Martin Fourcade Nordic Festival 2019

The inaugural Martin Fourcade Nordic Festival took place at Le Pâquier in Annecy this past weekend (Aug 31 – Sep 1). The first day of the festival comprised of Biathlon mass starts, both women and men, and cross country sprints, as well both women and men. Our number one female stars in both disciplines, Kaisa Mäkäräinen and Krista Pärmäkoski, were invited to participate. They were accompanied by a number world’s top biathletes and skiers from several countries. Below are some random pictures from the first day.

The race village. Everything worked fine but the availability of drinking water was a disaster: it could only be bought in 25cl reusable plastic cups for 1 euro.

Krista Pärmäkoski and her fellow skiers warming up in +28C heat.

Benedikt Doll (2. today) cooling down in “prison” (that functioned as the penalty loop) before the race. The only shady spot on the stadium.

Martin Fourcade and Benedikt Doll in the first standing shooting.

The second day’s program on Sunday consisted of biathlon running relays for girls, boys, and mixed adult teams. The teams consisted of 4-6 members, and they had 3 hours to complete as many laps as they could. Whew! Each lap was about one kilometer long, and it contained several obstacles, and a shooting range. We just got there when the mixed relay started. It was a lot of fun to watch. We were quite surprised by the athleticism of the participants — and they were not professionals!

Fans lining up for Martin Fourcade’s signature.

This was our third visit to Annecy, but this time we did not stay in the old town but the neighborhood of Cran-Gevrier, about 1.5 kilometers North-West of the railway station. Both on Saturday and Sunday morning we took an easy early morning stroll in the neighboring Ecoquartier des Passerelles and by the river Thiou that flows into Lac Annecy.

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