Martin Ponsiluoma (born September 8, 1995 in Östersund ) is a Swedish biathlete . Ponsiluoma has been competing in the World Cup since 2017 , where he celebrated his first victories with the relay in 2018.
Martin Ponsiluoma started biathlon at the age of 10 in the Tullus SG club , which trains in the Östersund ski stadium . From 2013 to 2016 he took part in several major events in the youth sector: the European Youth Olympic Winter Festival 2013 and three consecutive youth and junior world championships from 2014 to 2016 . As the best results, he finished eighth in the sprint race in 2014 and seventh in the relay in 2015 . At the end of the 2015/16 season , Ponsiluoma started in the IBU Cup for the first time and narrowly missed the points with a 42nd and 49th place in the two sprints. In the 2016/17 season , he regularly took part in IBU Cup races and came in 33rd overall. His best result of the season was a 16th place in the sprint, as well as a 6th and 7th place with the mixed relay. In 2017 he got his first World Cup appearance in Oberhof - the majority of the first team skipped the races to better prepare for the World Cup - and finished 86th in the sprint.
From winter 2017/18 Ponsiluoma was part of the A-team, but initially only received sporadic World Cup appearances. In January 2018, he ran for the first time in a Swedish World Cup relay in Oberhof and won the fog-dominated race as a starting runner with Jesper Nelin , Sebastian Samuelsson and Fredrik Lindström . In the Olympic relay race , in which Sweden won the gold medal, Peppe Femling ran instead of Ponsiluoma in first position; Ponsiluoma also got a job in the Olympic singles in Pyeongchang and was placed in 38th place. Later that season he collected the sprint in Kontiolahti as the 37th first World Cup points, with which he ranked 96th in the overall ranking.
Ponsiluoma improved his results significantly from 2018: In 2018/19 and 2019/20 he achieved the best results in the Swedish men's team - 38th and 33rd respectively in the overall World Cup rankings - together with Sebastian Samuelsson and Jesper Nelin. He placed in the top 20 in several competitions and was on the podium of an individual World Cup race for the first time in December 2018 in the Nové Město sprint after a faultless shooting in third (behind Johannes Thingnes Bø and Alexander Loginow ). With the relay, he triumphed in Hochfilzen for the second time in the World Cup that same month. Together with Emma Nilsson , Mona Brorsson and Sebastian Samuelsson, he won the gold medal in the mixed relay at the 2019 European Championships .
Personal
Martin Ponsiluoma's father Jyrki started as a cross-country skier at the Olympic Winter Games in 1992 and took over the position of sporting director at his son Tullus SG's hometown club . Martin Ponsiluoma also took part in cross-country skiing competitions, but unlike his teammates Nelin and Samuelsson, for example, decided early on to pursue a biathlon career, as he regards the discipline as more exciting and less predictable than cross-country skiing.
Sweden
Oberhof
Hochfilzen
| Pyeongchang
Antholz
Presque Isle
Minsk
Cheile Grădiştei
