Masters of the pursuit

Quentin Fillon Maillet has won four consecutive pursuits out of five this season. They represent the foundation for his commanding lead in the BMW IBU World Cup Total Score standings before the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022. The last man to win four (or more) consecutive pursuits in one season was Martin Fourcade in 2016/2017.

We looked into the numbers to compare Fillon Maillet and Fourcade and found out that the two Frenchmen made the main difference in the standing shooting with the stakes high. And nerves stretched to the limits. There are some striking similarities in their performance:

1. Fillon Maillet hit 39 out of 40 targets in standing shooting in his four consecutive wins for an accuracy of 97.5%. 

2. Fourcade shot 58/60 for an unbroken line of six wins in six weeks for an accuracy of 96.8%.

To put these extraordinary numbers into perspective, we need to know that the average accuracy in the standing shooting of the rest of the field is 79.2% in 2021/2022. And it was 79.1% in the 2016/2017 season. Such dominance in pivotal stages of the pursuit also brings some intangible advantages. Other athletes know that when they encounter Quentin on the shooting range in the last standing, they better clear all five targets and fast, or they will only see the back of him for the rest of the race. When we compare their times on the range, we see that Fillon Maillet shot faster, but Fourcade got swifter into the position.

Three more BMW IBU World Cup pursuits await the athletes before the curtain draws on the 2021/2022 season. Fillon Maillet thus has a chance of at least equaling Fourcade’s achievement.

Photo: IBU/C. Manzoni, V. Thibaut