Olympic champion convicted of stealing from a teammate

BarcelonaJulia Simon was destined to be an Olympian. Born in 1996 in Albertville, the city that hosted the 1992 Winter Olympics, she was already skiing as a child in a village that had been completely transformed after the Games. The Alps loomed in the background. And the streets were lined with the five Olympic rings, a reminder of the event. Simon chose biathlon, the cross-country skiing discipline where you carry a rifle on your back and have to stop to fire and demonstrate your marksmanship. It quickly became clear that she had a bright future: she won French championships and World Cup events. Before these Games, she had already been a world champion several times. No one doubted her talent. And, in fact, she has already won two gold medals at these Games. But Simon carries a burden: a few months ago, she was found guilty of theft and digital fraud for using other people's credit cards. In her hometown of Albertville, she appeared before a judge who sentenced her to three months in jail without having to serve any time, as she had no prior criminal record. If the crime was already serious, it was compounded by the fact that the people she stole from were teammates on the national biathlon team. Simon was accused of repeatedly using the bank card of her teammate Justine Braisaz-Bouchet and another member of the French team to make online purchases totaling more than 2,000 euros. The events had occurred years earlier, in 2022, the very year Braisaz-Bouchet won gold at the Beijing Olympics. Initially, Simon denied the allegations to the French Ski Federation and the authorities during the preliminary stages, but the evidence against her was overwhelming. When the case reached the judge in 2025, she pleaded guilty, stating: "I can't talk about it; I don't understand how I did it, I don't remember what I was thinking."

The biathlete saw how this could mean being excluded from the Games, as the French Ski Federation initially suspended her for six months. She also paid a federation fine of over €30,000. In the end, the Federation reduced the suspension just enough for her to compete in Milan, since with 10 world titles, she was a clear medal contender. And so she did: she won gold in the 15km race, as well as in the relay, now without Braisaz-Bouchet on the team. Crossing the finish line, Simon couldn't resist looking at the crowd, putting her finger to her lips, silencing the people, who were fed up with questions and comments about the theft. "I want to be left alone, I don't have to prove anything to anyone anymore," she said at the post-race press conference. The case has caused a great stir in France, since Justine Braisaz-Bouchet, who has only participated in the Games in one individual race, reported a few months ago that she had received death threats that also affected her daughter.

The champion has divided the French. Some argue that it's time to move on, while others believe she doesn't represent Olympic values. President Emmanuel Macron congratulated her on social media for her victory and posted a video of the moment the Olympic flag sounded. The Marseillaise And, overcome with emotion, the champion wept. "I'm strong thanks to my parents. When I train, I focus on everything and forget other things," explained the Frenchwoman, who missed one of her five shots in the individual event but still took the gold because she skied faster than her teammate Lou Jeanmonnot.

At the Milan Games, biathlon has surprisingly become a sport full of off-field news, as happened with Norwegian Sturla Holm Laegreid, who explained that he had been unfaithful to his partner right after winning a medal, or the Danish Ukaleq Slettemark, born in Greenland, who said that Donald Trump is "stupid" because he wants to annex her homeland.