A real feat, one that French women’s biathlon had not seen for almost 20 years. By winning the mass start this Sunday in Lenzerheide, after her victories Thursday during the sprint then Friday in the pursuit, Justine Braisaz-Bouchet achieved an exceptional and extremely rare hat-trick, which will bring back memories to Sandrine Bailly, the last Tricolor therefore (and the only until now) to have seen the color one day, in Pojluka in 2005.
” I do not realize. I don’t realize it and maybe it’s for the best. I preserve myself like that,” commented the Frenchwoman after the race. A new state of mind which works quite well for her, her career is littered with very highs and very lows. Always supersonic on skis, Braisaz-bouchet (27 years old) has often paid for chronic inaccuracy behind the rifle. That perhaps did not prevent him from winning the gold medal in the mass start of the Beijing Olympic Games in 2022 (despite three mistakes), nor the small globe of the discipline at the end of this same season, but that forbade him to look even higher, to the height of his intrinsic talent.
New maturity
After a one-year break last season to devote herself to the birth of her daughter, Côme, the Savoyard has since the resumption displayed a relaxation in shooting that we did not know about her. “Pregnancy, being so far away from competition for several months, and parenthood, it affirmed certain traits of my personality. It brings a lot of things, detachment from the competition,” she explained on the microphone of RMC. As if she now felt lighter, less focused on the raw result in this daunting exercise that is biathlon shooting. “My relationship with competition has evolved for the better,” she added. This is what I experienced this weekend. »
A new maturity which also allows her to overcome this incredible case of bank card fraud which pits her against her teammate from the French team, Julia Simon. “This story has no place in a stadium,” she insisted on Saturday after the double achieved by the two women in the pursuit.
Now here is Justine Braisaz-Bouchet with the yellow bib as leader of the general classification of the World Cup on her shoulders, with ten small points ahead of the Norwegian Ingrid Tandrevold (427 against 417). Enough to fuel ambitions, even if of course, we are still only at the start of the season. “I had a great weekend, I’m happy to wear it and go to Christmas with it. But today, it’s anecdotal, she procrastinates. It will make a lot more sense in late February or early March. »
Only then will we know, it’s true. In any case, she “dreams” of this fight for the big crystal globe. “Only the best biathletes have won one. It represents the cream of the crop,” says the Frenchwoman. To stay in the match, she will have to confirm in January at Oberhof (from 4 to 7) then Ruhpolding (from 10 to 14) her new confidence on the shooting range, where for the moment she displays a nice 85% success rate, a clear increase compared to its two previous seasons (77%).