The team's goal for the 2024/2025 season is to finish in the top 10 of the Nations Cup, Torgersen said as the sport's top international competitors prepare to return to action in late November.
Achieving this goal would enable Poland to field five biathletes at the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, he explained.
He told Poland’s PAP news agency that he was satisfied with the work done by the Polish team in the preparatory period.
"I am pleased with the progress the athletes have made over the past two years. This shows that our training plan is effective and producing results," said Torgersen, who took over as head coach for the Polish women’s biathlon team in 2022 to replace German Michael Greis.
"From the start, the plan was to gradually increase the workload each year without making drastic changes," he added.
Torgersen has named Kamila Żuk, Anna Mąka, Joanna Jakieła, Kamila Cichoń, Daria Gembicka and Natalia Sidorowicz for the final preparations leading up to the World Cup.
Żuk, a two-time world junior champion and a leading Polish biathlete, sustained a serious ankle injury at a training camp in Italy last August.
“She has undergone three surgeries but is now fit enough to participate in most training sessions,” Torgersen said.
Meanwhile, Monika Hojnisz-Staręga, a 2013 world championship bronze medalist and one of Poland’s top biathletes, is gearing up to return to international competition after a two-year maternity break.
She is setting her sights on the world championships in Lenzerheide, Switzerland in February, the PAP news agency reported.
Poland's Monika Hojnisz-Staręga in action during the women's 15km individual race at the IBU Biathlon World Championships in Antholz/Anterselva, Italy, Feb. 18, 2020. Photo: PAP/EPA/ANDREA SOLERO
The Polish team finished 10th in last season’s overall World Cup standings, known as the Nations Cup.
This season opens on November 30 in Kontiolahti, Finland, with a series of competitions scheduled through December 8.
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Source: PAP