In biathlon, 92.8 usually describes a percentage number that tells the accuracy of the best shooter in the sport. This season, however, the number has taken on a new meaning: 92.8 is Norway’s men’s winning percentage in individual World Cup competitions.
The season of the Norwegians got off to a flying start, while Sweden’s Martin Ponsiluma won the normal distance race that opened the Cup in Kontiolahti. Not a single Norwegian was seen at the trophy, but since then the pace has been different.
The Norwegian has won all of the following 13 individual events in the World Cup. The winning percentage of 92.8 improves even more if you include the four relays that ended with the fjord party. In this article, only the results of individual competitions are compared, as relays officially entered the World Cup only in the 1988–1989 season.
– Expectations for the World Cup are naturally high, because we have been so good this season. The results have been better than we could have expected, the coach responsible for the skiing results of the Norwegian biathlon team Egil Kristiansen says to Urheilu.
The Biathlon World Cup has been contested since the 1977-1978 season, and no country has been able to dominate like the Norwegians in recent months. So far, the one-season record belongs to East Germany, whose athlete basked in the first place eight times out of ten in the 1979–1980 season.
Kristiansen and the French wizard responsible for shooting results Siegfried Mazet have worked for the Norwegian men’s biathlon team since spring 2016. Under the duo’s leadership, the victory statistics have been high before: in the 2018–2019 season, the Norwegian men captured 17 individual victories out of 25 competitions. The winning percentage was therefore 68.
The Norwegian men will do better than this if they win only two of the remaining seven World Cup races of the season. There are fewer competitions than before, because no more World Cup points have been awarded in value competitions since last year. The Norwegian men will end up with a win percentage that is even better than GDR’s record, if four more wins are accumulated at the end of the season.
Before that, however, the eyes of the athletes will turn to Oberhof in Germany, which is organizing the World Championships.
– I believe that some countries will raise their level to the World Cup. For us, the World Cup is more important than the World Cup this season. It was different last year, when we aimed for the Olympics in top condition. I think we succeeded in our goal relatively well, says Kristiansen, referring to the medal haul in Beijing, which was three gold, silver and three bronze.
The Norwegian results of the current World Cup season indicate that Beijing’s medal balance pales next to what is to come from the World Cup in Oberhof in the next week and a half. This is especially supported by the skiing speed shown by the Norwegians.
A huge improvement in skiing
Looking at biathlon world cup times in the 2000s, the title of fastest man has escaped Norway only four times: the French Martin Fourcade was the fastest in the seasons 2012–2014 and 2015–2017.
This season, he has already won 11 individual competitions Johannes Thingnes Bö was the fastest skier on the tour already in the 2014–2015 season, but he has been that continuously since the 2017–2018 season. From the point of view of the national competitors, it has been crushing that the already fastest athlete has found a completely new gear this season.
As the graphic below shows, Bö has been no less than 5.95 percent faster on the track than the vast majority of his competitors, who make up the median, or middle number, of the tour’s skiing times.
For example, if Bö spends about 22 minutes on a 10-kilometer sprint on the track, a 5.95 percent faster than median pace means that Bö is about 80 seconds faster than most of his competitors. Bö’s speed is highlighted when comparing his time on the track to the median of the ten fastest skiers. In this comparison, Bö has been 1.94 percent faster than the median, which corresponds to about 25 seconds on a fast trip.
In other words: Bö can shoot one more miss than the toughest skiers and up to three penalties more than the vast majority of other participants on the tour. The longer the distance is, such as a 12.5-kilometer pursuit and a 15-kilometer joint start, the more Bö can afford to avoid penalty rounds in his current skiing condition.
The change from previous years is significant. In the previous four seasons, Bö has been an average skier about five percent faster than the median. The percentage improvement means that this season he has been 13 seconds faster than his competitors on fast distances this season.
The challenge for the Norwegian to fight for the podium is not limited to Johannes Thingnes Böho, as four other Norwegians also fit into the top ten fastest and among the top eight in the overall World Cup points. In the joint start cup, the Norwegians occupy the entire top five.
About them Vetle Sjåstad Christiansen has improved his skiing speed compared to the median by 1.5 percent and Sturla Holm Lägreidkin almost one percent. Also John Dale and Johannes Thingnes Bö’s older brother Tarjei Bö have skied close to the best speed of their careers.
The change is big when you compare the fluctuations in the level of the teams that already kept the top pace in the ski races. The previous similar eye-popping jump was twenty years ago. A Norwegian sports legend at the time Be Einar Björndalen and his compatriots Lars Berger and Frode Andresen increased their skiing speed for the 2003–2004 season by 2–3 percent compared to the median. In the case of the trio, however, the change that attracted attention was a return to the level they had been at after a weak season.
Since Johannes Thingnes Bö is in biathlon circles with his own second figures, it is appropriate to ask what kind of results could be expected from him against cross-country skiing specialists.
It’s not unusual for a biathlon skier to put cross-country skiers in a tight spot – or even wash them. An example is the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games, where Björndalen finished fifth in the opening distance of cross-country skiing in the 30 km combined start. After that, he swept the table in his bread category by winning all four gold medals in the division.
Björndalen also competed twice in the 15 km time trial of the World Cross Country Championships, in Oberstdorf in 2005 and two years later in Sapporo. Björndalen’s best World Cup result was the 11th place in Oberstdorf, while biathlon colleague Berger won the Sapporo weather lottery and was fourth in Oberstdorf.
However, in the cross-country skiing world cup, Björndalen is the more successful side of the two thanks to the competition victory in November 2006 and the two second places seen at the end of 2001.
Kristiansen estimates that you would see a similar performance in the freestyle competitions from Böl if he invested in cross-country skiing.
– Bö would definitely be a prize runner-up.
Skiing speed in glory on the World Cup tracks
Norway’s men’s dominance in this season’s World Cup is told by the fact that there have been at least two Norwegians on the podium in 13 of the 14 individual competitions. In addition to six double victories, the team has brought four triple victories.
According to Kristiansen, continuity plays a significant role in the results: the season is already the seventh for him and Siegfried Mazet, who is responsible for shooting, at the helm of the national team.
– The athletes know our way of working, and the same the other way around. If I want to file technical issues in skiing and I say so, the athletes immediately understand what I mean. The same goes for Siegfried. In this case, the energy is directed only to the right things.
More gray hairs for the competitors means that the even higher skiing speed of the Norwegians gets its rights, especially in Oberhof’s terrain, which has a demanding track profile.
When Oberhof organized the World Championships for the last time in 2004, only one of the 12 men’s individual medals went to an athlete who was not among the eight fastest in the World Cup for his skiing speed.
For example, Björndalen achieved bronze in the pursuit despite six misses, and Berger won silver in the joint start with five misses, although in both races the other top five survived the competition with a maximum of two penalty rounds.
If the opponents do not succeed significantly better than Bö at the shooting location, the aforementioned ratio of fines plays strongly in Bö’s pocket.
Kristiansen estimates that Bö has succeeded with his skiing speed in creating pressure on his opponents similar to that on Martin Fourcad in the 2019–2020 season. At that time, Bö won the overall World Cup by two points over Fourcade, despite missing four races, all of which Fourcade won.
– Martin was excellent at the shooting range when Johannes was not in the competitions, but he fought as soon as Johannes returned. Martin knew that in order to win he always had to ski to the max. Because of that, he could ski a bit too hard, which resulted in missed shots at the shooting range. That in turn increased the stress, and the cycle was complete.
– The French might be wrestling with the same thing right now, Kristiansen says and refers to the Norwegians who were challenged in recent years but were in trouble this season Emilien to Jacquelin and Quentin Fillon to Maillet.
The Norwegian coach still believes that his countrymen’s World Cup contenders will come from familiar addresses.
– I believe that at least Jacquelin will raise her level. The Swedes are certainly also strong, says Kristiansen, referring to Ponsiluoma and to Sebastian Samuelsson.