“We told him to stop riding” – Olympic biathlon champion Emilien Jacquelin impresses Decathlon on pro cycling debut

Decathlon CMA CGM did not need to ease Emilien Jacquelin gently into professional cycling at La Polynormande. By the time the Olympic biathlon champion completed his first race in the pro peloton on Sunday, his new teammates had actually found themselves telling him to stop doing quite so much work.

Jacquelin finished 88th in the 168.9-kilometre French one-day race, but his placing told little of the role he had played. The 31-year-old spent a substantial part of the afternoon working towards the front of the peloton for Decathlon, taking on domestique duties despite having never previously raced at professional level.

"He sacrificed himself. He even did more than we asked him to do," Paul Lapeira explained to broadcaster Novo 19 after the race, with his comments relayed by RMC Sport.

"At the start, we'd told him that he wouldn't necessarily have to ride straight away. In the end, he went up there and started riding himself. There was even a point when we told him to wait and stop riding. I'm just full of admiration for a guy like that."

Jacquelin was repeatedly visible contributing towards the front as Decathlon helped control the race, which was eventually won by Cofidis rider Hugo Page after an afternoon raced at an average speed of more than 44km/h.

His own work ended when he lost contact with a little under 50 kilometres remaining, but Jacquelin continued to the finish. He was one of 93 classified riders from 123 starters, with 30 riders failing to complete the race.

Decathlon remained heavily involved after Jacquelin was distanced. Lapeira attacked during an aggressive finale and featured in a dangerous late group before the race came back together, while Noa Isidore eventually sprinted to fourth behind Page, Sandy Dujardin and Alex Aranburu. Lapeira finished 13th after helping his teammate in the closing stages.

For all Jacquelin has already achieved away from cycling, there was no suggestion of him arriving at Decathlon expecting preferential treatment. Lapeira instead found himself giving advice to an Olympic champion several years his senior.

"It's funny because he's arrived here with the eyes of a kid, listening to advice even though he's five or six years older than me," said the former French road champion. "I'd never given advice to someone older than me before. It was really cool to experience something like that. I hope he'll be able to carry on in cycling for a little while longer if that's possible."

That willingness to start again at the bottom of a new sport particularly impressed Lapeira. Jacquelin won men's relay gold for France at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics in February and has five biathlon world titles to his name, but has spent the months since the end of the winter season finding out how far his ability on a bike could take him.

"I'm really full of admiration for what he's doing," Lapeira continued. "When you have the stature and position he has in his sport, to put all of that to one side and potentially risk losing your place, just to tick a box in your life and live out a childhood dream, hats off to him."

The possibility of Jacquelin risking his position in biathlon is particularly relevant as his road programme continues. French men's biathlon coach Simon Fourcade has previously set out the framework surrounding his return. If Jacquelin wants to begin the 2026/27 biathlon season with the national team, he needs to come back around the end of August or beginning of September. A slightly later return could require his programme to be adjusted, while continuing to pursue cycling without immediately returning would mean sitting out the biathlon season entirely.

Jacquelin is yet to make that decision. Asked about what would follow his cycling programme on the eve of La Polynormande, he told L'Equipe that he was not yet thinking about September. "I don't think about what comes next, or about September," he said. "I take the time to build things, but nothing has been decided."

His commitment to cycling has already gone considerably beyond using the bike as summer training. Jacquelin joined Decathlon's NewGen project after the Winter Olympics and spent months preparing specifically for his first professional races, despite suffering a fractured collarbone in a training crash in May.

La Polynormande provided the first indication of how he would cope inside the professional peloton. The next test comes almost immediately and will be significantly different.

Jacquelin is due to start the four-day Tour du Limousin on Tuesday, August 18, giving him his first experience of recovering and racing again across consecutive professional race days. He is then scheduled to represent France in the Mediterranean Games road race on August 24 before deciding what comes next for his cycling project and the approaching biathlon season.