The French biathlete star Lou JeanMonnot looks back on the dramatic struggle for the overall World Cup. She talks about her relationship with Franziska Preuss – and reveals why she does not have resentment to the Germans.
The World Cup final in Oslo could not have been more dramatic. On the last round there was a direct duel between Franziska Preuss and Lou JeanMonnot. It was true that if you finish first place in the final mass start, you will win the overall World Cup. But the key scene followed three curves before the end, JeanMonnot fell into the snow – there was still no trouble between the rivals. For a good reason.
“To be honest, if I couldn’t stand her if Franziska were a totally stupid cow, I would have been obvious and would have appealed,” said JeanMonnot in an interview with Eurosport . As is well known, the situation was completely different. Instead of a dispute, the French and Prussia were in their arms – probably the most beautiful pictures of the season, goosebumps for every viewer.
Franziska Preuß (left) and Lou JeanMonnot (right) were in the arms after the World Cup final
Prussia? A “dear person, she deserves it”
The beaten JeanMonnot kept the version and said that Preuss was a “dear person”, deserved the success. “It would have 50 percent of the people who watch biathlon broken. Franziska had had to fight much longer than me, was very often sick, she is incredibly nice. In the race she has never been unfair, so it was just normal to react like that.” Nevertheless, Prussia’s encouragement at JeanMonnot at first did not arrive.
“I didn’t cried immediately. I could hardly believe that I had really wasted it,” said the 26-year-old and carried out her thoughts. “I know that she would have reacted the same way. I didn’t even have to think about it, it was just like that. It was my mistake – Basta.” Only the following words of her teammate and girlfriend Justine Braisaz-Bouchet would have led to her emotional outbreak.
Braisaz-Bouchet came to JeanMonnot crying and “probably tells me the most beautiful words that a friend can say,” she described the scene at the finish. “At that moment I also break out in tears. It was like a trigger – I let go of everything.” After all, the defeat in the overall World Cup is “the worst that I feared in my nightmares of the past five days”.
Biathlon star: “I think I was physically superior”
Would JeanMonnot end up without the fall in front of Prussia? “It is really difficult to say. I think I was physically superior, but mentally she was ready to invest much more,” the French replied to a question.
As JeanMonnot continued, Preuss was mentally ready for everything at the crucial moment. “She looked as if she was even selling her soul to the devil. So – I really don’t know,” she said about her competitor.