“I wasn’t chasing a medal, but I am an Olympic champion in the mass start.” Several minutes after her victory over the mass start of the Beijing Olympics, Friday February 18, Justine Braisaz-Bouchet repeated aloud what she had become. Maybe to help realize. Because since the beginning of the Games, in perdition on the individual (40th) and the sprint (48th), she was chasing form, confidence, sensations. Everything came back on this golden day.
Shortly after 8:30 a.m. (French time), a blue-white-red flag in hand and a big smile on their lips, the Tricolore had released a sincere “Damn.. it’s nice“Almost understatement when crossing the line. She had just beaten Tiril Eckhoff and Marte Olsbu Roeiseland to win Olympic gold, her first individual medal at the Olympics.
“I was really shocked when I crossed the finish line.she confirmed at a press conference. I think I didn’t realize being an Olympic champion.” Still in the finish area, Julia Simon, sixth, briefly congratulated her with a pat on the shoulder. Anaïs Chevalier-Bouchet (19th) took the time to hug her to slip her a few words.
Then Justine Braisaz-Bouchet hugged the members of the staff. “What really touched me the most was meeting the staff with tears in my eyes, especially our shooting coach.” When she saw the latter, Jean-Paul Giachino, who announced that this race was certainly his last at the Olympic Games, Braisaz-Bouchet’s eyes quickly misted, red with emotion. “I am extremely lucky and happy, it’s magic”she continued in the mixed zone of the Zhangjiakou National Biathlon Center.
This race, in which she was simply happy to participate in her words, Justine Braisaz-Bouchet finally crushed her. In extreme conditions of wind – blowing in gusts from left to right – and cold (around -14° C), her three errors in lying shots placed her far enough (14th).
The flip was on the third shot, the first standing, where she landed a supersonic shot. A 5/5 in just 30 seconds while Eckhoff dragged on nearly a minute and twenty seconds. She then decided to disgust the competition on skis by taking a fifteen-second lead over Roeiseland in less than two kilometers when they came out of the firing line together.
“There was no attack, honestly. Marte (Olsbu Roeiseland) wasn’t following me, I said to myself that I wasn’t going to wait for him. I felt very good.”
Justine Braisaz-Bouchetin mixed zone
She arrives on the last shot in the lead, to play for the win at the Olympic Games. “When she is in a competitive situation, she is often invaded by stress”, underlines Jean-Paul Giachino afterwards. But on this decisive shot, nothing happened. “They were shots without hesitation, I let my automatisms do the talkingshe repeated. Sometimes laying the brains down is the best thing to do on the launch pad.” With just one mistake, Braisaz-Bouchet did better than all her competitors and headed for an unforgettable victory.
A success that would have been difficult or even impossible to predict in recent days. Since her arrival on Chinese soil in Zhangjiakou, about 200 kilometers north of Beijing, Justine Braisaz-Bouchet has been chasing after her form.
The one who had the best ski times on the circuit since the start of the dark season on the individual (40th) and the sprint (48th). “We started to question ourselves”, admits the coach of the French women’s team Frédéric Jean. Doubt and misunderstanding since at the end of January, only two weeks before the Olympics, the Frenchwoman won the World Cup on the individual of Antholz-Anterselva (Italy). A site also placed at altitude, as in Zhangjiakou. “Did he need time to digest this return to altitude?”asks the technician, very happy after the “shovel behind the neck”received during the relay (6th).
In consultation with the staff, she decides not to align herself with the pursuit to recharge herself physically. A paid choice. After a slight improvement on the relay, “She was really into it” Friday, according to Fred Jean. “From the start I was easy on the track, a feeling that I haven’t had at all Gamesshe admitted after her coronation. It was something comforting because I was looking for the form, I didn’t know why it had disappeared.”
Alternately solitary or active participant in the life of the France feminine group, Justine Braisaz-Bouchet often tends to ask herself a lot of questions. His start to the fortnight could then have been fatal for him for the following events. “I mourned the first races and I also said to myself that even if I miss races, it does not detract from my sporting value”confided the 25-year-old biathlete.
Friday, by daring, on the advice of Jean-Paul Giachino, Justine Braisaz-Bouchet has precisely seen her sporting value increase further. She finally aligned the talent with the head to offer herself a first Olympic shot which she now has “want to share with the whole team”. To finally achieve.