That’s what we call a comeback. Almost two years after her last race on the main circuit, where she had never done better than 21st, Paula Botet returned to the World Cup this Thursday. And she won the victory, in a very clear way, by signing one of the rare 10/10s in this sprint contested in the typical conditions of Oberhof, in the rain and in the wind.
The 24-year-old Habs won with a 31″ lead over the Norwegian Maren Kirkeeide and 35″ over the Bulgarian Milena Todorova, who completed this 100% unexpected podium with one error each.
The surprise is immense, magnificent for the French clan, which thus offers itself a 6th individual victory with now five different biathletes, but Botet arrived with ambition, all the same, in the German cauldron. The daughter of Véronique Claudel, member of the Olympic champion relay in Albertville, is the leader of the IBU Cup ranking, the 2nd world division of biathlon. It was this particularly successful start to the season which allowed her to take Sophie Chauveau’s place within this crazy dense French team.
Botet and the rest of the world
Botet therefore had to seize his chance to hope to keep his place in the elite. And she succeeded in phenomenal proportions, worthy of a fairy tale. First of the six Tricolores in the running, bib 36, the native of La Bresse took control from the first shot. This provisional first place remained his until the end, at the following intervals as well as at the finish. She did not even suffer, from her leadership chair, from the successive arrival of the favorites. Each masterfully broke their teeth on their time, through the effect of an imprecise shot or an impotent ski, or even both in the case of Franziska Preuss, who fell from her pedestal this Thursday.
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