NEWS FEATURE Fourcade underlines his biathlon class with golden treble By John Bagratuni, dpa

Martin Fourcade adds three Olympic golds to cement his status as one of the greatest biathlon athletes - and he has the chance to make it four in the concluding relay.Pyeongchang, South Korea (dpa) - Martin Fourcade may have been excused for turning to the fans and raising his fist after completing his last shooting portion on Tuesday night.He has shown the gesture which some consider arrogant and offensive on some past occasions, but now he just got on with his skiing to anchor France to mixed relay gold and himself into the nation‘s Olympic record books.Fourcade is the first French Olympian - summer or winter - to win five gold medals, moving ahead of fencers Christian d‘Oriola and Lucien Gaudin. But the 29-year-old insisted that "tonight is not about numbers and personal success" as he preferred to recall the long journey from his big-event debut nine years ago at the same Alpensia biathlon centre."It is a team adventure that began in 2009 during the world championships in Korea. It‘s very emotional for the whole crew, the emotion of an Olympic medal is amazing, but it is much more incredible to share it with your team-mates," he said."We often say that we are doing an individual sport but we are living more than 220 days a year together. Winning this medal together is something really emotional and we really enjoy (it)."Fourcade was not a member of the team which won a first mixed relay world title for France in 2009 but he finished eighth in the pursuit in a changing of the guard in the French team, taking over from the likes of Raphael Poiree. Now he is the undisputed leader with seven Olympic medals, the other two being silver for ninth on the Winter Games all-time list; 25 medals at the worlds, including 11 gold; an unprecedented six straight World Cup titles; and a staggering 69 World Cup race wins.Fourcade can decide races on the slopes and the shooting range, and team-mate Marie Dorin Habert said Tuesday she wasn‘t concerned that they were half a minute behind the then leading Germans when Fourcade started the last leg."Martin is the best and he can catch up with anyone, so I was not worried," she said.Or, as Swedish pursuit silver medallist Sebastian Samuelsson put it: "Martin is the perfect biathlete."Fourcade is also the first to get three golds at the Pyeongchang Games, and he can even match the four golds at one Games in the sport from Norwegian great Ole Einar Bjoerndalen if France also win the concluding event, the men‘s relay on Friday.But despite the vast success, Fourcade also had to live with two setbacks in Pyeongchang after finishing every individual World Cup race of the season on the podium - eighth in the sprint and fifth in the 20km after missing the last two targets.However, he returned strong from these rare setbacks with pursuit and mass start gold before completing the hat-trick, to go with pursuit and 20km gold at Sochi 2014, in the mixed relay."I wasn‘t frustrated but disappointed," the perfectionist said when looking back at the sprint after his pursuit win. "I realized I made a mistake and that made it easier to turn my anger into motivation."