Paris (AFP)
Outstanding champion, natural leader and man of conviction, Martin Fourcade has crushed the biathlon planet for more than seven years to forge an exceptional track record and a special place in French sport.
From 2012 to 2018, the circuit was under the yoke of King Fourcade, who went hunting in the footsteps of the Norwegian Ole-Einar Bjoerndalen, long the absolute reference of the discipline. Irresistible on skis and surgical shooting, the Frenchman will have played cannibals with prodigious records (five Olympic gold medals, seven large crystal globes in a row, 26 small crystal globes, 11 world titles performance).
The native of Céret (31), the most successful French sportsman at the Olympic Games, has however always admitted that he never ran after this kind of statistics. "I have never fought for that, I do not dream of writing history, he declared in 2018 at the Olympics in Pyeongchang. I did not dream of being the most successful Frenchman. He was not a childhood dream. I dream of doing my sport and doing it well. I dreamed of being an Olympic champion, of having a title but not of being alone in front. " His rivals have reason to be surprised because he has put so much zeal and care to martyr them.
Considered finished after a nightmarish 2018-2019 exercise, it has thus returned to the fore this season in an attempt to challenge the new leadership of the Norwegian Johannes Boe and remains in the running for an 8th World Cup before the continuation of Saturday, the last race of the race Winter.
But Fourcade also knew how to use its charisma and a whole character to impose itself, with a sharp look on the world of sport and current events. A cocktail that prompted French athletes to acclaim it as the standard bearer of the tricolor delegation in Pyeongchang. He subsequently became president of the Paris-2024 Athletes 'Commission before running for the IOC Athletes' Commission in 2022.
"Perfect biathlete", in the words of the boss of French biathlon Stéphane Bouthiaux, this big dark brunette never missed an opportunity to say out loud what he thinks. Doping, French and international politics, everything often happened there.
- Admiration -
After the revelations of the McLaren report which exposed an institutionalized doping system in Russia, he had threatened the World Cup with boycott before taking the head of the sling of the biathletes in January 2017, obliging the International Federation (IBU) to organize an Extraordinary Congress in order to toughen its sanctions against cheaters in the future.
He also publicly supported the decision of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to suspend Russia from the 2018 Olympics, not hesitating to rob a country where it has always been very popular. In 2017, the man with 82 career successes had already caused great tension with the Russians at the World Championships after pointing his finger at social networks Alexander Loginov, returned from a suspension for doping. The Russians then refused to shake his hand on the mixed relay podium.
What arouse the admiration of his peers, and not the least, like the mythical Bjoerndalen: "Sometimes he is too direct and it comes to interfere with the competition. It is important not to mix sport and politics. But he does what he thinks is best for his sport and I'm really very proud of what he does. He has to continue on the same path. "
Very active on social networks, he turned into a luxury VRP in biathlon, popularizing a rather confidential discipline in France before it hatched. His book ("My dream of gold and snow"), where he tells his story, a kind of "psychoanalysis", in his own words, has sold more than 30,000 copies and has been translated in all bastions of world biathlon.
"He has a sporting intelligence and an intelligence quite simply", according to Stéphane Bouthiaux. A perfect summary of the double winning side of Fourcade.
© 2020 AFP