Jura’s Local Heroine: Lou Jeanmonnot

Thomas Siniecki, Media365: published on Monday, March 23, 2026 at 3:55pm

The Jura region has its World Cup winner. This prestigious crystal globe also carries a local flavor, that of grassroots training since childhood.

The Olympic Mont d’Or stadium, where Lou Jeanmonnot started skiing at the age of six, will be named after her and inaugurated next week (Friday, April 3) in the presence of the new head of the World Cup. The pride is immense for Mickael Monnin, her first coach who, though not named, was remembered with teary eyes during live thanks on L’Equipe. “The first thing that comes to mind is all those years of work and her joy of skiing when she was little,” recalls the interested party for our colleagues at Ici. “That is my first pride as the club’s coach: we succeeded in making her love skiing and sports. Of course, there were all the stages and other coaches after. But my real pride is seeing how she flourished in skiing and biathlon. For me, the main goal is when the young ones come, make them love skiing first, then the performances will come.”

Bescond: “Her Freshness, Her Desire, Her Positivity…”

First, the pleasure, the one that Jeanmonnot also provides to the club as a whole, “in the sense that she shows a beautiful image of our region and our club”: “And of course, having leaders like Lou, it helps the children: Lou is a role model, that’s clear! She will have a lot of media attention, people crossing her on the street, but Lou is well surrounded and she has never let it go to her head. She remains humble.”

If we fast forward several years, closer to 2026 and this very high level of excellence, Anaïs Bescond paints a different yet perfect picture, her older sister from Jura who welcomed her into the French team: “We have a quite similar character, and our geographical origin also made us connect well. And then her freshness, her desire, and her positivity, I really liked that…” Bescond finally mentions a hardworking athlete, who wanted to progress gently, without coming in and pushing everyone around, as stated by the triple Olympic medalist in 2018 (retired in 2022). “I am truly admirative. To think that she is the last one in the line, ‘the little Lou’ who comes from my place, whom I have known and crossed paths with… It’s magnificent, she deserves it.”