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Author: Anastasiia Zakharevych, Andrii Nikitonok

Team Ukraine's Biathlon Squad Had Its Best Junior IBU Cup Season Ever: What the Numbers Show

Team Ukraine's Biathlon Squad Had Its Best Junior IBU Cup Season Ever: What the Numbers Show
Polina Putsko, Tetiana Tarasiuk, and Iryna Shevchenko. Photo: Ukrainian Biathlon Federation

Ahead of the Junior European and World Championships, Ukraine leads the Nations Cup.

Team Ukraine's biathlon squad has wrapped up its 2025/26 Junior IBU Cup season. The championship's final races were the mass starts, held January 17 in Madona.

Across the three stages in Switzerland, Italy, and Latvia, Team Ukraine won six medals — the best result in the team's history at the Junior IBU Cup level. On top of that, in the Nations Cup, the women's team took first place in the standings, while the men's team sat in the top four, nine points behind Slovenia.

How Ukraine's final races at the 2025/26 Junior IBU Cup went, and where its athletes stand in the overall rankings heading into the European and World Championships — read on in this DeTalks article.

How the Final Mass Start 60 Races Went at the Junior IBU Cup Stage in Madona

Junior Men

  • At the race's midpoint, Taras Tarasiuk was the top-placed Ukrainian — shooting clean, he left the range in second. Oleksandr Bilanenko, with two misses, was sixth, and Ivan Steblyna, with one miss, was ninth.
  • At the third stage, Oleksandr Bilanenko added one more miss but moved up to second place, while Taras Tarasiuk and Ivan Steblyna each missed two targets, dropping to fourth and 18th, respectively.
  • After the final stage, Oleksandr Bilanenko, with one more miss, left the range in fourth. But the biathlete finished eighth, while Tarasiuk finished 16th.
Oleksandr Bilanenko. Photo: National Olympic Committee of Ukraine
Oleksandr Bilanenko. Photo: National Olympic Committee of Ukraine

Junior Women

  • In the girls' mass start, four Ukrainians made the top 10, with Polina Putsko, Tetiana Tarasiuk, and Iryna Shevchenko taking fourth through sixth place, all in the flower ceremony.
  • Putsko and Shevchenko shot best, with just two misses each. For Polina, this also marked her best result of the season in races with four firing stages.
Photo: Ukrainian Biathlon Federation
Photo: Ukrainian Biathlon Federation

All of Team Ukraine's Medals Across the Three Junior IBU Cup Stages

All six of Team Ukraine's medals this season came from the women's team. Tetiana Tarasiuk and Kseniia Prykhodko emerged as the squad's multi-medalists, winning three and two medals, respectively, beyond the team silver.

  • Goms. Tetiana Tarasiuk — shared silver in the sprint.
  • Goms. Kseniia Prykhodko — bronze in the Mass Start 60.
  • Val Martello. Team Ukraine's hard-fought silver in the relay.
  • Madona. Tetiana Tarasiuk — bronze in the sprint.
  • Madona. Tetiana Tarasiuk and Kseniia Prykhodko — a double podium in the sprint.

As a result, the women's team took first place in the Nations Cup, finishing 176 points ahead of France, and six Ukrainian women made the top 15 of the overall standings.

Overall Junior IBU Cup 2025/26 Standings After the Third Stage (Junior Women)

1. Lou-Anne Dupont Baillet-Bas (France) — 386 points

2. Tetiana Tarasiuk (Ukraine) — 341

3. Manca Kaserman (Slovenia) — 278

...

7. Viktoriia Khvostenko (Ukraine) — 220

10. Iryna Shevchenko (Ukraine) — 199

11. Alina Khmil (Ukraine) — 195

13. Kseniia Prykhodko (Ukraine) — 190

14. Polina Putsko (Ukraine) — 189

23. Valeriia Sheihas (Ukraine) — 134

The situation among the junior men is a bit tougher, but still fairly promising — the national team sits among the Nations Cup's top four squads, and the Ukrainians made the flower ceremony five times across the stages in Switzerland, Italy, and Latvia.

Tetiana Tarasiuk. Photo: instagram.com/__tanuha___
Tetiana Tarasiuk. Photo: instagram.com/__tanuha___

Overall Junior IBU Cup 2025/26 Standings After the Madona Stage (Junior Men)

1. Thomas Marchl (Austria) — 513 points

2. Matija Legović (Croatia) — 357

3. David Elias (Czech Republic) — 321

…

8. Taras Tarasiuk (Ukraine) — 237

21. Oleksandr Bilanenko (Ukraine) — 125

30. Ivan Steblyna (Ukraine) — 99

30. Dmytro Kriukov (Ukraine) — 99

66. Kyrylo Kulchytskyi (Ukraine) — 25

That said, the standings in both the Nations Cup and the overall Junior IBU Cup rankings could still shift — beyond the three main championship stages, results from the Junior European and World Championships will also factor in. The continental championship among junior men and women, in particular, kicks off January 21 in Imatra, Finland.

DeTalks is covering Ukrainian athletes' results throughout the 2025/26 Junior IBU Cup season. Follow text coverage in the 'Pulse' section and news on the editorial team's Telegram-channel.

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