Julia Simon

Julia Simon
Association	France
birthday	9th October 1996 (age 23)
place of birth	Albertville , France
size	170 cm
Weight	62 kg
Career
job	Customs officer / student
society	Club des Sports Les Saisies
Trainer	Frédéric Jean , Franck Badiou
Debut in the European Cup / IBU Cup	2014
European Cup / IBU Cup victories	2 (1 individual victory)
Debut in the World Cup	2017
World Cup victories	3 (1 individual victory)
status	active
Medal table
EM medals 0 × 1 × 2 × JWM medals 1 × 0 × 2 ×
European biathlon championships bronze 2015 Otepää Season bronze 2018 Ridnaun persecution silver 2018 Ridnaun Single mixed relay  Biathlon Junior World Championships gold 2014 Presque Isle Season bronze 2014 Presque Isle sprint gold 2015 Minsk-Raubitschy Season
World Cup balance
Overall World Cup	08. ( 2019/20 )
Individual World Cup	13. (2019/20)
Sprint World Cup	09. (2019/20)
Pursuit World Cup	08. (2019/20)
Mass start world cup	12. (2019/20)
Podium placements 1. 2. 3. singles 0 0 1 sprint 0 0 1 persecution 1 0 0 Season 1 2 4th
last change: March 14, 2020

Julia Simon (born October 9, 1996 in Albertville ) is a French biathlete . Simon made his debut in the World Cup in 2017 and won there for the first time in a single race in March 2020. She had previously celebrated successes in the junior division and, among other things, won two world championship titles with the relay.

Athletic career

From youth to B-squad (until 2018)

As a child, Simon, who grew up in the winter sports region of Savoy , began skiing in the Alps . She came to biathlon via cross-country skiing , which she focused on from the age of 16. In 2012 she was the French runner-up in her age group behind Justine Braisaz , who was just a few months older and who, like Simon, began her career at the Club des Sports Les Saisies . Her international debut Simon as part of the junior race of the European Championships in 2014 from Nove Mesto na Moravě , where they reached the best result two 24th places in individual and persecution. In the same winter, she won the bronze medal in sprint races at the 2014 Youth World Championships in Presque Isle behind Lisa Vittozzi and Anna Weidel and then, together with Estelle Mougel and Lena Arnaud, the relay world title. Simon repeated this success in the next higher age group of the juniors in 2015 , again at the side of Arnaud and Chloé Chevalier . Later successes in the junior sector included victories at French championships, a European title in the pursuit in 2016 and several top ten results in the races of the 2017 Junior World Championships .

In parallel to her appearances at international junior championships, Simon started in the 2014/15 winter in the IBU Cup, the second highest competition series in the adult division after the World Cup. Although the Frenchwoman mostly placed in the top 40 and thus received points for the overall standings, without top ten results she initially lagged behind the results of her teammates. Simon later stated that the constant comparisons with her club mate Justine Braisaz in particular were "not easy": While Braisaz had already been promoted to the French World Cup team in 2014 at the age of 18, she was partially not taken into account for the IBU Cup. In January 2017, Simon was on the podium in two IBU Cup sprints in Martell and won one of them with a 17.6 second lead over Darja Wirolainen . Then she received her first four World Cup appearances in Ruhpolding and later (after another IBU Cup podium) at the season finale in Oslo . As the best result she achieved a 25th place in the sprint on Holmenkollen . The following winter, Simon was regularly included in the World Cup team from January 2018 as a result of renewed top ten results in the IBU Cup. After a twelfth place in the Antholz sprint, she was nominated by the French Ski Federation for the Olympic competitions in Pyeongchang; As the only biathlete of the six-man squad , she remained without commitment. At the European Championships in 2018 (which a large part of the Olympians left out) Simon won bronze in the pursuit and together with Émilien Jacquelin silver in the single mixed relay. She had already won the relay bronze at the 2015 European Championship three years earlier .

Promotion in the World Cup (since 2018)

Simon (left) with her teammates Anaïs Bescond , Célia Aymonier and Justine Braisaz after the relay race in Oberhof in January 2020

During the 2018/19 season , Simon was still formally part of the B-team of the ski association, but was only used in the World Cup throughout the winter. She was on the same level as the three A-squad athletes Anaïs Chevalier , Anaïs Bescond and Justine Braisaz, with whom she won the highest competition series for the first time in the Ruhpolding relay race in January 2019. Simon took over the position of the starting runner, remained flawless in prone as well as standing and handed over to Bescond while in the lead. She also established herself in the upper midfield in individual races, missing out on the podium by just 2.5 seconds in the Pokljuka sprint by just 2.5 seconds and finishing 23rd in the overall World Cup at the end of the season. In her first World Championship participation in the adult category, she achieved a 21st place in the 15-kilometer race as the best individual result, in the relay competitions she clearly missed the medal ranks.

Simon - who was officially part of the senior squad since May 2019 - continued to improve her results over the following winter . At the season opener in Östersund she was on the podium for the first time in the 15-kilometer individual. In January 2020, she defended the lead of 40 seconds over the Norwegian team given to her by Quentin Fillon Maillet , Simon Desthieux and Justine Braisaz as the final runner of the French mixed relay and thus secured her second relay World Cup victory. At the World Championships in Antholz she initially showed her weakest performance of the season with results outside the top 30 places, but finished the World Cup with a fifth place in the mass start. In the last race of the season (which took place without spectators due to the COVID-19 pandemic ) she won an individual World Cup for the first time at the age of 23: After finishing 11th in the sprint, she overtook all competitors in the pursuit of Kontiolahti won the race with 17.3 seconds ahead of Selina Gasparin after, unlike Tiril Eckhoff, who had been leading up to that point, she made no mistakes in the last shooting. At the end of winter, she finished eighth in the overall World Cup as the best athlete on her team (four points ahead of Justine Braisaz).

With a hit rate of 76 percent, Simon was one of the average shooters in the 2019/20 World Cup. In an interview, she named Dorothea Wierer as a role model , who inspired her with her fast shooting bouts. She also saw the shooting speed as her greatest strength, even if “the precision is not always there” (in the original: “Mon point fort c'est la vitesse de tir mais la précision n'est pas toujours là”) they have steadily improved their running times since their World Cup debut, they were three percent faster than the average of the field of participants in 2019/20.

Personal

Simon grew up in the mountain village of Villard-sur-Doron with her parents, who work in agriculture, who produce Beaufort cheese , among other things , and spent the summers on an alpine pasture . She completed an apprenticeship as a carpenter and describes woodwork as a “second passion”. In spring 2019, she moved from her home community to La Féclaz, also in Savoy, to use the local shooting ranges in training and to become more professional. She also joined the French Customs ski team.

statistics

World Cup victories

Single race	Relay race
No. date place discipline 1. 14 Mar 2020  Kontiolahti persecution	No. date place discipline 1. Jan. 19, 2019  Ruhpolding Season 1 2. Jan 25, 2020  Pokljuka Mixed season 2 1with Anaïs Bescond , Justine Braisaz and Anaïs Chevalier 2with Quentin Fillon Maillet , Simon Desthieux and Justine Braisaz

Biathlon World Cup placements

The table shows all placements (depending on the year, including the Olympic Games and World Championships).

• 1st - 3rd Place: Number of podium placements
• Top 10: Number of placements in the top ten (including podium)
• Points ranks: Number of placements within the point ranks (including podium and top 10)
• Starts: Number of races run in the respective discipline
• Relay: including mixed relays

placement	singles	sprint	persecution	Mass start	Season	total
1st place			1		2	3
2nd place					2	2
3rd place	1	1			4th	6th
Top 10	1	4th	4th	2	15th	26th
Scoring	6th	16	14th	8th	16	60
Starts	6th	24	15th	9	16	70
Status: end of season 2019/20

Web links

Commons : Julia Simon  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Julia Simon in the database of the IBU (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Julia Simon. Eurosport , accessed February 23, 2020 . 
2. ^ Rencontre avec Julia Simon on sportbc.net. Retrieved April 5, 2020.
3. ↑ Championnats de France cadets 2012 - Autrans on dauphinordique.com. Released March 4, 2012. Accessed April 5, 2020.
4. ↑ Biathlon / Ruhpolding: La 6e fille sera Julia Simon on nordicmag.info. Released January 9, 2017. Accessed April 5, 2020.
5. ↑ Jean-Pierre Bidet: Mondiaux: Julia Simon and Justine Braisaz, deux étoiles contraires au sommet du biathlon français on lequipe.fr. Released February 14, 2020. Accessed April 5, 2020.
6. ↑ Sélections finales aux Jeux Olympiques de PyeongChang 2018 on ffs.fr. Released January 29, 2018. Accessed April 5, 2020.
7. ↑ Collectifs Nationaux 2018/2019 - BIATHLON on ffs.fr. Released June 1, 2018. Accessed April 5, 2020.
8. ↑ ÉQUIPES DE FRANCE 2019–2020 - BIATHLON on ffs.fr. Released May 17, 2019. Accessed April 5, 2020.
9. ↑ Lucie Gary: * Ça farte * avec Julia Simon on ski-nordique.net. Released October 7, 2019. Accessed April 5, 2020.
10. ↑ Mirko Hominal: Julia Simon: "J'adore ce que je fais" on ski-nordique.net. Released December 19, 2019. Accessed April 5, 2020.
11. ↑ Mirko Hominal: Lancement de la Team Fromage Beaufort on ski-nordique.net. Released December 4, 2018. Accessed April 5, 2020.
12. ↑ Julia Simon - Justine Braisaz - Point commun: biathlètes internationales au caractère bien trempé ... ... made in Les Saisies! on lessaisies.com, pp. 6-9. Published in winter 2019/20. Retrieved April 5, 2020.
13. ↑ Julia Simon: "Je fais de la menuiserie" on ledauphine.com. Released March 28, 2020. Accessed April 5, 2020.
14. ↑ Benoît Prato: Championships du monde à Antholz: la revanche de Julia Simon? on ledauphine.com. Released February 14, 2020. Accessed April 5, 2020.