Women 15 km Individual Competition

Italy’s Dorothea Wierer 20-for-20 shooting and steady skiing keyed her 41:19.6 win in this afternoon’s Oestersund women’s 15 km individual. Wierer’s second victory of the season came after a head-to-head battle with teammate Lisa Vittozzi. Throughout the competition, the Italian duo each other shot-for-shot. Wierer led after the first prone, with Vittozzi gaining a small advantage in the next two stages until the last standing stage, when both cleaned again but Wierer regaining the lead, sped to victory in the last loop.

Coming into this season, the highlight reel for Tilda Johansson’s biathlon career was pretty small: a clean-shooting 4th place in the Arber IBU Junior Cup Sprint in March of 2020 and running the leadoff leg on Sweden’s second-place IBU Cup Women’s Relay team almost a year late ironically in Arber. After missing all of 2021/22 season, she trained this past summer and fall exclusively with Sweden’s A team. In that environment, Johansson’s latent talent blossomed into a career season: Sprint/Pursuit Silver IBU OECH medals plus a Mixed Relay Bronze, 20th place in her third-ever World Cup start. Now, after a tough draining battle with Covid-19, Tilda Johansson recovered to become 2023 IBU Cup Total Score winner and will start this week in the home BMW IBU Oestersund World Cup.