The Blues finished third in the Kontiolahti men’s relay, the girls finishing at the foot of the podium.
The French relay, concluded by Quentin Fillon Maillet, finished third Thursday in Kontiolahti (Finland), the opening stage of the Biathlon World Cup, behind Johannes Boe’s Norway and Germany. This is the first podium of the winter for French biathlon. With Eric Perrot, Fabien Claude, Emilien Jacquelin and “QFM“, the blue relay finished more than a minute from Norway, with nine pickaxes (missed shots) in total, against seven for the Scandinavians. Germany took second place at around forty seconds (8 picks).
A podium that does Fillon-Maillet good after his disappointing 15th place at the start of the season in the individual. “It was better for this relay in terms of sliding“, he analyzed with the Dauphiné Libéré. “Physically, it was better too. Even if I don’t compete with Johannes Boe yet, I’m more satisfied. There are small errors in shooting, I tried to be faster to try to lose the least amount of time, but it slipped out. It’s the game, but the collective balance sheet is good. Eric Perrot did a great stint. I saw a little less that of Émilien Jacquelin and Fabien Claude. But it was nice because we played in front. There is a good atmosphere and it’s nice to see.»
At the end of the women’s relay, the French, in the order Lou Jeanmonnot, Anaïs Chevalier-Bouchet, Chloé Chevalier and Julia Simon, finished at the foot of the podium. Sweden, with sisters Hanna and Elvira Oeberg in the position of third and fourth runners, won alone, with a total of six picks, ahead of Germany (+28”1, 6 picks) and Norway ( +31”5, 3 picks). Simon, who scored 10/10 in shooting – like Chevalier-Bouchet – the day after his fifth place in the individual, crossed the finish line 1’30” later.
