The World Cup calendar for the next biathlon season is set: Oberhof and Ruhpolding are still there, Lenzerheide is appearing in the program for the first time.
As soon as the biathlon season is over, the fans can already look forward to next winter. The International Biathlon Union published the competition calendar for the next three winters on Friday. The big highlights of the next few years are the World Championships in Nove Mesto 2024 and Lenzerheide 2025 as well as the Olympic Games in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo 2026.
This is how the next winter will go
On November 25, the women and men will start the new World Cup season with relay races in Östersund. Then it goes via Hochfilzen to Lenzerheide, where World Cup races are held for the first time. Reason for the premiere in the calendar: The Swiss are the venue for the Biathlon World Cup 2025.
However, Lenzerheide is not unknown in biathlon, because at the beginning of the year the Swiss hosted the European Biathlon Championships, where the German Selina Grotian sensationally won gold in the pursuit. In 2020/21 the Youth and Junior World Championships also took place there.
Season highlight in Nove Mesto
In January, the Biathlon World Cup will stop in Germany. From January 4th to 7th, the athletes will return to the location of this year’s World Championships, Oberhof. From there it goes directly to Ruhpolding. The World Cups in Germany will remain an integral part of the Biathlon World Cup until at least 2026.
The highlight of the coming winter will be the World Championships in Nove Mesto. In the Czech Republic, the biathletes will fight for gold, silver and bronze in all disciplines from February 7th to 18th.
Extraordinary finale
Unlike 2025 and 2026, the biathlon season will not end in Oslo next winter. Instead, the biathletes travel to North America in March. A World Cup stop in Soldier Hollow (USA) and a weekend in Canmore (Canada) form the season finale. No more trips to North America are planned for the following two winters.
There are no big surprises in the future planning of the International Biathlon Union. The French biathlon location Le Grand Bornand is missing from the program next year, but will be part of the World Cup calendar again in 2024/25 and 2025/26. Otherwise, the classic World Cup stops for biathletes such as Antholz, Nove Mesto, Hochfilzen and the German locations will remain and will also shape the competition calendar in the coming winters.