Julia Simon may have lost her big Crystal Globe on Friday during the Soldier Hollow sprint (USA). By missing the target three times with her standing shot, the 27-year-old Frenchwoman, 7th, let the other contenders in the general ranking of the World Cup escape. Indeed, Justine Braisaz-Bouchet (despite a fault in prone shooting), the Norwegian Ingrid Tandrevold, Lou Jeanmonnot and the Italian Lisa Vittozzi (all three at 10 out of 10 in shooting) finished, in that order, in the first four places. of the race, making Julia Simon’s bet to keep her property even more difficult.
“It went wrong on the standing shot, I don’t really have an explanationSimon had to declare. I felt feverish on the mat and that makes for a not very good copy. It’s me who made the mistake, I’m penalizing myself. It hurts for the general classification but it’s not my goal for the year. Ingrid has the cards in hand, she just has to…”
By winning his fifth World Cup success of the season, Braisaz-Bouchet (27) achieved the best operation of the day in the fight for the general classification. She takes 15 points from Tandrevold, who nevertheless remains leader of the event with 89 points ahead of Braisaz-Bouchet, 118 over Vittozzi and 136 over Simon.
“It was a very, very demanding racewas to comment on Braisaz-Bouchet on the L’Équipe channel. The altitude, the snow, the wind on the shooting range, the difficult arrival at the shooting range. It was an obstacle course today. It was easy to miss. Sometimes it doesn’t matter much but I managed to do well by having good management. »
The results of this sprint are all the more important as there will be a continuation on Sunday. Braisaz Bouchet will start 13 seconds ahead of Tandrevold, 19 over Jeanmonnot, 29 over Vittozzi and 1’15” over Simon. Given her speed on skis, the skier from Les Saisies will still be able to make a good move, but this kind of position is also one that Simon likes…