Over the several weeks we’ve seen a burst of summer biathlon action. In this post we’ll try to cover the top stories to arise from the world of biathlon including the action from:
- City Biathlon in Dresden
- Summer Biathlon Championships from: Sweden, Italy, Austria, and Bulgaria
- The Mediterranean Games…wait what?!? Actually that’s a good place to start.
🇫🇷 Emilien Jacquelin – It was reported on Thursday August 27th be Le Equipe that Emilien Jacquelin, as of right now, is greatly enjoying his time in professional cycling. He’s enjoying it so much that he’s currently planning to skip the entire 2026-2027 biathlon season. Yes you read that correctly
There will be plenty of time to discuss what that will mean for biathlon in general, the French biathlon team specifically, and Emilien Jacquelin the biathlete in particular. However, I want to focus on Emilien Jacquelin the person right now.
Over the last several seasons, maybe even from the start, we’ve seen an inner turmoil in Emilien Jacquelin. More even than most biathletes, who are actually quite open to the public, Jacquelin has repeatedly opened the door to his thoughts and feelings. He’s shown us when he’s feeling down in the dumps. He’s told us repeatedly when he’s feeling unfulfilled by biathlon. Long story short, he’s never been fully at ease with himself and his career as a biathlete. As wonderfully and magnificently talented as he is, as it turns out that’s not always enough.
As people we really need to find the thing that brings us to life. We need to find the thing that animates our soul. The thing that we can’t live without. Over the last several months Emilien Jacquelin has been living what until now seemed to be only a dream. But now he’s out there playing a role in professional cycling…and having fun. He’s genuinely having fun.
Emilen Jacquelin appears to have found something that, at least for now, is bringing him joy. For now maybe that’s enough. Sometimes finishing 14th in the road race at the Mediterranean Games is more fulfilling than finishing the biathlon season with five straight top fives including four podiums to go along with the 2026 Olympic bronze medal in the Pursuit and finishing 5th Overall in the biathlon World Cup, tying his best ever Overall finish.
I’m going to miss him. I’m going to miss the panache he races with. The swashbuckling style so similar to his cycling hero, la Pirata Marco Pantani. Selfishly I hope that he has a spectacular remainder of this season, followed by a wonderful 2027 cycling campaign. Then I hope a renewed Emilien Jacquelin returns to our biathlon world for the 2027-2028 campaign refreshed, renewed, and ready to bring us all the very unique joy of watching Jacquelin race.
City Biathlon – The yearly exhibition race took place on the afternoon/evening of Sunday August 23rd on the streets of historic Dresden. One of the unique exhibition moments in all of biathlon up there with Schalke biathlon and the Czechia evening races. Let’s take a look at some of the most fun moments from that great day!
| Women’s Race | Men’s Race |
| 🥇 Tereza Vobornikova 🇨🇿 | 🥇 Justus Strelow 🇩🇪 |
| 🥈 Anna Gandler 🇦🇹 | 🥈 Eric Perrot 🇫🇷 |
| 🥉 Lisa Vittozzi 🇮🇹 | 🥉 Lukas Hofer 🇮🇹 |
| Janina Hettich-Walz 🇩🇪 | Philipp Horn 🇩🇪 |
| Anna Magnusson 🇸🇪 | Philipp Nawrath 🇩🇪 |
| Justine Braisaz-Bouchet 🇫🇷 | Martin Ponsiluoma 🇸🇪 |
| Lora Hristova 🇧🇬 | Vitezslav Hornig 🇨🇿 |
| Lotte Lie 🇧🇪 | Jakov Fak 🇸🇮 |
| Vanessa Voigt 🇩🇪 | Vitalii Mandzyn 🇺🇦 |
| Regina Ermits 🇪🇪 | Sturla Holm Laegreid 🇳🇴 |
- 🇨🇿 🇩🇪 Final Shooting Masterpieces – In an exhibition race like this (well all biathlon races if we’re being honest) what you want most is a final shoot with drama and stakes. Both of these races came down to a final shoot where the race was very much on the line.
In the women’s race it with three women at the front including 2x City Biathlon champion Lisa Vittozzi, Tereza Vobornikova, as well as crowd favorite Janina Hettich-Walz. Meanwhile Anna Gandler and Anna Magnusson were not too far out of the mix where a good shoot, plus help, could take them to the podium. Well it was the 2026 Olympic Mass Start bronze medalist who went clean! The rest had at least 1 miss. It was such a clutch shooting!
The men’s race was even more wild. Going to the 4th shoot the entire field (minus Laegreid who was toiling away in the back) were in a line coming to the range. You can just look at the list above and see that’s not a shabby list at all. Plenty of experience there! Justus Strelow and Eric Perrot got off the range first. But by the time they came to the final shoot they were joined on the range by Vitezslav Hornig, Lukas Hofer, and Philipps Horn and Nawrath.
Ultimately it was Justus Strelow who blazed away and went clean while the rest of the top contenders took themselves to the small penalty loop. My first thought was that Justus Strelow might have a tough time holding off the likes of Eric Perrot. And Perrot might drag the rest of the group back too. But Justus Strelow put in a mensch of an effort on the final lap to hold off the field and take home the 2026 City Biathlon title. Such a magnificent performance. In the final two shoots, lined up alongside Eric Perrot, Justus Strelow came out clean and pulled out the win. A tremendous race!
- 🇫🇷 Perrot’s Late Move for 2nd – While ultimately Eric Perrot didn’t take home a second straight City Biathlon title, he did make one of the coolest moves of the day. Actually two! Early in the race he was in a group with Vitalii Mandzy and Lukas Hofer at the front of the race when they came up on a road divider. While the rest of the group went right, Perrot went left, the short way, and put in a burst to move to the front. He didn’t gap the other two leaders but the surge actually did help them hold a gap on the top chasers.
In the final lap Eric Perrot made a move that actually did make a difference. About 3/4 of the way through the final lap he was in the back of a group of four that were contending for the podium. Perrot put in the surge, moved around the group on the right side, and immediately opened a gap. He ultimately held the gap all the way to the line where he held on for second place. It was a decisive burst and absolutely nobody at that stage could match it. Very classy. - 🇦🇹 Anna Gandler Holding Off Lisa Vittozzi – When the women left the range for the final lap of the race there was a group including Lisa Vittozzi, Anna Gandler, and Janina Hettich-Walz battling for podium position with Anna Magnusson not far behind. That’s a high class battle right there. At that moment it was easy to assume that Lisa Vittozzi, a true summer biathlon champion including 2x winner of City Biathlon, would pull away to secure her spot in 2nd place leaving a three way battle for third. Except nobody told Anna Gandler that was the plan.
Currently, amid a bit of tumult in the Austrian Biathlon Federation, Anna Gandler is training in France alongside her partner Emilien Claude. As a result she’s been very much making her own plan and on her own path. She had shown she was on a good trajectory by winning the Short Individual at the Austrian Summer Biathlon Championships earlier in the week (spoiler alert), but this was her first true test for her summer regimen. Boy did she pass it with flying colors.
Gandler and Lisa Vittozzi just proved to be stronger than Janina Hettich-Walz on this particular day while not allowing Anna Magnusson any room to catch up. It came down to a two woman race, Lisa Vittozzi, the 2024 World Cup Overall Champion, vs Anna Gandler. And it was Gandler who proved to be the strong woman. It wasn’t a big burst, Gandler just slowly turned the screws on Vittozzi. A real shows of strength as ultimately she opened up a safe gap to close the race out taking second place with room to spare. - 🇺🇦 Vitalii Mandzyn Battling – In a field that included Eric Perrot and Sturla Holm Laegreid, not to mention Martin Ponsiluoma, Lukas Hofer, and the three Germans, you would be excused for not expecting it to be Vitalii Mandzyn to be at the front of the race nearly the entire day. But that’s exactly what happened.
He stuck with the lead group on lap 1. He was clean on shoot 1 and in the front on lap 2. He was clean in shoot 2 and started the lap out front by himself. Once again he was clean on shoot 3 and again started the subsequent lap with a lead. He didn’t have his first misses until the 4th shoot. Unfortunately he made up for lost time and had a pile of misses all at once.
For me, though, the take away was that Vitalii Mandzyn was able to get himself in the battle. The young man is still just 23 years old so he’s still learning quite a lot. For Mandzyn, this type of event is a very good learning opportunity. Hopefully that’s what he took away from this year’s event in Dresden! - 🇳🇴 Sturla Holm Laegreid Salute – Going into the race it was easy to hope that we would see a battle between Eric Perrot and Sturla Holm Laegreid. They are easily two of the favorites for the 2026-2027 Men’s World Cup Overall Globe. That fell apart almost immediately. Sturla Holm Laegreid fell behind at the first shooting and never made up the ground. He had several funny moments throughout the race. Clearly he understood he had little chance to make up the ground. So instead of moping about it he put in a show. After one 5/5 shooting he pumped his fist at the crowd to get them revved up. Love to see a guy out there having fun and putting on a show!
- 🇮🇹 Lisa Vittozzi Coaching – There is no doubt that Lisa Vittozzi is a team player. Just minutes after finishing up her day with a podium finish of her own, she turned around and started coaching up Lukas Hofer. Several shots of her during the race holding out a target sheet showing Hofer where his hits were and shouting out encouragement and instructions. It all helped out as her charge for the day put together a podium finish of his own!
🇸🇪 Sweden Summer Biathlon Championships – The Swedish Summer Biathlon Championships, annually one of the earliest summer national championships, were held across the third weekend of the money in Oestersund. There were a few key names missing including Hanna Oeberg (pregnancy), Linn Gestblom (cold), and Viktor Brandt (concussion), but otherwise it was a full field of Swedish elite.
| Women’s Individual | Men’s Individual |
| 🥇 Anna Magnusson (17/20) 44:20 | 🥇 Martin Ponsiluoma (18/20) 48:16 |
| 🥈 Elvira Oeberg (14/20) +46 | 🥈 Emil Nykvist (20/20) +1:47 |
| 🥉 Ella Halvarsson (16/20) +1:12 | 🥉 Sebastian Samuelsson (16/20) +2:18 |
| Women’s Sprint | Men’s Sprint |
| 🥇 Elvia Oeberg (9/10) 19:47 | 🥇 Martin Ponsiluoma (7/10) 24:28 |
| 🥈 Johanna Skottheim (8/10) +44 | 🥈 Sebastian Samuelsson (8/10) +8 |
| 🥉 Ella Halvarsson (8/10) +46 | 🥉 Malte Stefansson (8/10) +26 |
- Individual – The Championships started with the Individual races held on Saturday August 15th. The women’s race was a fantastic battle. Starting in the second half of the field were Ella Halvarsson, Elvira Oeberg, and Anna Magnusson. Ultimately they all three came to their final shoots with a chance to go for the win. Anna Magnusson’s time at the start of her final shoot was just 15 seconds ahead of Elvira and 16 seconds ahead of Halvarsson. It truly was a 3 woman race for the national title. While Oeberg and Halvarsson both had two misses, Anna Magnusson went 4/5 to finish her day 17/20 and stay away for the win. Magnusson’s shooting performance was terrific. While a summer race doesn’t mean everything, if you take it seriously it can be a good test. If that’s the case this goes down as an A for Anna Magnuson. Should also be noted that Elvira Oeberg was 14/20 (3 more misses than Anna Magnusson) and finished just 46 seconds back. Sheesh.
The Men’s Individual wasn’t quite so dramatic with Martin Ponsiluoma running out front nearly the entire day. As it turns out when Ponsi hits 90% and skis like he’s capable of he’s really hard to beat. Emil Nykvist put together the only clean shooting and finished in 2nd +1:47 while Sebastian Samuelsson took home bronze hitting 16 targets and coming in +2:18. - Sprint – After running so far ahead of everybody else on the skis in the Individual it was going to be difficult for anybody to overtake Elvira Oeberg in the Sprint. It was either going to take a monumental effort by a challenger or a very tough day for Elvira on the range. As it turns out Elvira had only one miss and cruised away with the national title in the Sprint. She was joined on the podium by Johanna Skottheim, perenially a good roller biathlete, who finished +44 with just 2 misses and Ella Halvarsson who was 8/10 and +46 in bronze medal position.
For the Men’s Sprint it was a Martin Ponsiluoma sweep. At least in this race he had a bit more competition! He had three misses which opened up the door for Sebastian Samuelsson. But even with 1 less miss, Sebbe was only able to grab the silver medal finishing 8 seconds back. Malte Stefansson took bronze with an 8/10 outing and finishing +26 behind Ponsiluoma.
🇮🇹 Italy Summer Biathlon Championships – The rare midweek Summer Championships were contested by the Italian A, B, and Junior teams in Val Martello on the Wednesday and Thursday of the last week of August. We were missing a couple of big names. Unfortunately we did not get to see Tommaso Giacomel. A few weeks ago, shortly after returning to full training from his heart surgery, Giacomel slipped on wet leaves or moss and dislocated his shoulder. He’s still recovering. Sadly, we also were reminded once again of the big absence that Dorothea Wierer leaves not only with the Italian squad but biathlon as a whole. But let’s look at the podiums and a few take aways:
| Women’s Sprint | Men’s Sprint |
| 🥇 Lisa Vittozzi (9/10) 20:19 | 🥇 Davide Compagnoni (9/10) 23:14 |
| 🥈 Rebecca Passler (10/10) +15 | 🥈 Lukas Hofer (8/10) +21 |
| 🥉 Hannah Auchentaller (10/10) +20 | 🥉 David Zingerle (7/10) +37 |
| Women’s Pursuit | Men’s Pursuit |
| 🥇 Lisa Vittozzi (18/20) 27:23 | 🥇 Lukas Hofer (18/20) |
| 🥈 Martina Trabucchi (20/20) +29 | 🥈 Elia Zeni (18/20) +17 |
| 🥉 Fabiana Carpella (15/20) +2:02 | 🥉 Nicola Girdano (19/20) +22 |
- Lisa Vittozzi, as you can see above, took the two titles without having her best. She took the Sprint while even having one more miss than Rebecca Passler and Hannah Auchentaller. She followed that up with a relatively easy Pursuit double. She won’t be challenged at the top of the Italian team in the short term. But the real question is where the help will come for the relay and the Nations Cup points?
- Rebecca Passler will be the obvious candidate to fill the roll of #2 athlete for the Italian women right away. She is coming off her career best season and definitely looked like the 2nd best in the Sprint. In the Pursuit she finished in 5th a full 2:50 back of Lisa Vittozzi. However, for better or worse, that was due to her having seven misses. She hit 84.8% last season so hopefully she’s back in that range next season.
- Lukas Hofer took advantage of Tommaso Giacomel’s absence to take silver in the Sprint and winning the Pursuit national title. Honestly love that he’s showing no signs of slowing down. There was a time just a couple of years ago that I was convinced that 2026 was going to be his farewell. No signs of quit in Hofer though!
- The Young Italian Men had a pretty nice showing. It started with 21 year old Davide Compagnoni who has yet to make his World Cup debut. He took advantage of just one miss on the range to take the title over standard bearer Lukas Hofer. The next day it was Christoph Pircher, even with 3 misses, rising all the way up to 4th. A pretty good indication of his skiing that day!
🇦🇹 Austria Summer Biathlon Championships – In the midst of a season of turmoil for the Austrian Biathlon Federation, the Austrian Summer Biathlon Championships were held in Lohnsburg on August 21st and 22nd. The events started with the Individual and finished with Sprints. Here are the podiums and a few take aways:
| Women’s Short Individual | Men’s Short Individual |
| 🥇 Anna Gandler (18/20) 38:02 | 🥇 Magnus Oberhauser (18/20) 40;39 |
| 🥈 Anna Andexer (18/20) +18 | 🥈 Dominic Unterweger (17/20)+4 |
| 🥉 Dunja Zdouc (18/20) +1:06 | 🥉 Fredrik Muehlbacher (16/20) +5 |
| Women’s Sprint | Men’s Sprint |
| 🥇 Lara Wagner (9/10) 22:17 | 🥇 Fredrik Muehlbacher (10/10) 25:46 |
| 🥈 Tamara Steiner (10/10) +6 | 🥈 Lukas Haslinger (10/10) +4 |
| 🥉 Anna Andexer (8/10) +25 | 🥉 Dominic Unterweger (9/10) +16 |
- Anna Gandler took the win in the Women’s Short Individual. This was a really good moment for her. This was sneakily one of the races I was most interested in for all of August. Anna Gandler is training on her own this summer for the first time. It’s all on her and her immediate team to figure out the best path forward for Gandler and they decided that, considering the tumult in the Austrian federation, it was best for her to move to France to train full time. The first events we saw her in were the Blink Festival races and she honestly didn’t look to be at her best. To be certain, as we always emphasize, we try only to focus on good things from summer races and not harp too much on bad. But still, Gandler needed to prove she was on the right track.
With her commitment in the City Biathlon races the Short Individual was Gandler’s only opportunity to showcase for the Austrian staff how things were going. Well, she put out a gold medal winning performance in the Short Individual. She put an exclamation point on that with her performance in Dresden. Fair to say that Gandler must be feeling good on her current tranfectory. - The Men’s Short Individual was bananas. The top four positions were decided by a total of six seconds. Patrick Jakob finished +6 back of Magnus Oberhauser and finished off the podium. It won’t ultimately matter than much when it comes to team selection etc, but still you have to feel for him to not get the recognition of the podium! Even youngster Fabian Muellauer in 5th place was just +35 and he had the most misses of the bunch!
- Dominic Unterweger continued his very solid 2026 summer. Unterweger was one of the stand out athletes from the competitions at Blink Festivalen in Sandnes showcasing pretty solid skiing to go with his very good shooting. He was a little disappointed with the shooting but felt good again with the skiing as he took home a silver medal with the Short Individual and bronze in the Sprint. At least at this early stage very likely that we’ll be seeing him spend some consistent time on the World Cup this season.
- The women’s races had two nearly entirely different podiums with Anna Andexer as the only hold over from one race to the next. That both shows the opportunity available to the Austrian women with so many possible athletes to compete for World Cup, but also the lack of high end depth. Outside of Anna Gandler and the still very young and developing Anna Andexer where do they find a consistent #3 and #4? Well Lara Wagner took the win in the Sprint and her first career IBU Cup win last season maybe she’s one of them?!? Questions to be answered!
🇨🇭 Swiss Nordic Weekend – The Swiss team doesn’t participate in a summer national championship like most other teams. Instead there is something they do known as the “Swiss Nordic Weekend” with the nordic sports all taking part. There is only one dedicated biathlon event, an Individual held on the first day. The follow that up with a cross country race the following day with the biathletes competing alongside the cross country skiers. Lena Haecki-Gross and Aita Gasparin did not compete this weekend and Nik Hartweg only ran the biathlon event. He skipped the cross country skiing race for a little extra recovery.
| Women’s Individual | Men’s Individual |
| 🥇 Lea Meier (17/20) 35:43 | 🥇 Joscha Burkhalter (18/20) 37:24 |
| 🥈 Lydia Mettler (17/20) +7 | 🥈 Sebastian Stalder (17/20) +44 |
| 🥉 Amy Baserga (15/20) +1:06 | 🥉 Niklas Hartweg (16/20) +2:15 |
| Women’s XC Skiing | Men’s XC Skiing |
| 🥇 Amy Baserga 19:47 (1st overall!) | 🥇 Jeremy Finello 24:20 (3rd overall) |
| 🥈 Lydia Mettler +20 (3rd overall) | 🥈 Sebastian Stalder +28 (8th overall) |
| 🥉 Lea Meier +36 (6th overall) | 🥉 Joscha Burkhalter +39 (12th overall) |
- Lea Meier used the 2025 Swiss Nordic Weekend as her first big pronouncement that she was ready to take a big step. She certainly followed through on that last season finishing a career best 31st Overall. She’s starting out her run to the 2026-2027 campaign in the same way. She won the Women’s Individual at the Swiss Nordic Weekend with 17/20 shooting. Coralie Langel, who moved from the French team in the Spring of 2025 did finish in 4t.
- Speaking of athletes taking a step forward, Joscha Burkhalter continued his gradual ascension of the last few seasons in 25-26 as he climbed up to 24th in the Overall, yet another career best. It was good enough to make him the top Swiss man for last year’s World Cup Overall. He was the strongest man on this weekend as well taking the gold with a very solid 18/20 shooting in breezy conditions. Very excited to see him continue this progress!
- Amy Baserga was the Queen of XC Skiing at the Nordic Weekend. Not just the biathletes but all of the women competing in the event. Not bad! Did want to point out Matthias Riebli finishing 4th best amongst the biathletes in the XC Skiing event. The 21 year old spent most of last season on the IBU Cup but could find a few more starts on the World Cup this season?
🇧🇬 Bulgaria Summer Biathlon Championships – I don’t really have a ton of insight about these races. I don’t know much about the conditions only the results. So only the most brief thoughts possible here with the podiums. Lora Hristova was not present as she was in Dresden for the City Biathlon races
| Women’s Sprint #1 | Men’s Sprint #1 |
| 🥇 Milena Todorova (9/10) 17:57 | 🥇 Vladimir Iliev (9/10) 20:05 |
| 🥈 Maria Zdravkova (9/10) +55 | 🥈 Konstantin Vasilev (8/10) +22 |
| 🥉 Valentina Dimitrova (8/10) +2:04 | 🥉 Vasil Zashev (7/10) +1:04 |
| Women’s Sprint #2 | Men’s Sprint #2 |
| 🥇 Milena Torodova (8/10) 18:39 | 🥇 Blagoy Todev (9/10) 20:27 |
| 🥈 Valentina Dimitrova (8/10) +15 | 🥈 Georgi Naumov (8/10) +16 |
| 🥉 Konstantina Charalampidou (10/10) +51 | 🥉 Georgi Dzhorgov (8/10) +36 |
- No major surprise in that Milena Todorova took both of the women’s titles. Hoping to see Valentina Dimitrova continues to take steps forward as she along with an on form Todorova from 24-25 and Hristova from 25-26 could make for a very fun Bulgarian women’s squad. Also two 4th place finishes from 18 year old Raya Adzhamova.
- Blagoy Todev and Vladimir Iliev would have been the expected top 2 finishers going into the weekend for the men. They split the titles between them. It was fun seeing some “unusual” names finish on the podiums though. However, I was most happy to see 19 year old, Youth World Pursuit gold medalist and Individual bronze medalist Georgi Dzhorgov (8) get to the podium taking bronze at +36 in the second Sprint.
🇧🇪 Belgium Summer Championships – Sadly these Championships were significant affected by smoke from wildfires. As a result the Seniors only raced the prologue Sprint on Saturday and were unable to compete in the Mass Start.
| Women’s Prologue | Men’s Prologue |
| 🥇 Lotte Lie (9/10) 14:06 | 🥇 Sam Parmantier (8/10) 12:41 |
| 🥈 Mareike Braun (7/10) +13 | 🥈 Thierry Langer (6/10) +22 |
| 🥉 Johanna Lehnung (9/10) | 🥉 Axel Garnier (7/10) +25 |