Agathe Bessard

Agathe Bessard
nation	France
birthday	January 28, 1999
place of birth	Albertville ,  France
size	161 cm
job	Student
Career
discipline	skeleton
society	CBLS La Plagne
National squad	since 2014
status	active
Medal table
YOG medals 0 × 0 × 1 × JEM medals 0 × 2 × 0 ×
Youth Olympic Winter Games bronze Lillehammer 2016 singles European Junior Skeleton Championship silver Sigulda 2019 singles silver Altenberg 2020 singles
Placements in the WC / EC / NAC / IC
Skeleton ranking 26. ( 2019/20 ) Debut in the World Cup January 10, 2020 in La Plagne Overall World Cup 27. ( 2019/20 ) Debut in the European Cup November 4, 2016 in Sigulda Debut North American Cup November 20, 2019 in Lake Placid Debut in the Interconti-Cup January 4, 2018 in St. Moritz
last change: April 6, 2020

Agathe Bessard (born January 28, 1999 in Albertville ) is a French skeleton pilot . She took part in the Youth Olympic Games for France in 2016 , where she won the bronze medal.

Career

Former skier Agathe Bessard switched to skeleton in 2014 and completed two competitions in the OMEGA Youth Series in the 2014/15 season. While she narrowly missed the podium with fourth place in Lillehammer on December 20, 2014 , she was able to take the podium at the competition in Innsbruck on January 22, 2014 and took second place at the Igls bobsleigh rink . She also took part in the OMEGA Youth Series in the 2015/16 season and completed two races each in Innsbruck and Lillehammer. She managed to qualify for the 2016 Winter Youth Olympic Games , which were held on the track in Lillehammer. Before starting at the Youth Olympic Games, she took part in a skeleton junior world championship for the first time on January 23, 2016 , and finished 16th at the junior world championship in Winterberg. At the 2016 Winter Youth Olympic Games, she won the bronze medal on December 19, 2016, behind Britain's Ashleigh Fay Pittaway and Hannah Neise from Germany.

In the 2016/17 season , Agathe Bessard made her debut in the European Skeleton Cup and finished 15th in her debut on November 4, 2016 in Sigulda . After she finished 15th again on January 19, 2017 in Winterberg and thus set her best result of the season and finished 21st in the overall ranking of the European Cup with 125 points, she started on January 28 at the 2017 Skeleton Junior World Championship in Sigulda and finished 12th in her second participation. At the end of the season she was allowed to take part in the training week in Pyeongchang . However, she did not start in the World Cup race.

Agathe Bessard started the 2017/18 season with her first podium in the European Cup . In Lillehammer on November 11, 2017, she finished third behind the two Britons Eleanor Furneaux and Brogan Crowley . A day later she finished fifth in the second race in Lillehammer and missed another podium. After she finished eighth and sixth respectively in the European Cup on her home track in La Plagne on December 15 and 16, 2017, she made her debut in St. Moritz in the Skeleton Intercontinental Cup on January 4, 2018 , finishing in 20th place. One day later she took 23rd place in the second competition on the Olympia Bobrun St. Moritz – Celerina . After finishing fifth and seventh respectively at the European Cup races in Altenberg and Innsbruck, she finished the season in fifth place in the overall standings of the 2017/18 European Cup with 293 points. At the end of the season, she took part in the 2018 Skeleton Junior World Championship in St. Moritz on January 25, 2018 , and finished in tenth place.

In the 2018/19 season she only competed in the European Cup . After finishing fifth and sixth respectively in Altenberg on January 11 and 12, 2019 , she was able to take the podium for the second time in her career in the European Cup on January 26, 2019. Behind the German Janine Becker and ahead of Dārta Zunte she took second place. At these European Cup races, the Junior European Championship was run in Race-in-Race and Agathe Bessard also took second place behind Russian Julija Kanakina , who only competed in the Junior European Championship, and Latvian Dārta Zunte. At the end of the season, Agatha Bessard finished fifth in the overall European Cup ranking with 312 points. On February 3, 2019, she took part in the 2019 Skeleton Junior World Championship in Königssee and finished tenth in the race on the Königssee artificial ice rink , confirming her result from the previous year. At the end of the season, she took part in the 2019 French Skeleton Championship, which was held in a gender-neutral manner, finishing second behind Yann Gerente Paquet and ahead of Aymerick Bonnefoy .

At the start of the 2019/20 season, Agathe Bessard made her debut in the Skeleton North American Cup . On her debut, she finished fourth in Lake Placid on November 20, 2019 . A day later, she finished fourth again in the second competition on the Mount Van Hoevenberg Olympic bobsleigh run . After two starts in the Intercontinental Cup , Agatha Bessard made her debut in the Skeleton World Cup on her home track in La Plagne . In this competition she took 16th place. After she finished fourth in the European Cup race in Sigulda on January 18, 2020 , she was able to take another podium place on January 24 in Altenberg , finishing second behind Alina Tararytschenkowa from Russia and ahead of Amelia Coltman from Great Britain. One day later, in the second race on the ENSO ice channel, she again took second place behind the Russian Alina Tararytschenkowa and the Italian Valentina Margaglio . At this competition, the skeleton junior European championship was run in race-in-race and Agatha Bessard won the silver medal as in the previous year.

After two podium places in the European Cup, Agatha Bessard started in Winterberg at the Skeleton Junior World Championship 2020 and finished ninth in the Veltins ice arena . The following week she started her career in the World Cup for the second time and finished in the top 15 for the first time in eleventh place in the Sigulda race . At the competition in Sigulda, the European skeleton championship was held in Race-in-Race , in which it also took eleventh place. Thanks to her results this season, she was able to qualify for the Bobsleigh and Skeleton World Championships for the first time in her career and took 14th place at the 2020 Bobsleigh and Skeleton World Championships after four runs on the ENSO ice track in Altenberg .

Web links

• Homepage of Agathe Bessard
• Agathe Bessard in the database of the International Bobsleigh & Skeleton Federation

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Skeleton athletes Yulia Kanakina and Evgeniy Rukosuev are junior European champions. IBSF , January 26, 2019, accessed April 6, 2020 . 
2. ↑ Romain Heinrich / Dorian Hauterville and Yann Paquet Gerente French. IBSF , March 18, 2019, accessed April 6, 2020 . 
3. ↑ Skeleton athletes Tararychenkova and Seibel Junior European Champion. IBSF , June 25, 2020, accessed April 6, 2020 .