Siegfried Mazet is a luminary in the biathlon and has already accompanied many stars at the binoculars behind the shooting range on their way to the biathlon Olympus. Now it is already the sixth season for the shooting coach with French roots with the men's national team of Norway, for which he is responsible. His successes with Martin Fourcade and the French team, as well as those of Johannes Thingnes Boe and the Norwegian giants, make Mazet's skills the measure of all things at the shooting range.
Even though he had to adjust his plans and his way of working this summer, not much has changed. The goal for his protégés is top performance: To become more efficient, to put in one more hit, and to always keep a podium finish or victory in mind. Now, shortly before Christmas, after four years of abstinence, he came back to his old place of work for a World Cup in France, Annecy -Le Grand Bornand. But precisely as coach of the strongest competitors of the French, the Norwegians. "It is already a strange feeling for me" said Siegfried Mazet, who is accompanied by many emotional feelings. "But I have to totally switch them off during the days of Le Grand Bornand and concentrate only on the work with my team."
Adjustments had to be made early this season because of the coronavirus. Mazet was stuck in France in the spring, and when the team first met in May, he was not allowed to travel to Norway. "It was frustrating and difficult for me to coordinate, plan and do everything by computer. The most important thing was to stay healthy and keep our families safe. But that didn't just affect our team, it affected everyone. I had to approach everything differently, I asked the guys to record videos so I could analyze. It was very exciting because I found out some things that I didn't like so much and we tried to use this time to change those things and make them better.
As soon as he was allowed to travel to Norway again, it was a kind of re-entry for him and a big challenge. France was a "red country" at that time and he had to be in quarantine before he was allowed to work again. Then the team doctor had told him that after a few days he still had to keep 3-5 meters distance, but he could work again. Training camp was pretty normal that month, except for the spacing rules and that he had to eat at a separate table. Working with the team was quite a challenge because sometimes you have to be close to see what's going on, especially when shooting, to be able to watch the aiming and pulling the trigger. It was difficult to get used to, but once the new routine was confirmed, the training went according to plan.
In a team that includes Johannes Thingnes Boe as overall World Cup winner and three other TOP 10 athletes who together have won the Nations Cup as well as the Relay Cup, there is no time to rest, because once you reach the top, it goes down again much faster. For the shooting coach, therefore, innovation is the mother of invention. Mazet is always tinkering with little things that will allow him to get that little bit more out of it. Sometimes this doesn't go as smoothly as it did at the beginning of the World Cup week in Hochfilzen, but then they try to change something in the strategy again and thus become more efficient and better.
There's no one-size-fits-all solution at the shooting range, but the 44-year-old has a winning philosophy: "I want them to master different approaches to shooting, to be able to take it sometimes fast and sometimes slow." Like in the mass start, for example, it's all about strategy. You don't win a race lying down, but you can lose it. "There, as I always say, you have to reach the quarterfinals, then the semifinals and then the last shooting is the final. In the final you have to be able to shoot fast and be unwavering if you want to catch up with the leaders or take it easy if you're already ahead. I want them to make the decision like in poker. There you also have to make a decision in the last round, that's how it is."
Now the new season has started and there are new goals and possibilities how his athletes can improve. This has been worked on hard especially in prone shooting. Siegfried Mazet's knowledge and skills are by no means to be underestimated. He has been successful at every stage of his career because he has never rested on his laurels, but has always continued to learn, adapt and improve. "I've learned a lot over the years because without all these athletes I've worked with for many years, I wouldn't be the coach I am today. It's relationships that everyone benefits from. It's a shared journey. I am no longer the coach I was in France because the culture in Norway is different. That makes my experience from France all the more valuable. When you share experiences, you can draw on them later. It's like a study that is never finished. You are never finished. What's most important to me is that relationship between coach and athlete."
Siegfried Mazet's contract in Norway runs until the 2022 Olympics and nothing has been extended or signed yet, but it looks like the Frenchman will remain a Norwegian.
Pictures: K. Voigt Fotografie