After an exhilarating opening week in Kontiolahti the BMW IBU World Cup now moves to Hochfilzen where more thrilling battles await. On the men’s side Eric Perrot leads the Total Score by just one point over Sturla Holm Laegreid whilst for the women Elvira Oeberg has already opened up a 60-point lead over her nearest competitor, Franziska Preuss.

And just like that . . . it gets crowded in men's battle for the Total Score

With Perrot wearing yellow, Laegreid lagging behind by one point (not to mention being the only man with two podiums from the first three competitions) and just 57 points between the Total Score leader and ninth-placed Philipp Nawrath, the stage is set for nail-biting battles in the men’s tour in Hochfilzen, as the BMW IBU World Cup moves from North to Central Europe.

Hochfilzen is a favourite for the defending Total Score champion JT Boe, who has nine wins here (five in the Sprint and four in the Pursuit) and for Laegreid too, who claimed a Sprint-Pursuit double in 2020/2021 and has five podiums at the Austrian venue. Emilien Jacquelin, the Sprint winner from Kontiolahti, Samuelsson, the fastest skier of the first week, and the increasingly dangerous Quentin Fillon Maillet recorded one win and six further podiums between them in Hochfilzen and will be looking to shake things up atop the Total Score standings.

Disruption! Really?

But is there some kind of disruption happening when we consider the Norwegian men? In the Sprint in Kontiolahti no Norwegian biathlete made it to the podium, the first time that has happened since January 2022. Additionally, Perrot ended Norway’s remarkable streak of ten consecutive World Cup Mass start victories, with the last non-Norwegian win also coming in January 2022, when Benedikt Doll triumphed in Antholz. We will have to wait to see what unfolds in Hochfilzen to judge if that was merely a bump in the road or the start of a new trend…

Following in the path of fellow Swedish legends, Elvira Oeberg claims the yellow bib

Elsewhere, Elvira Oeberg kept an extraordinarily high pace on the skis in Kontiolahti, climbing from third in the Individual to second in the Sprint and then to first in the Mass Start. She will travel to Hochfilzen in the yellow bib, full of confidence and knowing that she won the Pursuit there last season and could extend her lead over the field. After Magdalena Forsberg, Helena Ekholm, Anna Carin Olofsson-Zidek and her sister Hanna, Elvira is the fifth Swedish woman to wear a yellow bib. Two of them - Forsberg and Ekholm also won in the Total Score.

A revived Wierer (she doesn’t like skiing on the snow in the Nordic countries) goes to Austria having won twice in the Sprint in Hochfilzen in the past and will increasingly fancy her chances there. So will the in-form Preuss, who scored fifth, fourth, and third place in Kontiolahti and can count on substantial support from the German fans in Tirol. They will also come to see Tannheimer, the 19-year-old from Ulm, who has just five starts in the World Cup - and already two flower podium finishes in that time.

What a difference 1,106 days make

This year’s competition in Kontiolahti will also be remembered for remarkable comebacks. Both sprint race winners had been waiting for their subsequent World Cup victory for nearly three years. Jacquelin ended his drought after 1,083 days, while Marketa Davidova had an even longer wait of 1,106 days.

Photos: IBU/Roman Koksarov, Nordic Focus/Leo Authamayou