By Le Figaro with AFP
Published 10 minutes ago, Updated now
Justine Braisaz-Bouchet TOBIAS SCHWARZ / AFP
The Frenchwoman won the Oberhof sprint this Friday, which consolidates her place at the top of the general classification of the World Cup.
The Frenchwoman Justine Braisaz-Bouchet won the sprint (7.5 km) in Oberhof (Germany) on Friday afternoon ahead of the German Franziska Preuss and the Frenchwoman Sophie Chauveau, and consolidates her place at the top of the general classification of the Cup of the biathlon world.
This is the fourth consecutive individual victory for Justine Braisaz-Bouchet, who achieved an exceptional hat-trick in Switzerland in Lenzerheide (sprint/pursuit/mass start) before the Christmas holidays. This performance allowed him to take the yellow bib as leader of the Biathlon World Cup.
«This morning, in my room, when I thought about a fourth consecutive victory, I said to myself: No, no, no, don’t count on it. On the other hand, a victory in a sprint is possible», explained the winner of the day on the microphone of the L’Equipe channel.
«The Christmas break allowed me to find freshness”
After two faults on the prone shot, Justine Braisaz-Bouchet blanked the five targets on the standing shot and was imperial on the ski slope, taking back almost thirty seconds from Preuss on skis on the last 2.5 km loop. “It’s not a perfect race, but a good result. I was really in good shape on the skis today, I had very good skis. The Christmas break allowed me to find freshness and sensations that I hadn’t had since the start of the season in Östersund in Sweden“, she added.
In the resort in eastern Germany almost no snow on Friday, “JBB» finally beat the German Preuss (clearly) by four seconds. Sophie Chauveau, with a mistake, failed 2/10 behind Preuss. The suspense thus remains intact for the pursuit scheduled for Saturday afternoon (2:40 p.m.), a 10 km race format which retains the order and gaps of the sprint.
In the general classification of the World Cup, Braisaz-Bouchet distances herself from the Norwegian Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold, who made three faults on the standing shot and only took 17th place. The Frenchwoman is now 76 points ahead of the Norwegian. “There are still around ten individual races (12, Editor’s note), yes I counted them. Of course I think about it, but honestly what is good today is that I have managed to detach myself from this issue which is in fact distant“, she concluded.
