Lisa Vittozzi and Johannes Thingnes Boe are the BMW IBU World Cup Total Score winners for the 2023/2024 season. Vittozzi clinched the trophy that slipped through her hands in the final three days of the 2018/2019 season in Oslo-Holmenkollen in the last three days of the 2023/2024 season in Canmore. Boe won for the fifth time and rewrote many pages of biathlon’s history books again. Elvira Oeberg and Tommaso Giacomel are the U25 Score winners.

Vittozzi’s five years wait in triumph

Five years after she lost the Total Score battle to Dorothea Wierer in the final three days of the 2018/2019 season in Oslo-Holmenkollen, Lisa Vittozzi closed the circle in the last three days of the 2023/2024 season in Canmore, crossing the finish line in the Mass Start, wearing a yellow bib she earned just the day before, clutching Italian flag, tears pouring down her cheeks. When the curtain fell over Season’s Finals in Canmore, Vittozzi traveled home as the Total Score winner, the Individual Score winner, and the Pursuit Score winner. Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold wore the yellow bib for more weeks than any other women’s athlete - but lost her magic in Canmore - and won the Sprint Score title. Lou Jeanmonnot won the final Mass Start of the season and traveled home as the second in the Total Score and as the Mass Start Score winner. Elvira Oeberg won the U25 Score for the third year in a row.

The true Greatness of Johannes

When it mattered most, Johannes Thingnes Boe did what he usually does: he sharpened his focus and upped his biathlon to a level no one - not even his incredible brother Tarjei - could match. He finished the winter in Canmore in yellow, with his third Season’s ending Triple.

But in the grand picture of the 2023/2024 season, the following moments of kindness and empathy stood out and showed the sometimes hidden side of one of the greatest winter athletes of all time:

1. Johannes holding crying Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold after the Single Mixed Relay in Nove Mesto.

2. Johannes holding the shoulder of sobbing bronze-medalist Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen while the Norwegian hymn played after the Pursuit in Nove Mesto. Christiansen, undoubtedly, felt sorry for the missed opportunity for gold. But he foremost grieved a personal loss. And Johannes knew and recognised that.

3. Johannes explaining that his brother Tarjei is not only his fiercest competitor but also the greatest guy he has ever met.

As for the Season’s balance sheet, Johannes won the Total Score, Individual Score, Pursuit Score, and Mass Start score. Tarjei won the Sprint Score. And Tommaso Giacomel held firm his ground as he finished fourth in the Mass Start and defended his lead over Eric Perrot for his first-ever U25 Score title.

Photo: C. Manzoni: IBU