Renowned not only for her celerity on the skis, but her impeccable shooting precision, Hanna Öberg is a Swedish biathlete, World Champion, and former Olympian. Her powerful skill set has allowed her to take home an Olympic gold medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics, and become the World Champion at the 2019 Biathlon World Championships on her home snow in Östersund.
Öberg’s skiing career began at age 2, when she reportedly hopped on her first pair of skis. Her father was a biathlete since his days in the army, and created a biathlon club in the city of Piteå when she was 10 years old. Naturally, Öberg attended the club meeting and began developing her skills as a biathlete. She first gained the attention of Swedish media after winning the IBU Female Rookie of the Year Award during her World Cup debut season. Since then, her career has been a strictly uphill ride.
At the Winter Olympics in 2018, Öberg shocked the biathlon world by not missing a single shot at her events, securing two medals at the 2018 Winter Olympics (a gold in the individual category, and a silver in the relay category). While expertise in biathlon usually takes years of maturity and experience, Öberg set the record in the biathlon world for being the youngest female to have won a gold medal and the youngest of any biathlete, male or female, to have won both gold and silver medals during the same Olympic Games. 2019 saw even more success for Öberg. At the 2019 Biathlon World Championships, her perfect aim rewarded her with another gold medal. She is the first female biathlete to win gold at the individual World Championship one year after taking the Olympic individual gold as well. The future for Öberg’s career is looking very bright at this time.
