This set contains the top 74 men and 72 women who were eligible to receive cards, from the respective World Cup standings, with one man and one woman included in that number for a top ten finish in a World Championship race. Each biathlete has two cards - one for time trial races, and one for head-to-head races.
 
There were first-time World Cup champions in Sturla Holm Laegreid of Norway for men, and Franziska Preuss of Germany for women. They both beat the top race winners in each gender - in Johannes Thingnes Boe of Norway for men (4 to 3), and Lou Jeanmonnot of France for women (8 to 4).
 
Boe did claim two more individual golds in the World Championship - which was his 11th and 12th in his career - while there were debut ones for fellow Norwegian Endre Stroemsheim and Frenchman Eric Perrot.
 
The women's World golds went one each to Preuss - winning her first individual gold, French pair Justine Braisaz-Bouchet and Julia Simon, and Elvira Oeberg of Sweden, who also won her first gold.