With the World Championships around the corner, it’s worth looking at the best-performing athletes after Christmas again. I think it’s fair to assume that the majority of medal winners will come from in-form athletes going into the championship, although history tells us there are a handful of surprises usually. Below, I listed the best biathletes (ranked by Overall Performance Scores) for the January races – full results for the entire field here: men & women.
Note: Only athletes with at least 3 races in January are included. The scores are standard scores (or z-scores), indicating how many standard deviations (SD) an athlete is back from the World Cup mean (negative values indicate performances better than the mean). The Total Performance Score is calculated by approximating the importance of skiing, hit rate and shooting pace using the method of least squares (for more details, see here and here), and then weighting each z-score value accordingly.
Men
World Cup leader Johannes Thingnes Bø tops the ranking unsurprisingly; he won 3 out of 6 races after Christmas and set the top ski time in 5 of them. However, his overall score is down from last season, because his non-team shooting percentage is 6.3% lower. Sturla Holm Lægreid‘s hit rate also declined slightly in January, but it still stands at an incredible 92.9%, giving him 4 wins this season. Even though Lukas Hofer failed to make a single podium so far, he has been very consistent; the fourth-fastest skier overall and top 6 in all but one of the races in trimester 2.
Quentin Fillon Maillet‘s average race rank wouldn’t tell you (forgetting a penalty loop in Oberhof is to blame for that), but he has been best of the rest behind the Norwegians this season (4 podiums in total, including 2 in the last 2 races in Antholz). Tarjei Bø is currently at his best ski speed since 2010–11 (third-fastest overall), but he is also the slowest shooter in the top 10. Arnd Peiffer‘s hit rate of 90.0% this winter is a tied career-best for him, Johannes Dale is the field’s second-fastest skier (both for the season and January-only).
The other two race winners, Alexander Loginov and Sebastian Samuelsson, come to Pokljuka with some question marks. Reigning sprint world champion Loginov only had one top 6 result all season, his win in Antholz, while Samuelsson’s ski form decline Dec. to Jan. is the worst of the men’s field. The other multiple podium finishers this winter are: Émilien Jacquelin, Martin Ponsiluoma and Fabien Claude (who also saw a big decline in January).
Top 50 Overall performance scores (z-Scores) | Non-Team events January 2021
Women
Lisa Theresa Hauser won most World Cup points in January, something few would have predicted before Christmas. Being both accurate (93.0%) and fast (26.2s) makes her the most efficient shot on the women’s side at the moment. Combined with her new-found top10 ski speed, she is a threat in all events. Tiril Eckhoff followed her trajectory from last season almost exactly: four incredible World Cups in a row, followed by a considerable dip in form. Eckhoff has most wins (6) and podiums (8), but will her disappointing showing in Antholz last year be on her mind?
World Cup leader Marte Olsbu Røiseland has made only one podium in trimester 2, however, she remains virtually tied with Eckhoff as the field’s top skier. Hanna Öberg managed two wins and the second-most podiums this winter (7). Julia Simon, who alongside Öberg is the fastest shooter, won two of the last 4 races, still, she is arguably the least consistent (last four positions: 59-1-62-1). Monika Hojnisz-Staręga comes 5th, but she only did 3 races (2 of them sprints), which inflates her ski speed for this ranking. Nonetheless, she is much improved, winning the European Championship Individual recently.
Dorothea Wierer‘s ski speed improved after Christmas (still off her pace from the last two seasons); in contrast, Franziska Preuß is skiing faster than ever. Anaïs Chevalier-Bouchet‘s statistics stand out in particular: her hit rate is roughly 6% lower than in any of her previous five seasons, at the same time she currently skies roughly 1.5% faster than ever before. The two other multiple podium finishers, Dzinara Alimbekava and Elvira Öberg, have both been struggling in January (no top 6 result).
Top 50 Overall performance scores (z-Scores) | Non-Team events January 2021