Biathlon | Jeanne Richard makes no secret of her ambition to win the blue bib: “I told myself that I had to go and get it on Sunday 23 March and I will go and get it on Sunday 23 March”

Biathlon: Jeanne Richard, fourth in the Pokljuka mass-start, takes up the blue bib again

Early on Saturday afternoon, Montblanc’s Jeanne Richard, in fourth place, came within a whisker of her second World Cup biathlon podium. Third after the final mass-start shot in Pokljuka (Slovenia), she was no match for Anamarija Lampic in the final cross-country loop.

“She was in front of her home crowd, she gave it her all, but so did I! There’s nothing to regret because I gave it my all on the piste, which was really demanding, she explained to Nordic Magazine in the mixed zone. I’d kept my energy up, but [Anamarija] Lampic isn’t just anyone! I tried to hang on [when she came back], but when you don’t have the rods, you can’t do anything…”

This performance also enabled Jeanne Richard to take back the blue bib of the best U23 from her team-mate and friend Océane Michelon. “It’s a great challenge and a great battle to be the chaser or to be chased. It’s so cool and sets us up nicely for what’s to come,” she says.

Before admitting her ambition: “I said to myself that I had to go and get it on Sunday 23 March and I will go and get it on Sunday 23 March. It may be on my shoulders [at the moment], but I’m in hunter mode in my head.” That promises some great battles in Oslo-Holmenkollen (Norway) next week.

_{[With Julie and Marie Le Bobinnec, in Pokljuka].}

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• The full programme for the Pokljuka World Cup, the eighth stage of the 2024/2025 season
• Corinne Niogret: my best memory of… Pokljuka
• Lou Jeanmonnot vs Franziska Preuss and Johannes Thingnes Boe vs Sturla Holm Lægreid: in Pokljuka, a high-risk individual race in the race for the big crystal globe
• Pokljuka: Julia Simon follows up her victory by winning the individual short at 20/20, all the French women in the top 10
• Julia Simon tells Nordic Magazine after her success in the Pokljuka individual short: “I’m very happy to have built up this race in such a beautiful way”.
• Pokljuka: Lou Jeanmonnot wins the small crystal globe in the individual event, a first for a Frenchwoman
• Pokljuka: third in the individual short, Franziska Preuss claws back points from Lou Jeanmonnot in the race for the big globe
• “I’m not going to give up”: Lou Jeanmonnot tells Nordic Magazine after the individual short in Pokljuka
• Pokljuka: Océane Michelon takes command of the U23 rankings and will be wearing blue for the mass-start
• Océane Michelon, fifth in the Pokljuka individual short: “I’m copying and pasting from Kontiolahti”.
• Pokljuka: Jakov Fak wins the individual short on home soil, his first success since… 22 March 2015, Quentin Fillon-Maillet with the flowers
• “I’d love to grow old like him”, “I don’t have enough words to describe it”: Emilien Jacquelin and Eric Perrot impressed by Jakov Fak’s victory in Pokljuka at the age of 37
• Pokljuka: Sturla Holm Lægreid takes over the overall lead from Johannes Thingnes Boe after the individual short race
• Pokljuka: the small individual crystal globe for Sturla Holm Lægreid, as in 2021
• Pokljuka: reactions from Quentin Fillon-Maillet, Eric Perrot, Emilien Jacquelin, Oscar Lombardot, Emilien Claude and Fabien Claude after the individual short race
• Surprise for the French team: Antonin Guigonnat will start the mass start in Pokljuka
• Johannes Thingnes Boe withdraws for the end of the Pokljuka stage
• Pokljuka: no mass-start for Dorothea Wierer either
• “I ask myself a lot of questions, I go over everything all the time…”. For Lou Jeanmonnot, the hunt for the big crystal globe is above all a mental battle.