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This Saturday, the French finished second in the first biathlon event of the Games, the mixed relay, won by Norway.
How do we recognize the strength of a nation? In athletics and swimming, the quality of its relays. In biathlon, the same. With four team members, two women and two men, the exercise of the mixed relay (4×6 km) sometimes forgives a weak link, but it rarely accepts a second. Surprises are rare, sensations non-existent.
First test of the long string of races offered by biathlon (11 in ten days), the mixed relay of the Beijing Games took place this Saturday, on the snow of Zhangjiakou, a copy conforming to the rules of the genre. Its final result could have been written in advance by a mind inhabited by the logic of numbers and the established order: Norway in the lead at the finish, France a breath behind (9 tenths of a second), the team of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) at two ski lengths (1.5 seconds).
Gold and silver for the two best nations in the discipline, bronze for a quartet to whom the Olympic rings have often given wings. Let it be said: the Beijing Games love safe bets. The health crisis, the absence of an audience, an unknown terrain and cannon-made snow do not change anything: the big guys are in front, the others observe in silence. The message is clear.
The screenplay, on the other hand, did not refrain from fantasy. The journey of the four Frenchmen alone is the best illustration of this. Anaïs Chevalier-Bouchet, 28, bronze medalist in the women’s relay four years earlier at the Je…