A 15-kilometer cross-country skiing race alone feels like it should be sufficient to separate competitors, especially when it’s precisely timed to a tenth of a second. Throw in the challenges from adding two rounds of shooting (two standing, two prone) with penalty laps for missed shots, and you’d think it would be incredibly rare to see two competitors finish the Olympic biathlon mass start event with the exact same time. But that’s now happened twice to France’s Martin Fourcade.
In the Sochi Olympics four years ago, Fourcade won gold in the pursuit and sprint biathlon competitions, but took silver in the mass start thanks to losing a photo finish to Norway’s Emil Hegle Svendsen. This time around, Fourcade (seen at right above) and Germany’s Simon Schempp finished with identical 35:47.3 times, but Fourcade came out on top thanks to a last lunge that saw him cross the line centimeters ahead of Schempp. Here’s the finish:
WHAT. A. FINISH.
France's Martin Fourcade won the men's biathlon 15km mass start in one of the closest finishes you'll EVER see. (Sound UP to get the full experience) #WinterOlympics https://t.co/tDX2kOKS70 pic.twitter.com/3h4lHUV3zY
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) February 18, 2018
That’s insanely close. Here’s a look at the photo finish shown on the NBC broadcast, with Fourcade (foreground) only inches ahead of Schempp:
It’s amazing that such a long race can come down to such a small moment, but it helps to show how remarkable these top competitors are. This was a particularly great moment for Fourcade, though, considering how narrowly he lost to Svendsen (who finished third this time around) in the last Olympic mass start. But he initially thought he lost, as Reuters’ Philip O’Connor relays:
Edged out for the gold medal in 2014, the Frenchman crossed the line and angrily slammed one of his ski poles into the snow, thinking that Schempp had beaten him, but his frustration turned to joy moments later when he was declared the winner of a thrilling race.
“Four years ago in Sochi I lost by only three centimeters, so I thought the story was repeating again. Tonight it’s incredible,” he told reporters.
And he gave quite the interview to NBC’s Tom Dougherty afterwards, talking about how this compared to that loss in Sochi:
“I’m still waiting for them to tell me that I’m not the winner. I thought about that during the whole last loop because I thought this would happen again, and when I saw the line, I had a deep feeling that I’d lost. …For now, it’s not real yet. I’m just waiting to be back in my room, open my phone and see that it’s real. But now, it feels like I’m in a dream.”
This is Fourcade’s second gold of these games (he also won the 12.5km pursuit), his fourth overall, and his sixth medal overall. Four gold medals ties him with fencers Christian d’Oriola and Lucien Gaudin for the most golds by a French athlete, and gives him the most golds of any Winter Olympic French athlete. And French president Emmanuel Macron praised him on Twitter:
Au bout de l’effort et du suspense, @martinfkde nous fait vibrer et rêver une deuxième fois en offrant une nouvelle médaille d’or à la France. Une légende des Jeux Olympiques d’hiver et du #biathlon. #PyeongChang2018 @franceolympique pic.twitter.com/w910kEionx
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) February 18, 2018
Fourcade told Dougherty making French Winter Olympic history wasn’t his original goal, but he’s thrilled he’s done it:
“It means a lot because today I’m the best French Winter Olympian and that means a lot to me because I’m a big fan of sport and I grew up watching the Olympics on TV. “So to be the best French athlete at the Olympics is not something I was fighting for, but I’m so proud of.”
And he can have that pride thanks to this photo finish, which worked out in his favor this time around.
