Beijing 2022: Justine Braisaz-Bouchet becomes 1st French woman to win mass start gold

Justine Braisaz-Bouchet of France fought out gusty
winds to win the women’s 12.5-kilometre (7.7 miles) mass start biathlon race
gold medal at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing on Friday. With the victory, the 30-year-old became the first French woman to
win the event. Norway’s Tiril Eckhoff and Marte Olsbu Roeiseland took silver
and bronze, respectively.

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In the race, 30 skiers simultaneously took off from
the starting line and raced the cross country course at Zhangjiakou National
Biathlon Center. During the race, they had to stop four times to shoot at five
targets with misses resulting in having to ski a 492-foot penalty loop.

Not a single skier in the biathlon race managed to
shoot in a perfect place with the wind causing trouble to their attempts. They
missed the target repeatedly, with the best shooting of the day being by Yuliia
Dzhima who had three errors.

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Despite missing two targets at her first prone
shooting attempt, Braisaz-Bouchet would only incur two more misses during her
three other stops at the range, allowing her to use her strong skiing to secure
a decent lead in the back half of the race.

While she neared the end of the race, the two-time
Olympian was all smiles with no one around her. As she crossed the finish line
in a time of 40 minutes 18 seconds, she waved a French flag.

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“What an incredible performance in those tough
conditions,” the International Biathlon Union said on Twitter.

Eckhoff crossed the finish line 15 seconds later. 35
seconds later Roeiseland crossed the finish line and won the bronze.

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Eckhoff had earlier won the gold medal in the mixed
4×6-kilometre relay and the bronze from the women’s 10-kilometre pursuit. She
has won a total of eight Olympic medals, including two gold, in her three
Olympic appearances.

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For Roeiseland, the bronze medal made her the first
woman to win five biathlon medals in a single Olympic Winter Games as she had
already won three golds and a bronze.