Anterselva (Italy) (AFP) – Camille Bened, Lou Jeanmonnot, Océane Michelon and Julia Simon became Olympic champions in the women's relay on Wednesday by crushing the competition, bringing French biathlon a 5th title at the Milan Cortina Games, for a total of ten medals.
Published on: 02/18/2026 - 4:47 p.m.
By adding the coronation of Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron in ice dancing, France now has six titles at the 2026 Olympic Games, improving its record for gold medals in an edition of the Winter Games (five in 2018 in Pyeongchang and in 2022 in Beijing). The Blues also improved their record number of medals at the Winter Games (17 all metals combined).
The French relay runners won the second Olympic title in women's biathlon after that of the pioneers Corinne Niogret, Véronique Claudel and Anne Briand, crowned in 1992 in Albertville for the start of the golden adventure of French biathlon at the Olympics.
At the high altitude site of Anterselva, in northern Italy (1,600 m), the girls and boys of the French biathlon won the three relays (mixed, men's and women's), a grand slam which symbolizes the total domination they exercise
on their discipline. Sacred with the mixed relay and in the individual (15 km), Julia Simon joins Jean-Claude Killy (1968), Martin Fourcade (2018) and Quentin Fillon Maillet (2026) among the French athletes triple Olympic champions in the same edition.
“It was a dream and today the girls allowed me to realize this dream, to bring the flag to the finish of the Olympic title and to share that with them, it’s fantastic,” she declared on France Télévision.
Alert at start of relay
After winning the last two world titles in 2024 in Nove Mesto and in 2025 in Lenzerheide, the French relay runners were expected on the highest step of the podium at the Games, with a few questions to answer, between the level of Julia Simon, ill for the sprint and who gave up the pursuit, and the replacement of Justine Braisaz-Bouchet, in difficulty in Anterselva, by Camille Bened.
The only small warning came from Camille Bened, who went into the penalty ring for a lap, after a difficult standing shot.
But the margin over the competition was far too great to prevent the French from going for gold. World Cup leader, Lou Jeanmonnot brought the blue relay back to the lead, then Océane Michelon made the difference to give Julia Simon a fifty-second lead, perfectly managed thanks to an extremely solid shot.
“It was only the first relay and everything was still possible, I had a very good relay, but Océane made it a stratospheric one too, which goes to show that a small error is possible on a relay, as long as the other three do their job, that's fine!”, appreciated Lou Jeanmonnot at the microphone of Eurosport while Simon completed the last blue relay.
“The French team is favorite, we are good outsiders. The four girls were stronger than us,” noted Jean-Marc Chabloz, shooting coach for Sweden, “impressed” by the French relay.
With this title, the French women definitively put the bank card affair (Julia Simon sentenced in October to three months suspended prison sentence for theft and bank card fraud for having used Justine Braisaz-Bouchet's card in particular), light years away.
© 2026 AFP
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