France’s Emilien Jacquelin after leaving the first prone stage in fifth, skied into the lead before the second prone and from that point dominated the Annecy Le Grand Bornand men’s 15 km mass start, skiing to a 35:54.8 victory. Jacquelin’s one penalty effort in his first-ever mass start victory topped second place teammate Quentin Fillon Maillet, with two penalties, 3.5 seconds back. Tarjei Boe of Norway with one penalty finished third, 10.3 seconds back.

Personality on skis

Jacquelin knew after skiing well all

week that today he could set the tone with his flying skis. I wanted to do it with my own personality, with my skis. I knew that I was great on the skis this week. In the race at Sjusjoen at the beginning of the season, I decided to attack and not be afraid of the shooting range, Yesterday, I was really nervous; today I wanted to show to my coach, to all the fans…excuse my expression, that I have big balls! I am really proud!”

Emotions

Today’s win was Jacquelin’s first-ever regular season BMW IBU World Cup win and his only previous victories were IBU World Championships titles. It was quite emotional on several levels. “It feels so great. It was maybe more emotional than the World Championships title, because my family was here. After the injury, the emotions were really high because I did not know if I could come back better than before. I made it today.

Martin and the second loop attack

Regarding his second loop attack, “I talked with Martin (Fourcade) this morning and he asked if I wanted to attack in the first lap and I told him, maybe the second. I wanted to attack in the second lap if I made a clean shooting. I decided to do it as if I was in a sprint or individual. Just do my race; it is my better way to shoot well; to stay focused.

Christmas Yellow

The icing on the cake or early Christmas present for Jacquelin came in the form of taking the Yellow Bib by two points over Fillon Maillet. “It is amazing how many great athletes are able to fight for the overall…We are all at quite the same level but the races are harder than ever and the overall is really tight. So we will see; it is a great fight for the public.”

Austria’s Felix Leitner shot clean, matching his second best-ever result in fourth place, 15.6 seconds back. Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen of Norway, with one penalty finished fifth, 16.4 seconds back, while Johannes Kuehn of Germany, with one penalty finished sixth, 17.7 seconds back.

Pushing the pace in prone stages

The same great conditions prevailed for the men’s mass start, the final competition before the Christmas break. Fillon Maillet in Yellow, JT and Samuelsson pushed the pace, leading in the first loop to the first prone stage. However, the leaders all went for a penalty loop, leaving clean-shooting Sivert Guttorm Bakken, Eduard Latypov and Fabien Claude to lead the pack of nineteen all of whom cleaned the first prone out for the second loop in an 18-second long train.

Jacquelin broke from the pack immediately, piling up a 14.5 second lead by the 4.5 km split. He cleaned prone, shooting very conservatively, leaving eight seconds ahead of Kuehn, and Sturla Holm Laegreid with Tarjei 13 seconds back. The clean-shooting lead group dwindled to ten men, all within 20 seconds of Jacquelin.

Jacquelin pressures the field

Jacquelin again pressured the field on the next loop, keeping them15 seconds at bay by the 7.5 km split. He shot fast in the first standing, but missed one target. Felix Leitner went to 15-for-15, going out .8 seconds behind the speedy Jacquelin. Claude, Christiansen and Benjamin Weger were 32.,5.1 and 6.1 seconds back, respectively. The Yellow Bib just after leaving the stadium regained lost ground after two prone penalties, moving past Weger into fifth, just 17 seconds back.

Blindingly fast last standing stage

Another fast loop saw Jacquelin a few seconds in front of the young Austrian as they came to the deciding last standing stage. Fillon Maillet having skied himself back into contention, came in to shoot on lane three. The two-time IBU Pursuit World Champion closed his last five standing targets with blinding speed, getting away with a 11 second lead over the also clean Leitner at 11 seconds back with Fillon Maillet 2 seconds farther back, along with Christiansen and Tarjei.

Flag-waving 1-2 French finish

As Jacquelin sped away, Fillon Maillet and Tarjei left Leitner behind. With 1500 meters to go, Jacquelin had 10.9 seconds on his teammate with Tarjei another 3 seconds back. Easing up and smiling all the way on the last downhill into the stadium, the leader grabbed the French flag, cradled it in his arms before waving it as the finish and punching the sky in a victory salute. The Yellow Bib followed giving France a 1-2 finish with Tarjei in third place.

“Felt like I did a winning race”

Tarjei at age 33 thinks it gets tougher each season as the talent level rises; his effort today felt like a win. “I am the old man in this circus. The level is increasing each season. Today I felt like I did a winning race; still number three. It is quite a high level especially with new guys like Emilien who has this joker in his arms. He has this attack on the range or the skis. You never know what will happen. It was a great fight with them.”

Photos: IBU/Manzoni,Thibaut