
2) France 🇫🇷 6598
…
5) Italy 🇮🇹 5390
6) Czechia 🇨🇿 5184
…
10) Slovenia 🇸🇮 4446
11) Ukraine 🇺🇦 4381
…
17) Bulgaria 🇧🇬 2983
18) Lithuania 🇱🇹 2980
19) Belgium 🇧🇪 2971

1st Place Battle – Norway has this one all wrapped up

5th Place Battle – Italy should be save over Czechia for 5th. But if Karlik can have another PB along with Hornig and Krcmar racing well it could get tight!

10th Place Battle – Slovenia is holding a solid advantage on Ukraine for the 5 starters next season. We’ll see if they can hold it!

17th Place Battle – This is wildly close with just 12 points separating 17th and 19th. Who knows how this one will end up!

News and Notes:

1) Expanded Rosters – Remember that with the final weekend of the season come expanded rosters based on the IBU Cup Overall and the top point earner at the Youth/Junior Championships. Here is who attained those extra bibs:

Women’s IBU Cup Overall Top 10 (max 2 per nation)
🇫🇷 France – Amandine Mengin
🇫🇷 France – Voldiya Galmace Paulin
🇸🇪 Sweden- TBD
🇩🇪 Germany – TBD
🇳🇴 Norway – Karoline Erdal
🇮🇹 Italy – TBD

Men’s IBU Cup Overall Top 10 (max 2 per nation)
🇫🇷 France – Damien Levet
🇫🇷 France – Gaetan Paturel
🇳🇴 Norway – Ole Suhrke
🇳🇴 Norway – Sverre Aspenes
🇩🇪 Germany – TBD
🇩🇪 Germany – TBD

Youth/Junior World Championship Points Qualifier
Sweden: Philipp Linkqvist-Floetten
Ukraine: Oleksandra Merkushyna

2) Retirement Season – It’s that time of year when we say goodbye to a number of biathletes. This list is not comprehensive but all of these athletes have announced their impending retirement or have already stepped away
– 🇮🇹 Dorothea Wierer
– 🇩🇪 Franziska Preuss
– 🇸🇰 Paulina Batovska-Fialkova
– 🇫🇷 Antonin Guigonnat
– 🇨🇿 Tereza Vinklarkova
– 🇧🇬 Vladimir Iliev (?)
– 🇨🇭 Julia Leitinger
– 🇨🇦 Haldan Borglum
– 🇨🇦 Daniel Gilfillan

3) Sanda Flunger Season – It was announced on Monday March 16th that Sandra Flunger is moving on from the Swiss program. She is HIGHLY respected and she’s taken the Swiss women and men to the best Nations Cup finishes ever. She’s a bit of a “outside the box” thinker as a coach. Definitely does some things that are a little different and by and large her athletes love her. This is definitely a loss for the Swiss. Although there is a at least one very qualified head coach who is also leaving his position after a run of success…

Recent History:

Women’s Top 5 Finishers Last 5 Competitions 

Athlete	Finishes
Hanna Oeberg 🇸🇪	🥇🥇🥈🥉
Lou Jeanmonnot 🇫🇷	🥇🥈🥉🥉
Elvira Oeberg 🇸🇪	🥈🥈🥈, 5
Julia Simon 🇫🇷	🥈, 5, 5, 5
Lena Haecki-Gross 🇨🇭	🥇🥉
Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold 🇳🇴	🥇, 4
Paulina Batovska-Fialkova 🇸🇰	🥉🥉
Lisa Hauser 🇦🇹	🥈, 5
Linn Gestblom 🇸🇪	4, 5
Lisa Vittozzi 🇮🇹	4, 5
Justine Braisaz-Bouchet 🇫🇷	🥇
Anna Magnusson 🇸🇪	🥉
Suvi Minkkinen 🇫🇮	🥉
Oceane Michelon 🇫🇷	4
Tereza Vobornikova 🇨🇿	5

Men’s Top 5 Finishers Last 5 Competitions 

Athlete	Finishes
Sturla Holm Laegreid 🇳🇴	🥇🥇🥇🥇🥈🥈🥉🥉, 4, 5, 5
Quentin Fillon Maillet 🇫🇷	🥇🥈🥈🥉🥉, 4, 5
Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen 🇳🇴	🥈🥉, 5, 5, 5
Sebastian Samuelsson 🇸🇪	🥇🥉, 4
Isak Frey 🇳🇴	4, 4, 5
Emilien Jacquelin 🇫🇷	🥉, 5
Fabien Claude 🇫🇷	4, 5
Eric Perrot 🇫🇷	🥈
Martin Ponsiluoma 🇸🇪	🥈
Niklas Hartweg 🇨🇭	🥈
Lukas Hofer 🇮🇹	🥈
Johannes Dale-Skjevdal 🇳🇴	🥉
Jesper Nelin 🇸🇪	🥉
Andrejs Rastorgujevs 🇱🇻	4
Philipp Nawrath 🇩🇪	5

Memorable Moments:

2025 Women’s Races – Will we ever live another moment like the 2024-2025 Women’s Overall race coming down to the final race? I can’t possibly recap all of the emotions of that season and that weekend. In fact I did my best to do that on the flight home last weekend here: Their Victory Our Victory. If I do say so myself I thought it does a good job of remembering the journey and the emotion. Please read it@!

Just remember what happened though. Two women in a pitched battle all season. Franziska Preuss wins the Sprint. Lou Jeanmonnot wins the Pursuit to steal the yellow bib. It all comes down to the final race of the season, the Mass Start. It all comes down to the final shoot of the Mass Start. It all comes down to the last lap of the Mass Start. Then the fall. The most tragic ending to the wildest Overall competition we may ever see. Truly unbelievable.

2025 Boe Brothers Retirement – What an absolutely remarkable weekend it was. Just one of these events (the Women’s Overall competition or Boe Brothers retirement) would have made it in incredible weekend. Johannes Thingnes Boe giving us one last win. Tarjei Boe (possibly inadvisably) overcoming illness to race one last time in the Mass Start. The emotions were ever present. The weekend ended with these two princes of biathlon holding court in the stadium as legions of fans stuck around to celebrate them. Everybody wanted to celebrate these two men who were not only overwhelmingly successful but also wonderfully nice and gracious throughout their careers. Champions who never felt “too big” for the sport of the extended biathlon family.

Afterward they mingled around with all of their biathlon family, receiving greetings and congratulations from nearly everybody. That includes one start struck podcaster/blogger who was suddenly introduced to the man most responsible for his love of biathlon, Tarjei Boe. Tarjei I will say couldn’t have been more gracious even though he clearly was a little stunned that this rando was saying hello. You know how they say “never meet your heroes?” That absolutely is NOT the case with me and Tarjei. He was a true prince. I am forever grateful to Tobias Torgersen for that moment.

2023 Women’s Races – The end of the 2022-2023 season in Oslo marked the close to the careers of many prominent women. This included the Overall Globe winning Norwegian duo of Tiril Eckhoff and Marte Olsbu Røiseland. Eckhoff missed the entire 2022-2023 season but didn’t officially retire until Oslo and Røiseland didn’t start racing until the 2nd trimester. They were certainly sent off as heroes. And Røiseland quite nearly went off on top finishing 2nd in the Mass Start.

They were joined that day by other top women including Denise Herrmann-Wick who celebrated the Sprint discipline globe with a victory in the Oslo Sprint and Anais Chevalier-Boucher who capped her career with a 3rd place in the Mass Start.

While there were many other woman who we all celebrated that weekend, including but not limited to Vanessa Hinz and Mari Eder, seeing Røiseland, Herrmann-Wick, and Chevalier-Bouchet saying goodbye with such great finishes will always be a fond memory.

2022 Men’s Pursuit – The Eric Lesser race. At least that’s how I remember it. Lesser announced his retirement a couple of weeks earlier so we knew that this was going to be his last hoorah. Even before that though, going back to the start of the 2nd trimester in Oberhof, the man was on a serious mission. You could tell he decided he was going to leave everything on the tracks. From Oberhof to the end of the season he ran in 12 races and finished top 10 in 9 of them. That included top 5’s in 6 of his last 7 races. Do you know the last time Eric Lesser had a stretch like that in his career? Yep, never. The best racing of his career literally right at the very end.

The capstone to this absolute bonanza of amazing performance was the Pursuit in Oslo. He started out the race in 5th, 40 seconds back of Laegreid after another one of his great races in the Sprint. Standing between him and the victory were of course Laegreid, soon to be Overall Champion Quintin Fillon Maillet, Sebastian Samuelsson, and teammate Benedikt Doll. That is a bunch of heavy hitters right there.

By shoot 1 he had shaved very little time off the lead. After shoot 2 though it was down to 11 seconds as he and Samuelsson were closing in. Another perfect shoot 3 saw him shed Samuelsson and he was 20 seconds back of Laegreid and 18 clear of QFM. Standing on the range for the last shoot he was 30 seconds back of Laegreid but with 14 seconds in hand on QFM he was pretty secure in his position if he hit his targets.

The Laegreid gave him the gift of 2 misses and Lesser sent clean. He flew off the line with 13 seconds on Laegreid and QFM and those boys were never going to see him again. That day proved to be just his 3rd career win on the penultimate race of his career.

2022 Men’s Mass Start – While the first two memories on this list are celebratory this is a little more somber. The 2022 Men’s Mass Start in Oslo marked what may end up being the pinnacle of a short but bright career. Sivert Guttorm Baken ran his first World Cup race when he joined the top level team for the Oberhof weekend of the 2020-2021 season. He started the 2021-2022 season on the World Cup with two top 10’s in the Oestersund Individual and Sprint and seemingly never looked back.

The season was gradually building to a crescendo for him as he seemingly adjusted to the World Cup swimmingly in the 2nd trimester. In Kontiolahti he had two top 10’s in the same weekend for the first time since Oestersund. Then in Otepää his first career podium with a 3rd in the Mass Start.

Finally Oslo was the glorious end. 16th in the Sprint. 7th in the Pursuit. His first career victory in the Mass Start. He went into the last shooting going head to head with two young men, Sturla Holm Laegreid and Sebastian Samuelsson, who somehow felt like grizzled veterans next to him. While they shot faster they also hit the penalty loop while he went clean. Laegreid caught him on the final lap but Bakken out sprinted him to the line for the victory.

That victory pushed Sivert Bakken up to 9th in the Overall and clinched the Mass Start discipline globe. The whole race made if seem like we were at the start of something. His first victory and first discipline globe. Standing on the range next to two highly respected young guns. You could have foreseen a race 5 years down the road where those three were shooting for the Overall Globe.

That was the last time we’ve seen Sivert Bakken in a biathlon race. That Spring/Summed he was affected by a rare heart condition associated with Covid and to a lesser extent be Covid vaccine that can particularly affect young men. He’s just this winter begun training again. The Norwegian national team has to their credit left him on the squad throughout his health struggles. The promise that he showed that season, and particularly that race, is so desperately enticing I can’t help but hold out even the slimmest of hopes that we might yet watch him race in Oslo again.

2022 After Party – It must have been one heck of a party because nearly everybody who attended got Covid. Even the King of Norway! Although presumably he got it elsewhere as it’s hard to believe he was on hand at the party…but I’ve never seen it denied!

Ukraine

Poland