We analysed Elvira Oeberg's start to the season. She was the fastest woman in three of the opening four competitions in Oestersund, Sweden. She was second in the second sprint in Oestersund and is currently fourth in Total Score standings with 144 points, 30 behinds the leader Lisa Theresa Hauser. If she can connect the more accurate shooting to this year's staggering ski speed, anything is possible for Elvira.

Robert Weise, a specialist for the information design, data&spatial analysis and visualisation and the founder of BiathlonAnalytics, used competition data to prepare charts after four competitions in Oestersund with the focus on Elvira Oeberg as she impressed everyone in Oestersund with a tremendous speed. Elvira was the fastest in the tracks in 9 out of 16 laps in the individual, two sprints and the pursuit. She didn't back up her speed with accurate shooting though.

The shooting chart (upper section of the image) simply expresses the total shooting percentage (total misses divided by total shots taken). The skiing chart (lower section of the image) uses the course time data and compares each athlete's time with the fastest course time of the particular race. The 2020/2021 season stats are shown in green and the current 2021/2022 season stats are shown in purple.

The big question is whether she can carry the speed from her home venue to Hochfilzen, Annecy Le Grand Bornand and beyond. She will also strive to elevate her shooting accuracy as it was only 78% in Oestersund, whereas it was 85% at the same stage of the season in Kontiolahti in 2020/2021. Elvira Oeberg won 36 points per competition in the first four competitions in Oestersund. That is almost the same as after the first four competitions last year in Kontiolahti (she had 142 points at this stage in the 2020/2021 season compared to 144 this season). The graph below confirms this, as the purple (representing Elvira's trend of winning points per competition this season) and green line (representing 2020/2021 season) are converging.

Next up is Hochfilzen, where Elvira finished 11th in the sprint and seventh in the pursuit last season.

Photo: IBU/C. Manzoni

Graphics: BiathlonAnalytics