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Two days before the end of the Winter Games, French biathlete Justine Braisaz-Bouchet became, at the age of 25, Olympic champion in the mass-start, Friday in Zhangjiakou, and brings France its 14th medal at the Olympic Games-2022 from Beijing. In the men’s event, Quentin Fillon Maillet did not snag a historic sixth medal, finishing at the foot of the podium (4th). And French skicross disappointed.
A mixed day for French biathlon. The mass-start event delivered its verdict on Friday, February 18, with a gold medal in the women’s category for biathlete Justine Braisaz-Bouchet and a 4e place in the men’s category for Quentin Fillon Maillet – who was in the running for a sixth medal in six races, a performance that could have marked the history of the Winter Games.
Justine Braisaz-Bouchet, 25, won at the extremely windy Zhangjiakou venue and brought France her 14e medal at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
With this seventh medal in China, French biathlon achieves its best total, ahead of the six medals in Vancouver in 2010, pulled by the locomotive Quentin Fillon Maillet.
France is also only one medal away from its record at the Winter Games in Sochi and Pyeongchang (15 medals).
Justine Braisaz-Bouchet makes the difference in standing shooting
Justine Braisaz-Bouchet beat the Norwegians Tiril Eckhoff and Marte Olsbu Roeiseland. Appearing on the Olympic program in 2006 in Turin, the mass-start had not succeeded so far for the French, since Braisaz-Bouchet is the first to get on the podium, directly on the top step.
The biathlete from Albertville started her race badly, with three penalty laps on her two shots lying down. 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, she widened a gap of about fifteen seconds on her pursuers, and the only fault on her last shot was inconsequential, since her rivals also visited the penalty ring. She was able to cross the finish line with the blue-white-red flag in hand and win her first gold medal in a major championship.
Justine Braisaz-Bouchet had missed her first races, finishing only 40e individual (15 km) and 48e of the sprint. Not aligned for the inaugural mixed relay (Julia Simon and Anaïs Chevalier-Bouchet had been preferred to her), she had given up trying to pursue.
Quentin Fillon Maillet narrowly misses the Grand Slam
The men’s mass-start was dominated from start to finish by Norwegian biathlete Johannes Boe, who logically won his fourth Olympic title at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. The French Quentin Fillon Maillet, meanwhile, finished at the foot of the podium (4e) when he could make history by becoming the first athlete, of all nationalities, to win six medals during the Winter Games.
“QFM” was, however, close to winning a medal during this mass-start event. After a relatively controlled first part of the race, the Jura player was in second place, synonymous with the silver medal, before tackling the last standing shooting session – in which he usually excels.
But he only hit two out of five targets, costing him three penalty rounds and a looming sixth medal. He was finally overtaken by Sweden’s Ponsiluoma (2e) and the Norwegian Christiansen (3e).
However, the Frenchman’s record in these Games remains glorious: five medals won (two in gold, three in silver), which makes him the 10e athlete to win five medals in the same edition of the Winter Games, all nationalities combined, and the third Frenchman, Summer and Winter Games combined.
Disappointment in ski cross for France
Four Frenchmen engaged in skicross, and none in the final. The chances of a tricolor medal in this discipline were stopped dead before the last round of the event: Terence Tchiknavorian and Jean-Frédéric Chapuis were out of the race in the round of 16, Bastien Midol was taken out in the quarters and François Place eliminated in the semi-finals.
A disappointing record, especially since the French had achieved the triple at the Sochi Olympics in 2014: Jean-Frédéric Chapuis had then won the gold medal ahead of two of his compatriots, Arnaud Bovolenta and Jonathan Midol.
With AFP
