A silver medal and, above all, a new status for the French: “It’s so good for French cross‑country skiing”

The French day of glory arrived in Val di Fiemme. The tricolour flag fluttered in the breeze as the French quartet celebrated on the track and among their team and supporters. For Victor Lovera, 25, it was his first Olympic relay and he cruised to the finish line as the crowd cheered. Cross‑country is a brutal sport in which, until now, only Johannes Klæbo and the Norwegian red bibs have regularly paraded. But this Sunday the French enjoyed a king’s luxury: the margin to savour the win and the reward.

Launched at these Milan‑Cortina Games by Mathis Desloges’s two individual silver medals, the French collected a third silver on Sunday in the men’s relay. Norway, with Johannes Klæbo, won by 22 seconds; Italy was more than 25 seconds behind France. Three medals in seven days is exceptional for French distance skiing — Olivier Michaud, head of the French teams, joked that this week is an anomaly in the history of French cross‑country.

The Olympics are the stage for one‑day coups that can consecrate outsiders when favourites wobble; that’s how Roddy Darragon reached the podium in Turin 2006. Since then France had mainly chased team medals (Sochi 2014, Pyeongchang 2018, Beijing 2022) and collected bronzes. Maurice Manificat stresses that individual names existed but never the density now on display: “Before, we were invisible to the Scandinavians.” This relay confirms a new collective status for the French.

Coach Thibaut Chêne compared the relay runners to the unsung forwards in a rugby XV: steady workers who enable the star players to shine. The quartet started with surprise selection Théo Schely (26) on the first leg; he hung on despite heavy legs and lost only ten seconds on the leaders. Hugo Lapalus (27) produced a monstrous second leg to bridge back to the leading group. Mathis Desloges (23), now triple‑medallist after skiathlon and the skate individual, exploded the field and put Victor Lovera into position to finish the job.

Olivier Michaud underlined the collective effort beyond the four who raced: the cooks, physiotherapists, technicians and the athletes who didn’t start (Jules Lapierre, Jules Chappaz, Richard Jouve among those mentioned) share the pride. Desloges said the medal “is far more than four people who raced; it’s everyone around the team.”

Thanks to the leaders and the depth, France has been structured in training, nutrition, recovery and equipment — and the investment paid off. Maurice Manificat praised the continuity of the project and noted that other nations now look at France differently: “Look at the Germans, the Swedes, they can’t do it anymore.” Hugo Lapalus, the oldest of the four at 27, is already dreaming of 2030 in La Clusaz: “Seeing that we can fight with the Norwegians, it’s incredible. We’ll keep working every day to go and get gold.”

This relay silver at Milan‑Cortina 2026 is both a medal and a statement: France has moved from occasional podium surprise to a recognised power on the men’s cross‑country circuit.