ANTERSELVA, ITALY, Feb 12 (Reuters) - French biathlete Julia Simon put her finger to her lips as she cruised across the finish line to win the women's 15km individual race on Wednesday, gesturing to a media criticfollowing a fraud conviction to be silent.
The 29-year-old, who picked up her second gold of the Games following Sunday's mixed relay victory, was handed a three-month suspended prison term and fined 15,000 euros in October 2025 after admitting credit-card fraud and theft related to the credit cards of team-mate Justine Braisaz-Bouchet and a team physiotherapist.
"I saw a bad article yesterday evening, and I think these people have to show me respect, because I respect him (the journalist). And yesterday, it was not ... it was very bad," Simon told reporters, declining to name the journalist or the media outlet in question.
"It was just like, I'm there for sports, I'm doing my best sport, so now we have to speak about sport and not ... if you want to speak about gossip, go away," she added.
Simon's comments about her media critic were arguably the only time she has seemed flustered at the Antholz-Anterselva Biathlon Arena, where she has so far performed superbly to secure one team and one individual gold medal, but she almost missed the Olympics after her conviction.
The 2023 overall World Cup winner was given a six-month ban by the French Ski Federation (FFS) at the beginning of November, but the sport's governing body suspended five months, meaning she only missed the opening World Cup meet of the season in Oestersund, Sweden.
"I can’t explain my actions. I’ve had to work with a psychologist to understand and grow from this," she told the court at the time of her conviction.
Despite missing one month of training and competing under the auspices of the FFS and the International Biathlon Union (IBU) due to the ban, Simon still came into the Winter Games in flying form and she will be among the favourites in the women's 7.5km sprint on Saturday.
"The individual is not my best race, it was difficult for me to know how to manage it, and since last year, I struggled a bit on the skis, and I started to understand and to race differently," she explained after adding the individual Olympic title to the world championship gold she won in the same event in 2025.
"I'm really happy, because it's back-to-back with the world championships and then the Olympics ... I'm still there, and yeah, it's a lot of emotion, and maybe it's the best one, I don't know," she added.
(Reporting by Philip O'Connor, additional reporting by Julien Pretor and Vincent Daheron)
