“I’ll say things”
Biathlon star opens up about scandal among French women
12/12/2025 – 10:51 amReading time: 2 minutes
The credit card affair involving the French women’s biathlon team continues to be widely discussed. Now one of the male colleagues speaks up.
At the weekend, many eyes will be on Julia Simon at the biathlon in Hochfilzen. The Frenchwoman is making her debut this season. The 29-year-old had previously been banned because, among other things, she stole the credit card of her teammate Justine Braisaz-Bouchet and used it to shop online.
But it wasn’t just Simon himself who suffered damage, says compatriot Quentin Fillon Maillet. “The image of biathlon as a whole is affected by this, so we are too,” said the two-time Olympic champion in an interview with Eurosport. In addition, a distance has arisen from the entire women’s team, “without me wanting to name any individual people here.”
Why Fillon Maillet speaks of several people? Possibly because Jeanne Richard had also crossed the border. The 23-year-old manipulated her teammate Océane Michelon’s rifle. Fillon Maillet is not surprised by the tensions in the female biathlon team: “I may say things that some will not like, but the women’s team has always been more difficult to manage than the men’s team. Since I joined the team there have often been tensions. The women’s team has always been a bit fragile and now it is even more so, that’s all.”
The six-time world champion once again emphasized how good the mood in his own team was. “We have a very strong bond among the boys and we are trying to maintain it,” said Fillon Maillet. In the relay, the men won silver at the World Championships last year, bronze in 2024 and even gold in 2023.
But he doesn’t want to let the women’s anger influence him any further. “At the moment this doesn’t affect me directly, so I live my life. I leave it to the others to deal with this problem,” he stressed.