The tricolor biathlete won in front of the Italian Lisa Vittozzi on Sunday in Ruhpolding. Another Frenchwoman, Anaïs Chevalier-Bouchet, completes the podium of the Mass Start.
by Florian Lefèvre
and three for Julia Simon this season. Victorious of the prosecution test twice, in Kontiolahti, Finland, then Hochfilzen, Austria, in the fall, the Frenchwoman once again raised her arms to the arrival of a race of the Cup of the de Biathlon, Sunday January 15. In Ruhpolding, Germany, she won the “Mass Start” (12.5 km grouped starting race with two lying shots and two standing shots).
With her yellow bib leader in the World Cup, Julia Simon took the lead in the first round. No one could catch her on the skis, but three errors behind the rifle (at 17/20) forced her to turn three times on the penalty ring, which allowed her most precise opponents to go out in her wake at the end of the last shot.
At the start of the last round, there are still three of them being able to play victory: Julia Simon, the Italian Lisa Vittozzi (at 19/20) and another Tricolore, Anaïs Chevalier-Bouchet (at 19/20) . However, there will be no arrival at the sprint. Anaïs Chevalier-Bouchet is the first to be distanced by its competitors. Finally, in the last descent of the track, Julia Simon places too much acceleration for Lisa Vittozzi.
The Italian is satisfied with second place ahead of Anaïs Chevalier-Bouchet. Far behind, the Swedish Linn Persson crosses the finish line in fourth position, more than 30 seconds from Julia Simon.
“Today, she had more the” cash register “, recognized Anaïs Chevalier-Bouchet at the microphone of the team about her compatriot. I know that with sprint on the dish, I am bad, So I played with my cards. I wanted to try to create a gap in the front bump [the arrival], but I did not do enough to get them down. “
Various fortunes for The French team
Leaving the penalty ring before the last round, Julia Simon said that she had already made “the plan in [her] head and several plans if this was not going as planned”. But everything went as planned. “Either, I was really much stronger physically and I left from the start, or I was waiting for the end I opted to wait for the end,” she said.
The Savoyard does the very good operation of the weekend in the race for the big crystal globe, since her runner-up in the general classification, the Swedish Elvira Öberg, does not mark any point. Sick, the latter was not at the start of the race.
During this fifth stage of the World Cup in Bavaria, the French team experienced various fortunes. Among men, Quentin Fillon Maillet and Emilien Jacquelin suffered Norwegian domination. Among women, on the other hand, the balance sheet is very positive: four places on the podium in two individual races; On Thursday, Lou Jeanmonnot and Julia Simon had taken the second and third place in the individual (15 km). As a reminder, this season, the French team is deprived of Justine Braisaz-Bouchet, who has chosen to put her career in parentheses awaiting a happy event.
The next stage of the Biathlon World Cup, the sixth, will take place next week in Antholz – Anterselva, Italy. Before a return to Germany for the world championships which will be held in Oberhof, from February 8 to 19, 2023.