After a prolonged series of altitude training camps the French team decamped to their Arcon training home to contest their Summer Biathlon Championships. For the French team they were coming in with tired legs after long grueling training. They were greeted by very warm weather and brutally breezy conditions on the shooting range. The result was a weekend of difficult racing conditions.
The races were truly a battle for any of the athletes. It absolutely reinforces why we always reinforce our “celebrate the good performances and don’t get too worried about the bad ones” policy about summer biathlon. It’s not the real thing and it’s just for fun.
With that being said let’s take a look at what the weekend brought us
Take Aways
- Lou Jeanmonnot was the class of the field. She’s coming off of consecutive 2nd place finishes in the Women’s Overall Globe race with last season’s finish being absolutely brutal. At age 26 (soon to be 27) she is one of the queens of the biathlon field. This weekend she breezed to the Sprint title and had absolutely no trouble defending the lead in the Pursuit. We’re not taking anything big away from these races but Lou looks like Lou and that’s always a good thing.
- Emilien Jacquelin was similarly brilliant. The always combustible Jacquelin had two very smooth races. He fought through the very difficult conditions on Saturday to deliver a solid victory. Then in the Pursuit he was never really challenged and ran away with the double National Titles.
- Oceane Michelon wasn’t quite able to challenge Lou Jeanmonnot for the National Titles. However she did go back to back for silver medals and that can’t be discounted. This is tough team so any time you’re on the podium in one of these races it’s great!
- Speaking of…How about Celia Henaff? She beat out some huge high level talent to bring home two bronze medals. That’s a great weekend for the 21 year old who will be fighting to put her name alongside Voldyia Galmace Paulin and Amandine Mengin.
- Eric Perrot is one of the top talents in biathlon. He’s going to have an great 2025-2026 season. So don’t worry that he took home “only” a single podium at these races.
- Want to know how tough the conditions were and how tough the last few weeks were? Check out how Simon, Braisaz-Bouchet, and QFM amongst others finished. There were some tired legs and windy conditions and the results speak for themselves.
- Want to make note of Erika Janka. Like Suvi Minkkinen she’s been training independent of the Finnish federation for the last two seasons. She took part in the French championships this year and finished 11th in the Sprint and 9th in the Pursuit. Nice weekend of racing for her!
Sprint
The weekend was started with the women’s Sprint. As noted above it was dominated by Lou Jeanmonnot. Jeanmonnot had the fastest first loop time before having her only miss of the day in the prone shooting. Still coming off the penalty loop her time was only 9 seconds back of the top time at that check point, belonging to Jeanne Richard. Too bad for Richard (and the rest of the field) that Jeanmonnot was only just getting started. She was perfect the rest of the way. By the mid point on the 2nd lap she had caught up to Richard’s time. After a perfect standing shoot she was well out in front of the pack with the cloest to her being Richard at +43. Richard faded hard on the last lap to eventually end up outside the podium. Not so for Jeanmonnot who continued to press her advantage to the line and nearly push the win to a full minute over the rest of the field
Behind Jeanmonnot, Oceane Michelon came in for the silver medal. She was far from perfect as she had three total misses including one prone and two on standing shots. Her skiing though was as good as anybody not named Lou Jeanmonnot. Michelon basically marked Jeanmonnot through the two laps and the first shooting. Since then both had a single prone miss it was an easy comparision. By the time she came on for the final shooting she was just 1.4 seconds back of Jeanmonnot. After two misses, though, Michelon was 47 seconds back of her leaving the penalty loop and was actually running 3rd. But as Richard faded Michelon surged past her to grab the silver medal.
As mentioned above the young Celia Henaff had herself a very good weekend starting with a great sprint. Henaff clearly was not able to hold on to the ski power of her slightly older and more experienced teammates. Henaff ran 25 seconds back of Jeanmonnot and 22 seconds back of Michelon and Justine Braisaz-Bouchet on the first lap. But after two misses in the prone shooting she recovered well and held her own the rest of the way. Henaff left the range 45 seconds back of Jeanmonnot as she started the 2nd ski lap and, going perfect in the standing shoot, only lost 17 seconds to Jeanmonnot the rest of the way. A very good showing from the young woman!
Jeanne Richard, as noted above, started out the race very well, but faded hard late to fall off the podium. Julia Simon appeared to be suffering a bit from tired legs. She was 7/10 on the day but was losing ground big time on the course. She lost 18 seconds to Jeanmonnot on lap one, 22 seconds on lap two, and 40 seconds on the final lap. Those are very tired legs. The very young Louise Roguet, juts 18 years old, had a phenomenal day hitting 7/10 and still finding her way to the to p6 a few seconds ahead of Voldiya Galmace Paulin.
Others worth noting:
– Coralie Perrin in 8th finished with 8 hits and was +2:28
– Justine Braisaz-Bouchet had a tough day on the range hitting just 5 shots which knocked her down to 9th
– Sophie Chauveau followed JBB’s example to 10th with 5 misses of her own
– Finn Erika Janka finished 11th
– Susanna Meinen from Switzerland finished 16th with 4/10 shooting
– Paula Botet in 17th, Camille Bened in 18th, and Lola Bugeaud in 19th was a tough shoting for three of the killer B’s of the French team (Anaelle Bondoux DNS)
– Lisa Siberchicot was 24th with a 5/10 effort on the range
– Gilonne Guigonnat DNF
| Women’s Top 10 | Men’s Top 10 |
| 🥇Lou Jeanmonnot (9/10) | 🥇Emilien Jacquelin (8/10) |
| 🥈Oceane Michelon +52 (7/10) | 🥈Theo Guiraurd-Poillot +37 (7/10) |
| 🥉Celia Henaff +1:02 (8/10) | 🥉Martin Botet +55 (8/10) |
| 4) Jeanne Richard +1:10 (8/10) | 4) Eric Perrot +1:01 (8/10) |
| 5) Julia Simon +2:11 (7/10) | 5) Ian Martinent +1:29 (8/10) |
| 6) Louise Roguet +2:18 (7/10) | 6) Fabien Claude +1:47 (7/10) |
| 7) Voldiya Galmace-Paulin +2:22 (6/10) | 7) Oscar Lombardot +1:58 (6/10) |
| 8) Coralie Perrin +2:28 (8/10) | 8) Leo Carlier +2:15 (5/10) |
| 9) Justine Braisaz-Bouchet +2:36 (5/10) | 9) Quentin Fillon Maillet +2:16 (2/10) |
| 10) Sophia Chauveau +2:47 (5/10) | 10) Valentin Lejeune +2:30 (6/10) |
If the women’s race was difficult the men’s race was even worse. Emilien Jacquelin led the way almost from the jump. While he wasn’t the fastest man for the first lap he was just 1.6 seconds back of Eric Perrot. He matched Perrot’s clean 5/5 shooting prone. From there he absolutely took off. It was a classic Jacquelin move. Get the first targets down and then go all out. By the end of the 2nd lap he had moved to a full 40 seconds ahead of Perrot’s time which was the 2nd best at that check point, 43 seconds ahead of Theo Guiraud-Poillot and 45 seconds ahead of Fabien Claude in 3rd and 4th with two laps down. To be fair Perrot did appear to be struggling but more on that in a minute.
Jacquelin did have two misses in the standing shooting. Normally that isn’t great. For this particularly race that was just fine though as the entire field seem to have tired legs at that moment. Just two athletes went clean standing. That honor goes to Lou Thievent and Lilian Leurs. Nobody who was within striking distance was clean on the standing shooting though leaving Jacquelin all on his own, 46 seconds ahead of Perrot, 52 ahead of Guiraurd-Poillot and 58 ahead of Martin Botet. Even turning off the jets in the final lap Jacquelin cruised to an easy gold medal.
Second place went to a surprisingly strong Theo Guiraurd-Poillot. He had 3 misses on teh day which normally would not be treat. Today it was nowhere close to rough enough to knock him out of contention. More importantly, though, he was skiing at a very high level losing just 6 seconds to Perrot on lap one and 5 seconds to Jacquelin. While he lost 16 seconds to Jacquelin on loop 2, so did pretty much everybody else. Guiraurd-Poillot closed out the race with the fastest 3rd lap. He gets to bring home the silver medal for his efforts.
The bronze medal for the day went to surprising Martin Botet. Botet was the bronze medalist last season in the Junior European Championship Mass 60. Other than that he doesn’t have too much of a resume to speak of. In the Sprint in Arcon, however, he was able to take advantage of Perrot’s late race slide and surged on to the podium. Even after two misses on the standing shoot, Perrot still hda a chance at the podium. He was running second at +46 just ahead of Guiraurd-Poillot and Martin Botet. By the end of the race he slipped back to just over 1 minute back. Perrot lost 15 seconds to Jacquelin, 30 seconds to Guiraurd-Poillot, and 18 seconds to Botet. Truly fatigued legs and he finished up in 4th.
5th position went to Ian Martinet, another 8/10 shooting. Fabien Claude was running in 4th position and easily in podium contention until 3 misses at the standing shooting pushed him down the order.
The bottom of the top 10, and further down the order, was littered with tough shooting days. None more difficult than Quentin Fillon Maillet who hit just 2/10 shots. To be fair it was hot and breezy and QFM was apparently not well recovered from the training camp. He ended up sitting out the Pursuit the following day.
Others worth Noting:
– Oscar Lombardot with 4 misses finished up in 7th
– Corentin Jacob just 4/10 finished 13th
– Lou Thievent actually hit 9 of 10 shots but still struggled to a 15th
– Edgar Geny will be fighting on the IBU Cup this season and finished 17th hitting 7/10
– Remi Broutier, another IBU Cup hopeful, finished 18th hitting 5/10
– Camille Grataloup-Manissolle hit 4/10 and put himself in a bit of a hole for the Pursuit finishing 19th
– Jacque Jefferies hit 5/10 and finished 20th
– Antonin Guigonnat finished in 22nd with 4 misses and tired legs
– The Guys, two young hopefuls for the French team, finished in 26th and 33rd
Pursuit
Not as much to say about the women’s Pursuit as the SPrint. There just wasn’t a lot of movement. The top 3 all hit 18 or 19 of 20 and finished in the exact same position as where they started. The only difference was that over the course of 10km Celia Henaff lost about a minute on Oceane Michelon and Lou Jeanmonnot. Overall though, the three of Lou Jeanmonnot, Oceane Michelon, and Celia Henaff did a fantastic job of defending their positions. A great effort for the medalist.
Jeanne Richard wasn’t quite a superb as the top three as she had four misses. Even still it was more than enough to defend her position and with her superior skiing she finished within 19 seconds of the podium. This was the only real drama on the day as Richard briefly passed Henaff after the latter had a miss in each of her first two trips to the range while Richard went 9/10 in those shots. Henaff went clean the rest of the way while Richard had three standing misses.
Julia Simon started in 5th and ended in 5th even with 18/20 shooting. The rest of the women didn’t give her an opening and Simon didn’t have the legs to create a move. Sophie Chauveau rose from 10th up to the top 6. She had a perfect prone shooting to move up the field and then held on the rest of the way.
Others Worth Noting:
– Fany Bertrand with a 19/20 day rises from 14th to 7th
– Erika Janka makes the most of her week of racing with the French and finishes with a 9th place
– Camille Bened rises from 18th to 12th after hitting 19/20
– Louise Rouget had a very good Sprint but slipped to 13th after 4 misses
– Gilonne Guigonnat did not finish the Sprint but was given a starting time for the Pursuit and finished 15th
– Amandine Mengin hit 19/20 and only moved up from 20th to 17th
– Swiss interloper Susana Meinen finished 19th
| Women’s Top 10 | Men’s Top 10 |
| 🥇Lou Jeanmonnot (18/20) | 🥇Emilien Jacquelin (18/20) |
| 🥈Oceane Michelon +1:06 (19/20) | 🥈Eric Perrot +44 (16/20) |
| 🥉Celia Henaff +2:14 (18/20) | 🥉Theo Guiraud-Poillot +1:47 (16/20) |
| 4) Jeanne Richard +2:33 (16/20) | 4) Fabien Claude +2:02 (15/20) |
| 5) Julia Simon +3:37 (18/20) | 5) Martin Botet +2:15 (16/20) |
| 6) Sophie Chauveau +3:40 (16/20) | 6) Oscar Lombardot +2:22 (18/20) |
| 7) Fany Bertrand +4:09 (19/20) | 7) Valentin Lejeune +3:16 (14/20) |
| 8) Voldiya Galmace Paulin +4:18 (18/20) | 8) Leo Carlier +4:10 (17/20) |
| 9) Erika Janka +4:23 (19/20) | 9) Remi Broutier +4:30 (16/20) |
| 10) Justine Braisaz-Bouchet +4:41 (15/20) | 10) Camille Grataloup Manilssole +5:03 (15/20) |
Similar to the women’s race there wasn’t a ton of movement at the top for the men. Emilien Jacquelin started out the day with a 37 seconds advantage on Theo Guiraurd-Poillot. He went 18/20 and there really wasn’t any drama in this one. At the first checkpoint after the first shoot Jacquelin had a 1:05 lead on Perrot and that was as clos as it got the rest of the way. Okay fine Perrot cut the lead back to 1:05 after Jacquelin’s 2nd miss of the day but it wasn’t really a competition with so little room left to run.
All credit to Eric Perrot he came back strong after a rough finish to the Sprint race. He had a single miss in every trip to the range. Even still he climbed to 2nd place after the 1st shoot and never let go of it. Meanwhile Theo Guiraud-Poillot did himself proud as well. He has 2 misses in both the first prone and first standing shoots. Otherwise though he did a very good job of defending his podium position from a charge by Fabien Claude.
Fabien Claude meanwhile was very good skiing. He had five misses on the day but even still was able to climb up to 3rd place after the first standing shoot. He was still running that position but had two misses in the last trip to the range. He fell back to just two seconds ahead of Martin Botet but sprinted away early on the last lap and stayed away for the 4th position. Martin Botet held on for 5th. Oscar Lombardot went 8/10 in the prone shooting but was clean standing to hold 6th.
Others Worth Noting:
– Valentine Lejeune rose from 10th to 7th even with four misses on his last shoot
– Remi Broutier with a big jump from 18th to 9th hitting 16/20
– Camille Grataloup Manissolle was 15/20 and climbed from 19th to 10th
– Axel Garnier with the climb of the day from 28th to 13th with just a single miss in the last shoot
– Flavio Guy up from 26th to 14th with an 0-1-1-1 shooting performance
– Antonin Guigonnat with another slow day finished in 18th hitting 15/20
– Jacques Jefferies finished 25th after a tough day shooting hitting 12/20