PARIS, Feb. 1 (Xinhua) -- France will head into the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games with both ambition and momentum, aiming for a top 5 finish on the medal table as it builds toward hosting the 2030 Winter Olympics in the French Alps.
France will send its largest ever delegation to Milan-Cortina 2026, with 161 athletes (including two alternates) entered across 14 of the 16 sports. That figure is almost double the size of France's 86-member Beijing 2022 team, driven largely by a historic breakthrough in ice hockey: both the men's and women's teams have qualified for the Olympics for the first time, dramatically expanding the roster.
The average age of the squad is 26, with 17-year-old snowboard cross Youth Olympic champion Jonas Chollet the youngest athlete, while veteran ice hockey forward Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, 40, provides leadership at the other end of the spectrum. Roughly three-quarters of the athletes will be making their Olympic debuts, though four are preparing for a fourth Games, underlining a delegation that is both refreshed and seasoned.
France's Olympic committee on Friday announced Chloe Trespeuch and Clement Noel as flagbearers for the opening ceremony. Trespeuch, silver medalist in snowboard cross at Beijing 2022, will be contesting her third Olympics, while Noel returns as the reigning Olympic champion in men's slalom.
At the Beijing Games, France finished inside the top 10 of the medal table with 14 medals (five gold, seven silver, two bronze). Half of those came from biathlon, with the rest spread across Alpine skiing, freestyle skiing, snowboarding, cross-country skiing and figure skating. While the total was one fewer than at the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang, the breadth of medal-winning sports remained unchanged.
French media reported the country's Olympic committee has set a target of around 20 medals and a push toward the top five in the overall standings at Milan-Cortina.
Biathlon remains the cornerstone of French medal hopes. Quentin Fillon Maillet, the standout performer in Beijing with five medals, continues to anchor a men's team that also includes Olympic silver medalist Emilien Jacquelin and reigning world champion Eric Perrot. On the women's side, defending Olympic champion Justine Braisaz-Bouchet and multiple world champion Julia Simon form a powerful duo, giving France podium potential across several individual and relay events.
Beyond biathlon, France's traditional strengths are well represented. Noel will attempt to defend his Olympic slalom title in Alpine skiing, while Trespeuch is aiming to complete a full Olympic set after bronze in Sochi and silver in Beijing. In freestyle and snowboarding, a new generation is emerging: 19-year-old snowboarder Antoine Alemand captured a World Cup slopestyle title in the last World Cup prior to Milan-Cortina earlier this month, defeating Japan's Yudai Kimura and China's Su Yiming, and is viewed as a rising contender on the Olympic stage.
Milan-Cortina will also introduce ski mountaineering as an Olympic sport, and France is poised to be a major force. Emilie Harrop, widely regarded as one of the sport's leading figures and a two-time world champion, is a favorite in the women's sprint and will also contest the mixed relay, an event expected to witness high-profile battles between France and China.
Historically stronger on snow than ice, France's main gold-medal prospect on the ice comes in figure skating, particularly ice dance. Beijing 2022 champions Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron retired at the end of 2024, but Cizeron returned to competition in 2025 with new partner Laurence Fournier Beaudry. Despite off-ice distractions stemming from public comments made by Papadakis in her autobiography, Cizeron has stated that he is fully focused on competition. The new pairing has delivered on the ice, winning the European title convincingly earlier this month and positioning themselves as contenders to keep France at the top of the discipline.
Beyond competition, France also has eyes on the future. With the 2030 Winter Olympics to be held in the French Alps, the country will take center stage during Milan-Cortina's closing ceremony, offering an early glimpse of its vision for the next Games. Endtiem
