Biathlon: Lou Jeanmonnot already on top
We left Lou Jeanmonnot on 17 March, the big winner of the mass start to close the 2023/2024 season in Canmore (Canada). Also winner that day of the small crystal globe for the speciality,the Doubiste skier ended a magnificent winter in the most beautiful of ways.
After a summer of training in which she put in long hours, the Olympic Mont d’Or rider was heading into the new season in the guise of a contender for the overall classification. ” The challenge I’d like to face this year is to play the globe honestly, trying to keep a jersey and manage the pressure,” she told Nordic Magazine a few days ago. This Wednesday afternoon, during the opening individual short in Kontiolahti (Finland), she showed that she is going to be a force to be reckoned with.
Wearing the number 60 bib, one of the last of the favourites, the Franc-Comtoise shot a perfect 20/20, which is her secret (despite a big cord). Solid on her skis and amazing in front of the targets, Lou Jeanmonnot made light of her many rivals to win brilliantly in the Finnish night. A success synonymous with taking power in the general standings and a yellow number on the podium.
Océane Michelon in the top 10, Julia Simon and Justine Braisaz-Bouchet in difficulty
At the finish, she was 12.3 seconds ahead of an extraordinary Ella Halvarsson (19/20) and 56.4 seconds ahead of Elvira Oeberg (18/20), who made one mistake too many to beat the Frenchwoman. At the foot of the podium, at the flower ceremony, were Polish surprise Natalia Sidorowicz (20/20), Germany’s Franziska Preuss (18/20) and Austria’s Lisa Theresa Hauser (19/20).
In seventh place was Océane Michelon from Savoie. She was going for victory on the last shot, but missed her last two targets and let a very big shot slip through her fingers. Despite this, the 22-year-old achieved by far her best ever World Cup result, taking seventh place. That was good enough for her to claim the blue bib of the best U23.
Jeanne Richard (19/20), also in good form, was eleventh, while Gilonne Guigonnat (18/20) was twenty-second. Julia Simon (16/20), thirty-first, Justine Braisaz-Bouchet (15/20), thirty-ninth, and Sophie Chauveau (14/20), sixty-ninth, got their winter off to a poor start individually.
Full results
- The full programme for the Kontiolahti World Cup, the first stage of the 2024/2025 season
- Corinne Niogret: my best memory of… Kontiolahti
- Top 3 nations cup target for France: the hunt for Olympic quotas for Milan/Cortina 2026, the other key issue of the 2024/2025 season
- World Cup overall leaders celebrated: this season, the IBU is introducing a yellow bib award ceremony
- After the opening relays, what is the programme for the second week of the Kontiolahti World Cup?
- Kontiolahti: where does Emilien Jacquelin’s “Night Night” celebration at the relay finish line come from?
- “I can’t wait to see how he performs”, “He’s progressed, he deserves it”: Emilien Claude’s return to the World Cup is a source of great joy to those close to him, Anna Gandler and Fabien Claude.
- “It’s time for me to come into my own and become the biathlete I was a few years ago”: Fabien Claude, the winter of affirmation at last?
- Kontiolahti: Endre Stroemsheim, at 20/20, beats Johannes Thingnes Boe in the individual short, Quentin Fillon-Maillet and Eric Perrot with the flowers
- Kontiolahti: for the first time in his career, Endre Stroemsheim will don the yellow World Cup leader’s bib
- “My best race ever”: Endre Stroemsheim and the Norwegians put everyone in agreement at Kontiolahti
- “With a full house, we could have been ahead…”: satisfaction, but also frustration for Quentin Fillon-Maillet and Eric Perrot, in the top 6 of the individual short in Kontiolahti.
- Ukraine’s Vitalii Mandzyn, sensation of the individual short with his fourth place: “I hope this is just the beginning”.
- “A dream come true”: ninth in the individual short in Kontiolahti, Thierry Langer scored his first World Cup top 10 finish
- “It’s performances and results that count”: in Kontiolahti and Hochfilzen, the seven girls in the French team are fighting to take part in the Grand-Bornand World Cup.
- Lou Jeanmonnot is about to embark on the season of all possibilities: “Playing the globe honestly, trying to keep a jersey and manage the pressure”.
- Kontiolahti: Julia Simon undergoes an MRI scan early this afternoon
- Kontiolahti: still uncertain about Julia Simon’s state of health on the eve of the individual short race
- Kontiolahti: despite injuring her left calf on the relay last Sunday, Julia Simon is taking part in the individual short race.
