Biathlon | Cross-country skiing: the French national police force aims for a clean sweep at the 2026 Olympics
In addition to the army, the customs service and the gendarmerie, the national police force has also recently acquired a range of athletes specialising in winter sports and representing the institution. Under the aegis of Louis Laugier, the Director General of the French National Police, Mission Sport, which was set up in 2022, has enabled a number of high-level sportsmen and women to benefit from an employment contract to support their careers.
Among others, biathlete Jeanne Richard and cross-country runners Théo Schely, then Mathis Desloges and Rémi Bourdin this year, have joined the ranks of this winter team , which now comprises thirteen athletes in total.
When I joined, there were only six of us,” Théo Schely, who joined the National Police team last season, tells Nordic Magazine. Now there are thirteen. It’s good that they’re putting the emphasis on winter sports, especially by bringing in the two promising youngsters [Mathis Desloges and Rémi Bourdin, editor’s note]. I’m happy, I feel good here. After all, it’s very different. We come from a mountain environment and we’re a little less familiar with the national police force. So I got to know them and it was really interesting. You get to know a whole environment, and I was expecting something fairly basic, but in fact it’s not. There are lots of different jobs, lots of different facets. And when you’re in the operational reserve, you’re mixed in with civilians and there are lots of really interesting people from all walks of life. I think it’s wonderful when people give up a bit of their time to help their country.
“We are aiming for 100% participation among our athletes by 2026”.
Other sports represented include Camille Cerutti, Léo Anguenot (alpine skiing), Camille Cabrol (mogul skiing), Marielle Berger-Sabbatel, Melvin Tchiknavorian (ski cross) and Oscar Burnham (para alpine skiing), all of whom will be in Paris on Friday. Paco Rassat (alpine skiing), Hyacinte Deleplace (para-alpine skiing) and Timothy Loubineaud (speed skating) are the three other athletes who complete this squad with major ambitions for the Milan/Cortina 2026 Games.
“We’re aiming for 100% participation among our athletes in 2026,” says Jean-François Briand, commander and head of the national police force’s high-level centre. After the success of the Paris 2024 Games, where 25 of the 42 athletes involved were selected for a total of 10 medals, hopes are high for 2026, with the French Alps 2030 in the offing.
“The results achieved during the Olympic and Paralympic Games help us to maintain these funds for our athletes. We want to expand our winter team for the 2030 Winter Games, as we did for Paris 2024,” explains Rachel Costard, Commissaire Général and Head of Mission Sport, whose very first team was set up in 2023.
A minimum of 50 athletes
It was a beautiful sunny day in the eighth arrondissement of Paris when all these athletes were received at the headquarters of the French National Police. This was a first for the winter team, who had never had the opportunity to visit the capital before.
“At least you can see what’s going on. I knew the people who run Mission Sport well, but it’s true that it’s good to see where they work too. Up until now, they’d come to meet us in our own environment, so now we’ve been able to see their premises too. It takes us out of our comfort zone too, because we’re surrounded by our mountains, the Aravis, they’re wide open spaces. So it was interesting to come to Paris for that reason too”, Théo Schely continues.
Without necessarily modelling itself on the arrangements put in place by the military in particular, the national police force has adopted a system of one-year contracts renewable for up to six years, unless the athlete passes a competitive examination to move up the ranks. Athletes are thus mobilised by the institution for up to 25 days a year to meet their contractual obligations.
“It means a lot to me, because it represents professional status and it’s a huge change for all athletes. To realise that, for years, we’ve been doing these sports more or less in our own corner and in the shadows, and to have this stability means that we don’t have to ask ourselves these questions on a daily basis. It’s also an honour to be part of this group of athletes who have won so many medals and who are succeeding everywhere. I also realise that we have a lot of common values, which is very enriching from a personal point of view”, explains Mathis Desloges, who is part of this brand new class of 2025.
There are 55 athletes representing the national police force this year, including summer and winter. And this figure cannot fall below 50, as Rachel Costard has confirmed, following the signing of a framework agreement with the National Sports Agency in October 2022. Good news for these top-level athletes.
A day that strengthened the ties between the athletes and their employer
“I’ve been very well integrated from the start, from my reserve training to now. There’s a good team spirit and we’ve learned a lot ,” says Jeanne Richard, the only biathlete in the squad since Caroline Colombo retired. The national police force means a lot to me because, first of all, it’s incredibly open-minded, I’d say. And it’s a great opportunity to be able to do sport and at the same time have the security that can lead to other opportunities later on. It’s really great for that.
While Jean-François Briand believes that he has “established a special relationship with the French Ski Federation” and that it is “important to work with each other”, the French national police force is attracting more and more athletes each year. These athletes, selected on the basis of applications submitted by the federations and the National Sports Agency, are consulted by the institution’s recruitment managers, who then decide on the number of athletes who will join their ranks, depending on the budget. The newcomers then have a training course to pass before being officially presented under contract.
“We were very quickly made to feel welcome during the training session, and everything went very well. There were five of us in Grenoble in mid-April and I was also lucky enough to do it with Rémi [Bourdin, who wasn’t in Paris on Friday, editor’s note], so it was a bonus to be able to get started with someone you know. I didn’t know anything about it and it was really interesting to be starting from scratch. It was a real plus because, up until now, we’d only done skiing”, says the thirteenth-placed rider in the last overall rankings of the cross-country skiing World Cup, bursting into laughter.
After a tour of the facilities, speeches, a press conference and photo opportunities in the afternoon, the athletes rounded off the day with a meeting with the Director General of the French National Police, Louis Laugier. It was an intense day, but one that further strengthened the ties between the athletes and their employer.
- Jeanne Richard joins the National Police team
- Rémi Bourdin and Mathis Desloges join the National Police team
- Théo Schely joins the National Police team
- Caroline Colombo on her arrival at the French National Police: “I’ve got 25 days to get up to speed”.
- “I was able to talk to the snipers”: Caroline Colombo recounts her day with the RAID
