After speeding past Tora Berger’s 11 wins from the 2012/2013 season and pit-stopping at 12 before the last three competitions in Oestersund, Tiril Eckhoff is on the verge of equaling or even surpassing even Magdalena Forsberg’s 14 wins from the 2000/2001 season. In order to do so, Eckhoff will need to win two more competitions (to equal) or three competitions (to better) Forsberg’s achievement.

Best shooting season ever brought glory for Eckhoff

Eckhoff has this season elevated her shooting to 85% accuracy, a career high and a great complimentary to her renown fast skiing. Tiril is at 87% in the prone and at 84% in the standings but she is above all staying grateful to the fact that things have finally tilted her way. She knows that she is competing in a very rare state of mind and form that athletes like to call The Zone. It is a place when time seems to be going slower and targets might look bigger than they are.

Simon controls the mass start for now

Eckhoff clinched her Total Score and the sprint and pursuit discipline Total Score titles in NMNM while Lisa Theresa Hauser and Dorothea Wierer jointly won the individual Total Score. The mass start is still up for grabs, with Julia Simon in the driving seat. Scratching the worst result before the fifth and last mass start, Simon has 156 points to Lisa Theresa Hauser’s 142, Marte Olsbu Roeiseland’s 139, Hanna Oeberg’s 138, Tiril Eckhoff’s 136 and Franziska Preuss’s 135. In short, Simon will keep her lead and win her first discipline Total Score by finishing third or higher. She will be hoping that her last standing shooting will be in line with the ones in Oberhof and Antholz - Anterselva when she suddenly found inner focus when everyone else was missing and than skied to two wins.

There are plenty of other combinations, but it is all in Julia’s hands.

Hoping for strong finish

Lisa Vittozzi’s well executed summer didn’t translate into equally good winter for she contracted COVID-19 in the autumn and spent crucial weeks before the beginning of the 2020/2021 season recovering. She had some sparks of an excellent daily form - like in the first sprint of NMNM when she finished third - but this is far from her plans. Still, Oestersund has so far been a good place for her for she won a silver medal in the individual at the IBU World Championships Oestersund 2019. Paulina Fialkova also had to fight COVID-19 and will be hoping that ninth place in the first pursuit of NMNM was a solid base for good finish to the 2020/2021 season as well as for the strong build up towards the Olympic 2021/2022 season. Justine Braisaz-Bouchet is perhaps the biggest mystery of this season for she has one flower finish only this season - fourth place in the second sprint of Oberhof - whereas she had a win and a second phase last season. Oestersund might be a place of an inspiration for her as well for won a bronze medal in the individual at the IBU World Championships Oestersund 2019 and won in the same discipline at the last season opening in Oestersund.

Watch out for these names

Amy Baserga, sprint and pursuit gold medalist from the IBU Y/J World Championships Obertilliach 2021, will make her BMW IBU World Cup debut in Oestersund: she is somebody with huge potential who is worth watching. Just like her teammate Niklas Hartweg (who already made his debut in Kontiolahti and has since become a starting member of the Swiss relay team), Baserga won the IBU Junior Cup Total Score title and seems to have the skiing capacity, shooting skills and perseverance of a high-class athlete. Baserga and Hartweg are both exciting prospects for the IBU World Championships Lenzerheide 2025 when they (both born in 2000) will both start to peak.

IBU Cup Total Score winners Vanessa Voigt of Germany and Filip Fjeld Andersen of Norway will join their A teams whereas Stina Nilsson will also get a chance to feel biathlon’s World Cup beat, but it is way too early to judge her transition from cross-country to biathlon. Yes, they share the cross-country skiing component, but are very different worlds indeed.

Photo: IBU/C. Manzoni