Biathlon: Les Bleus will attempt to win world university medals in Italy in January 2025
Two years after the French biathletes reaped a fine harvest at the World University Games in Lake Placid (USA), the competition is back on the programme next winter. It will be held in Turin, Italy, in January 2025.
The biathlon events will take place from 14 to 22 January in Pragelato (Italy), with short individual events, sprints, pursuits, mass-starts and a mixed singles relay on the programme. As in 2023, when Axel Garnier, Thibaut Frechard, Anna Blanc and Pauline Machut made the trip across the Atlantic, a French delegation will be sent to the other side of the Alps.
Uncertainty over the number of entrants
Although the competition rules state that each country may enter a maximum of six athletes per gender in each of the individual races, the FFS has not yet defined the number of quotas that will be involved. It has to be said that university competition is far from being a federal priority.
“We have a list of athletes who are eligible because they are studying alongside biathlon. It’s going to be simple: those who want to play in the World University Games can’t go on the other international circuits, Stéphane Bouthiaux, director of the French biathlon teams, explained to Nordic Magazine. It will be their choice, and inevitably it will be athletes who think they don’t have the level to play in the IBU Cup, the Junior Cup or the World Junior Champs.”
It’s the start of the season, and more specifically the first two stages of the French Cup, that should decide the candidates.
The full programme for the Turin 2025 World University Games 🇮🇹
Tuesday 14th January
- 10.00: Men’s 15 km individual short
- 13:00: Women’s individual short 12.5 km
Thursday 16 January
- 10.00: Mixed single relay
Saturday 18 January
- 10.00: men’s 10 km sprint
- 1.00 pm: women’s 7.5 km sprint
Monday 20th January
- 10.00: men’s 12.5 km pursuit
- 1.00 pm: women’s 10 km pursuit
Wednesday 22nd January
- 10.00: men’s 15 km mass-start
- 12.00: women’s 12.5 km mass-start
- Lake Placid: Axel Garnier with a tan in the individual short at the World University Games
- Lake Placid World University Games: Axel Garnier tells Nordic Magazine how he won an “unexpected” bronze medal
- Lake Placid: Axel Garnier and Pauline Machut take silver in the mixed singles relay at the World University Games
- Lake Placid World University Games: Pauline Machut and Axel Garnier talk about their silver medal mixed singles relay
- Lake Placid: Axel Garnier crowned world university mass start champion
- Lake Placid World University Games: “This is a moment that will always be engraved in my mind”, says Axel Garnier, winner of the mass start
- Lake Placid World University Games: Pauline Machut and Anna Blanc take silver and bronze in the mass start
- Lake Placid World University Games: Pauline Machut and Anna Blanc look back on their double podium finish in the mass start