68OLYMPIC REVIEW SIMON FOURCADE FRANCE HELENA JONSSON SWEDEN Do you feel any pressure living up to the reputation of French biathlon legend Raphaël Poirée? Even though I'm the top ranked Frenchman this season, Vincent Defrasne, who won gold in Turin, will have more media pressure than me in the lead- up to the Games. Because Raphaël was very consistent he always had a lot of pressure going into the Olympic Games. But this year our whole team has been doing well, so the pressure will be more spread out. What is your impression of the venue at Whistler? It's a great venue, and is in beautiful surroundings. It looks an easy course because it is wide, but it's far from easy. It's really demanding, with few areas in which to recuperate. This season you have been keeping pace with Norwegian legend Ole Einar Bjoerndalen. What has that done for your confidence levels? In biathlon you can't rest on your laurels, so I'm simply going to continue working as hard as I have been the last few years. Bjoerndalen has masses of experience, but because the level of competition in biathlon has intensified these last few years he won't be the only main threat in Vancouver. We can expect a few potential winners for each event. After a very successful World Championships and recently taking the lead in the World Cup, how are you feeling about competing at the Olympic Winter Games for the first time? I am looking forward to it a lot. I think it will be a lot of fun to compete in the Olympic Winter Games. You recently performed well at Whistler in Canada. What is the venue like? Is the course difficult? I really liked Whistler. The course was not so hard, and it was very quick so I think the competitions will be very tight. Every second will be important. You won world titles this year and appear to have made lots of progress. What has been the main reason? A year ahead of Vancouver, who do you believe will be your biggest rivals? The biggest reason for my progress is a lot of hard training, and the fact I have been healthy. I will have a lot of rivals, especially from Germany and Russia, but my biggest rival will be myself. It is easy to get too nervous and to want too much, and then it becomes difficult to achieve good results. The key is to try to relax and do everything as you would normally do. BelowFourcade and Jonsson are among the medal favourites for Vancouver SPORTS PROFILES