Biathlon: no small globe in mixed events for Les Bleus
This Sunday afternoon, the Sports Centre Triglav Pokljuka hosted the sixth and final race of the eighth round of the 2024/2025 Biathlon World Cup. A few hours after the single mixed relay won brilliantly by the Swiss, it was the four-man mixed relay that took place in Slovenia.
The main prize at stake in this race was the small crystal globe for mixed events. Before the starting gun fired, only 6 points separated France, the leader, from Sweden, its runner-up and last opponent. Clearly, the nation that finished ahead of the other would win the trophy, which will be presented at the end of next week in Oslo-Holmenkollen (Norway).
Favourites with a quartet comprising Jeanne Richard, Océane Michelon, Eric Perrot and Quentin Fillon-Maillet, the French team got off to a poor start in this twentieth and final relay of the season. The Montblanc native, who had been placed in first position, broke down in the standing shot, turning on the penalty ring after trying to clear the targets too quickly. Out of her usual comfort zone, Jeanne Richard handed over to Océane Michelon in fourteenth place, 1 minute behind the leader.
Sweden(Anna-Karin Heijdenberg, Hanna Oeberg, Martin Ponsiluoma, Sebastian Samuelsson) was then in the lead, along with Norway(Maren Kirkeeide, Ida Lien, Johannes Dale-Skjevdal, Isak Frey). The battle for the small globe was therefore taking a nasty turn.
Sweden at the top of the league
It was then that Les Bleus began an impressive comeback. Océane Michelon and Eric Perrot picked up the slack and put the Jura’s Quentin Fillon-Maillet in the lead with Sebastian Samuelsson. The duel for the crystal trophy was then a head-to-head affair.
On the dismount, the Franc-Comtois picked three times, while the Swede scored 5/5 to take the lead. Sebastian Samuelsson picked up a standing pick, but flew away to give his country victory, as well as the small globe in the mixed events.
France finished second, ahead of Norway. In the top 10 were Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, Ukraine and Poland.
After a fine 𝗥𝗘𝗠𝗢𝗡𝗧𝗔𝗗𝗔 as we like them, the French mixed relay team takes 🥈e place in Pokljuka! 🇸🇮💪🏼
📸 Nordic Focus pic.twitter.com/J271v1pwu5– FFS – Fédération Française de Ski (@FedFranceSki) March 16, 2025
Full results
The final overall ranking of the mixed World Cup events
- 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.
- Pokljuka: Lou Jeanmonnot wins the mass-start ahead of Milena Todorova and Anamarija Lampic, with Jeanne Richard fourth.
- Ahead of the finals in Oslo-Holmenkollen, Lou Jeanmonnot takes big points off Franziska Preuss in the battle for the big globe
- Lou Jeanmonnot talks to Nordic Magazine after winning the Pokljuka mass-start: “I’m really proud to have managed to deal with my racing thoughts”.
- “She’s proving to herself that she can do it”: Cyril Burdet savours Lou Jeanmonnot’s new victory in Pokljuka
- Record number of wins in a single season, success in all formats: by winning the Pokljuka mass-start, Lou Jeanmonnot made history.
- Pokljuka: Jeanne Richard back in the blue bib as best U23 with three races to go
- Jeanne Richard makes no secret of her ambition when it comes to the blue bib: “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”.
- “I guess the bad weather suits us”: Slovenia’s fine week at home after Jakov Fak’s victory and Anamarija Lampic’s podium finish
- Pokljuka: Eric Perrot wins the mass-start ahead of Quentin Fillon-Maillet and Sturla Holm Lægreid, with Fabien Claude just off the podium
- Eric Perrot recounts his duel with Quentin Fillon-Maillet to win the Pokljuka mass-start: “I managed to accelerate at the right moment”.
- Quentin Fillon-Maillet still ambitious after his second place in the Pokljuka mass-start: “A season is played out right to the end!
- Pokljuka: Sturla Holm Lægreid overcomes Johannes Thingnes Boe in the mass start to take a 104-point lead overall
- “I think I’ll continue, I’ll be here at the start of the season”: ninth in the Pokljuka mass-start after becoming a father, Antonin Guigonnat has not said his last word.
- Julia Simon and Lou Jeanmonnot rested: the line-ups for the French mixed relays in Pokljuka
- Pokljuka: the small globe in the mixed events and a (new) record in the sights of the French team this Sunday in Slovenia
- Pokljuka: Aita Gasparin and Niklas Hartweg give Switzerland its first victory in a mixed singles relay, Justine Braisaz-Bouchet and Emilien Jacquelin fourth
- Aita Gasparin and Niklas Hartweg, winners of the Pokljuka mixed singles relay, tell Nordic Magazine : “It’s so nice to be at the top”.
- “We wanted to do better” and “I didn’t have anything to play for”: Justine Braisaz-Bouchet and Emilien Jacquelin’s reactions after their fourth place in the Pokljuka mixed singles relay.
