French biathlete guilty of fraud wins Olympic gold while scammed teammate comes 80th

An athlete convicted of committing credit card fraud against one of her national teammates has won an Olympic gold medal for France in the women’s 15km biathlon, beating her victim to do it.Julia Simon, 29, was handed a €15,000 fine and a three-month suspended sentence last October after she was found to have spent more than €2,000 using card details belonging to Justine Braisaz-Bouchet, also 29, who finished in 80th place in the same race. A third member of the French team, Lou Jeanmonnot, won the silver.Simon was also found to have used the card details of the team physiotherapist to make purchases between 2021 and 2022. She denied the crime for three years, claiming she had been a victim of identity theft, before finally admitting her guilt in a court hearing in Albertville last October after she was found to have photos of the credit card on her phone. “I confess the accusations but I don’t remember committing them,” she said at the time. “It’s like a blackout.”Simon explained at the time that she found her actions “incomprehensible” and that she was “working with a psychologist to understand what happened”. The crimes were committed in 2021, but only came to light later, after Simon had won the first of her 10 world championship titles.Justine Braisaz-Bouchet competes in the women’s 15km individual biathlon. Photograph: Martin Metelko/EPABraisaz-Bouchet found herself the target of extreme online abuse in the wake of the scandal. “It has made a lot of people angry,” she said. “The story came out in 2023, after Julia Simon’s great season, and for many people I was the troublemaker.”The French Ski Federation imposed a six-month ban on Simon, but five months of it were suspended meaning she missed one event at the beginning of this season but was still eligible to compete here. She helped the team win the gold medal in the 4x6km mixed relay on Sunday, when she was on the anchor leg.As Simon crossed the finish line she held a finger to her lips, but refused to explain why she had done it. “I put my finger to my mouth, it was for one person and they know who because we had a talk. But I won’t tell any more about it, it’s over.”Simon refused to talk about the conviction, or her ban, or anything except her gold medal. “I’m just focused on my sport, it is the thing I love the most, I had a goal and I put all my energy into it,” she said. “Yes, it was a difficult month, but today was the perfect result for me, it feels like a dream.”Julia Simon wipes away tears after she received her gold medal. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The GuardianThe affair was the most high-profile of a series of scandals in the sport in France. Last year Jeanmonnot revealed she had received death threats from a gambler who was furious about losses linked to her performances, and another of the French team competing at these Games, Jeanne Richard, was briefly excluded from the national squad after she was accused of tampering with a gun belonging to one of her teammates.Biathlon is in the middle of a drive to reform ethical standards after the man who had run the International Biathlon Union for 25 years, Anders Besseberg, resigned in 2018 after he was accused of accepting bribes including an Omega watch, several hunting trips, a leased BMW X5, and the services of sex workers in return for protecting Russian interests during the state-sponsored doping scandal. He was sentenced to three years in prison.