Lou Jeanmonnot adds a few kilos of crystal to his collection. Already winner of the little Globe of the Mass Start in the 2023-2024 season, the Biathlete Franc-Comtoise won a second, that of the individual, Thursday March 13 in Pokljuka (Slovenia), the 8e And penultimate stage of the World Cup.
To lift it, the Frenchwoman did not even need to be the fastest to cross the finish line of a race won by her compatriot Julia Simon, ahead of Swedish Hanna Öberg and the German Franziska Preuss. A test that the organizers of the IBU had decided to shorten at 12.5 km (instead of the planned 15 km), due to the high temperatures and the strong rainfall in recent days in Slovenia.
On the very stered snow of the Slovenian layout, Lou Jeanmonnot needed to finish in the top 8.e Place on arrival, which assures him the little crystal globe of the discipline. In a format mentally demanding on the shot-twice alternating a lying shot and a standing shot, each failed ball being punished by forty-five seconds of penalty-, the 26-year-old woman did not make a perfect copy, signing an 18/20, with an error on the first standing shot and on the last ball of the second bed.
“I was terrified when I arrived on the pitch”
“I am disappointed with the result, but in a way I am proud of the last shot where I fight against myself, it was a psychological fight, it’s very special and new for me,, reacted Lou Jeanmonnot to the microphone of the L’Equipe chain. I fought on this last shot, I was terrified when I got off at the idea of messing around everything I could have done since the start of the season. »»
Winning this season of two races in this specialty of the individual this season, the Frenchwoman had the advantage over her runner -up Franziska Preuss, counting 55 points ahead of the German before the race on Thursday.
The two rivals also engage in a duel at the top of the general classification, in the fight for the “big globe” of Crystal. Franziska Preuss’s advance climbed up to 213 points after the Mass Start of Annecy – Le Grand -Bornand, in December 2024. Since then, she melted even faster than the snow in the sweetness of this end of winter. By embarking on the individual at Pokljuka, Lou Jeanmonnot had only a gap of 36 points to fill to hope to pass before Preuss – knowing that 90 points are attributed to the winner of each event.
The Mass Start on Saturday
But with its 7e Place and the 3e Place de Preuss, the Frenchwoman gives the field to the German. In the general classification of the World Cup, Preuss takes 24 precious points on the French, and has a 60 -point mattress before the mass start on Saturday. Mathematically, the Frenchman can still win the big globe, during the final stage in Oslo next week, where three races will be on the menu (270 points to take).
“I know I can do everything, my worst enemy is me”,, assured Lou Jeanmonnot on Thursday to the L’Equipe chain. His compatriot and friend Justine Braisaz-Bouchet also believes: “She has all the cards to do so. It is complete, it remains very demanding. I don’t know many more rigorous people than sheshe rented on the sports channel before the race. Even winter, where the body and the head need to recover, it rarely releases its effort. »»
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Lou Jeanmonnot learns quickly. At the end of last winter, she went up on the podium of the last six individual races and had won the ultimate to finish at only 23 points from the winner of the big globe, the Italian Lisa Vittozzi. A year later, she wants to prove that she can finish (even more) with a fanfare.