51 days after the mass start races on Osloer Holmenkollen, the summer break for the French biathlon team is over again. On Monday, the team around Lou JeanMonnot and Co. started preparing for the 2025/26 Olympic season.
While most biathlon stars still enjoy their well-deserved vacation these days and sweat in the sun at the sea or pool, the French team went back to work on Monday in Prémanon. The program includes a three -day training camp in which the basics for a successful season are to be laid.
“The program is very dense and very full,” said men’s coach Simon Fourcade, who admitted that it is a “fairly earlier” time for the start of training and said: “It rarely happens that we do it that way.”
Hardly any biathlon training with the rifle and on skis
Ultimately, however, not only the former biathlete thinks the early start. Women’s head coach Cyril Burdet also sees many advantages and said: “All of this serves to prepare the bodies for the burden that comes later. The goal of these three days is to adjust the athletes to the training pollution that we expect during the preparation.”
“The plan is to carry out a kind of check-up to see whether everyone is in good shape before the start,” said Burdet, who emphasized that this preparatory steps may also be able to minimize the risk of injury.
According to Burdet, there is hardly any time for biathlon-specific training in this early phase. With the rifle or on skis there will only be “a few units”, the coach said. Most of their time will spend the stars in the weight room.
Fourcade, Burdet and the other teams of the team work on site until Wednesday, including the two A cadres and the B squad of women.