Christmas before time? Yes and no. At the end of November, Martin Fourcade learned that he was going to win a new Olympic gold medal, following the rejection by the Court of Arbitration for Sport of the appeal of Russian Evgeny Ustyugov, downgraded for doping in 2020. The 6th of his phenomenal career. Nearly 15 years after the Vancouver Games in February 2010, the Frenchman became Olympic champion during his first participation, having left Canada with a silver medal.
“I won it from my couch, so it's the easiest“, Fourcade joked on Saturday at Eurosport about this “funny” conquest. More seriously, we can say that he is mixed. “It's a somewhat ludicrous situation, but my first reaction is that the fight against doping is working, even 15 years later. So it's very good, it keeps an eye out for cheaters, even more than a decade later“, he rejoiced.
Sportingly, his retroactive satisfaction does not lie so much in going from five-time to six-time Olympic champion. To some extent, we would dare to say that this changes nothing for him. On the other hand, being gold in three different editions, he who had been “only” in Sochi in 2014 and PyeongChang four years later, is not entirely trivial in his eyes.
On the Mass star podium in 2010, Evgeny Ustyugov had gold. From now on, she is for Martin Fourcade.
Credit: Getty Images
In gold in three different Games, his pride
“Comparing between a judoka who can only win one gold medal and me who can have ten, it doesn't make sense, he summarizes. It's difficult to make comparisons like this. On the other hand, the ability to be able to win in three different Games means a lot to me, in my ability to have made a mark on my sport. If I'm proud, it's because it means I won gold medals in three different editions of the Olympic Games, so it's a major achievement for me.”
But Martin Fourcade admits, this title cannot have quite the same flavor as the others. Not so much because of the time distance, but because he liked the idea of not having been an Olympic champion so young, in Vancouver. “It makes me weirdhe admits. I built my career by making money in Vancouver. I was still a kid and I think that silver medal made me hungry, made me want to go for gold in Sochi four years later.”
Disturbed is probably too strong a term, or inappropriate, but this retroactive reflection is not far from annoying him. “It's complicated to tell myself that my career and my life could have been different if I had won gold in 2010, adds the Catalan by birth. Yes, I'm happy, but in a way it steals part of my identity as a biathlete, of my DNA“His DNA was above all about winning. But we can understand that it is difficult for him to rethink afterwards the path of his construction, and therefore in a certain way, of his career.
