Biathlon: Violette Bony comes back from the cold
In March 2022, biathlete Violette Bony, along with Lola Gilbert-Jeanselme and Anaëlle Bondoux, formed the French women’s team selected for the European Youth Olympic Festival in Vuokatti (Finland). In the Kainuu region, the member of the Annecy Dragons, who did not win an individual medal, was lucky enough to take part in the mixed relay.
Alongside Amandine Mengin from Bresse, Lou Thiévent from Dauphiné and Gaëtan Paturel from Montblanc, she won the title outright. Violette Bony, runner-up in the French U19 Cup that winter, was expected to be back in the top echelons of national competitions in no time. All the better to win further international caps.
Unfortunately, the last two years, her first in the U22 category, have not been the easiest for the Haut-Savoyard.
“After the EYOF, I also took the baccalaureate and, perhaps unconsciously, I relaxed the pressure and had to go through more difficult times”, she tells Nordic Magazine. The day after her baccalaureate exams, Violette Bony sprained her ankle when she resumed training for a run.
Concussion at the worst possible time
Once this setback had been dealt with, it was a fall on skis and wheels that disrupted the Montblanc native’s preparations. “It was in September, I was very tired from my summer, I had to do a 30-second split at La Féclaz, explains the woman who had joined the Haute-Savoie Nordic Team the previous spring. I fell on the tarmac, hitting my head.”
After suffering concussion, Violette Bony had to stop training for a month. Missing the various Summer Tour races, she had a difficult season, finishing the winter in fifteenth place in the French Cup. Last year, she finished ninth in the French Cup, notably after two podium finishes, her first at U22 level.
“I tried to come back and get back into shape by looking for something that suited me in terms of training,” she reveals. The only female member of the Haute-Savoie Nordic Team, Violette Bony, who spent three years working alongside Jeanne Richard during her committee years, wanted a change of scenery to renew herself.
An idyllic summer with Team ENB
So she jumped at the chance to create the Team Elite Nordique Bessans (Team ENB), based in Bessans (Savoie) with Camille Coupé and Ambroise Meunier as team-mates and Emilien Personnaz as coach.
“It was a great opportunity, she admits. I fitted in well with this team and this new group, especially as I was joining athletes I already knew.” Throughout the preparatory period, the team met in Bessans, comfortably installed in their coach’s flats. In fact, it was there that they finished their training, after a month-long course, with the selections for the coming days at the end.
“I’m going to give it everything I’ve got and we’ll see how things go,” says a delighted Violette Bony, currently in her third year of a DUT in marketing techniques at the IUT in Annecy.
Still a junior this winter, Violette Bony won’t be spending most of her winter in the opening races of the winter in Bessans : she will be eligible to compete in the Junior Cup in December after the French Cup in… Bessans in three weeks’ time.
A biathlon enthusiast
But the Annécienne doesn’t want to stress out about it all. “I’m not someone who’s going to say that I absolutely have to qualify for such and such an event. I’m not someone who’s going to say that I absolutely have to qualify for such and such an event. Of course, it’s a dream, but I don’t put too much pressure on myself, otherwise it’s a disaster, she says. In my head, of course I’ve got the Junior Cup, the World Junior Championships and maybe the IBU Cup, but I don’t put any pressure on myself.”
A lover of biathlon, Violette Bony is driven by her passion. “I also love training in the great outdoors. This new team, where there’s a good atmosphere and a lot of mutual support with a great coach on hand for us, also encourages me to persevere, just like my family and friends, who are behind me. I always want to go out and train too, admits the player who recently took up the ukulele as a gift from her mum. I hate being at home doing nothing, it’s like an addiction to go out and practise or go for a walk!”
- Vuokatti EYOWF: Lou Thiévent, Amandine Mengin, Gaëtan Paturel and Violette Bony talk about their mixed relay triumph
- Trail: Hugo Dejour and Violette Bony win the mixed Argentrail duo, the Haute-Savoie Nordic Team in fine form
- “It’s a project that was really close to our hearts”: Camille Coupé talks about the creation of Team ENB
