France takes gold in the first biathlon race of the Winter Olympics as Simon secures mixed relay win

ANTERSELVA, Italy — France dominated the second half of the mixed relay biathlon race at the Milan Cortina Olympics on Sunday with fast skiing and strong shooting to take gold ahead of Italy and Germany.

Julia Simon hit her final five targets and left the range alone, taking her team of Eric Perrot, Quentin Fillon Maillet and Lou Jeanmonnot to a solid win at a time of 1:04:15.

Simon said she was surprisingly calm as she waited to take the tag-off from Jeanmonnot, who was leading the race at the time.

“I focused on myself and on what I need to do especially on the shooting range,” she said. “It was a really big moment for me and for us.”

Italy's Lisa Vittozzi also cleaned her last targets, left the range in second place and held the Germans off to take the silver medal, to the great delight of the roaring capacity crowd. Italy's Tommaso Giacomel, Lukas Hofer, Dorothea Wierer and Vittozzi finished 25.8 seconds behind France.

Wierer said she was nervous before the race, feeling the pressure of performing before a large, boisterous home crowd.

“I was afraid and I had a little bit heavy legs also,” she said. “I knew we had a strong team. It’s just great for our team like this to begin the games.”

The German team of Justus Strelow, Philipp Nawrath, Vanessa Voigt and Franziska Preuss secured bronze, 1.05 behind France. They made it through three legs without missing a target but Preuss on the anchor leg set them back with one penalty loop. Philipp Nawrath, who raced second, said it was a perfect race for him.

“The shooting it was very important to perform like this. I am really happy and satisfied about the race,” he said.

Racers each skied three, 2-kilometer (1.2 mile) loops and shot twice, once prone and once standing, at the Südtirol Arena Alto Adige, which sits at 5,200 feet (1,600 meters) above sea level, before tagging off to their teammate. The men went first on a bluebird day with mild temperatures and little to no wind.

France, Italy and Germany were out front with Norway's Maren Kirkeeide until the final shooting bout, but several misses set Norway back and her team members Martin Uldal, Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen, Karoline Offigstad Knotten finished fourth, 1:37 behind the race leaders.

Sweden's Sebastian Samuelsson missed two targets on his standing shooting stage and had to ski two penalty laps, setting the team back to 20th place. His teammates, Martin Ponsiluoma, Anna Magnusson and Hanna Oeberg slowly brought them back and they had to settle with fifth.

The U.S. team also had a setback when Campbell Wright took the reins from Maxime Germain but missed one of his prone targets, forcing him to ski a penalty lap. Next up was Deedra Irwin, who shot clean with one extra round, and Margie Freed who cleaned with three extras. They finished in 14th.

Freed, racing in her first Olympics, was the team’s anchor and said she was ready for anything.

“I tried to mentally prepare for any situation,” she said. “I’ve had my experience at the back of races so I was ready to try and move up, and I was also ready if they handed off in first place. I was just wanting to give it my all. It was really fun to challenge myself and ski my race.”

While Simon was the anchor for France for this win in Italy, Fillon Maillet anchored the team when they won silver in the mixed relay at the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022. Norway took the gold that time and the Russian Olympic Committee team won bronze.

France also won gold in the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics and Italy took bronze with a team made up of Vittozzi, Wierer, Hofer and Dominik Windish.

Simon is coming off a tough year. She received a six-month ban from competing after being found guilty of theft and credit card fraud by a French court and got a three-month suspended prison sentence. The French ski federation decided in November that she would be allowed to compete in the Winter Games.