The 10-leg World Cup season is scheduled to start on Tuesday November 29 with the opening event due to take place in Kontiolahti, Finland, and run until December 4.

As part of announcing its planned competition schedule for the 2022-2023 season, the IBU and its stakeholders agreed to a Tuesday start for the first event in a bid to reduce clashes with the FIFA World Cup, set to be held in Qatar between November 21 and December 18.

According to the schedule, European countries are due to host every World Cup leg, as well as seven IBU Cup rounds and the World Championships.

Oberhof is currently scheduled to hold the World Championships from February 6 to 19 2023, which is due to run alongside the seventh World Cup leg, scheduled for February 8.

The World Cup series is scheduled to end in Oslo’s skiing mountain of Holmenkollen in Norway, in an event due to run from March 16 to 19.

Other World Cup legs are set to be staged in Austria, France, Slovenia, Italy, Czech Republic and Sweden.

European countries also dominate the hosting rights of the IBU Cup, the second-tier circuit, with the first round of the season set to run from November 24 to 27 in Sjusjøen in Norway.

Events in Sweden, Italy, Slovakia, Germany, Switzerland and Austria are anticipated to follow with the Canadian town of Canmore set to host the eighth and nine legs.

The eighth leg is expected to be staged between February 23 and 26, with the final leg due to be held from March 1 to 4.

The IBU Junior Cup is also set to be heavily hosted in Europe with Kazakhstan the only country from outside the continent set to stage an event as part of the circuit.

Italy’s Martell-Val Martello is scheduled to open the five-leg competition between December 6 and 11 and Shchuchinsk, a city in northern-central Kazakhstan, is planned to host the fifth leg, which is set to run alongside the Junior and Youth World Championships, scheduled from March 4 to 12.

In addition, Austria, Estonia and Latvia have been awarded with the rights to host a leg each.

Despite China hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, no IBU events are currently due to be held in the country as part of next season's schedule.

Russia and Belarus were not given any events following the suspension of the two country’s National Federations for bringing the sport into "disrepute."

The Russian Biathlon Union had been a member of the IBU since it was handed a provisional membership in 2017.

Belarus was stripped of hosting an IBU World Cup event last month after protests erupted against its President, Alexander Lukashenko.

The re-election of Lukashenko caused the Belarusian Government to crackdown on demonstrations, resulting in athletes being jailed and allegedly tortured for their involvement.

The IBU also sanctioned numerous National Federations for possessing waxes containing perfluorooctanoic acid above the threshold allowed under the IBU event and competition rules for the 2021-2022 season.

South Korea, Czech Republic, Belarus and Finland were issued a fine for this violation in the Junior Cup while Poland, Germany and Japan suffered a similar punishment for a minor offence in the IBU Cup.