Team France won its first-ever Olympic gold in the men's 4x7.5km biathlon relay after flipping the lead from juggernaut Norway on Tuesday at Milan Cortina 2026.
Team Norway came in second 9.8 seconds behind and Team Sweden came in third 57.5 seconds behind in a race decided in the final shooting stage.
"The French biathlon team has for so many years pushed really hard to win the relay gold medal, and today we represent all those guys who pushed hard for it," Eric Perrot of France said after the race. "I am so proud to be a part of this team.”
This relay was a thrilling battle between the top countries in the sport — France, Norway, and Sweden. With each team taking the lead at different legs of the race.
Norway's Martin Uldal carved out an initially large lead with his prolific shooting in the standing position. In the second leg, Johan-Olav Botn inherited Uldal's 15-second lead.
At the same time, France's Emilien Jacquelin had a lot of catching up to do after Fabien Claude struggled with an early penalty. In a shocking twist, Norway's Botn had trouble shooting and fell to 9th place. With Norway down, Jacquelin broke away from the range with a two-second lead.
"I was three or four (rifle scope) clicks to the left," Botn said about his performance. "I didn't feel like I did something wrong when I missed, so it was really hard to know what I did wrong, and I couldn't change it during the series."
At the top of the third leg, France, Finland, and Sweden were in the three leading positions. France's Quentin Fillon Maillet skied out of the range first to keep the lead, while Sweden's Martin Ponsiluoma was able to ski past Finland.
In the final portion of the race, it all came down to the shooting range. Perrot of France was out first in the prone position. As snow started to fall on the biathletes, Perrot held his pace as Sweden and Norway chased for the medal spots.
At Beijing 2022, Norway won gold and France won bronze. Ahead of this race, they were the two top-ranked teams in the World Cup.
The United States men’s relay squad was comprised of Sean Doherty, Maxime Germain, Paul Schommer, and Campbell Wright. The team finished in 5th, beating their best ranking since placing 6th at PyeongChang 2018.
"I've managed to get away with a few good results, but the other guys have caught the worst end of bad luck," Wright said. "I'm really happy we can get fifth as a team here and everyone can kind of get a win before the Games finish."
Each relay team had four members, with 20 teams in total. Each team member skied three laps of a 2.5km loop and stopped twice to shoot lying down and standing. In the relay, the skiers have three extra rounds for each trip to the range, and if they miss a shot, they have to ski a 150m penalty loop.