The British biathlon team took part in a World Championship competition in February for the first time in 11 years.
On the Junior Cup women’s team was Chloé Dupont, a 22-year old Franco-British biathlete, born and raised in Annecy, who was trained for her first 18 years by French clubs and instructors.
“She was very involved. She learned and assimilated technique very quickly,” said Jean-Noël Domenge, her former coach at Dragons d’Annecy biathlon ski club.
Despite her talent, Ms Dupont has not escaped hurtful comments online.
With a French father and British mother, she was in the fortunate position of being able to choose which national team to join, and opted for the British side.
“As with most sports, people who end up choosing another nationality often do so because they are not skilled enough to perform for France,” read one comment on Facebook below an article about her in Ouest-France.
For Ms Dupont, however, ability was never the issue – the decision came down to which team offered a healthier environment for her mental health.
“She is part of a new generation who put mental health as a core element of their development, both as athletes but also human beings. She is very content with where she is in life,” said Mr Domenge.
Ms Dupont spoke to The Connexion about her biathlon trajectory, training struggles and the main differences between Team GB and its French counterpart.
How did you get into skiing? I suppose it’s safe to say almost everybody, at some point, ends up on skis around Annecy, right?
Pretty much, yes. I started cross-country skiing at 10 when I was at primary school.
Over time, I joined clubs such as the Dragons d’Annecy before I got selected for départementale competitions and eventually joined the Mont Blanc high school sports study programme.
Chloé DupontChloé Dupont
I studied there for four years on a flexible hours schedule. By then, I had switched and committed to biathlon. The next level would have been France’s youth team.
What happened?
First, I knew I wanted to go to university. I am currently a third-year physiotherapist student at Grenoble university. The goal is to graduate with a Masters. But I was also finding it harder and harder to enjoy what I was doing.
It wasn’t depression or burn-out, exactly – more that I was slowly drifting away from the values and behaviour of some athletes on my team. It was relentlessly competitive to the point where I felt I was turning into a machine, losing the core humanity of my sport.
Training has never been a burden for me – I have always loved it. It was more about the group of girls I was with whose sole purpose was to beat me. They were in it for the win, whatever it takes. Enjoyment should remain paramount in sport. That’s how I see it. That doesn’t mean I’m not competitive, but being 24/7 in an environment that feeds only on competition does not suit me. It got under my skin to the point I was losing energy competing.
It reminds me of a debate during the Paris Olympics about whether athletes should enjoy what they do...
Well, you are always going to face tough moments. It is not always easy to go out for training when it rains or snows. But I think you have to like what you are doing and it should provide some meaning. It shouldn’t just be about the pleasure of beating someone else. That’s not how I see it. You should achieve things for yourself.
Did you consider giving up?
I thought about it, but I found out I could keep doing biathlon in a different way. It was about changing the environment. The British team was a perfect match.
Is it that British biathletes practise the sport differently? Is there such a thing as an Anglo-Saxon mentality of practising sport?
I don’t know if it’s a difference in mentality per se, or the fact that the British team does not – cannot – expect the same requirements from athletes because it is under development.
The human aspect of it remains, mainly because there are fewer members. The most precious thing is the feeling of being kept afloat when I am drowning. France’s youth team is an emotional rollercoaster. When you win, everything goes your way. When you lose, you are worthless. There is no in-between. I
n Britain, a bad result is not the sort of deal-breaker it felt in France. So no, it is not a difference in mentality for me, but rather about the size of the federation and how mature biathlon is in Great Britain. I would expect to find the same in a British cycling or gymnastics club.
Are there any other reasons why the British team appealed?
One of the other major reasons for switching was that it connects me to the other part of my identity. My mother was born in England, studied in England and met my father around the late 1990s when she studied abroad for a year and he was a student in Strasbourg.
They kept a long-distance relationship until she moved to France to follow him. They moved back to Annecy where my father and his family come from. She was eventually given French citizenship several years ago. I have never been enrolled in an English school, neither in England nor in the Ecole Bilingue Internationale de Haute-Savoie in Annecy.
I am the textbook product of a binational family raised in France: I speak English with my mother, French with my father and have spent holidays in both France and the UK.
What do you say to people who question the authenticity of your choice?
Here is how I would frame it: I did not choose between France and Great Britain. I chose between giving up and keeping going, with Great Britain. Joining France’s youth team has never been part of the equation.
How early did you start thinking about national allegiance?
Considering I have always been part of French clubs, choosing a country had never been a question. The next logical step would have been to join France’s youth team, I guess.
The other reason the decision was never seriously considered earlier is that the British biathlon team is still relatively unknown. When I announced I was joining the British federation, the first reaction was: “They have a biathlon team? Does it snow there?”
Biathlon is a winter sport that combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. Missed shots result in extra distance or time being added to the contestant's total.
The sport is believed to have its roots in the skiing traditions of Scandinavia, where early inhabitants worshipped the Norse god Ullr as both a ski and hunting god.
Chloé Dupont rifle shootingChloé Dupont
In modern times, the sport developed as alternative training for the military in Norway.
The first Biathlon World Championship was held in 1958 in Austria, and in 1960 the sport was finally included in the Olympic Games. Women were allowed in the Olympic biathlon in 1992, in Albertville, France.
The British Biathlon Union (BBU) was formed in 1996 as the national governing body for biathlon in Great Britain.