Sturla Holm Lægreid

Sturla Holm Lægreid (born 20 February 1997) is a Norwegian biathlete. In the season opener of the 2020–2021 season, he earned his first World Cup win at the 20 km Individual. Six-time Biathlon World Champion and 2022 Olympic Champion in the relay.

Career

Early years and first World Cup appearances (until 2020)

Sturla Holm Lægreid grew up in the municipality of Bærum near Oslo as the second of three children (with an older brother and a younger sister) in a sports-oriented family. He was introduced to various sports early in life: alongside skiing, he trained in sports such as football, taekwondo, and bandy. At the age of 16, he focused on biathlon and attended the WANG Sports Gymnasium in Oslo for three years. During this time, he participated in the 2015 European Youth Olympic Winter Festival in Bürserberg, Vorarlberg, where he won silver in the pursuit behind Sebastian Samuelsson and gold in the mixed relay alongside Mathea Tofte, Karoline Erdal, and Aleksander Fjeld Andersen.

After achieving success in national junior competitions, Holm Lægreid was included in Norway's team for the Biathlon Junior World Championships 2018 in Otepää at the age of 21. There, he won silver in the individual race and gold in the relay alongside Sivert Guttorm Bakken, Johannes Dale-Skjevdal, and Endre Strømsheim. Shortly afterward, he contracted mononucleosis, which restricted his training for eight months and caused him to miss most of the 2018/19 season. During this time, he restructured his shooting position based on video analysis of Martin Fourcade and worked on his rifle. However, upon returning to Norwegian Cup events at the end of 2019, he faced significant difficulties at the shooting range and subsequently began mental training and meditation. In February 2020, he won a mass start event at the IBU Cup in Martell. This performance earned him a nomination for the 2020 Biathlon European Championships in Minsk, where he secured a silver medal in the pursuit behind Sergey Bocharnikov from Belarus. Toward the season's end, Lægreid made his first four World Cup appearances in Nové Město na Moravě and Kontiolahti, hitting 59 of 60 shots and finishing between tenth and fifteenth place in all four races.

Rapid rise to the world elite (since 2020)

In summer 2020, the Norwegian Biathlon Association included Holm Lægreid in its six-member elite national team. At the first World Cup of the new season in Kontiolahti, he surprisingly won the season-opening 20 km individual race with clean shooting during just his fifth start in the series, taking the yellow bib as overall leader. Over the season, Holm Lægreid achieved six more individual victories and finished second in the overall standings behind teammate Johannes Thingnes Bø. He won the discipline standings in both the individual and pursuit events, as well as the newly introduced U25 classification. At the 2021 Biathlon World Championships in Pokljuka, he claimed four gold medals: in the individual, mass start, men's relay, and mixed relay, where he was the starting skier in each race. His strength lay particularly at the shooting range, hitting 97% of his targets in the World Championship individual racesSaskia Aleythe
''Der König meditiert''
on sueddeutsche.de. 22 February 2021. Accessed 23 October 2022. and more than 92% throughout the season. He was the second-best shooter of the winter after Simon Eder. Holm Lægreid cited his lack of sprinting ability as his main weakness.

In the 2021/22 Olympic season, Holm Lægreid won two individual and four relay World Cup races. He once again placed second in the overall standings, this time behind Quentin Fillon Maillet. At the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, he displayed shooting weaknesses and did not win any individual medals. In the men's relay, he was responsible for Norway's only penalty loop as the starting skier and handed over in seventh place to Tarjei Bø. The relay, which also included Johannes Thingnes Bø and Vetle Sjåstad Christiansen, ultimately won the race, earning Holm Lægreid an Olympic gold medal. In the 2022/23 season, Holm Lægreid placed second in the overall standings for the third consecutive time, again behind Johannes Thingnes Bø, who won 16 of the 21 season races. Holm Lægreid achieved one victory, in the pursuit in Annecy/Le Grand-Bornand under challenging conditions. At the 2023 Biathlon World Championships, Holm Lægreid and Thingnes Bø became World Champions in the mixed relay and won silver in the men's relay. Holm Lægreid also won silver in the pursuit and the 20 km individual race and bronze in the sprint, each time behind Thingnes Bø. Late in the season, Holm Lægreid missed some competitions due to a COVID-19 infection.

At the start of the 2023–24 Biathlon World Cup season, Holm Lægreid struggled for form during the Östersund races and repeatedly missed the top ten. He returned to the podium in subsequent competitions. During the Lenzerheide World Cup in December 2023, Holm Lægreid accidentally fired a shot in the team accommodation during dry-fire practice, having mistakenly loaded a full magazine instead of an empty one. The shot hit a stool. For violating the safety rules of the world governing body, he was disqualified from the mass start race in Lenzerheide.

At the World Championships in Nové Město on 10 February 2024, he became the world champion in the sprint, ahead of Johannes Thingnes Bø. In December 2024, together with Karoline Offigstad Knotten, he won the World Team Challenge in both the mass start and the pursuit, which took place at the Veltins-Arena in Gelsenkirchen.https://www.rnd.de/sport/biathlon-auf-schalke-bei-world-team-challenge-kein-heimsieg-aber-podestplaetze-2GL4ZBBA4JAIPDEYIDICQNCLN4.html

Biathlon results

All results are sourced from the International Biathlon Union.

Olympic Games

''1 medal (1 gold)''

World Championships

''14 medals (7 gold, 6 silver, 1 bronze)''

:''*During Olympic seasons competitions are only held for those events not included in the Olympic program.''
:''**The single mixed relay was added as an event in 2019.''

World Cup

*Standings through 23 March 2025
† – season in progress

;Individual victories
''16 victories (4 In, 3 Sp, 7 Pu, 2 Ms)''

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Holm Laegreid, Sturla
Norwegian male biathletes
1997 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Bærum
Biathletes from Akershus
Biathlon World Championships medalists
Biathletes at the 2022 Winter Olympics
Olympic biathletes for Norway
Medalists at the 2022 Winter Olympics
Olympic medalists in biathlon
Olympic gold medalists for Norway
21st-century Norwegian sportsmen