Winter Olympics Icon Martin Fourcade Earns Sixth Gold In Rarest Way

Biathlon legend Martin Fourcade of France is an Olympic champion again, 15 years after winning the gold medal in question.

Fourcade was declared the new winner in the men’s 15km mass start event at the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010 following the disqualification of Russian Evgeny Ustyugov for anti-doping rule violations.

With six Olympic gold medals, Fourcade now stands alone as the most successful French Olympian. He came into his own at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, where he won two golds and a silver. He cemented his legacy with three additional golds in PyeongChang in 2018.

France’s Martin Fourcade reacts on the podium during the medal ceremony for the biathlon men’s 15km Mass Start at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympic Games in South Korea. Fourcade earned his sixth Olympic gold medal following the disqualification of a Russian athlete for anti-doping violations at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver. (Photo by Dan Istitene/Getty Images) AFP PHOTO / Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV

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Judoka Teddy Riner is the top French summer Olympian with five golds, ahead of swimmer Leon Marchand, who won four at Paris 2024. Alpine skiing sensation Jean-Claude Killy, who took three titles in Grenoble in 1968, is the next most successful French Winter Olympian.

“I never imagined that a biathlon race could go on such a long time,” Fourcade wrote on Instagram this week after taking time to reflect on the decision. “The wait and the legal process have been long since the beginning of the disqualification process in February 2020. I feel a mix of sentiment, pride, and justice served, even if this victory is for the instant more abstract than my other Olympic titles.”

Abnormalities detected in Ustyugov’s athlete biological passport led his results from 2010 to 2014 to be scrubbed from official records by the International Olympic Committee and the International Biathlon Union. A protracted legal battle came to a close earlier this week when the Swiss Federal Tribunal, the last recourse in cases like this, rejected Ustyugov’s appeal.

Ustyugov was also one of many implicated in the Moscow Laboratory Data scandal, in which Russia was discovered to be operating a state-sponsored doping program that affected athletes in the “vast majority” of Olympic sports.

In his defense, Ustyugov’s lawyers claimed a genetic mutation meant he had naturally high levels of hemoglobin in his blood, and that anyway, the wrong statute of limitations was applied in his case. The Court of Arbitration for Sport’s Anti-Doping division disagreed, saying that the levels present in Ustyugov’s blood “could not have been achieved other than with a significant degree of orchestration or common enterprise.”

Though the last to be declared, chronologically it is the first Olympic title for Fourcade, who until earlier this year believed he had won the silver. Athletes who get reallocated medals can choose to receive their new hardware in special ceremonies during the next Olympic Games, and Fourcade, now an IOC member, says that he has exercised that option for the upcoming Winter Games in Milano-Cortina.

Slovakia’s Pavol Hurajt will be upgraded to silver, while Christoph Sumann of Austria will be awarded the bronze. Ustyugov’s disqualification also affects the outcome of two other Olympic races: in the 2014 Olympic men’s 4×7.5km relay, Russia will lose the gold medal, which will be retroactively awarded to Germany’s Erik Lesser, Daniel Boehm, Arnd Peiffer, and Simon Schempp. Silver will go to Austria’s Christoph Sumann, Daniel Mesotitsch, Simon Eder, and Dominik Landertinger, while Norway’s Tarjei Boe, Johannes Thingnes Boe, Ole Einar Bjoerndalen, and Emil Hegle Svendsen will now have bronze.

There is also the men’s 4×7.5km relay from the Vancouver Games, where Ustyugov was part of a Russian team that finished third. Sweden’s Fredrik Lindstrom, Carl Johan Bergman, Mattias Nilsson, and Bjön Ferry will now receive the bronze medal.