The IOC offers the following Video News Release to all news agencies, broadcasters and online news platforms free of charge. The French Biathlon Single Mixed Relay benefitted from participating in the first edition of the Winter Youth Olympic Games (YOG) to be held in two countries and enjoyed gold medal success on home soil. Competing on a course at Les Tuffes Nordic Centre, the only venue of Lausanne 2020 located in France, Jeanne Richard and Mathieu Garcia led for most of the race, only briefly being threatened by Switzerland after the second stage of the four stage relay. Both of the French team had already enjoyed medal success at Lausanne 2020. Richard, who is 17, was silver medallist in the Biathlon Women’s 10km Individual event, while 17-year-old Garcia was the bronze medalist in the Biathlon Men’s 12.5km Individual event. Finishing in 42:03.5, they beat the silver medallists Switzerland by 19.5 seconds, with bronze medallists Sweden 26.8 seconds behind the winners. Biathlon combines the power and aggression of cross-country skiing with the precision and calm of marksmanship. The word biathlon stems from the Greek word for two contests, and is today seen as the joining of two sports, skiing and shooting. Biathlon has its roots in survival skills practised in the snow-covered forests of Scandinavia, where people hunted on skis with rifles slung over their shoulders.