Östersund (Sweden) (AFP)

Sensational: The French biathletes on Wednesday scored a magnificent performance by signing a historic quadruple on the Individual Ostersund with the bonus return to the fore of Martin Fourcade, who returned to success in the World Cup after a year of scarcity .

The Blues had never managed to place four of them in the first four positions, which places the scope of their feat on Swedish soil. True, it was just one race among others in a long-distance season. But at the end of the 2nd test of winter, the French have already marked their territory in a striking way, giving the measure of the density and the quality of their group. And, to top it all off, they were able to witness their leader's rebound, in full resurrection after a nightmarish 2018-19 exercise.

It had been a year, almost to the day (December 15, 2018), that Fourcade had not tasted the victory. But this long wait has finally ended and the five-time Olympic champion (31) has found his legs, ready to fight again and reclaim his throne, abandoned after seven years of reign at Johannes Boe.

The season is just beginning, but the symbol is far from innocuous: with this 77th success on the circuit, Fourcade, already 5th Sunday of the first individual race of the winter (a sprint), has recovered the yellow bib, synonymous with first place overall in the World Cup. Especially since Boe, victorious three days ago, sank (10th).

- "Huge pride"

"This win is good," said the Catalan on the Chaîne L'Equipe, "it's probably one of the greatest satisfactions of my career." It's been so hard to go from domination for seven years to year without, today it is a huge pride to have managed to come back to this level and to have shown that I still have this desire to win.I will try to continue to enjoy these sensations rediscovered. I missed it last year. "

The great novelty, sketched the previous season, is that Fourcade is no longer alone among the Blues. Simon Desthieux and Quentin Fillon-Maillet, who had been the two best Frenchmen in the general classification in 2019 (4th and 3rd), confirmed their status by taking the podium. What to erase their poor debut Sunday.

And what about the 4th position of Emilien Jacquelin and the 7th of Fabien Claude, who fails four seconds short of the Top 5, their best results in the World Cup? The table is idyllic for the Tricolores before the scheduled relay Saturday.

As Fourcade perfectly summarized: "All the planets were aligned for the France team, everyone is euphoric."

© 2019 AFP