Preuss lives and trains in Ruhpolding. She achieved her first-ever BMW IBU World Cup podium in Ruhpolding in the Mass Start in the 2014/2015 season and her first-ever win in the World Cup in the Mass Start in the 2018/2019 season. She was a member of three German winning relays in Ruhpolding. Preuss was ninth in the Sprint and sixth in the Pursuit last season in Ruhpolding. But she never competed in Ruhpolding as the Total Score leader and as an athlete who even the great Ole Einar Bjoerndalen sees as the most likely winner at the end of the season. This week's program also speaks for her chances. In the Individual, she will not feel rushed by competitors around her. And Preuss loves Mass Start - out of 21 podium finishes in her career, nine were in the discipline where there is no room for contemplating as things change too fast.
Before Ruhpolding, Preuss holds 116 points advantage over the Oberhof Pursuit winner Lou Jeanmonnot (Lou shot with 93% accuracy in Thuringia) and 159 over Elvira Oeberg, who showed frightening power on the skis in Oberhof but had another volatile weekend on the shooting range. She had five misses in the Sprint and just one in the Pursuit, where she shattered a World Cup record by advancing from 37th in the Sprint to a podium finish, surpassing the previous record of moving from 32nd to third held by Florence Bavarel-Robert since Oslo in 1999/2000.
As for their history in Bavaria, Elvira won in the Sprint, in the Olympic 2021/2022 season, and Jeanmonnot was second in the Individual last winter.
In Oberhof, Quentin Fillon Maillet claimed his 17th career victory in the Sprint, tying Frank Ullrich for seventh place on the all-time wins list. The French team also achieved their third-ever podium sweep, following similar feats in the Individual in Oestersund (2019) and Pursuit in Kontiolahti (2020). Fillon Maillet competed in all three of these historic races.
But can Fillon Maillet string a few world-class shooting performances together as he did in the Olympic 2021/2022 season when he won a Sprint-Pursuit double in Ruhpolding? Can Sturla Holm Laegreid win for the first time in Ruhpolding and close the gap of 73 points as he holds sway over JT Boe (7 wins in Ruhpolding) on the shooting range with 92% accuracy vs Johannes’ 86% - a key component in the Individual and the Mass Start?
And the most intriguing question: can the mercurial Emilien Jacquelin finally have a stable weekend of excellence and rejoin the Total Score battle with a remote chance of winning - he is 198 points behind Boe?
In Oberhof, Anastasia Kuzmina made history by becoming the first woman to score World Cup points after turning 40. At 40 years, 4 months, and 14 days, she surpassed Natalia Kocergina’s record, who held the title of the oldest biathlete in the Top 40 for only three weeks. During the sprint in Le Grand Bornand, the Lithuanian was 39 years, 8 months, and 3 days old.