Émilien Claude

Émilien Claude (born 13 June 1999) is a French biathlete. Multiple Junior World Biathlon champion. Made his debut at the World Cup in 2021. He represented France at the 2016 Winter Youth Olympics in Lillehammer and became the first ever French youth Olympic champion in biathlon.

Career
Émilien Claude has been competing in biathlon since 2010. He made his international debut in 2016 at the Youth World Championships in Cheile Grădiştei. Two weeks later, he competed at the Winter Youth Olympics in Lillehammer and won the gold medal in the sprint. The following year at the 2017 World Youth Championships in Osrblie he achieved two more victories in the sprint and pursuit.

Claude made his debut in the IBU Cup at the start of the 2018/19 season in Ridnaun, where he also achieved his first good result in sprint made an 18th place. At the end of the winter, he also took part in his first European Championships. In 2019/20, The 21-year-old Émilien made his World Cup debut in Oberhof and immediately scored World Cup points with 33rd place. Back in the juniors, he then made a breakthrough at the Junior World Championships, winning all races except individual race. He was therefore allowed to compete in the World Cup again at the end of the season, but did not finish in the points. He won his first race on the IBU Cup stage in January 2022 in the Brezno sprint, ahead of Norway's Sindre Pettersen and Russia's Petr Pashchenko.

Personal life
Claude's mother Christine was also a biathlete and finished eighth in the individual race at World Championships in 1984, his father Gilles died in January 2020 in the Canadian province of Québec when he collapsed and drowned in Lac Saint-Jean during a snowmobile excursion. His older brothers Florent and Fabien are also top-level biathletes.

Claude is in a relationship with the Austrian biathlete Anna Gandler.

Biathlon results
All results are sourced from the International Biathlon Union.

Youth and Junior World Championships
7 medals (5 gold, 2 bronze)