The report is unassailable: at the Beijing Games, France won three medals in as many biathlon events (figures stopped Wednesday, February 9 in the afternoon). The mixed relay first, Anaïs Chevalier-Bouchet and Quentin Fillon Maillet individually then. After the great years of Martin Fourcade, enough to give the impression that biathlon is the all-risk insurance for French winter sports, much less random than alpine skiing (for the exploits of Jean-Luc Crétier or, this year, a Johan Clarey, how many disappointments?) and more of a supplier of medals than acrobatic sports, where France holds its rank without always converting to metal and a podium.
Examination of the medal tables since the Albertville Games of 1992, the year when France discovered what was once derided as a “customs officer’s sport” with the victory of the women’s relay, reinforces this observation. Apart from the Nagano industrial disaster in 1998, biathlon has always brought medals to the tricolor camp for thirty years. And this share tends to stabilize, around five medals, a good mattress improved by exploits in other disciplines.
We can date the beginning of this “biathlon-dependence” to the Turin Games in 2006 (ah, the coronation of Vincent Defrasne despite his fall in the last corner against the stainless Norwegian Bjørndaelen…). The other side of the coin, this hen with the gold medals hides a little the escheat of the other disciplines. Because if the number of events has increased a lot (84 podiums in Turin in 2006, 102 in Pyeongchang in 2018), France’s place in the ranking depends mainly on a single sport.
Thus, at the Turin Games in 2006, without the four medals obtained in the biathlon, France would find themselves behind Estonia or China in the final table. Same observation, in 2010, with a fall to 15th place behind Australia (11th, with 3 medals including 2 gold). In 2014, it was Japan that would have blown politeness to the Blues, and so on…
For some countries, depending entirely on one discipline is a matter of choice: this is the case of the Netherlands, where the mountains are lacking and where the authorities have bet everything on speed skating (a lot) and short-track (more recently). Two cousin disciplines which represent all of their medals at Pyeongchang 2018 or Sochi 2014. We have to go back to 2010 and an improbable medal in snowboarding to find traces of a Dutch charm won elsewhere than on an ice rink. A total of 127 of the Netherlands’ 137 medals at the Winter Games have come in speed skating. There, we will have to find another word than “dependency”.