From the FasterSkier archive — posts syndicated from athletes’ and coaches’ own blogs between 2004 and 2012, kept online as published. Current coverage is at fasterskier.com.

Tag: Federico Fontana

Historic 1-4 Sweep for France in Women’s Biathlon Sprint

FasterSkier’s Coverage of the Biathlon World Championships is made possible through the generous support of the Craftsbury Outdoor Center: New England’s finest snowmaking, world class race venues and touring trails, healthy food in abundance, comfortable accommodations at Craftsbury: Sports, Sustainability, Stewardship.

France swept places 1-4 in the Sprint at the 2024 Biathlon World Championships. (Photo: NordicFocus)

Ever since France upset Norway to win the opening Mixed Relay of the 2024 Biathlon World Championships, their magnificent esprit de corps has been on display. After that race, the entire team gathered around the podium and belted “La Marseillaise” in the rain as the French flag was raised in the Vysocina Arena in Nove Mesto na Morave, Czech Republic. That same winning energy pulsed through the French women’s team Friday as they delivered an historic sweep of the first four places—a feat not seen since the inaugural Women’s Biathlon World Championships in 1984 when the Soviet Union swept the 10 k Individual. (American Kari Swenson was fifth.) There were 35 finishers in that race. In Friday’s 7.5 k Sprint, The French quartet of Julia Simon, Justine Braisaz-Bouchet, Lou Jeanmonnot, and Sophie Chauveau bested a field of nearly 100.

Early starter Julia Simon (FRA) crosses the finish line, setting the time to beat in the Women’s Sprint. (Photo: NordicFocus)

All eyes were on Simon, wearing bib 2, to set the time to beat for the day. After laying down a perfect anchor leg in Wednesday’s Mixed Relay, she picked up where she left off with another 10/10 performance, leaving little room for any challengers. Simon’s ski time ranked fourth and her total shooting time of 42 seconds for prone and standing was the fastest of the day. It was a dominant Sprint performance from the 2023 World Cup Overall champion, who is better known for her head-to-head racing.

Lou Jeanmonnot (FRA) shot 9/10 to land on her first World Championships podium, taking home the bronze for France. (Photo: NordicFocus)

Another early starter, Jeanmonnot in bib 5 matched Simon’s speed on the course but lost some time to her on the range (like everyone else) and missed one target in standing, eventually finishing 40 seconds back. It seemed inevitable that other competitors would fill that gap, but as the race went on it became clear that the only athletes skiing fast enough to challenge the French women were their own teammates.

Justin Braisaz-Bouchet (FRA) outskied the field by nearly 30 seconds to take silver despite one miss. (Photo: NordicFocus)

Out-skiing the field by over 30 seconds in Wednesday’s Mixed Relay, Braisaz-Bouchet demonstrated that she is one of very few athletes who can ski a penalty loop and still fight for gold. That scenario nearly played out in Friday’s Sprint, as Braisaz-Bouchet gapped the field by 28 seconds, missed one in prone but then hit all of her standing targets, leaving the range with just a 13-second deficit to clean-shooting Simon. She closed the gap in the final kilometers but couldn’t quite catch Simon, crossing the line just 4.9 seconds behind.

World Cup Overall leader Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold (NOR) led the race after the first shooting but then fell to 25th after a disastrous three misses in standing. (Photo: NordicFocus)

The two Italian stars, Lisa Vittozzi and Dorothea Wierer, were early challengers for the podium, both showing their trademark poise on the range with 10/10 hits, but they didn’t have the ski speed to keep up with the French women and ended up seventh and tenth. Swedish sisters Hanna and Elvira Oeberg did the reverse; they skied well but both missed in standing and dropped to eighth and ninth.

The only other athlete who could challenge Simon for the gold was World Cup Overall leader Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold (NOR) in bib 26. She came through the prone shooting in the lead, 1.5 seconds ahead of Simon, but then suffered a disastrous standing bout, missing three targets and falling to 25th place—her worst result of the season.

Sophie Chauveau (FRA) reacts to her team’s one-through-four sweep. (Photo: NordicFocus)

The podium positions seemed secure until Chauveau, wearing bib 40, nearly overtook Jeanmonnot. Chauveau found herself down in 30th after a miss in prone but then launched into podium contention with her clean standing shooting and third-ranked course time. In the finish she was a mere four seconds off the podium.

Simon’s gold is her first Sprint podium of the season and only her second-ever Sprint victory. Braisaz-Bouchet, who skipped last season to have her first child, had never finished better than 25th in a World Championships Sprint, despite taking part in every edition since 2015 and winning a list of World Cup races and an Olympic gold medal in Beijing along the way. Jeanmonnot’s bronze is her first World Championship medal, and Chauveau’s fourth place ties her second-best career finish. She earned her first World Cup medal, a bronze, in January of this year.

While the French women shot exceptionally well, they owe their sweep to their ski speed. Four of the top-five fastest skiers in the Sprint were French. The other was 2021 cross-country World Cup Overall Sprint champion, Anamarija Lampic of Slovenia, who missed five and finished 36th. Reflecting on the role that ski preparation played today, US Biathlon ski technician Federico Fontana said, “The dirt and the wet in Nove Mesto is always challenging. The French had incredible skis.”

Baiba Bendika (LAT) skied the seventh-fastest course time and hit 9/10 to tie her career-best finish of fifth. (NordicFocus).

The surprise of the day was Latvia’s Baiba Bendika, who finished fifth to match her career-best result, having given birth to her first child in October—just four months ago. She had a chance to break up the French sweep but missed her last shot. Franziska Preuss of Germany completed the Flower Ceremony, also with one standing miss.

Irwin and Geraghty-Moats Qualify for Pursuit

Deedra Irwin was the top American in the Sprint, finishing 39th with one miss each in prone and standing. She wrote on her Instagram account, “It isn’t what I wanted but then I realized that it is my personal best World Champs Sprint finish!” Irwin has consistently been scoring World Cup points in the top 40 this season and has the potential to move up significantly in Sunday’s Pursuit. She’ll be joined in the Pursuit for the first time by teammate Tara Geraghty-Moats, who sneaked into the top-60 qualifiers with a new personal-best of 58th.

Tara Geraghty-Moats (USA) smiling in the finish line after setting a new personal-best of 58th to qualify for her first Pursuit. (Photo: NordicFocus)

Geraghty-Moats cited her start position as playing a role in her qualification. “I had good course conditions with the second-to-last starting bib. With the warm temperatures, I thought the course would degrade a lot by the time I raced but it didn’t.” She had the advantage of watching earlier athletes go through, and drawing on their energy. “It looked so epic. It made me super excited to go out there. With the results I’ve had this winter I didn’t think I would make the Pursuit so I just wanted to have a race where I executed my plan well.”

Jackie Garso (USA) racing in her first World Championships. (Photo: NordicFocus)

Chloe Levins and Jackie Garso completed the US roster in Friday’s race. Levins echoed Geraghty-Moats’ comments about the atmosphere in the stadium: “The energy under the lights in Nove Mesto was electrifying tonight.” Levins, who finished 80th with two misses, is coming off a training season that was interrupted by a number of health issues. “I’m nowhere near satisfied with my result, but continue to gain great experience and feel myself racing back into shape.” Garso, competing in her first World Championships, finished 87th with three misses. She, too, was shocked by the crowds: “It’s unbelievably loud! You can’t even hear yourself breathe.”

Full Results

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Saturday 10 Feb Men’s Sprint 11:05 (Eastern Time)

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Julia Simon (FRA) took home her second gold of the 2024 Biathlon World Championships. (Photo: NordicFocus)

February 10, 2024
Heinicke Third in Frassinoro Biathlon Festival, A Summer Party in Italy’s Hills

Canada’s Megan Heinicke (right) teamed up with Pietro Dutto of Italy to place third in the finale of the Frassinoro Biathlon Festival. (Photo: Davide Magnaghi)

Last weekend, a crowd of top international biathletes descended on the town of Frassinoro, Italy. Over a thousand years old but with just 700 residents, Frassinoro is home to one of the most ardent biathlon fanclubs in Italy. As part of their love for the sport, the clubs volunteers set up a summer biathlon festival each year.

Megan Heinicke was one of those who attended. The Canadian two-time Olympian, who lives in Klingenthal, Germany, traveled eight hours to get some facetime with her international friends and some race-intensity shooting workouts.

That included a time trial, shootouts, and a mixed-gender relay, where Heinicke and Italy’s Pietro Dutto teamed up to finish third.

Dorothea Wierer of Italy leads teammate Nicole Gontier, Eva Tofalvi or Romania, and Megan Heinicke of Canada in the finale of the Frassinoro Biathlon Festival. (Photo: Davide Magnaghi)

“From a direct training perspective, the races are really short and it’s nothing really training relevant,” she said. “I think it’s way more interesting just to go there for a few days. You’re in this awesome little valley and on the day before the race we did an uphill rollerski together. There’s some international training sessions, and that was for me as much or more valuable than the event itself.”

But the shortness of the rollerski loop – just one kilometer – didn’t take away from the value of the competitions for Heinicke, who has seen little head-to-head competition or even training so far this season.

She’d recommend it to “anyone, a colleague or a fan,” she said.

For the last four years, the village has constructed a four-lane shooting range in their soccer field just for the competition.

“They build wooden ramps, sort of, or paths, from the path into the soccer field, and they cover everything so it’s possible to rollerski there,” Heinicke said. “So it’s pretty funny, but it’s amazing because it works really well. Everything is created from nothing.”

Not for long. Federico Fontana, a wax tech who this year will be working with the American team this season, told FasterSkier that at long last, permitting came through to build a real shooting range and a rollerski loop.

International crowd: World Cup athletes from Italy, Slovenia, Romania, Canada, Estonia, and Great Britain – with many a World Championships medal between them – came to Frassinoro. (Photo: Davide Magnaghi)

“The first part of the work will start soon just the time for bureaucracy!” he laughed.

Fontana and the town’s other biathlon enthusiasts see it becoming a regional hub for the sport.

“Our goal is to build a summer training center and bring in our town teams and athletes, and complete with summer facilities,” he said. “We have a lot to offer during the winter with more than 50 kilometers of cross-country ski trails.”

Those trails have made Frassinoro a big place for cross-country skiing, even if its population is small. Tonino Biondini won national championships in the 1970’s, and more recent stars like Sabina Valbusa and Arianna Follis are now connected to the area too (Valbusa coaches juniors there). Besides Fontana, two other Frassinoro men are World Cup wax techs, Gianluca Marcolini for Norway and Simone Biondini for the Italians. A young female athlete is also now on the national team.

All that might help explain the atmosphere of the summer competitions.

“They call it a biathlon festival, and it really is a festival,” Heinicke said. “It’s a small town but they have a massive party tent and it feels like the entire town is there. To watch the races, and there’s also kids races and other events. There’s food in the tent, a big party, an awards ceremony. It’s very family-friendly, with everyone from kids to grandparents in attendance.”

Could something like this ever work in North America?

“Yes, but the big challenge is to build the hype,” Heinicke said. “Well, no, the biggest challenge would be to get international people, because the travel is so far. But for sure the kind of setup, to have a sort of nordic festival with some summer races and some kids events and some sort of party, cultural atmosphere, I can definitely see that as something that would be just a really cool, positive sport event anywhere.”

In that scene, Heinicke found herself going head to head with World Cup podium finishers Dorothea Wierer and Nicole Gontier from Italy, and Romanian World Cup winner Eva Tofalvi in shootouts.

Athletes and volunteers at the festival. (Photo: Davide Magnaghi)

Summer Training and Fall Plans

For Heinicke, that was perfect. After moving to Klingenthal this spring, she hasn’t been focusing on shooting, instead getting her feet under her and developing her training strategy.

“The time trial actually went pretty well,” she said. “This was my first shooting with race-pace intensity. I hit nine, and thought, okay, I still got it from the winter! So that was good.”

The relay didn’t go as smoothly – both she and Dutto shot “relatively poorly”, she said. (Tofalvi and Dominik Windisch of Italy teamed up for the win.) But it was still a good introduction back into shooting with intensity.

“Of course in the moment you really want to hit the targets, just like ever,” she said. “It’s fun and you want to win. But it’s totally no pressure and it’s totally fun.”

With shooting buoying her to best-ever finishes last season on the World Cup – she was in the top 15 four different times – Heinicke is now focusing on ramping up her ski technique and speed to be more competitive in the 2015-2016 season.

Heinicke competing in the finale. (Photo: Davide Magnaghi)

“Skiing-wise I think it will be a lot of technique this summer,” she said. “I saw from myself a few times last season that the potential was there to be more competitive in terms of ski speed and I feel like, and I got a lot of feedback, that ski technique is an area where I have possibly the most potential for improvement. This year I have already started with really specific ski technique goals and I’m planning on putting a lot more time into working on some details that I hope I can bring onto skis.”

She trains almost entirely alone in Klingenthal, where she moved because her son’s father lives there. For a week, she’ll train in Klingenthal and spend time with her son; then she’ll head to Ruhpolding or Oberhof, the biathlon centers of Germany, for time on the shooting range.

Klingenthal is a ski jumping and nordic combined center, but the nearest biathlon range is an hour away.
“It’s not too bad,” she said of the situation. “The rollerski track here is really fun. There’s lots of places to run and road bike. All the standard stuff is full speed ahead.”

Also full speed ahead are plans for other international trips this summer.

“I’m really looking forward to July because the top two Canadian men and women have a training camp in Norway,” Heinicke explained. “That includes me and I’ll join my team again. We’ll have a short training camp and then participate in the Blink festival. I’m super excited about that.”

She will also return to Canada in August with her son for a family wedding, and spend almost a month training there. After that, there’s German rollerski championships. She’ll likely spend time in the ski hall in Oberhof, and then the season will be about to start.

“I’m discovering a lot about myself, and I need to find different ways to communicate over the distance with friends and teammates and my coach,” Heinicke said. “Everything is long-distance this season. And I need to keep the motivation really high to work on the details, because I’ve never had a training year where I’m doing 80% of the work alone.

“On the plus side, it’s incredibly flexible!” she laughed.

June 30, 2015