The truce was short for Lou Jeanmonnot and Fabien Claude. If the World Cup season takes a break during the holidays, the two French biathletes were in fact in Germany this Sunday to participate in the traditional World Team Challenge, which is held each year between Christmas and New Year’s Day in Gelsenkirchen, in the Schalke 04 football stadium.
If Fabien Claude is a regular here and can boast of two victories in the event alongside Julia Simon, Lou Jeanmonnot took part in the exhibition for the first time. And for her baptism, the Jurassian, leader of the World Cup since her beautiful weekend in Grand-Bornand, had to settle for second place behind the local pair formed by Janina Hettich-Walz and Justus Strelow.
To their advantage on skis, the French pair missed the victory on the shooting range. While the Germans finished the day with an impressive 39 out of 40 in front of the targets, even achieving a 20 out of 20 on the final pursuit, the French made no less than four errors. A crippling waste for the Blues, especially since Lou Jeanmonnot also fell at the exit of the shooting range during his last pass.
A tribute was paid to Sivert Bakken and Laura Dahlmeier
In the end the French pair finished more than twenty seconds behind Janina Hettich-Walz and Justus Strelow while the Norwegians Mats Oeverby and Juni Arnekleiv completed the podium more than a minute behind the winners of the day with four shooting errors for them too. The Swiss Lena Haecki-Grauss and Joscha Burkhalter and the Finns Suvi Minkinnen and Tero Seppäla followed.
Note that a minute of silence was observed before the race in tribute to Sivert Bakken, found dead on Tuesday in his hotel room in Italy. Laura Dahlmeier, who died in July in a mountaineering accident, and who competed in the last race of her career at the World Team Challenge in 2019, was also honored.
