Arnd Peiffer gives his take on the opening of the 2023/2024 season in Oestersund, the first without fluor in the ski preparation products. The Olympic and World Champion singles out his favourites for the Total Score title.

From his first-hand experience, he knows that the first weekend doesn’t necessarily define the entire season –but a good start is still more than welcome.

It’s hard to believe that eight months between the end of last winter and the beginning of the new season are gone! The opening week in Oestersund will kick off with the mixed relays, allowing most of the athletes a first taste of the adrenaline of the competition without the immediate stress of being tested on their own.

The Single Mixed Relays had proven to be a race of great prestige and many unexpected outcomes last winter. Just remember how Amy Baserga and Niklas Hartweg reached the first-ever mixed relay podium for Switzerland in Pokljuka and how Lisa Theresa Hauser and David Komatz kept their nerves under control in strong winds at the BMW IBU World Championships in Oberhof and scored a silver medal for Austria.

In the Mixed Relays, the picture is much more straightforward: I see the Norwegians, Swedes, and French battling for the podium.

The opening week - and the first weekend of the season - gives you a good sense of your shape, but it doesn't define the season. Early success is a welcome confidence booster, but that was rarely the case for me, despite my good feelings about Oestersund. In short, the start of the season was often difficult for me.

Speaking of the favourites: the Norwegians seem to be ready for a new winter of great internal battles. Johannes Thingnes Boe had set the bar unimaginably high last season, but Sturla Holm Laegreid and Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen worked very hard during the summer to challenge him in 2023/2024. The field looks more levelled with women. Elvira and Hanna Oeberg will fancy their chances, but so will last season's Total Score winner Julia Simon and in-form Lisa Vittozzi. My outside favourite is Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold.

Oestersund is known for good preparation of the tracks, which is not an easy task at the beginning of the winter. The weather forecast predicts cold conditions, which usually means fair conditions for everyone, especially on skis.

Like everyone else, I am curious to observe the fluor ban effect. I expect quite big differences between the teams and fluctuations in their performance. Every team had to learn from scratch, but nations with more resources had more opportunities to test. Testing the skis before and after the race are new steps in a daily competition protocol for the athletes. Oestersund will be a good indicator of how this will affect individual athletes and the teams.