Raphaël Poirée (born 9 August 1974) is a retired French biathlete who was active from 1995 to 2007. With his 44 World Cup victories and several World Championship medals he ranks among the most successful biathletes ever.

Sports career

Poirée was born in Rives, Isère in France and like the rest of his colleagues in the French biathlon and cross-country skiing team, was a sport soldier. Poirée has four IBU World Cup titles (1999−00, 2000−01, 2001−02 and 2003−04). He has also come second once, in 2005−06 and third once, in the 2004−05 season. Poirée has had 103 World Cup podium finishes, 44 in first place, 39 in second, and has come third 20 times. In the Winter Olympics, Poiree has one silver and two bronze medals. At the World Championships however, he has seven gold medals, three silver and seven bronze. Raphaël Poirée was one of the best mass start biathletes of his time, with 9 1st places, 4 2nd places, and 3 3rd places in his World Cup career, second only to Ole Einar Bjørndalen who got 10 1st places, 5 2nd places and 4 3rd places in the same time frame. Poirée also won 4 out of the 7 World Championship mass start races he took part in. Poirée also had five victories at the Holmenkollen ski festival biathlon competition with three mass starts (2000, 2002, and 2004), one pursuit (2004) and one individual (2007). After winning the gold medal at the World Championships in Antholz in 2007, Poiree announced the end of his career after that World Cup season. He eventually chose to retire after the Holmenkollen World Cup meet (i.e. before the season's last WC meet, in Khanty-Mansyisk in Russia the week after); his last competition was the Mass start race on Sunday 11 March, where he finished in second place after a cm-close last sprint to the finish line against his long-time competitor Ole Einar Bjørndalen of Norway.

Personal life

He married Norwegian biathlete Liv Grete Skjelbreid Poirée on 27 May 2000 in Norway. They first met at the 1992 Junior World Championships and began dating in 1996. They have three daughters together, Emma (born 27 January 2003), Anna (born 10 January 2007) and Lena (born 10 October 2008). They have a flat in La Chapelle-en-Vercors, France, but live mostly in Liv Grete's home village of Hålandsdal, Norway. The Poirées are the only husband and wife to win medals in the same Olympics for different nations. At the 2002 Winter Olympics, France's Raphaël and Norway's Liv won matching silver medals in the biathlon. In July 2013, the couple announced that they were separating. In 2009, Poirée was involved in a quad-bike accident which nearly left him paralysed. One month after undergoing neck and back surgery he was released from hospital. He speaks French, English, Norwegian and Italian

Biathlon results

All results are sourced from the International Biathlon Union.

Olympic Games

3 medals (1 silver, 2 bronze)

World Championships

18 medals (8 gold, 3 silver, 7 bronze)

World Cup

Individual victories

44 victories (7 In, 13 Sp, 15 Pu, 9 MS)