France takes gold in the first biathlon race of the Winter Olympics as Simon secures mixed relay win

ANTERSELVA, Italy (AP) — France dominated the second half of the mixed relay biathlon race at the Milan Cortina Olympics on Sunday with fast skiing and strong shooting to take gold ahead of Italy and Germany.

Julia Simon hit her final five targets and left the range alone, taking her team of Eric Perrot, Quentin Fillon Maillet and Lou Jeanmonnot to a solid win at a time of 1:04:15.

Simon said she was surprisingly calm as she waited to take the tag-off from Jeanmonnot, who was leading the race at the time.

“I focused on myself and on what I need to do especially on the shooting range,” she said. “It was a really big moment for me and for us.”

Italy's Lisa Vittozzi also cleaned her last targets, left the range in second place and held the Germans off to take the silver medal, to the great delight of the roaring capacity crowd. Italy's Tommaso Giacomel, Lukas Hofer, Dorothea Wierer and Vittozzi finished 25.8 seconds behind France.

Wierer said she was nervous before the race, feeling the pressure of performing before a large, boisterous home crowd.

“I was afraid and I had a little bit heavy legs also,” she said. “I knew we had a strong team. It’s just great for our team like this to begin the games.”

The German team of Justus Strelow, Philipp Nawrath, Vanessa Voigt and Franziska Preuss secured bronze, 1.05 behind France. They made it through three legs without missing a target but Preuss on the anchor leg set them back with one penalty loop. Philipp Nawrath, who raced second, said it was a perfect race for him.

“The shooting it was very important to perform like this. I am really happy and satisfied about the race,” he said.

Racers each skied three, 2-kilometer (1.2 mile) loops and shot twice, once prone and once standing, at the Südtirol Arena Alto Adige, which sits at 5,200 feet (1,600 meters) above sea level, before tagging off to their teammate. The men went first on a bluebird day with mild temperatures and little to no wind.

France, Italy and Germany were out front with Norway's Maren Kirkeeide until the final shooting bout, but several misses set Norway back and her team members Martin Uldal, Vetle Sjaastad Christiansen, Karoline Offigstad Knotten finished fourth, 1:37 behind the race leaders.

Sweden's Sebastian Samuelsson missed two targets on his standing shooting stage and had to ski two penalty laps, setting the team back to 20th place. His teammates, Martin Ponsiluoma, Anna Magnusson and Hanna Oeberg slowly brought them back and they had to settle with fifth.

The U.S. team also had a setback when Campbell Wright took the reins from Maxime Germain but missed one of his prone targets, forcing him to ski a penalty lap. Next up was Deedra Irwin, who shot clean with one extra round, and Margie Freed who cleaned with three extras. They finished in 14th.

Freed, racing in her first Olympics, was the team’s anchor and said she was ready for anything.

“I tried to mentally prepare for any situation,” she said. “I’ve had my experience at the back of races so I was ready to try and move up, and I was also ready if they handed off in first place. I was just wanting to give it my all. It was really fun to challenge myself and ski my race.”

While Simon was the anchor for France for this win in Italy, Fillon Maillet anchored the team when they won silver in the mixed relay at the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022. Norway took the gold that time and the Russian Olympic Committee team won bronze.

France also won gold in the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics and Italy took bronze with a team made up of Vittozzi, Wierer, Hofer and Dominik Windish.

Simon is coming off a tough year. She received a six-month ban from competing after being found guilty of theft and credit card fraud by a French court and got a three-month suspended prison sentence. The French ski federation decided in November that she would be allowed to compete in the Winter Games.

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

France's Julia Simon, Lou Jeanmonnot, Quentin Fillon Maillet and Eric Perrot pose with their gold medals in the 4X6-kilometer mixed relay biathlon race at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Anterselva, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Italy's Lisa Vittozzi, from left, Dorothea Wierer, Lukas Hofer and Tommaso Giacomel celebrate winning silver in the 4X6-kilometer mixed relay biathlon race at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Anterselva, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

France's Eric Perrot, from left, Lou Jeanmonnot, Julia Simon and Quentin Fillon Maillet celebrate winning gold in the 4X6-kilometer mixed relay biathlon race at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Anterselva, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Julia Simon, of France, reacts as her team wins gold in the 4X6-kilometer mixed relay biathlon race at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Anterselva, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Julia Simon, of France, competes in the 4X6-kilometer mixed relay biathlon race at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Anterselva, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Germany's Franziska Preuss shoots during the 4x6-kilometer mixed relay biathlon race at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Anterselva, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

France's Julia Simon shoots during the 4x6-kilometer mixed relay biathlon race at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Anterselva, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Julia Simon, of France, reacts as her team wins gold in the 4X6-kilometer mixed relay biathlon race at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Anterselva, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Julia Simon, of France, reacts as her team wins gold in the 4X6-kilometer mixed relay biathlon race at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Anterselva, Italy, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The Super Bowl lasted all of 13 minutes for many Puerto Ricans in San Juan and beyond.

People turned their backs to TV screens as food, music and chatter filled the first half of the game until a hush fell across the island. The halftime show was starting.

This was Puerto Rico’s moment, a spotlight on a collective son who quit bagging groceries a decade ago and became the world’s most streamed artist on Spotify last year. Since then, Bad Bunny has used his platform to applaud immigrants, sing about Puerto Rico’s identity and turmoil and denounce U.S. immigration policies.

“He appeared at the right moment in the history of Latin America,” said Marielys Rojas, 39, who is originally from Venezuela but has lived the last 22 years in Puerto Rico.

She was among the hundreds who gathered by a grassy knoll near a beach in Puerto Rico’s capital to watch the halftime show on a huge screen as waves crashed behind them and the sounds of coquís, an endemic frog, filled the salty air.

Amarilys Reyes, 55, arrived at the seaside watch party with her 22-year-old daughter.

She had never watched a Super Bowl and didn’t know who was playing, but it didn’t matter. Like many others, she was only there for Bad Bunny.

“It’s the biggest show of his life,” Reyes said.

Energy, nerves and excitement had been building across Puerto Rico ever since the NFL, Apple Music and Roc Nation announced that Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio would headline the Super Bowl XL Halftime Show.

Watch parties were quickly organized across the U.S. mainland and the island. Some dubbed it “Super Bori Sunday,” a shortened nod to “Boricua,” which refers to someone with Puerto Rican ancestry, while others referred to it “The Benito Bowl: Morcilla, Sancocho, Mofongo, Reggaetón and a little bit of Football.”

One woman wrote on social media that she would watch the halftime show with her 87-year-old mother in Puerto Rico so they could dance together, while another person posted that they had prepared a PowerPoint presentation for their American friends dubbed “Bad Bunny 101.”

Creativity flowed as Feb. 8 approached: One bar in Puerto Rico posted a promo featuring the quarterbacks from the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots sitting on the iconic white plastic lawn chairs that grace the cover of Bad Bunny’s newest album.

Even the Teletubbies got in on the excitement, shaking their colorful rumps to Bad Bunny ’s “Baile Inolvidable” a day before the show.

Wonder Woman also lent her support, with Lynda Carter noting on social media that she was a “huge fan” of Bad Bunny, whom she noted was an American citizen: “Make no mistake.”

But criticism of the first all-Spanish NFL halftime show spiked as the first half ended.

Jake Paul, a YouTuber-turned-boxer who has property in Puerto Rico and has posted about life on the island, wrote on X: “Turn off this halftime. A fake American citizen performing who publicly hates America. I cannot support that.”

Puerto Ricans quickly responded.

“Don’t you live where he’s from?” wrote one person while many others noted that Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens.

Luke Lavanway, a 35-year-old who lives in New York but was vacationing in Puerto Rico to escape the ongoing cold snap, said he had no problem with a halftime show in Spanish.

“That’s part of us,” he said. “That’s what makes us great, and we should just enjoy it.”

The crowd that had gathered for the halftime show began streaming out of the watch party as soon as the second half started, smiling as they reflected on what they had just witnessed.

“I thought it was phenomenal that Bad Bunny brought all Latinos together in one place and represented them all equally,” said Carlos Ayala, 36, of San Juan. “It’s an important moment for Latino culture.”

He also thought it fantastic that Ricky Martin sang Bad Bunny’s, “Lo que le pasó a Hawaii,” which laments gentrification in Puerto Rico, a worsening issue for many on an island with a more than 40% poverty rate.

“Transmitting that message is extremely important in these times,” he said, adding that he also appreciated the light posts and exploding transformers featured during the show, a nod to Puerto Rico’s chronic outages “so the world can see what we live through.”

Among those beaming after the show was Juliana Santiago, 35, who said her heart swelled with pride on Sunday night.

She said Bad Bunny proved that “you can accomplish things, that the American dream truly is real.”

Bad Bunny performs during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Fans in San Juan, Puerto Rico, watch Bad Bunny's performance on television during the halftime show of the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Alejandro Granadillo)

Fans in San Juan, Puerto Rico, watch Bad Bunny's performance on television during the halftime show of the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Alejandro Granadillo)

Fans in San Juan, Puerto Rico, watch Bad Bunny's performance on television during the halftime show of the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Alejandro Granadillo)

Fans in San Juan, Puerto Rico, watch Bad Bunny's performance on television during the halftime show of the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Alejandro Granadillo)