Weekend Recaps

Oestersund 2023-2024 Weekend Recap

Women’s Athlete of the Week: Lou Jeanmonnot

Ladies and gentlemen, Lou Jeanmonnot is officially here. We saw it coming last season. All summer she looked amazing. So good that after every race I would post basically the same post about how she was my pick to make a big leap this season. Well through one week she’s made as big of a leap as you can. She’s just 25 (just too old to qualify for the Blue bib but still very young!) with only 35 races to her credit but this week in Oestersund was BY FAR the best weekend of her World Cup career. I mean, to be fair it would be the best weekend in the careers of 99% of biathletes.

As she returned to the scene of one of her two career podiums prior to this season she had to be feeling good. She started out looking like an unflappable veteran as she anchored the Mixed Relay team to a season opening victory. Her first solo race, however, didn’t go quite like I’m sure she hoped as she finished 24th in the Individual. That’s when she really put it into high gear.

In the Women’s Relay she lead off the French team and had them tied with Norway for the lead. She looked like a leader out there, skiing hard and using just one extra round. While the team couldn’t keep the position, you cannot blame her in the least. She was quite solid. Two days later she score her very first career win. She was, not surprisingly, a perfect 10/10 on the range. She paired that with the 9th best time on the course. The end result? An 8.5 second win over a surprisingly snappy Karoline Knotten. After this I posted that it was her first win of many more to come. I didn’t realize how quickly #2 would come though!

The most impressive race of her weekend was the Pursuit, which will explore in depth coming up. She showed immense grit and tenacity in that race. The entire day she looked exhausted and was clinging onto the lead group. But she continued to clean her shooting and was able to, at the very last second, sprint around Preuss for her 2nd career win.

It’s really hard to have a better weekend than this. She’s gone from being a promising young prospect to being one of the favorites for the Overall Globe.

Men’s Athlete of the Week: Philip Nawrath and Sebastian Samuelsson

Philip Nawrath and Sebastian Samuelsson share the immense honor of being Penalty Loop Male Athletes of the Week for the Oestersund competitions. All kidding aside, I just couldn’t split these two.

Nawrath coming off of a win in the Sprint and a 2nd in the Pursuit is the surprise yellow bib owner as we head to Hochfilzen for the 2nd week of competition. The week didn’t necessarily start out looking that good. In the Mixed Relay he started off with a solid leg 2. Still it was nothing spectacular. The Individual was a little less spectacular even as he finished 29th with four misses. At that point he was a bit of an afterthought to her German teammates Roman Rees and Justus Strelow going 1-2.

The week turned around in the Men’s Relay. Once again in leg 2 he kept pace with Tarjei Bø and took the German squad from 6th place and 15 seconds back and handed off the relay with Germany in a virtual tie with Norway. Two days later he won one of the most surprising and fun Sprint races I can remember. We’ll discuss it more in depth later, but needless to say he raced perfectly. It seemed like the race was over but Nawrath came through with a 10/10 and was 2nd to only Samuelsson on the course. At the end of the day he was nearly 19 seconds than Tarjei Bø. It’s hard to believe it but it was Philip Nawrath’s first career World Cup victory!

Finally in the Pursuit, he just missed out on another victory. He kept the lead until nearly the end of the day. He left the range after the last shooting with a slim 8 second lead Samuelsson. On that day Samuelsson was never going to be denied. However Nawrath still did a great job of holding himself together and coming home second. That second place finish preserved the yellow bib to Hochfilzen!

Samuelsson was one of the most memorable parts of the entire weekend. From the first time he touched the snow he looked like he was moving at a different speed. It’s almost like he was a podcast moving at 1.5x speed while everybody else was stuck at .75x. I joked at one point that they banned flour for wax this season but they forgot to ban rockets. He was the fastest man every single time he lined up until JT Bø finally nipped him in the Pursuit race. A lot of the time it wasn’t even close. In the Sprint he was 20 seconds faster than Nawrath. In the Individual nearly 16 seconds faster than Dale-Skjevdal.

The end results:
– Winning the Single Mixed with Hanna Öberg
– 7th in the Individual
– 6th in the Men’s Relay (but he had a HUGE leg to, along with Martin Ponsiluoma, drag them all the way back to the flowers)
– 4th in the Sprint
– 1st in the Pursuit

I really want to focus on the Pursuit though. This was the race that told me the most about him this year. While he had been one of the major topics of conversation so far in Oestersund, he still hadn’t found his way to the podium in front of his home fans. During the Sprint it looked like he was set for a win before being outdone time and time again, finally getting shoved off the podium by one of the Norwegian legion, Vebjoern Sørum.

In the Pursuit Samuelsson was never going to be denied. From the start he was working hard on the course to cut down the time. He ended up with misses on both prone shootings but he was so hard working on the course that by the time he was coming to the range for the last shooting he had taken a 26.7 second disadvantage and cut it down to just 7.6 seconds. It was one of the most impressive examples of grit and determination I have seen in awhile. Samuelsson was just not going to be denied and kept working so hard to give himself a chance should Nawrath falter.

Standing on the range next to Nawrath for the last shooting it was actually Samuelsson who flinched first, missing his 2nd shot. But when Nawrath missed his fourth it was game on. Samuelsson also shot a solid 10 seconds faster so he was off the penalty loop basically on time with Nawrath. Even though they started the lap together it was never going to end that way. Samuelsson once again fired up the engines and by mid lap had opened up an insurmountable 7.5 second gap. It was enough that he was able to celebrate the crowd on his way home. Ending the week with his 5th career win the only way it should have ended.

Women’s Young Athlete of the Week: Juni Arnekleiv

In our season preview podcast I posed the question to RJ, “Is the next generation of Norwegian women ready to take up the lead with the official retirements of Eckhoff and Roeiseland.” With Tandrevold as the leader, the team appears to be answering in the affirmative. One of the major reasons for that is 24 year old Juni Arnekleiv.

She came into the season with just eight races under her belt, but a solid, if not spectacular IBU Cup career. However, being just 24 years old it appears that she had plenty of room to grow. If the week in Oestersund is any clue, we’re going to be seeing a lot of Juni Arnekleiv upcoming. After a 28th place finish in the Individual she grabbed her first career World Cup podium in the Sprint, finishing 3rd. She then backed that up strongly with a 4th place finish in a wild Pursuit race. Pair that with a solid 2nd place Single Mixed with Strula Holm Lægreid and a fairly dominant 2nd leg in the Women’s Relay that set up the Norwegian victory and it’s a great weekend.

The biggest thing that I saw for Arnekleiv coming out of the weekend is she has made improvements to her skiing. Last year she ran seven races on the World Cup. In those races she was ranked 54th in overall skiing. Through one week of racing this season she’s currently ranked 12th. Her course time ranks this week were 19th, 10th, and 10th, the best of her World Cup career. Normally shooting in the mid to low 80% range she hit 90% of her shots this week. The only thing that didn’t improve was her shooting times which were about the slowest yet, averaging just 30.4 seconds per shooting.

I’m not going to go so far as to say that Juni Arnekleiv is a future Overall Globe winner but she was a very strong biathlete this week. She skied fast, shot well, and competed hard. Can’t ask for more than that. I really want to see her keep it up!

Men’s Young Athlete of the Week: Tommaso Giacomel and Didier Bionaz

It wasn’t a huge weekend for the young men without any really great finishes but the Italian boys were easily the class of the field. Tommaso Giacomel leads the u25 category and will wear the Blue Bib to Hochfilzen after finishes of 8th, 14th, and 12th. While there is nothing spectacular there he was steady all week long. The biggest thing was that he hit 88% of his shots. That would be a HUGE jump if he can keep that up. If he had hit 88% last season he would have won the u25 Globe and I can say that with confidence. He also had some of the best skiing of his career. He was already fast last year ranking 14th in overall skiing. Right now, though, he’s up to 10th in skiing. The pieces are there for another really special season. The high high finishes will come.

Actually even more impressive was Didier Bionaz. He is still just 23 until February but he’s already been on the World Cup for a full three seasons now. It looks like he’s taken a bit of leap particularly where it comes to his skiing. He made a fairly impressive improvement last season but right now he comes in at 13th overall in skiing. That puts him above Jeremy Finello, Tarjei Bø, and Benedikt Doll. Will he stay there? That’s impossible to say until we see more races. If you look back to his Juniors days he was a little faster than Giacomel so it wouldn’t be shocking. Bionaz also hit 88% this week, just like Giacomel. That too would be a career best by a fairly wide margin over last year’s 83.7%.

While Bionaz wasn’t able to crack the top 10 this week, finishing 32nd, 13th, and 14th, the 13th place finish actually did match his career high. It was also the most consistent high level racing of his career. I can’t tell you how excited I am for this.

So far Bionaz and Giacomel are the clear leaders for the young men, but it’s a long season. Hopefully we see a few more come along to challenge them!

Women’s Race of the Week: Pursuit

The Women’s Pursuit race in Oestersund was a classic Pursuit. It started out with a good set up for a great race with 12 women within 40 seconds of Jeanmonnot. While Jeanmonnot didn’t let anybody quite catch her on lap one, pretty quickly it become a battle of survival.

We started out lap 2 with a lead group of Jeanmonnot, Preuss, Arnekleiv, Tandrevold, and Voigt with a hard charging Elvira just under 10 seconds further back and easily in reach. Over the next two laps the group held together with Tandrevold and Preuss primarily doing the pacing. With their strength, and a miss from Elvira, they never let that speed demon quite catch them. It was pretty clear that Jeanmonnot was the one who felt the worst on the skis. She was clinging on to the back of the pack. However, she had so much determination she was never going to let them create separation.

After shooting 3 though, the pacing duo of Tandrevold and Preuss both had a miss, leaving a lead group of Arnekleiv, Voigt, and Jeanmonnot. Even with Arnekleiv and Voigt now doing the pacing, neither of whom is a super skier, Jeanmonnot looked to be in some difficulty. To be fair, both Voigt and Arnekleiv showed the best ski form of their careers this week. But Jeanmonnot clung tight. Tandrevold and Preuss meanwhile, after starting lap 4 25 seconds back, worked together to manage the gap to 17 seconds entering the range. At that deficit, they were well within a penalty loop of the lead giving them a chance to win should the leaders open the door.

Shooting 4 provided just that open door. Voigt and Arnekleiv missed, along with Tandrevold, while Jeanmonnot and Preuss went clean. Preuss used superior shooting and range time to exit the range with just a 7 second deficit, one she easily gobbled up. However, she could never shake Jeanmonnot. Once again she clung on and would never ever give it up.

Coming down to the final stretch Jeanmonnot was still there, and using up every drop of energy she had left she made her move. She did incidentally catch Preuss’ tail as she made her move, which likely played at least some role, but regardless, Jeanmonnot slid around and won by 0.3 seconds. Preuss had yet another 2nd place finish but retained the Yellow Bib. Voigt claimed her second podium of the weekend and the third of her career while Arnekleiv and Tandrevold rounded out the top 5. That was high level racing!

Men’s Race of the Week: Sprint

In general I am predisposed to a Pursuit and especially a Mass Start. I just love a race where first one to the finish wins. Also the tactics and tension you feel during one of those races is unlike anything you can replicate in an Individual or a Sprint. Regardless, this week’s Sprint race was absolutely wild.

We’ll pick it up as some of the early men were already coming along the last lap. Running in bibs 9, 12, 13, and 18 were Martin Ponsiluoma, Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen, Didier Bionaz, and Sebastian Stalder. As each of them left the range they all posted times within 11 seconds of each other with Stalder, the slowest on the course, being the one with the fastest time. At that moment it seemed like they were going to have a battle for at least one of them to finish on the podium.

As they made their ways around the last lap their check point times continued to get closer and closer to each other. At the 9.2km check point here is how they were ranked.
– Sebastian Stalder (bib 18)
– Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen +0.3 (bib 12)
– Dider Bionaz +0.7 (bib 13)
– Martin Ponsiluoma +1.0 (bib 9)

At that point we still didn’t quite know what was going to happen. We knew that some traditional powers like JT Bø and QFM had enough misses that they were out of contention. And those were still the fastest times through the 2nd shooting still and it felt like this was, at the very least, going to be a battle for at least one podium spot. With those bibs so close together watching the race and watching the splits come through I was absolutely riveted. They ended up finishing in order
– Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen
– Martin Ponsiluoma +1.8
– Sebastian Stalder +2.2
– Didier Bionaz +3.5

Right around the time Stalder was finishing though we knew that they were going to be blown off the course. Even hitting just 3/5 standing shots Samuelsson came off the range and hit lap 3 holding a 19 second advantage on Stalder’s time. We knew he was flying on the course and it looked like a sure thing that, Sebbe Samuelsson from bib 30 was going to sweep away the field for a triumphant home victory.

Even as Samuelsson was still on the course though Tarjei Bø went clean standing for a perfect 10/10. While we had spent some time already talking about JT Bø not looking like himself, here was older brother Tarjei Bø running 11 seconds faster than Samuelsson off the range and looking like he was about to win a somewhat surprising victory.

Hold on though! With Tarjei Bø consolidating his lead on Samuelsson on lap 3, the surprise of the day was still coming. Philip Nawrath went a perfect 10/10. He’s always been fast. He’s always been solid prone. He’s always struggled standing. For the first time in his life he put it all together at the right time. He started lap three 16 seconds up on Tarjei Bø’s time. He didn’t let up one bit and cruised to an 18.7 second victory.

The action wasn’t done though as Vebjoern Sørum was still lurking out there. He couldn’t possibly knock Samuelsson off the podium could he? Yes, actually he could. From all the way back in bib 63, the 25 year old Sørum hit a perfect 10/10 and ran a perfect race. He saved his best for last as he turned on the jets for maybe the best lap of his career. He was the fastest man over the last 3.3km and was able to just squeeze Samuelsson off the podium by seven seconds. This was an exhausting but thrilling race!

Yellow Bib Check In

It’s far too early to do any predictions on who has the best chance to win the Overall…we’ll save that until after the races in Lenzerheide. However, can we just take a moment to appreciate the fact that we have Germans wearing both the men’s and women’s Yellow Bibs? Preuss leads Jeanmonnot by just three points while Nawrath hold a one point advantage on Samuelsson. It’s early times and we’ll likely see the bib change hands multiple times, but this is a really fun start!

1) Sebastian Samuelsson: Same Old Story or New Start?

Sebastian Samuelsson has been on the front of my mind as I’ve been thinking about Östersund. He was active in almost every race and had an incredible Pursuit to come away with a victory. Most impressively he was near dominant on the skis almost every time he put on skis. For example he was 15.9 seconds faster than Dale-Skjevdal in the Individual and 20 seconds faster than Nawrath in the Sprint. The only time he wasn’t fastest was in the Pursuit where all he did was win the race with the 2nd fastest course time on the day by a mere 2.8 seconds.

We’ve seen this before though right? Samuelsson starting out the season like a banshee with unbelievable speed, and even a few wins, only to be followed by a drop in form and disappointing racing. Sometimes a surge at Worlds or Olympics. Sometimes a late season surge as well. Or is that just my memory?

Let’s look back at his performances over the last four seasons, since he really became a force on the World Cup, and see how his performance in weeks one and two compares to the rest of the season. These numbers are four the 2020-2021 season through this year and will include Worlds and Olympics.

So you can see that the overwhelming majority of his wins come in the first two weeks of the season. He also has 40% of his podiums coming in just the first two weeks of the season. This does seem to confirm that my memory hasn’t completely failed me. He does seem to do his best racing, and certainly the most winning, right at the start of the season. After that it falls a little bit. This is why almost every season I look at Samuelsson out of the gate and think “This is going to be the year he challenges for the Overall!” However, as of yet his best Overall finish is 3rd from the 2021-2022 season when he was quite a ways back of Quintin Fillon Maillet’s dominance.

You can also look at his skiing in the first two weeks compared to the rest of the season to try to see a similar story:

It’s pretty clear that Sebbe Samuelsson comes into the season on better form than his competitors. Whether he decays in form after that, or everybody else catches up is beyond the scope of this article to prove. However, it does appear though, that my memory doesn’t deceive me in this regard either.

In general, over the last four seasons Samuelsson has come into the season looking tremendously strong. He’s faster than almost everybody and he scores a large percentage of his high finishes, including 80% of his victories in these first two weeks. Now the question is, will he continues the form he showed in Oestersund for the rest of this season? I guess, based on his history, we can expect to see it in Hochfilzen But what about beyond that? If so he is still running away from the field in Lenzerheide or even Oberhof then this is a new world and a new story!

2) Return of the Voigt

Coming into the 2022-2023 season Vanessa Voigt was a hot name as a potential dark horse contender for the Overall Globe. Last season, though, proved to be more of a learning experience than a glory filled campaign for the Globe. She ended up with three top 5’s and six top 10’s. Those numbers were basically the exact same as her rookie year. She also had more “bad” finishes with four fewer top 20’s. She also had fewer top finishes. In 21-22 she managed her first career podium in the last trimester of the season. Unfortunately she failed to find the podium at all last season.

Looking at the gross statistics there wasn’t a major change, and considering she finished 13th Overall in 21-22 and 12th in 22-23, you wouldn’t expect a major change. She was modestly faster overall on the skis and she shot almost exactly the same (91.8% vs. 91%). Also, most notably, her shooting remained relatively slow moving up from 35.5 seconds to just 32.7 seconds last year. Basically it was the same year over year statistical performance and not the major breakthrough that we might have expected. Don’t get me wrong, none of it was really bad. It’s just that expectations were so high it didn’t quite live up to them.

Looking a little deeper at the numbers, the mild improvement in overall ski ranking doesn’t tell the whole story. She was incredibly inconsistent. She would go from a course time rank of 4th one day to 44th the next. That’s an actual example by the way. Starting at the World Championships she seemed to bottom out. From there on she was on a steady incline throughout the last trimester of the season. Outside of one hiccup race quite literally she had a better course time rank every single race. No longer did a plot of her course time ranks look like a crazy EKG or seismograph. Now it looks like a ski slope rising to the moon.

This season that has only continued. Over the first three solo races of the season her ski ranks per race are: 10th, 7th, and 4th. Right now she is ranked 6th in overall skiing which would be a monumental improvement. The last two seasons she was 1.3% faster than median. Right now she’s running 5.4% faster than median. That’s just gigantic.

She’s also continued to shoot at her characteristically high level. So far she’s hitting at 96%. While she won’t likely keep that up she’s almost assuredly going to shoot well all season. That’s her calling card. Can she shoot faster though? Right now she’s averaging just 32.3 seconds per shooting, still relatively slow. That appears to be the final frontier for her.

It’s incredibly early but right now Vanessa Voigt appears to have taken the leap that we anticipated or dreamed she would take last season. She’s faster and its borne out while watching the races. She is leading groups on the course rather than taking on to the back. She’s getting into bunches. I’m thrilled to see it. This is the Vanessa Voigt we were hoping to see and she’s here now. I hope she keeps it up through Canmore!

3) Where is Team France?

When you think back to Östersund 23-24 of course one of the things that you remember is that Lou Jeanmonnot broke through in an absolutely HUGE way. She got her first victory in the Sprint. Then she immediately got win #2 in the Pursuit. It wasn’t just a win though, she showed immense tenacity and fight, and even more than just winning twice, she immediately threw herself into the race for the women’s Overall Globe.

But what about the rest of the French team? They performed decently well in the relays.

– Single Mixed Relay: 3rd
– Mixed Relay: 1st
– Women’s Relay: 5th
– Men’s Relay: 3rd

Here are their current rankings in the Overall:

The good news is, it’s only been one weekend. The bad news, though, is that those rankings are nowhere close to where had hoped they would be. My reasonable expectations before the year was that the men would have 1-2 in the Top 10 and the women would have 2-3. So is there a common denominator for the slow start? Were they all shooting wildly or was there a clear waxing issue with slow skis?

French Women	22-23 Ski Rank	23-24 Ski Rank	22-23 Shooting	23-24 Shooting
Lou Jeanmonnot	19th	11th	90.3%	94%
Julia Simon	3rd	10th	88.3%	84%
Justine Braisaz-Bouchet	1st (21-22)	3rd	76.3% (21-22)	78%
Sophie Chauveau	10th	8th	80.6%	86%
Gilonne Guigonnat	N/A	28th	N/A	90%
Chloe Chevalier	15th	18th	86.3%	86.7%
French Men	22-23 Ski Rank	23-24 Ski Rank	22-23 Shooting	23-24 Shooting
Fabien Claude	10th	11th	83.6%	88%
QFM	11th	7th	88.6%	84%
Eric Perrot	26th	22nd	83.3%	84%
Emilien Jacquelin	12th	12th	78.3%	76%
Antonin Guigonnat	21st	29th	81.5%	84%
Emilien Claude	39th	44th	82.5%	90%

So the numbers themselves don’t give us too much of a hint. The skiing isn’t that far off from prior for anybody except for Julia Simon. She’s in a bit of a peculiar situation though. You can also argue that QFM and Jacquelin are a little slow as well. Not compared to last year but compared to the several years prior to that when they were regularly top 5-7 in the World Cup. Shooting by and large actually looks better this year than last. However, shooting overall was pretty good last weekend in Oestersund, so even though the pure percentages were pretty good the rankings were a little lower.

Here’s the point though, the French are mostly performing at or above levels they did last season. The men are probably in some ways still adapting to Simon Fourcade’s coaching as well. The results will come. In the meantime though Lou Jeanmonnot certainly put a heck of a silver (or golden) lining on the weekend!

Oestersund Recap Part 1
Oestersund Recap Part 2

2022-2023 Season Weekend Recaps
2021-2022 Season Weekend Recaps
2020-2021 Season Weekend Recaps