The German biathletes have to continue to wait for their first podium place in the new season. On Wednesday (December 3rd, 2025) Philipp Horn was closest. He made it into the top ten and was happy about one “great start to the season”. From a German perspective, at least at the shooting range things went better this time than for the women the day before. However, the race became a Scandinavian festival at the front.
The Norwegian Johan-Olav Botn, who celebrated his first World Cup victory at the age of 26, secured victory in the long 20-kilometer race with four shooting stages in Östersund, Sweden.
As one of only three ski hunters with zero errors, he clearly prevailed against his fellow countryman Martin Uldal, who was also error-free, 57.7 seconds behind. Third place went to local hero Sebastian Samuelsson (1 penalty minute/+1:00.0 minutes). Of the top six places, four went to Norway and two to Sweden.
Horn is happy about a “great start to the season”
Horn ended up in eighth place with two penalty minutes, 2:36.1 minutes behind, making him the second best non-Scandinavian. The Thuringian also had the third-best running time in the field after Botn and Samuelsson. Philipp Nawrath (2/+3:12.7 min) and Justus Strelow (2/+3:19.4 min) in 13th and 14th also made it into the top 15.
“I’m very happy with the shooting. 90 percent was my minimum target for today and I’m happy to have achieved that. Top eight is a fantastic start to the season. The race was a lot of fun, I felt good and managed it extremely well. I was able to really accelerate again in the last lap.”explained Horn after the race, which had shown “That I can keep up with the really fast guys.”
Simon Kaiser (4/+5:18.4 min), Danilo Riethmüller (3/+5:23.7 min) and Lucas Fratzscher (4/+5:33.8 min) ended up in positions 35, 40 and 46 in the middle of the table with too many penalty minutes.
Horn initially takes the lead
Horn was the first of the six athletes from the German Ski Association (DSV) to start the race with start number 18 and, despite two mistakes when crossing the finish line, was initially in first place with a clear lead. He was only ousted by Jesper Nelin from Sweden, who finished 40th out of 103 athletes in the individual event. Nelin had received one penalty minute less and was 17.4 seconds faster than Horn. A short time later, Sturla Holm Laegreid also pushed past.
Like Horn, Strelow made two mistakes and, as expected, lost additional time on the cross-country ski trail. He was over 40 seconds behind his teammate. A little later, Nawrath was just ahead of the Saxons. The 32-year-old veteran in the German team also missed two attempts, but based on his running performance he would not have been able to intervene in the fight for the podium.
He wasn’t completely satisfied, but not really dissatisfied with the start either. “It was a difficult start. I made a few careless mistakes on the shooting range, which annoyed me a bit. I was then able to salvage it a little with the top 15 result. That’s a solid result.”said Nawrath.