Justine Braisaz-Bouchet crowned Olympic biathlon champion on the mass-start – Liberation

At 25, the French offered her first Olympic title for the last race of her Games. This is the fourteenth medal for the tricolor delegation, the fifth in gold.

This mass start (group start) was the last chance for Justine Braisaz-Bouchet, Julia Simon and Anaïs Bescond to shine solo. After several mixed races, the three attacked this revanchist mass-start on the Zhangjiakou launch pad.

The first cited did more than take her revenge: Justine Braisaz-Bouchet thwarted still complicated weather conditions to afford her first Olympic title, ahead of the two Norwegian stars, Tiril Eckhoff and Marte Olsbu Roeiseland, who gleaned a fifth in the process. historic medal at these Games, including three in gold.

This Friday morning, the biathlete from Albertville started her race badly, with three penalty rounds inflicted on her two lying shots. But while all the competitors, buffeted by the wind, had problems for the first standing shot, she blanked all her targets to go out on top tied with Roeiseland. Faster on skis, Justine Braisaz-Bouchet widened a gap of fifteen seconds over her pursuers, and the only fault on her last shot was inconsequential, since her rivals also visited the penalty ring. The Frenchwoman was able to cross the finish line with the blue-white-red flag in hand, and afford her first gold medal in a major championship. His fourth career win at 25.

“I said to myself before the race that it was my second Olympics, no matter what happened, I was just happy to be there and I was very lucky, says the native of Albertville at the end of her race. I was impatient to do this mass-start but I had no goal of results, I just had the ambition to do my race. During the race, I was very calm, I wanted to concentrate on what I was doing, I was serene. The 7th in the world ranking, already bronze medalist in Pyeongchang in the relay, becomes the second French titled in individual, sixteen years after Florence Baverel-Robert at the Turin Games and the first Tricolor to scratch a medal on the mass-start since the appearance of the event on the Olympic scene in 2006. Justine Braisaz-Bouchet brings a fourteenth medal to the tricolor delegation, the 7th arrival of the biathlon.

Update : at 10:32 a.m., with Justine Braisaz-Bouchet’s reaction after the race.