The Swede Elvira Öberg has long been one of the best biathletes in the world. But the 24-year-old doesn’t want to be satisfied with that. In order to be even more successful in the coming World Cup season, she and her team took special measures in the summer.
The cards in the 2023/24 Biathlon World Cup season are being reshuffled. This is particularly true for the women’s competition, which has lost three of the biggest and most successful athletes: Denise Herrmann-Wick, Marte Olsbu Røiseland and Tiril Eckhoff. Elvira Öberg wants to use this to her advantage. The Swede is starting the season as one of the big favorites and is high on all experts’ lists.
In order to live up to her role as favorite, Öberg has specifically worked on her weak points over the past few months. The shooting attack was particularly in focus. Your goal: to significantly shorten the time at the shooting range.
Biathlon star has “become faster” at the shooting range
“We realized that there was time to be gained,” Öberg reported in an interview with the TV station “SVT”. Reducing their shooting time was a “clear goal” during the summer months: “We worked on it in every session.”
According to Öberg, this work also paid off. “Yes, I have become faster,” she reported, without giving any specific numbers. However, she couldn’t yet say whether this would ultimately pay off in competition, because: “It’s one thing to shoot in training, it’s a completely different thing to shoot in the race. We’ll see.”
Swedish biathlon stars rely on altitude training camps
In addition to her shooting time, the Swede and the team focused on altitude training this summer. Because next season there will be more races than usual at altitude. And because the 2026 Olympic Games will also take place in the thin air of Antholz.
“You can feel it [die Höhe] Not just during training, the altitude affects you at all times. But it gets better every time we train at altitude. This is a process. That’s why it’s so important that we complete these units,” said Öberg about the two Swedish training camps in Lavaze (ITA) and Font Romeu (FRA).