Biathlon: France on fire in Slovenia
The 2024/2025 season is clearly a historic one for French biathlon. While a number of records and milestones have already been broken, such as the number of victories and podium finishes in a single winter, the winning of two relays on the same day and the thirteen medals won at the World Championships, Les Bleus have found another statistic to erase from the record books.
This Saturday, at the Pokljuka World Cup (Slovenia), mass-starts were indeed on the programme. At the very start of the afternoon, Lou Jeanmonnot won the women’s racebrilliantly, winning her seventh race of the winter and breaking the record previously held jointly with Sandrine Bailly and Justine Braisaz-Bouchet.
So, at the start of the men’s mass-start, one date was on everyone’s mind: that of 17 December 2017. On that day, amid the deafening noise of Grand-Bornand (Haute-Savoie), Justine Braisaz-Bouchet and Martin Fourcade triumphed in the mass-starts. Since then, France has never repeated the feat. Not until Saturday 15 March 2025.
Les Bleus took matters into their own hands
In the men’s race, the one we are interested in here, the French took the lead from the outset. Solid on the difficult Slovenian cross-country track, Quentin Fillon-Maillet, Eric Perrot and Fabien Claude put in one immaculate run after another on the shooting range. 5/5 on the first dismount. 5/5 on the second dismount. Another 5/5 in the first standing. Faster on the boards, the Jurassien and the Peiserot stood out from the competition.
They arrived together at the last stand-up shot… and, like good twins in a race, they fouled once each. As mistakes were made behind them, the two Tricolores battled it out for victory on the track and it was Eric Perrot who made the most of a devastating attack in the final hectometres to win by a few seconds from Quentin Fillon-Maillet.
Antonin Guigonnat, back to 20/20 and in the top 10
As in Kontiolahti (Finland) at the start of the season, the two men signed a mass-start double, with Eric Perrot enabling France to win two mass-starts on the same day in the World Cup for the first time since December 2017.
On the third step of the podium was Sturla Holm Lægreid (19/20), who took advantage of Johannes Thingnes Boe ‘s withdrawal to take a 104-point lead overall. Fabien Claude (19/20) is fourth, while Jesper Nelin (19/20) and Martin Uldal (18/20) complete the flower ceremony.
Among the other French riders, Antonin Guigonnat (20/20), making his return to the World Cup, was ninth, Emilien Jacquelin (19/20) tenth, Oscar Lombardot (17/20) fifteenth and Emilien Claude (15/20) twenty-eighth.
𝑫𝑶𝑼𝑩𝑳𝑬́ 𝑭𝑹𝑨𝑵𝑪̧𝑨𝑰𝑺 !!! 🤩🇫🇷
What a French team! @eric_perrot1 wins the Pokljuka mass-start 🇸🇮 after a race won mentally. 🥇💪🏼
Just behind, his compatriot, @quentinfillon fought a great battle with him right to the line… pic.twitter.com/KnAw2prkYs– FFS – Fédération Française de Ski (@FedFranceSki) March 15, 2025
Full results
- 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
