Simon Desthieux

Simon Desthieux
Association	France
birthday	3rd December 1991 (age 28)
place of birth	Belley , France
size	177 cm
Weight	68 kg
Career
society	SC Lompnes
Trainer	Vincent Vittoz , Patrick Favre
Debut in the European Cup / IBU Cup	2011
Debut in the World Cup	2012
World Cup victories	8 relay wins
status	active
Medal table
Olympic medals 1 × 0 × 0 × World Cup medals 1 × 1 × 0 × JWM medals 1 × 1 × 1 × JEM medals 0 × 2 × 0 ×
winter Olympics gold 2018 Pyeongchang Mixed relay  Biathlon world championships silver 2017 Hochfilzen Season gold 2020 Antholz Season  Biathlon Junior World Championships silver 2010 Torsby Season gold 2011 Nové Město na Moravě singles bronze 2012 Kontiolahti sprint  Biathlon Junior European Championships silver 2011 Ridnaun singles silver 2011 Ridnaun Season
World Cup balance
Overall World Cup	4. ( 2018/19 )
Individual World Cup	6. (2018/19)
Sprint World Cup	3. (2018/19)
Pursuit World Cup	4. (2018/19)
Mass start world cup	5th ( 2013/14 )
Podium placements 1. 2. 3. singles 0 1 0 sprint 0 3 0 persecution 0 0 1 Mass start 0 0 1 Season 8th 7th 5
last change: February 22nd, 2020

Simon Desthieux (born December 3, 1991 in Belley ) is a French biathlete . His greatest successes are the 2018 Olympic victory with the mixed relay and the 2020 relay world championship title .

Athletic career

Beginnings and successes among juniors (until 2012)

Simon Desthieux grew up as the middle of three brothers in the Ain department near the Jura Mountains . All three took up biathlon training: Simon's older brother Baptiste started himself in the IBU Cup and in the meantime looked after the French women's team, and the youngest brother Étienne initially aimed to start the World Cup together with Simon - after Model of the Fourcade brothers. Desthieux's father was President of SC Lompnes, the family's home ski club, until 2017 and later referred to Simon as the club's “best ambassador”.

From 2006 Desthieux started in French biathlon youth competitions. He made his international debut at the age of 18 at the 2010 World Youth Championships in Torsby . There he won the silver medal in the relay race with Antonin Guigonnat and Florent Claude - later teammates in the French national squad. A year later he started successfully at the Junior World Championships in Nové Město na Moravě and, in addition to several top ten placements, won the individual title ahead of Benedikt Doll . With growing success, the Frenchman also competed in races in the IBU Cup, the second highest international competition class: in 2011 he achieved his first result in the top ten at the sprint in Annecy and confirmed this result several times the following winter . He also won another bronze medal in his second junior world title , this time in the sprint.

Gold medals with the French relay and podium places in the World Cup (from 2012)

At the beginning of the 2012/2013 season Desthieux was part of the French World Cup squad. In the fourth race of his debut season, he won his first World Cup points by finishing 37th in the Hochfilzen sprint . At the end of winter there were eight places among the top 40 with a 19th place as the best individual result and two relay appearances, including a fifth place. Over the following winters he established himself in the French national team, in which Martin Fourcade took the leading position as a series winner in the overall World Cup and was the center of public attention. Behind them, Desthieux - together with Quentin Fillon Maillet , who was just a few months younger - was part of the core of an increasingly rejuvenated team: In December 2014 he was on the World Cup podium for the first time with the relay in Hochfilzen, two years later he celebrated together at the Pokljuka Fourcade, Fillon Maillet and Jean-Guillaume Béatrix his first World Cup victory. In the same line-up, the season won the silver medal at the World Cup in February 2017 . Desthieux, Fourcade, Marie Dorin-Habert and Anaïs Bescond won the mixed relay at the 2018 Olympic competitions in Pyeongchang, making Desthieux one of six French Olympic champions of the year.

Compared to the appearances with the relay, Desthieux achieved smaller successes in the individual World Cups: Although he had already taken fourth place at the end of his second season in the top competition class, at the mass start in Oslo in March 2014, this result remained for over four years his best career result. It wasn't until 2018 that the now 26-year-old stood in Tyumen as sprint runner-up on the World Cup podium in an individual race for the first time and at the end of the season achieved a top ten result in the overall World Cup in eighth place. Nevertheless, Desthieux still saw himself in the winter of 2018/19 as “more of an outsider with potential than a possible winner”. In that same season, Martin Fourcade, after seven overall World Cup victories in a row, showed major weaknesses and was twelfth in the ranking. Desthieux placed with more consistent performances overall - 17 top ten results in 25 appearances, including two further podium results - fourth in front of Fourcade, but one place behind Fillon Maillet, who celebrated his first World Cup victories this winter. Desthieux retained his constancy in 2019/20 as sixth in the overall World Cup - but this time only as fourth-best French, behind the resurgent Fourcade, Fillon Maillet and the younger Émilien Jacquelin . These four athletes won the relay gold medal at the 2020 World Championships in Antholz.

statistics

World Cup victories

No.	date	place	discipline
1.	Dec 11, 2016	Pokljuka	Season 1
2.	5th March 2017	Pyeongchang	Season 2
3.	March 12, 2017	Kontiolahti	Mixed season 3
4th	Dec 2, 2018	Pokljuka	Mixed season 4
5.	17th Feb 2019	Midway	Mixed season 5
6th	Jan. 18, 2020	Ruhpolding	Season 6
7th	Jan 25, 2020	Pokljuka	Mixed season 7
8th.	Feb 22, 2020	Antholz ( WM )	Season 6

¹with Jean-Guillaume Béatrix , Quentin Fillon Maillet and Martin Fourcade

²with Jean-Guillaume Béatrix, Simon Fourcade and Martin Fourcade

³with Marie Dorin-Habert , Anaïs Bescond and Quentin Fillon Maillet

^4thwith Anaïs Bescond, Justine Braisaz and Martin Fourcade

⁵with Quentin Fillon Maillet, Célia Aymonier and Anaïs Chevalier

^6thwith Émilien Jacquelin , Martin Fourcade and Quentin Fillon Maillet.

^7thwith Quentin Fillon Maillet, Justine Braisaz and Julia Simon

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					8th	8th
2nd place	1	3			7th	11
3rd place			1	1	5	7th
Top 10	2	21st	12	11	39	85
Scoring	13	55	47	27	41	183
Starts	20th	68	52	27	41	208
As of March 18, 2020

winter Olympics

Results at Olympic Winter Games:

winter Olympics		singles	sprint	persecution	Mass start	Season	Mixed relay
year	place
2014	Sochi	-	45.	21st	-	8th.	-
2018	Pyeongchang	27.	12.	7th	22nd	5.	1.

World championships

Results at the World Championships:

World championships		singles	sprint	persecution	Mass start	Season	Mixed relay	Single mixed relay
year	place
2013	Nové Město	-	67.	-	-	-	-
2015	Kontiolahti	49.	-	-	-	-	-
2016	Oslo	28.	12.	6th	24.	9.	-
2017	Hochfilzen	51.	34.	27.	-	2.	-
2019	Ostersund	6th	5.	32.	11.	6th	8th.	-
2020	Antholz	59.	18th	8th.		1.	-	-

Web links

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

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

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Simon Desthieux. Eurosport , accessed February 23, 2020 . 
2. ↑ Nils Louna: Une histoire de famille on ledauphine.com. Released January 30, 2013. Accessed March 30, 2020.
3. ^ Pourquoi Jean-Marc Desthieux lâche les rênes du Ski club on leprogres.fr. Published on November 8, 2017. Accessed on March 30, 2020. “Nous avons aussi participé à l'émergence de Simon Desthieux […]. C'est notre meilleur ambassadeur et il amène also les plus jeunes vers le biathlon. ”(In German:“ We were also involved in Simon Desthieux's breakthrough. […] He is our best ambassador and he also brings the youngest to the biathlon. ")
4. ↑ Palmarčs général SimonDesthieux . PDF available on the website of the Institut de Formation aux Métiers du Sport Hauteville .
5. ↑ Volker Kreisl: The perfect time . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung (December 12, 2013, p. 33). From Munzinger Online . “[...] Fourcade's successes will guide a new generation. The latest example is 22-year-old Simon Desthieux, who attracted attention at the start of the season with a courageous mixed relay performance [...]. "
6. ↑ Nicolas Termier: Interview biathlon Simon DESTHIEUX on altitude-biathlon.org. Released November 27, 2019. Accessed March 30, 2020. “Pour Martin, cette reconnaissance et ces sollicitations sont nettement plus fortes. Partout où il va, il est reconnu, à l'aéroport ... partout. "(In German:" Martin is recognized and spoken to much more often. Wherever he goes, he is recognized, at the airport ... everywhere. ")
7. ↑ Tangi Kerhoas / L'Equipe: A super normal biathlete . In: Biathlonworld , number 54/2020, pp. 84–87. Available as PDF at biathlonworld.com .