France 2024-2025 Team Preview

17 Overall Crystal Globes. 32 Olympic Medals. 130 World Championship medals. While they aren’t one of the traditional founding members of biathlon like Germany or Russia or Norway, France has emerged over the last 20-30 years as one of the great powers. Quinton Fillon Maillet and Julia Simon. Raphael Poiree and Anne Briand. Eric Perrot and Lou Jeanmonnot. Martin Freaking Fourcade! These are some of the names in biathlon. I mean Martin Fourcade is argued about as possibly the greatest of all time.

The French fans are also some of the absolute best in the world as well. Just take a look at Annecy every year. It’s become one of my favorite regular stops on the World Cup. We did an informal poll asking people on Twitter/X to name their favorite World Cup venues and Annecy-le Grand Bornand was the #1 response. Not only is it picturesque, but the entire course is packed with fans and it’s wildly loud. The online French fan presence is second to none (Hello @biathlonstats and Balles de Pioche podcast!) and is rapidly expanding. Honestly nothing about biathlon would be the same without the French.

It also helps that the current squad is really really really good. The men have multiple competitors who could win any race they enter. However, the women might be even better including multiple potential crystal globe winners and a bench that is as deep as any federation. I mean seriously if you look from World Cup through the IBU Cup the list of women who could compete at the highest level is wildly long.

So let’s go ahead and take a look at what this year’s edition of the French team might bring for us… Just a quick note, as should be obvious, but with a team like the French there are WAAAAAAY too many athletes for me to cover in one post. So this is just about as many as I felt I could get to.

Women The two time defending Nations Cup champions, the French women boast a deeeeeep list of athletes that could compete on the World Cup. More than that, they have three women who nobody would be surprised to see lifting the Overall Globe come March. The French women’s relay team should compete for the relay globe as well. In fact, there is a real world where the French women could sweep all of the globes this season and that’s not hyperbole! There was a strong battle to make the World Cup team but here are our French women on the top circuit to start the season. (Remember, like the Norwegian men they have 7 bibs for the first two weeks before having to cut down):
– Lou Jeanmonnot
– Justine Braisaz-Bouchet
– Julia Simon
– Sophie Chauveau
– Jeanne Richard
– Gilonne Guigonnat
– Oceane Michelon

Quota: 6 Athletes to Start

Lou Jeanmonnot (26)

We all knew that Lou Jeanmonnot was good. We all knew that Lou Jeanmonnot was going to contend for the Overall Globe in her career. We all knew that she possessed all of the qualities you want to see. We just didn’t know that she was going to go all the way to the very top so dang fast. She was just 25 years old last season! Shouldn’t she take a few seasons running in the top 3-6 before she is in the running for the Globe? Apparently not.

She came out of the gates absolutely storming and won the Ostersund Sprint and Pursuit and appeared to be completely in control. Jeanmonnot was absolutely resplendent. Unfortunately she got sick which impacted her performance in Hochfilzen and caused her to miss two of the races in Annecy-le Grand Bornand. That may very well have been the only thing that kept her from winning the Overall Globe. She ended the year going head to head with Lisa Vittozzi over the last two races weekends of the year and finished just 23 points shy of being the #1 woman on the World Cup.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2022-2023	94	86.5	90.3	31.2
2023-2024	93.9	91.8	92.8	30.2

All that being said there is a very good argument to make that she is the best woman in biathlon right now. Look, if a biathlete is fighting for the Overall Globe then there really aren’t any weaknesses in their profile, but Jeanmonnot looks particularly pristine. Last season she hit 92.8% which was 3rd best on the World Cup. She was the 8th fastest woman. The only real “hole” is she isn’t a fast shooter yet. She averaged 30.2 seconds per shot. Not a surprise at all that her statistics look extremely similar to Lisa Vittozzi who hit 93.1% of her shots, ranked 9th overall in skiing, and averaged 28.7 seconds per shot.

As I said at the top, this wasn’t a surprise that Jeanmonnot would eventually be in the very short list of women competing for the Overall Globe. You could see it coming. But any time an athlete makes the leap nearly all the way to the very very top that fast it just makes you turn your head. Lou Jeanmonnot was absolutely amazing and there is a great argument to make that she is not just one of the woman who could win the Overall, but the favorite.

Justine Braisaz-Bouchet (28)

With Justine Braisaz-Bouchet coming off of maternity leave we didn’t exactly know what we would get? Would she be able to regain her super human ski speed? Was she going to be able to fix the shooting that had limited her success so far in her career? We had no idea.

Well it was an amazing success. From a skiing perspective Justine Braisaz-Bouchet clearly didn’t miss a beat. She was 2nd in skiing behind only Anamarija Lampic. While her shooting fell off later in the year, it was still the best shooting season of her career as she hit 82.9% in both prone and standing shooting. She brought it all together for the best year of her career.

Braisaz-Bouchet’s six wins and 11 podiums were both the most of anybody on the World Cup last season. The only reason she didn’t breeze her way to the Overall Globe was because the shooting, while definitely improved, just wasn’t quite good enough and meant that she had a little more variability in her finishes compared to Vittozzi and Jeanmonnot. While those two women had 16 and 15 top 5’s each, Justine Braisaz-Bouchet had “just” 12. That’s an incredible season, but it opened up a gap just enough that Lisa Vittozzi and Lou Jeanmonnot separated themselves for the Overall while JBB finished 4th. The margin really was just that slim. She was just 43 points back of Jeanmonnot’s 2nd place and 66 back of Vittozzi.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2017-2018	79.4	80.7	80	37
2018-2019	77.6	77	77.3	33.5
2019-2020	75.3	74.7	75	33
2020-2021	80	73.3	76.7	31.9
2021-2022	73.5	79	76.3	32.1
2023-2024	82.9	82.9	82.9	30.2

What can we expect from Justine Braisaz-Bouchet this season? She has all of the tools to once again contend for the Overall Globe. She clearly has the ski talent and that didn’t change at all with having her daughter. It’s all about can she hit just a few more targets. The margin that kept JBB from the Overall Globe was like 2%. If she hits 85% she might win Overall. Regardless we’re going to see A LOT of Justine Braisaz-Bouchet this season!

Julia Simon (28)

Julia Simon is a wild fighter. I think the word that comes to mind first when I think of her is swashbuckling. She comes into each race with an absolute supreme cocky confidence. That’s not a criticism of her! That’s just how she races and carries herself and it’s fantastic! It’s what makes her so compelling. She races each race with an ultra aggressive mindset. She attacks the course. She attacks the range frequently shooting at a mind blowing speed. The head to head Pursuits and Mass Starts seem to bring it out even more. Think of the number of times she entered the range for a standing shoot and had her first 2-3 targets down before her nearest competitor had fired their first shot.

Over the last two seasons that has carried her to the highest of highs in biathlon. In the 2022-2023 season she was the dominant figure. She took hold of the yellow jersey in the 2nd trimester, and though Wierer gave her a brief late scare, the ultimate margin really wasn’t that close. After an eventful offseason to say the least, she returned last year and reported feeling mentally fatigued. Still, she fought hard and won another four victories, matching her 22-23 total, along with nine podiums. Ultimately, while the highs were still there, like Justine Braisaz-Bouchet she missed a few more top 5’s and top 10’s compared to the top women and finished 5th in the Overall.

Julia Simon is a good mix of Lou Jeanmonnot and Justine Braisaz-Bouchet as she slots in right between the two in both skiing and shooting. Interestingly she nearly matches Lou Jeanmonnot’s prone shooting (91.4% vs Jeanmonnot 93.9%) while she is almost on part with Braisaz-Bouchet for standing (82.4% vs JBB 82.4%).

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2018-2019	80	80	80	24
2019-2020	80	77.1	78.5	25.7
2020-2021	71.5	79.5	75.5	25.9
2021-2022	85.5	77.5	81.5	26.1
2022-2023	93	83.5	88.3	25.3
2023-2024	91.4	82.4	86.9	23.5

However, as mentioned before, her super power is her shooting speed which is really a super power. Last season she averaged 23.5 seconds per shoot. That puts SO much pressure on her competitors. Look at just Braisaz-Bouchet and Jeanmonnot who both averaged 30.2 seconds last season. Simon picked up nearly 8 seconds per shoot. That’s 16 seconds in a Sprint and 32 seconds in a Pursuit or Mass Start! Plus when she is in a head to head event it has to be so tense seeing Simon knock down 2-3 targets before you get off your first shot.

Barring a collapse of her shooting back to pre-2022 form Simon will once again be in the mix for the Overall Globe. It’s hard to believe that she won’t be in the mix come February. And anytime Julia Simon is in the mix you know she’s racing for the win.

Sophie Chaveau (25)

We’re three women in to the French World Cup roster and we’ve covered three women who could compete for the Overall Globe? Will we make it four for four? Okay, no let’s not go too crazy here! Actually I would say this is when we get to the part of the French roster where the depth of the team means that these women have to continuously be contending for her spot. Sophie Chauveau is an excellent biathlete and should be in contention for a top 20 Overall finish…if she stay on the World Cup roster the full season.

Sophie Chaveau, like so many of these French women, is a phenomenal skier. She finished the season 7th overall in skiing. That’s pretty wild when you consider she was actually faster than Lou Jeanmonnot who ranked 8th. Pretty good! She also saw her shooting time improve from 32.6 seconds to 29.8 seconds on average. The only soft spot in her performance was her shooting. She hit just 78.9% which was weighed down significantly by her shitting just 73% of her standing shots.

Do I think that Chauveau will lose her position? No I really don’t. But she’s not assured of anything. It’s definitely a situation where she has to keep performing every year not because the other women are just as talented and are going to be putting up big results. She had her first career podium last season along with six top 10’s and 12 top 20’s. She’s going to need to see more of that to continue to hold her spot. I’m really hoping that we see her standing shooting improve some this season. We’ve seen both Braisaz-Bouchet and Simon before her improve her shooting so hopefully she can do the same! If she does she won’t just hold her spot but she’ll improve on finishing 21st and 20th in the Overall the last two seasons.

Jeanne Richard (22)

In the first trimester of last season Jeanne Richard was absolutely rolling on the IBU Cup. Over the first eight races of the season she had seven top 8 finishes including three podiums and a victory. She then made her World Cup debut last season in Oberhof and immediately finished 8th in the Sprint and 9th in the Pursuit. No surprise that she stayed on the top level the rest of the season. While she never quite reached the high point that she did in Oberhof she did finish 15th and 18th in the Sprint and Pursuit at Worlds and ended up 39th Overall in just a partial season of racing.

Richard is, and stop me if you’ve heard this before about a French woman, a very good skier. At just 22 years old she was the 15th fastest woman as she averaged 2.7% faster than the average biathlete. Last season that put her one position ahead of Baiba Bendika and just two shy of Hanna Oeberg. Not bad company for being so young! She also has some signs of being a pretty good shooter as well. She hit 84.2% overall including 94.7% prone was the 6th best prone shooting on the World Cup. Not surprising, though, being just 22 she’s still working on her shooting speed.

Jeanne Richard has the signs that she can be really really good. By statistics alone she profiles more like a young Julia Simon (not saying the same attitude just the statistics). Well except the ultra fast shooting that Simon has always had. I don’t want to set the expectations too high for Richard, but she has very intruging potential that I will be watching very closely. Assuming she spends the full season on the World Cup it’s fair to say that she will improve greatly on her 39th Overall finish last season and could be much closer to top 20.

Gilonne Guigonnat (26)

At 26 years old Gilonne Guigonnat seems relatively old compared to some of the women she’s competing with for these World Cup spots. In my mind she’s closer to Michelon and Richard in age. In actual age she is closer to Simon and that just seems impossible. However, regardless of age, she’s a very good biathlete. Last season she raced the full season on the World Cup outside of the weekends in Oberhof and Ruhpolding. In those two weeks on the IBU Cup she won two of her five races. On the World Cup, meanwhile, she put up an 8th place Sprint in Oestersund, and an 8th place Mass Start in Antholz. Otherwise for the most of those weeks she was finishing between the teens and 30’s. But then she closed very strong in Canmore as she went 11th, 5th, and her first podium 3rd in the last race of the season!

Gilonne Guigonnat is a strange French woman…she’s a good shooter! Okay that’s not strange, but so many of these women are super fast and are only held by their shooting. Guigonnat succeeds because of her shooting, which provides her a very high floor, and when she has the right day, she can clearly be in the top 10 on a regular basis. Last season she hit 89.6% even while only hitting 84.8% of her standing shots. That means her shooting potential is even higher!

So where is Guigonnat’s potential? That all depends on her legs. She’s just 26 so she should still have potential to get faster the next few seasons. On the IBU Cup she was consistently top 15 in ski rank and in the second half of the season that started to happen for her on the World Cup too. Over the last eight races of the season her average course time rank was 15.1 compared to 24.4 for the full season. If she skis like that with the shooting that we’ve already seen that’s yet another French woman in the top 20 biathlete.

Oceane Michelon (22)

The 2023-2024 IBU Cup Overall winner, despite missing two weeks while she was in Oberhof and Ruhpolding, Oceane Michelon is starting out on the World Cup this season. Last year she was on the IBU Cup she was just phenomenal. She raced 17 times on the IBU Cup and had 7 podiums, 10 top 5’s and 13 top 10’s. Somehow she only came away with one victory which seems impossible. On the World Cup she ran four races with all of those finishes between 28th and 40th.

Michelon looks the part of a good young French biathlete. She was 8th in skiing on the IBU Cup, just ahead of fellow young up and comer Maren Kirkeeide. Her shooting was the relative weak spot as she hit 81.7% with an average shooting time of 33.7 seconds per shooting. Although limited to just four races on the World Cup her average course time was 29.3 and she ran 1.2% faster than the average biathlete. That put her roughly on par with Anna Magnusson last season.

Michelon, like Jeanne Richard, she is so young. Richard’s ceiling may be a little higher right now, but as we know progress isn’t always linear. It wouldn’t be surprising at all to see Michelon have a slightly better season than Richard. If I had to bet I would still go with Richard having the stronger season and spending the full year on the World Cup because her ski speed already is such a strong asset for her. But this is why they run the races! (Also…what a problem to have. That Oceane Michelon might not be quite good enough for the World Cup full time yet. Sheesh! Every other nation is jealous!).

IBU Cup While the women above are starting the season on the World Cup, the IBU Cup roster is packed with talent as well. Last year the French women had eight women run on the World Cup this season. Will any of these women make the leap to the top squad this season? Listed below are the starters for the IBU Cup season as well as a few others that we could/should see.
– Chloe Chevalier
– Anaelle Bondoux
– Camille Bened
– Fany Bertrand
– Paula Botet
– Voldiya Galmace-Paulin

Chloe Chevalier (29)

Last year at this time, Chloe Chevalier was coming off of the strongest World Cup season of her career. In 2022-2023 she broke through for her first career podium along with six total top 10’s, by far the most of her career. She finished 16th in the World Cup Overall rankings and it seemed like at age 28 she was on the launchpad. Chevalier has been open about her struggles with biathlon though. Just the season before her breakthrough she wasn’t even sure she was going to continue.

Chloe Chevalier came into last year and I honestly believed that she had the potential to put up a top 15 Overall season. However, she had a, by her standards, subpar first trimester and she was demoted to the IBU Cup by the start of the racing in January. She then took a few weeks away to settle herself and figure out where she wanted to go with her biathlon career. Her decision was to rededicate to biathlon and it paid off with four top 11 finishes in the last five IBU Cup races including a podium. During that stretch her worst finish was 15th. She looked MUCH better and honestly more confident in herself again. Sometimes I had writing that because it’s such a hard thing to verify, but she just looked like she had a spark.

Last season’s poor racing was all about her skiing. Her shooting was almost exactly the same as it has been the last several years. She actually hit 87.1% in her World Cup races and 89.1% in the IBU Cup races, both good enough for the best marks of her career. Her ski speeds though were just markedly slower. In the World Cup races her average course time rank dropped from 15 to 26 year over year. In her last few IBU Cup races her course time ranks were surging again, so hopefully that was a good sign that she refound herself.

Chloe Chevalier is in a dangerous position though primarily because of her age. She’s 29 and everybody else she is competing with for these spots on the World Cup roster, and even the IBU Cup roster, are at least 3-4 years younger than her. And then there is Bondoux 9 years younger than her! The best thing that she can do is be a knock down shooter. If she can hit something like 88% of her shots, that is a tool that so many of the other young women don’t have yet. So if she can hit like that and ski to her potential, there is still lane for her to get back to the World Cup and replicate her 22-23 success.

Anaelle Bondoux (20)

And with Anaelle Bondoux we return to the young French women who are very very fast. I love watching Juniors racing because the athletes are all full of potential and I can just dream and be optimistic about where their biathlon careers might go. When I watch Anaelle Bondoux it’s easy to go a little crazy. Let’s start with what she did last season and then we’ll go wild.

Last year Anaelle Bondoux, at 19 years old, finished 4th in the IBU Cup Overall rankings. She raced 23 times with eight top 10’s, four top 5’s, and two wins. The two wins came in the Sjusjoen Pursuit and the season ending Mass 60 in Obertilliach. Yes, there were plenty of races where she just didn’t finish as well as she had 10 finishes outside the top 20. But again, she was just 19 years old!

Bondoux was extremely fast. Her average course time rank was 4.0. She was the fastest woman on the course 10 times over those 23 races. When going head to head she was actually faster than Jeanne Richard. Again, she was 19 years old!!! So why didn’t she win everything? The shooting range of course. She hit 69.1% with 73.9% prone and 64.2% standing splits and she averaged 39.9 seconds per shooting.

So where can she go? She can go all the way to the top. To contend for the Overall Globe there are no two ways about it, you have to be fast. Bondoux has the ability to eventually be the fastest woman in biathlon. Right now she looks to me a whole lot like Justine Braisaz-Bouchet. For comparison sake, at the same age as Bondoux was last season, JBB hit 72.5%. There is no doubt in my mind that Bondoux will once again be one of the fastest women on the IBU Cup this season and if she was on the World Cup she would be a top 15 skier. Let’s just be patient with her as she works on the shooting. Anything above 70% is a win and anything about 75% is going to make me very very excited.

Camille Bened (24)

If you didn’t know anything else you would look at Camille Bened’s 2023-2024 season and wonder what went wrong? She finished 5th Overall on the IBU Cup in the 21-22 season and then in 22-23 she was 12th. Last season she finished 13th. However, I would argue that the Bened should be more optimistic now than she was before last season? Why? Well because she broke her tailbone prior to the season and missed the first trimester of racing. You might think well it’s just a tailbone that can’t be too bad right? That would cause inflammation in the sacral-iliac joint which can cause fairly significant low back pain. That she finished 13th Overall is a major credit to her!

She finished the season 33rd overall in skiing. Once again, she did that with a broken tailbone to start the year that held her out of the first trimester of racing. As the season went on, though, you could see her getting her legs back. By the last trimester of the season she actually finished top 10 in course time rank three time in those last seven races.

Meanwhile she was an amazing shooter. She hit 90% with 95.2% prone and 84.8% standing which represented another improvement for her shooting. Maybe that tailbone injury gave her time to just work on her shooting?

While two seasons ago Camille Bened was included as one of the top up and coming French prospects I truly believe that her future now looks as bright, or maybe even more so, than it did then. We can hope that we’ll see her skiing come back even stronger this season. If she can do that, and hold on to this shooting improvement, she’s going to be collecting plenty of top 10’s and top 5’s on the IBU Cup. If she performs at that level long enough she might get the chance to grab a World Cup opening.

Fany Bertrand (22)

The 2022-2023 season was a very busy one for Fany Bertrand. She raced 13 times on the IBU Cup and had three top 10’s including her first career podium as she finished 18th in the Overall rankings. She then ran five more Juniors races and had three top 10’s. You would have expected more of that from Bertrand last season and you would have been wrong. However, she actually didn’t race a single IBU Cup race. It’s not that she was bad. She ran six Juniors races, though, and actually looked very good! She had a win and two more podiums including a bronze in the Mass 60 at Junior Worlds.

Bertrand is a lot like Camille Bened. She is a very very good shooter. In the six races she competed in last season she hit 95% or better in five of them. Yes that’s right. The skiing still needs to come along though. Her average course time rank in those races was 14.2. That was the best of her Juniors career, but at 22 years old you might have expected her to be a little faster compared to her peers.

I don’t want to close the door on Bertrand’s future AT ALL. She’s turns 23 years old this coming January 2nd. So she’s no longer a Junior. Every race she runs will be on the IBU Cup so she’s going to have to really earn her races. If she’s going to shoot 90% or better though, she’s going to give herself opportunities. We talk about this frequently, but that kind of shooter gives your performance a floor. If she can continue to find some ski speed that’s going to take the top off of her ceiling. I am really hoping that we start to see that this season and she is able to work towards a top 10 Overall IBU Cup season.

Paula Botet (23)

The 2024-2025 season seems to be an opportunity for Paula Botet to reclaim her biathlon career. She was on the ascendency for two straight seasons leading up to the 2022-2023 season. That year she joined the “A” training group after Anais Bescond’s retirement. That boosted her performance to great levels. She raced primarily on the IBU Cup and had 10 top 5’s in 17 races including six podiums and a victory. She ended up 3rd on the IBU Cup Overall at just 22 years old and she won the Sprint discipline globe.

Then last season she just didn’t look right all season long. Her skiing was down significantly. Her average course time rank dropped from 8 to 19.3. That’s a big time drop. Meanwhile her shooting fell from 86.8% down to 81%. So what happened? Well we found out later that she had been injured since early on in the 2023 summer training. She just couldn’t train as hard and couldn’t race as hard. That carried over to the shooting range as she pressed there. It just wasn’t a good year. She finally found a good treatment later in the season, but she was still way behind in her training and never quite got it going.

It really looks like Botet is feeling better now. In the Bessans selection races she won the Sprint and was 3rd in the Mass Start. I mean that’s a really really good sign. If she performs like that she’s going to come out to the IBU Cup and win some races and move on to the World Cup. Seriously, this is so fun to see. I love that this is happening and I couldn’t be more excited to see Botet fight her way back to the top circuit.

Voldiya Galmace Paulin (19)

She’s just 19, she’s starting on the IBU Cup, and yes she deserves it. Last season was a heck of year for Voldiya Galmace Paulin. She raced seven times last season and her worst finish was 8th. She had five top 10’s and three podiums including a silver and bronze in the Individual and Sprint at Youth Worlds. Simply put, she was excellent every time she put on the skis to race.

Galmace Paulin, and stop me if you’ve heard this before about a French woman, is very fast. Her course time ranks by race: 2, 4, 1, 3, 1, 1, 2. Yep, that’s pretty dang good! For comparison in her first race of the sesaon when she was the 2nd fastest woman, she was behind only Anna Andexer and ahead of her fellow Juniors Fany Bertrand and Marlene Fichtner. That’s doing work! The shooting wasn’t bad either as she hit 81% for the season while hitting 84% prone and 78% standing. Not bad!

She’s just 19 years old but add Voldiya Glamace Paulin to the list of potentially excellent French women! It is still likely to be 2-3 seasons before we see her on the World Cup. I guess we’ll see what she is able to come through with this season but if her skiing carries over I have to imagine she’s going to be competitive on the IBU Cup!

Leonie Jeannier (22)

After two seasons of not racing IBU racing, Leonie Jeannier returned in the 2022-2023 season and immediately showed that she belongs on what has become a list of high talented, and very young, French women. She immediately went to the IBU Cup and finished 12th in two straight races. After that she went back to the Juniors level, because she was only 20 year old, and she compiled seven top 10’s, four podiums, and a Junior Worlds bronze medal in just eight races.

Jeannier returned last season and once again raced two IBU Cup races, bu she finished only 45th and 43rd. Her only other races last season were the Junior Worlds where she finished 5th in the Individual and the Mass 60 and 65th in the Sprint.

I’m not entirely sure what happened with Jeannier last season. In terms of skiing she looked pretty good in the 22-23 season. In her two IBU Cup races that year her course time ranks were 17th and 23rd and in the Juinors races her averaged course time rank was 7.1. Last season her IBU Cup course time ranks were 43 and 53 and her in the Juniors 19, 29, and 21. The only reason she had those 5th place finishes at Junior Worlds were because she hit 20/20 in the Individual and 19/20 in the Mass 60. But that was clearly a dramatic drop off in skiing.

If we are going to see Leonie Jeannier bounce back this season we’re going to see her running with top 20 ski times on the IBU Cup this season. That’s going to be my checkpoint for her this season.

Lisa Siberchicot (22)

Before the 2023-2024 season, Lisa Siberchicot had raced just four times as a Junior. In those races she had finished 57th and 71st (at the 2020 Youth Worlds) and then 22nd and 20th in two Junior Cup races in 22-23. Nothing indicated she was ready to show out like she did last season with five top 10’s in seven races including 9th and 6th in the Junior Worlds Individual and Sprint. That was a HUGE improvement in performance.

The difference came everywhere. She was faster with her average course time rank jumping from 21st to 10.7. Her shooting percentages improved significantly as she hit 89% in those seven Juniors races including 92% prone and 86% standing.

Siberchicot is pretty fast, but she isn’t on the same level as Richard or Galmace Paulin. However, if that shooting is for real, and she’s able to hit near 90% for a full season, then she doesn’t need to be. She still needs to get a bit faster to make it all the way World Cup for sure, but she has shown that she’s still improving. It’s going to be an uphill battle against all of the competition on this particular team, but Siberchicot proved last year that she can’t be counted out.

For this season, what I’m hoping to see is that she primarily replicates the shooting. If she hits near 90% over 15+ races then I’ll know it’s for real and that’s a huge tool to have in the bag. Any type of ski improvement after that is a bonus. Since she’s going to be on the IBU Cup lets aim for course time ranks somewhere around 15-20. I believe, based on who she was skiing around at Junior Worlds including Gro Randby, that is definitely attainable. If she hits those marker she can aim for a top 15 IBU Cup Overall finish.

Caroline Colombo (28)

Unfortunately Carline Colombo has become a little bit of a sad story. The 2022-2023 season was a glorious season for her. She was 26 years old, approaching what would have been the peak years of her career, and she really appeared to be coming into her own. That year on the World Cup she had her first three top 10’s including a career best 5th on her way to 20th in the Overall.

Then she started to be affected by a neuropathy in her legs. It has affected her training since then and she’s never been able to get back. She missed the entire last season with continued effects from the neuropathy. This summer she’s been training with the French “B” squad but she still hasn’t been able to train continuously. I am hopeful that we will get to see her this season. If and when she does come back I will have no expectations and I hope that she’s going to be able to train well and fight hard!

Juniors And finally you have the long list of French Junior women. This isn’t close to a complete list! I’m sorry about that!

Lola Bugeaud (18)

-2023-2024 season was Debut and only raced at Youth Worlds
– Youth Worlds: 13th, 10th, and 2nd
– Best moment: Silver Medal in Youth Worlds Mass 60
– Avg course time rank: 12.3
– Shooting percentage: 88% with even splits

Celia Henaff (20)

-2023-2024 season was Debut. Four races + Junior Worlds
– Junior Worlds: 28th, 24th, 29th
– Best moment: 5th in Sprint at Pokljuka
– Avg course time rank: 19.3
– Shooting percentage: 84%. Slightly better standing

Lou-Anne Dupont Ballet Baz (19)

-2023-2024 season was Debut. One Junior Cup race + Youth Worlds
– Youth Worlds: 11th, 12th, and 4th
– Best moment: 4th in Youth Worlds Mass 60
– Avg course time rank: 14.8
– Shooting percentage: 85% with even splits

Eva Laine (20)

-2023-2024 season was Debut. Raced four Junior Cup races
– Best moment: Finished 7th and 9th in Sprint and Individual in Pokljuka
– Avg course time rank: 5.5
– Shooting percentage: 82% much better prone than standing

Pauline Machut (21)

-2023-2024 season was Debut. Raced two Junior Cup races
– Best moment: Finished 12th and 11th in Sprint and Super Sprint in Ridnaun-Val Ridanna
– Avg course time rank: 12.5
– Shooting percentage: 90% much better prone than standing

Louise Roguet (18)

-2023-2024 season was Debut. Raced four Junior Cup races
– Best moment: Finished 20th and 23rd in Sprint and Individual in Pokljuka
– Avg course time rank: 15.3
– Shooting percentage: 72% with even splits

Men Ever since Martin Fourcade the French men have seemingly been up and down. There was the initial disappointment immediately after the retirement. Then there was Quentin Fillon Maillet’s glorious 2022 season when he won the Overall and was terrific at the Olympics. 2023 was very bumpy with QFM under performing, Jacquelin leaving midway through the season to focus on his mental health, and the coaches being fired. Last season, once again started slow but it ended on a high note with Jacquelin coming on and at the very least being entertaining the last few months as he fought to 6th in the Overall and Perrot claiming his first career victory. But where are we headed as the 2024-2025 season gets underway?

World Cup The French men are doing something interesting. They’ve only announced their top four men for the first weekend. They will wait until after the IBU Cup races in Idre Fjall this weekend to promote two additional men. They won’t be missing out on anything because this weekend is just relays so it’s actually a reasonable approach and perfectly French to make things more confusing than they need to be. Just kidding we love you all! Here’s the opening day World Cup roster:
– Quentin Fillon Maillet
– Emilien Jacquelin
– Eric Perrot
– Fabien Claude

Quentin Fillon Maillet (32)

When thinking about the last decade of biathlon my gut feeling is that Quentin Fillon Maillet’s career is either somewhat disappointing or one of the most under rated biathlon careers of all time. I feel like the general feeling around QFM is that he’s struggled to fill the shoes of Martin Fourcade and that he’s been unable to be a consistent antagonistic force against. I think that biathlon fans so badly want to see somebody try to fight back against JT Boe and Norwegian biathlon dominance, particularly somebody who bears the French Tricolor as Fourcade did, that QFM being the next man up, who can’t quite fill Fourcade’s shadow, is disappointing.

How about these arguments though for why QFM is actually better than the general biathlon population thinks:
– Quentin Fillon Maillet is the only man other than Martin Fourcade or JT Boe to win an Overall Globe since the 2010-2011 season.
– He is one of just three biathletes to win six medals at a single Olympic Games (all of which occurred in 2022)
– He has the 2nd most wins of any active biathlete (behind JT Boe) and the third most of any biathlete whose career started after 2006.

Yes, I know, that’s a bit of a false argument. Most biathlon fans agree that he’s very very good. I think that the initial hope that some had for him was a bit unrealistic that he would be able to follow Fourcade’s lead and win multiple Overall Globes against the force of JT Boe. As we have accepted the athlete that Maillet actually is, it is clear that when his career is complete he will be documented as one of the top 20 male biathletes of the last 40 years of biathlon and at the end of the day that’s pretty darn good!

I think we all know who QFM is at this point so there is no reason to belabor the point. He’s very fast, regularly top 10 if not top 5 in course time. When he’s at his best he’s a good to great shooter as he’s hit 87% or better in five of the last six seasons, with the only aberration being last year when he hit just 83%. He’s also become an aggressive shooter as he’s averaged under 25 seconds per shoot the last two seasons.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2018-2019	86.3	91.2	88.8	29.3
2019-2020	88.8	85.9	87.4	27.2
2020-2021	84	90.5	87.6	26.7
2021-2022	86.7	90.5	88.6	27.9
2022-2023	88.3	88.9	88.6	24.9
2023-2024	81.5	84.5	83	24.6

Quentin Fillon Maillet at this stage of his career can still be great. The pieces are there. Maybe he won’t challenge an in form JT Boe for the Overall Globe. But to be fair nobody is doing that. JT Boe is quite possibly the best biathlete we have ever seen. However, QFM, without help from anybody else, can race himself to a top 3 Overall finish. With a little help here and there he could take home another Overall Globe. While I don’t think that is exactly likely, he is one of the few men that possesses the abilities to at least make it onto the short list.

Emilien Jacquelin (29)

I tend to think of Emilien Jacquelin as the most entertaining man in biathlon. I’m sure there is a better title for him and I’ll keep working on it, but can you deny that when Emilien Jacquelin is feeling good we are all in for a treat? He is a one of one. He just marches to the beat of his own drummer and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t. For better or worse though, that’s Emilien Jacquelin.

How many times have we seen it? It’s the start of a Mass Start and he goes tearing off the front. Or maybe he at least waits until he cleans the first five prone shots before unleashing his charge. Regardless you know it’s coming. When it’s a Pursuit you know he’s going to try to make up the entire stagger almost immediately. Maybe it’s not the “smartest” way to race but you get the sense that if he tried to race any other way he just couldn’t do it. He needs to go blazing away in some outrageous reckless manner or he just can’t unlock the very best of his skills and talents. The best part is, every so often it works. Every so often he has the legs and he hits the shots and he stays away. So yeah, maybe it’s not the “smartest” way to race but goodness is it entertaining in a uniquely Jacquelin way.

Sure we can examine the statistics for Jacquelin but I’m not sure they tell you anything more than the two paragraphs above do. Last season he ranked 8th in skiing which was his fifth straight season ranking in the top 12 of skiing. He hit 82.6% which is about in line with his historical averages. He averaged a silly 24 seconds per shot and somehow that feels like it underestimates how fast he shot at times.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2018-2019	85.7	77.7	81.7	27.4
2019-2020	90.6	83.8	87.2	25.6
2020-2021	89.5	85.2	87.4	26.5
2021-2022	87	78	82.5	27.9
2022-2023	86.7	70.8	78.3	26.3
2023-2024	84.8	80.5	82.6	24

At age 29 I can’t imagine we’re going to see any other version of Emilien Jacquelin. Maybe it’s not the Jacquelin we wanted or thought we might get, but it’s the Jacquelin we have. He’s a uniquely talented and flawed individual and biathlete, which he’s all too willing to tell you about. He knows he’s not perfect. He knows that his way of maneuvering around a biathlon course isn’t the way you would draw it up for a textbook. But he also knows that this is who he is and why fight it when you can just embrace it? So let’s embrace the Emilien Jacquelin that we have. Let’s embrace this reckless, wild, unpredictable, and endlessly entertaining biathlete. Let’s embrace the chaos that comes with it. And most of all let’s embrace the person at the middle of it all.

Eric Perrot (23)

As one of the true bright stars of the rising young generation, Eric Perrot has come to be a favorite of not just the French, but of biathlon fans of all nationalities. There is something infectious in the youthful energy he brings to his performance. An almost eager exuberance without, outwardly at least, a hint of scar tissue or any concern that things might not turn out okay. It’s an attitude that you see almost exclusively in the youth that seems to get ground out of not just many athletes but of so many people as we age. It is that joy that is so attractive.

It also helps that Perrot has been on the ascendency almost exclusively throughout his career. Just look at the plot above. Basically it’s an uphill portion of a mountain. Everything pointing upward. Skiing? Faster every year. Shooting? Getting more accurate every season. Shooting speed? Faster and faster. What does it all lead to? A World Cup Overall ranking going from 68th to 34th to 11th.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2021-2022	84	81	82.5	37.2
2022-2023	82.5	84.2	83.3	27.2
2023-2024	83.3	86.2	84.8	26.2

Last season we saw Perrot close the season on an extremely strong run that included eight top 10’s in his last 11 races and his first career victory in the Soldier Hollow Sprint. It was easily the best stretch of racing we have ever seen in Perrot’s career and none of it seemed like it was a fluke. The real key in that sublime stretch of racing was that he had four outings where he hit 95% of more of his shots. In his entire career up to that point, a total of 44 races, he had hit 95% or better just four times.

This year there is every reason to believe that we will continue to see the slope of Eric Perrot’s career continue to point upwards into the upper reaches of the biathlon stratosphere. There are few men as talented as he is, the only question now seems to be when it all comes together. While it could be as soon as this year, that still seems to be a little too early to expect. For this season I’m hoping we see him climb the podium a few more times and finish the season in the back half of the top 10. Anything else is a bonus that I will love to see!

Fabien Claude (29)

The middle Claude brother, Fabien Claude, has become a mainstay on the French World Cup roster over the last five years. In that stretch he’s never failed to be top 20 in the World. That’s probably an under appreciated stretch of consistent World Cup racing. He is the kind of biathlete that makes the World Cup roster so much fun to watch. No, he’s not regularly competing for the podium. No, he’s not in direct competition with the top men week in and week out. But every so often he can put it together and get himself into the mix as he has with 13 top 5’s over the last 5 years.

Fabien Claude is just a solid and dependable biathlete. Throughout this five year stretch of consistent racing he’s always been relatively fast with an average course time rank that has always been been between 10th and 17th. Meanwhile his shooting has consistently improved to where over the last two years he has hit 83.6% and 84%. Add to that an average shooting speed of around 27-28 seconds, which has had him rank around 30th in shooting speed on the World Cup. Put it all together and it really isn’t a surprise that you get a man who has been so consistently good for the French squad.

	Prone %	Standing %	Total %	Shooting Time
2020-2021	79.3	80.7	80	29.3
2021-2020	78	80	79	27.6
2022-2021	83.1	76.4	79.7	26
2022-2023	87.6	79.5	83.6	27.3
2023-2024	87.6	80.5	83.2	27.1

There is nothing that indicates that Fabien Claude is about to radically deviate from his career path. Nothing that shows a big drop off and nothing that shows a major improvement. He is just Mr. Steady. On a team like this it feels important that there is a Mr. Steady that can just be depended on to come out and do his thing. So here’s to another solid season from our solid French Mr. Steady!

IBU Cup The French are going to send six men to the IBU Cup in Idre Fjall. Following the first weekend of races two men will be promoted to the World Cup. Presumably there will be two additional men coming off the bench for the IBU Cup after that. So I will discuss not only the current roster but also many (many!) of the alternative candidates as well. With that said, here is the Idre Fjall IBU Cup roster:
– Oscar Lombardot
– Antonin Guigonnat
– Emilien Claude
– Axel Garnier
– Theo Guiraud Poillot
– Gaetan Paturel

Oscar Lombardot (24)

It almost seems like a sure thing that after the racing in Idre Fjaell we will see Oscar Lombardot named to the World Cup team. He’s raced 17 times on the World Cup the last two seasons, including most of the races from Ruhpolding through Canmore last year. While maybe not the radiantly shining star that Eric Perrot is, Oscar Lombardot still apperas to be a dependable young talent on the rise.

Over the last two seasons he has split time almost evenly on the IBU Cup and the World Cup. That makes it a bit difficult to judge him by his Overall standings on both levels because he just didn’t run enough races to accumulate the points for higher Overall finishes. However, he did move up from 82nd to 51st on the World Cup Overall ranks the last two seasons.

The biggest improvement for Lombardot during that period came in his shooting. He’s shown the signs of being a good shooter earlier in his career, but the last few years he seemed to get stuck right around 80%. Last year he broke that barrier and hit 85.5% on the World Cup. He did this while dropping his average shooting time down from 32.5 seconds to 30.9 seconds. His ski performance, however, stayed relatively flat, as he ran just a little faster than average and had an average course time rank of around 35 on the World Cup each of the last two seasons.

While Oscar Lombardot doesn’t profile to have the same exceptionally high ceiling as Eric Perrot, he may be able to provide the same type of role that Fabien Claude has. This season it seems like we are set to once again see him split some time between the IBU Cup and the World Cup. Hopefully though, we see his shooting remain consistent in the mid 80’s with even just a slight progression in his skiing.

Antonin Guigonnat (33)

You really start to feel for Antonin Guigonnat. The 33 year old mainstay of the French World Cup roster continues to have to earn his position every year. For six straight seasons starting with 2017-2018, Guigonnat has raced at least 15 races on the World Cup every year…until last season. Last year he started once again on the World Cup before he was demoted to the IBU Cup following an 86th place finish in the Oberhof Sprint. It was hard to see Guigonnat sent back to the IBU Cup but we have to give him all the credit in the world. He didn’t get down on himself. Guigonnat instead raced to a 3rd place in his 2nd IBU Cup race. He won the gold at the European Championships Sprint, and collected bronze in the Pursuit. By the time the World Cup went to Oslo he was back where he promptly finished 11th and 16th which were his best finishes of the season.

All in all, though, it was a disappointing season for Guigonnat. He didn’t get demoted just because the French felt like it. He just wasn’t racing well. His average finish of 38th was his worst since he started racing full time on the World Cup. His average course time rank was 38 which was his worst since he was 24 years old. Remember he is 33 now. His shooting percentage stayed steady at 83.2% which is basically steady and unchanged since he joined the World Cup. However, with the drop in ski speed, it just wasn’t good enough anymore to get him the occasional top 10. Last year was his first without a top 10 since the 2016-2017 season.

Guigonnnat is in a difficult position. He would be the oldest man on the roster if he was on the World Cup team and he showed clear signs of regression last season. That doesn’t mean he can’t re-establish himself on the World Cup. Ultimately biathlon should be a meritocracy, and like he did last season, he can use the IBU Cup to springboard himself back to the World Cup. However, he really has to earn it because every other man he is competing against for World Cup positions is significantly younger than him and that may play in their favor as the French may prioritize getting experience for the younger men

Emilien Claude (25)

The youngest Claude brother, Emilien surely has a long and successful career ahead of him. That career may be starring in Anna Gandler’s Instagram videos but that’s another story! Just kidding Emilien! In all seriousness I am a big fan of Emilien’s and I am surely pulling for him!!!

Last season was another step forward for Emilien Claude as he rose from 31st on the IBU Cup up to 14th while still earning some World Cup starts as well. Claude didn’t quite have a win like he did in the 2022-2023 season but he showed more consistency with six top 10’s in just 12 races along with two top 5’s. He did this by improving pretty much everywhere. He hit 86.1% on the IBU Cup which was the best of his career. His average course time rank was 17.8 which was his 2nd best of his IBU Cup career. That was behind the fastest season of his career in 2021-2022, where on the World Cup he had an average course time rank of 22.5 and IBU Cup course time rank of 8.9. He also had the fastest shooting times of his career primarily due to lowering his standing shooting time down to 25 seconds. That all combined to give him that solid improvement.

Will it be enough for him to make the World Cup this season? Not by itself. He needs to continue that trajectory. Another season of shooting improvement hitting again around 86-87% would be a great first step. Combine that with continued ski improvements, maybe back towards the level he showed in 2021-2022, and Emilien Claude could definitely earn that 6th World Cup position and for more than just a single season as well.

Axel Garnier (21)

The 21 year young Axel Garnier joins the IBU Cup team this season with only seven Junior Cup races to his credit, all of which happened last season. He had just two top 20 finishes and at Junior Worlds he finished 76th in the Individual, 33rd in the Sprint and 28th in the Mass 60. He has ski ranks all between 21 and 43rd and he had wildly inconsistent shooting hitting anywhere from 50% to 90%. He seemed to go back and forth from one extreme to the other. However, after finishing 3rd and 1st in the selection races for the French team he’s clearly shown the coaches something good. Because of that he’s on the IBU Cup team to start the season. I can’t wait to see how he’s grown!

Theo Guiraud Poillot (22)

Theo Guiraud Poillot may not be the guy you think of as one of the “next big French stars” but he’s been steadily making progress for the last several seasons. He enters this season coming off of a 7th place Overall Juniors finish in 2022-2023 and 17th Overall on the IBU Cup last year. Interestingly enough, you can argue he’s really looked better on the IBU Cup than the Juniors. Last season, racing at just 21 years old, he had eight top 20’s including finishing 6th in the Sprint and 9th in the Pursuit at the European Championships.

The 2023-2024 season saw Poillot make a very nice skiing improvement. His average course time rank rose up to 16.6. However, his shooting continues to hold him back. In his career he’s never hit more than 80% for a season and last year was no different as he hit 72% in his handful of Juniors races and 76.4% on the IBU Cup.

Barring a huge leap Theo Guiraud Poillot is going to spend this year on the IBU Cup and that’s okay! He still needs a bit of seasoning before he’s ready for a big time spotlight. A slow gradual development sounds just about right here. Maybe we can see him bump that shooting up towards 80% and get his average course time rank closer to the top 10-13. He did finish 2nd and 3rd in the selection races in Bessans. Hopefully that’s a good sign. If he has this kind of improvement then, regardless of results, this season was a success.

Gaetan Paturel (21)

I am a bit surprised by this selection for the IBU Cup. Not because I’m saying Gaetan Paturel doesn’t deserve it mind you! He won one of the selection races for the French team and finished 2nd in the other. No, this is because when I made my initial list of who might be in contention for the IBU Cup back in August/September I had Gaetan Paturel down near the lower part of my list. He clearly did some very strong work this summer and fall!

After a very good 2022 Junior European Championships in which he finished bronze, 8th, and 11th we just haven’t seen that much from him. Last season he raced four Junior Cup races in Pokljuka and Ridnaun-Val Ridanna and all of his finishes were between 22nd and 38th. He finished the season racing all five IBU Cup races in Obertilliach where he was 17th in the Short Individual and then finished 38th, 39th, 39th, and 45th in the other races.

Paturel didn’t overwhelm in any particular aspect of biathlon in his prior IBU races. His course time ranks weren’t stellar either on the Juniors or IBU Cup where he averaged ski ranks of 22.5 and 33.6 respectively. Meanwhile his shooting has been hot and cold. Clearly though, with his racing in Bessans he has found something in his performance. I cannot wait to see what he shows us this season!

Valentin Lejeune (21)

You know how I said that Gaetan Paturel wasn’t near the top of my big list? Valentin Lejeune would have been one of the guys a little bit higher. In the selection races, though, he had a 5th place in the Sprint and then missed the Mass Start. However, he has plenty of experience and success in his career so it wouldn’t surprise to see him rejoin the team for the 2nd weekend of IBU Cup racing. As a Junior he has a number of top 10 finishes including just last season winning silver in the Individual and 6th in the Sprint. He actually raced primarily on the IBU Cup last season where he had the first two top 10’s of his career along with eight top 20’s in 16 races. He even raced well enough to earn a World Cup start in the Ruhpolding Sprint.

To this point in his career Lejeune hasn’t shown a singular particular strength. He had an average course time rank of 18.3 on the IBU Cup last season and his hit 80.4% of his shots. That came with a split of 88.7% prone and 72.2% standing. Overall he was just a solid enough biathlete to keep accumulating decent results. That’s about what he’s been doing on the Juniors for the last several seasons as well so it wasn’t a major surprise!

My guess would be that Lejeune will end up running a good number of IBU Cup races this season. It would be great to see his trajectory start pointing up again. Maybe he can get a little bit faster and pull that standing shooting up a bit. That will be my hope for when he rejoins the IBU Cup this season! That and maybe a couple of more top 10’s!

Damien Levet (23)

Back in the 2020 Youth Worlds Damien Levet first introduced himself to the greater biathlon audience by winning silver in the Individual, 7th in the Sprint and 9th in the Pursuit. Since then he continues to have flashes of success. In 2022 he was 10th at the Junior European Championship Pursuit. In the 2022-2023 season he had his first IBU Cup top 10 with an 8th in a Mass 60. Last season he added a couple more top 10’s in the racing at Idre Fjaell as well as a total of 11 top 20’s in 23 races.

Even after such a marvelous introduction, Levet has shown us slow and steady progress the last few seasons. Looking in particular at his IBU Cup statistics, as that is where he will be racing now, he is just a little bit better every season. His average course time rank has steadily improved the last three seasons up to 20.5 last season. His shooting has improved a little more slowly but he still has advanced to 82.1% hit rate last season.

Damien Levet may not be a hot name, but he has me mildly intrigued. When he does make it back to the IBU Cup this season my goals for him are an average course time rank that is closer to 15 and a hit rate closer to 85%. Last season he was 12th on the IBU Cup Overall. If he can make those improvements he can crack the top 10 this year.

Remi Broutier (24)

In his efforts to advance forward Remi Broutier has never quite had his big breakthrough. He won a silver in the Youth Worlds Pursuit in 2019. We next saw him on the IBU Cup in the 2020-2021 season where he accumulated 5 top 20’s, including a podium, in his first full IBU Cup season. He followed up that up by running 21 IBU Cup races the following season in which he had 11 top 20’s and was showing a solid level of competition. Solid but not spectacular. But for 22 years old that was okay!

Last season was a little set back. He made the IBU Cup to start out the season, but he only ended up running nine races. In those first nine races he had just two top 20’s and couldn’t show the results that were expected, and needed, to hold his position. After those nine races he decided to take a pause for the rest of the season. While his shooting took a big jump forward as he hit 88.2%, his skiing really slid backwards. His average course time rank fell from 15.3 to 35.5. He just didn’t have the speed to be able to compete even with his improved shooting.

So what can we expect from Broutier this season? Well, first of all he needs to compete. I didn’t see that he was racing in Bessans. He was training all summer so hopefully all is well. Hopefully we see a combination of his 22-23 skiing along with his 23-24 shooting. Now if he does that then he’s going to definitely turn some heads. He won’t exactly be winning every race, but he will certainly find a number of top 10’s.

Jacques Jefferies (22)

While the future head of the IBU will not be starting the season on the IBU Cup, I am hopeful that it is just a matter of time before he gets a few starts. I joke a little bit about him being the future head of the IBU but if you haven’t already please check out his substack and listen to the interview he did with us in September of this year. He is an incredibly well thought out young man with many really excellent ideas for the future of biathlon.

As far as his biathlon is concerned he’s been a steady competitor over the last several seasons on the Juniors level. The peak of his career thus far was in the 2022-2023 season when he had six top 11 finishes including a third place finish and a silver medal in the Junior European Championships Pursuit when he came all the way back from 27th. Unfortunately last season was not as successful. He was only able to compete at Junior Worlds but he did race relatively well with finishes of 15th and 11th in the Sprint and the Mass 60.

The good news for Jefferies is his shooting is getting better and better! Last season he hit a career best 84%. And it wasn’t a fluke because the year before it was 82%. Unfortunately for Jefferies his skiing statistics are trending in the wrong direction. His average course time rank has gotten worse every yaer, particularly last season.

There is a real path for Jefferies to find his way back to regular IBU Cup starts. The shooting is already there and competitive compared to many of the other men he is vying for starts against. It’s all about getting the skiing back. There were some good signs as he finished 9th and 8th in the two Sprint races in Bessans. I am guessing we’ll see him get called up to the IBU Cup at some point and I’ll be cheering for him when he does!

Paul Fontaine (24)

Ever since his graduation from his Juniors career, which included the 2022 Junior European Pursuit gold medal, to the IBU Cup, Paul Fontaine has been working hard to gain starts. In the 2022-2023 season he started 12 times. He was able to get three top 20’s including a season and career best 8th place. Last season though he only made it to the starting line on four occasions and his finishes were all between 32nd and 69th. All in all that just wasn’t going to cut it.

With such a small sample size it is difficult to ascertain where his level really was, but from what we saw, his performance slid last season in both skiing in shooting. His average course time rank dropped from 25.6 to 36.8. His shooting percentage dropped from 76.8% down to 70%. Again though, that was just a handful of races so it’s difficult to make broad determination off of that.

This season in Bessans he had a finish of 10th place to keep him in the competition, but certainly not enough to solidify a position. Fontaine is clearly still working towards a future in biathlon. Of course he is working hard on it and he knows better than us, but his goals are going to be across the board broad improvement. As we know from Jacques Jefferies the competition on the French national cup is still quite strong so he should be able to measure himself reasonably well. Hopefully we see him return to the IBU Cup later this season showing off a stronger all around profile!

Sebastian Mahon (24)

Sebastian Mahon’s career looks a whole lot like Paul Fontaine. He had some pretty good Junior Cup competitions including the 2019-2020 season where he had four top 10’s with a 4th place at the Junior Worlds Individual. Since moving to the IBU Cup, though, he’s found it a bit tougher. He’s struggled to get consistent starts with only 5 in the 2021-2022 season in which he had a top 10 and all five were top fives. He followed that with just four and seven races in each of the last two seasons. Over those last two seasons he has no top 20 finishes.

Unfortunately he’s seen a significant slide in his performance since the 2021-2022 season. That year on the IBU Cup his average course time rank that season was up to 11.5 and he hit 84.4%. The last two seasons his average course time ranks were 37 and 22 and he hit 76.7% and 74.3%. Those statistics look a lot like Paul Fontaine which explains why both have struggled to get more consistent racing the last two seasons.

The goal for Sebastian Mahon is the same as Fontaine and Jefferies and Broutier. Just continues to work and get better. Take advantage of the quality of the competition on the French national cup and try to get back to the IBU Cup.

Ambroise Meunier (25)

Once again, Ambroise Meunier follows along with a similar pattern from the previous men. He started to find some regular competition and racing on the IBU Cup during the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 seasons. He found some good success in the 22-23 season with three top 10’s and eight top 20’s leading to an 18th Overall finish on the IBU Cup level. However, last season he wasn’t able to start the season off on the IBU Cup and it took him until the very end of the season to make his way back. In Obertilliach he raced all five races with a season’s best of 27th.

Meunier’s peak season saw him have an average course time rank of 22 and he hit 78.3%. Unfortunately, last year his average course time rank was 35.8 and his hit rate slipped a bit down to 76.3%.

Ambroise Meunier is in the same general position as Mahon, Fontaine, Broutier and Jefferies. He is scrapping for positioning on the IBU Cup. Has to refind the ski strength that he had just two seasons ago as well as get fix the shooting accuracy. If he does that he can maybe find himself another couple of weekends on the IBU Cup.

Juniors Finally we come to the French Junior Men. This isn’t close to a complete list! I’m sorry about that!

Antonin Guy (18)

-2023-2024 season was Debut. Raced Youth Olympics and the Youth Worlds
– Youth Olympics: Gold in Individual, Sprint and Single Mixed. Silver in Mixed relay.
– Youth Worlds: Gold in Individual, 14th in Sprint, and 6th in Mass 60
– Best moment: All of the gold medals!
– Avg course time rank: 10.3 at Youth Worlds
– Shooting percentage: 88% with even splits

Mathieu Garcia (21)

-History: 20-21 Youth worlds: 27, 13, 36. 22-23: 7 races with 1 top 20
-2023-2024 season: 2 Junior Cup races: Finished 4th and 12th
– Best moment:4th in Sprint at 23-24 Ridnaun-Val Ridanna Sprint
– Avg course time rank: 6.0
– Shooting percentage: 80%

Edgar Geny (21)

-This is fourth season of Juniors racing. Raced three IBU Cup races.
– Finishes: 3rd and 8th in Pokljuka + 20th in Ridnaun-Val Ridanna Sprint
– Avg course time rank: 9.7
– Shooting percentage: 85%

Leo Carlier (18)

-2023-2024 season was Debut. Raced Youth Worlds
– Youth Worlds: 10, 11, 9
– Best moment: Very consistent at Youth Worlds
– Avg course time rank: 24.3
– Shooting percentage: 90%

Lionel Jouannaud (20)

-2023-2024 season was Debut. Raced IBU Cup 1st weekend
– Finishes: 10, 24, 9
– Avg course time rank: 20.3
– Shooting percentage: 82.5%

Camille Grataloup-Manissolle (18)

-2023-2024 season was Debut. Raced 2 IBU Cup weekends + Youth Olympics
– Youth Olympics: 14th in Individual and 4th in Sprint
– Best moment: 4th in Sprint at Youth Olympics
– Avg course time rank: 24.8
– Shooting percentage: 82% in IBU races + 70% at Youth Olympics

Jeremie Bouchex-Bellomie (18)

-2023-2024 season was Debut. Raced Youth Worlds
– Youth Worlds: 48, 14, 10
– Best moment: 10th in Mass 60
– Avg course time rank: 27
– Shooting percentage: 82%

Flavio Guy (18)

-2023-2024 season was Debut. Raced Youth Olympics and the Youth Worlds
– Youth Olympics: Bronze in Sprint, Silver in Mixed Relay, 21s tin Individual,
– Youth Worlds: 46th, 9th, 27th
– Best moment: Youth Olympics medals
– Avg course time rank: 10.3 at Youth Worlds
– Shooting percentage: 68% with even splits at Worlds + 56.7% at Youth Olympics

Ian Martinet (21)

-2023-2024 season was Debut. Raced Junior Cup 1st and 2nd weeks
– Finishes: 13th, 34th, 16th, 43rd
– Best moment: 13th in Pokljuka Sprint
– Avg course time rank: 26.8
– Shooting percentage: 80%