Quentin Fillon-Maillet is running after history in these Beijing Olympics. Medalist five times since the start of the fortnight thanks to two titles (individual and pursuit) and three silver medals (mixed relay, sprint and men’s relay), the Frenchman has already become the most awarded biathlete in an Olympic edition.
An indelible mark that he will have the opportunity to further deepen during the mass-start, the sixth and final event of the discipline, on Friday, where he could afford a historic Grand Slam.
A podium Friday would cause a shock wave that would go beyond the simple framework of biathlon since “QFM” would become the first athlete in all disciplines to compile six medals during the same winter edition.
Marte Olsbu Røiseland aims for the women’s full box
An unprecedented performance that the 29-year-old Jura is not the only one to covet in Beijing. Among the women too, Marta Roeiseland is in good times. The Norwegian has already pocketed four medals, including three gold (sprint, pursuit, mixed relay), during her first four outings.
She still has the women’s relay on Wednesday (4×6 km) and the mass start on Saturday (12.5 km) to dream of an incredible Olympic Grand Slam after having already achieved the feat at the 2020 Worlds in Anterselva (Italy), where she had won seven medals out of seven possible, including five gold (sprint, mass start, relay, mixed relay, single mixed relay).
Titled three times in Beijing (sprint, relay and mixed relay) and individual bronze medalist, Johannes Boe can come back to him on Fillon Maillet by winning his fifth medal in the final event.
Björndalen’s Golden Grand Slam
Whatever happens, these Games will therefore remain in the history of biathlon. A record could nevertheless resist the current revolution… that of Ole Einar Björndalen, the man with thirteen Olympic titles, and the only biathlete to date to have achieved a Grand Slam.
In 2002 in Salt Lake City (United States), the “Ole King” was adorned with gold in the individual, in the sprint, pursuit and relay events at a time when the program had only four events. .
The addition of the mass-start during the edition of Turin in 2006 and the integration of the mixed relay in 2014 in Sochi reshuffled the cards and offered new possibilities to mark the history of the discipline and the competition.
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In full success this season, the leader of the World Cup Quentin Fillon-Maillet would be wrong to deprive himself of it.
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