Biathlon: Lou Jeanmonnot returns to winning ways with flying colours
Since her arrival on the big biathlon World Cup circuit, it has been said that Lou Jeanmonnot from Doubt learns from her mistakes, never repeating a setback twice in a row. However, over the last few weeks, the Franc-Comtoise native had been mentally blocking out the last few standing shots, particularly in head-to-head competition.
Last week, she missed two bullets on her final pass behind the rifle in the pursuit at Nove Mesto (Czech Republic), where she was alone in the lead. Victory then eluded Lou Jeanmonnot, who made no secret of her frustration in the mixed zone. On Thursday, following the individual short in Pokljuka (Slovenia) where she finished in seventh place, she confessed once again that she was finding it difficult to cope with the pressure of the race for the globe that began three months ago.
The Slovenian mass-start on Saturday was to be another test for the Frenchwoman. A warrior’s race contested in the snow and in very slow conditions, it fell to Lou Jeanmonnot. After a first lap in the warmth of the peloton, the Pontissalienne came out of the woodwork once the first bend, at 5/5, had passed. From then on, she never relinquished the lead in this mass-start.
She is now 20 points behind Franziska Preuss in the overall standings
Although Lou Jeanmonnot missed a ball on her first standing shot, she shot a full round on her last pass on the mats. A 5/5 score that undoubtedly did her a world of good and removed a huge cloud of stress. With Franziska Preuss in fifth place (18/20), Lou Jeanmonnot has taken back 40 points in the race for the globe and is now 20 points behind her German rival with three races to go.
On today’s podium, she was joined by two surprises: Bulgaria’s Milena Torodova (20/20) and Slovenia’s Anamarija Lampic (19/20), on fire in front of her home crowd. Jeanne Richard (19/20), who came third in the final round, was fourth, while Sweden’s Anna Magnusson (20/20), sixth, completed the day’s flower ceremony.
As for the other French girls, Julia Simon (17/20), who is suffering from the onset of illness, is twelfth, Océane Michelon (15/20) thirteenth and Justine Braisaz-Bouchet (15/20) twenty-second.
𝑪𝑶𝑼𝑹𝑺𝑬 𝑫𝑬 𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑴𝑷𝑰𝑶𝑵𝑵𝑬!!! 🤩💪🏼
Lou Jeanmonnot wins the Pokljuka mass-start 🇸🇮 with a nice 19/20 and an imperial run. 🥇🔥
In the lead since leaving the first shooting range, the Frenchwoman takes back precious points before a fiery final stage for the… pic.twitter.com/KKvjCNTnTI– 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
- “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.
