No top ten placement and only two athletes in the top 30: The first individual of the biathlon winter in Östersund caused long faces among the German women. The overall World Cup winner from the previous season is at a loss and the sports director also finds little positive.
There she stood in the finish area and didn’t really know what the problem was. “It was the worst single in a long time”said Franziska Preuß bluntly after the long 15-kilometer race in the center of Sweden on Tuesday evening (December 2nd, 2025). But she couldn’t really explain why it went the way it did. She had received four errors and therefore four penalty minutes and was behind in the middle of the field in the final score. “If you look at the results list and it says 29th place, then that’s just not good enough.”she stated.
Only in the first prone shooting did the 31-year-old from Ruhpolding get a zero. “It may sound stupid, but I realized that I can shoot without making any mistakes, even if I didn’t succeed very often.”said Preuß, who looked for a possible explanation in the tension at the first individual competition of the winter. But their performance was not just due to their shooting performance. Four other athletes – including her teammate Janina Hettich-Walz – also had four or more errors and were still ahead of her. Other ski hunters with one less mistake than Preuß were sometimes over two and a half minutes faster.
Preuß is not yet “top in shape”
Because things weren’t going well on the cross-country ski trail either, Preuß also recognized that: “I’m more insecure about running now because I don’t feel that bad in terms of energy and yet I still gain a lot every lap.” Overall she only had the 22nd best running time. Too bad to have a say at the front.
The preparation was specifically controlled in such a way that it… “not at the end of November top in shape“ is and itself “Increases week after week”but she was still a little perplexed: “I can’t really assess it all.”
Biathlon sports director Felix Bitterling didn’t want to attach too much importance to this one race so early in the season. You can’t now “panic”that won’t help anyone. Nevertheless, he also stated: “We don’t need to talk about it for long. It wasn’t a good day for us.”
German biathletes collect penalty minutes
The seven German ski hunters incurred a total of 39 penalty minutes. Vanessa Voigt performed best at the shooting range, missing only three times. Anna Weidel, on the other hand, missed eight of her 20 shots. “The placements are accordingly and in the individual you are somewhere in the middle of nowhere”Bitterling continued.
Bitterling: “Then one mistake led to another”
Even if, according to Bitterling, the conditions at the shooting range are without a doubt “very, very demanding” were, these are catastrophic numbers: “Enough other nations have shown us how to do it in such difficult conditions. We couldn’t do that today.” He had the impression that his athletes were unsettled by early missed shots: “Then one mistake led to another.”
But it is still far too early to talk badly about everything in the Olympic winter. Bitterling also found this to be the case “Positive” on this day, on which we had imagined more as a team. Hettich-Walz would have achieved almost half the Olympic standard with one fewer mistake in the first individual World Cup after her maternity leave. Voigt simply left too much time during the last shooting. He praised the youngest member of the German team, Julia Tannheimer “great runtime”.
Preuß starts the sprint with a fresh head
Now it’s about finding your usual strength. And anyone who has experienced Preuß over the years knows that she doesn’t look for excuses and usually provides clear analyzes of her races. There is no need to overestimate a bad race after numerous good results. It could have just been a slip-up. The last time she was placed further back in a competition was almost three years ago. In mid-January 2023, he only finished 34th in the Antholz pursuit.
She doesn’t want to be unsettled at all. Preuß and her teammates have until Friday to analyze the individual in detail together with the coaches and technicians. Then the women continue with the sprint. “By then your head will be fresh again”the Bavarian looked ahead. And sports director Bitterling also found: “This is also a new opportunity for us to present ourselves differently again.”