Valérie Bellenoue
Personal information
Full nameValérie Bellenoue
Nationality France
Born (1975-03-27) 27 March 1975
Schiltigheim, France
Height1.69 m (5 ft 6+1⁄2 in)
Weight59 kg (130 lb)
Sport
SportShooting
Event(s)10 m air rifle (AR40)
50 m rifle 3 positions (STR3X20)
ClubGirondins de Bordeaux[1]
Coached byGilles Muller (national)[1]
Medal record
Women's shooting
Representing  France
European Championships
Gold medal – first place 1995 Vantaa AR40
Gold medal – first place 2000 Munich AR40

Valérie Bellenoue (born 27 March 1975, in Schiltigheim) is a French sport shooter.[2] She has competed for France in rifle shooting at three Olympics (1996 to 2004), and has been close to an Olympic medal on her debut in 1996 (finishing fourth in the air rifle). Outside her Olympic career, Bellenoue has won a total of fourteen medals in a major international competition, spanning the World and European Championships and the ISSF World Cup series.[1]

Career

Bellenoue started out as a successful 19-year-old junior in 1994, when she became the World champion in air rifle shooting at Milan, Italy.[1] Two years later, Bellenoue made her first French team at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, where she finished fourth in the 10 m air rifle with a score of 496.6, having been close to an Olympic medal by just a slim 0.6-point margin.[3][4]

Shortly after her Olympic debut, Bellenoue's rapid improvement arose when she recorded a brilliant 499.0 to take her first ever air rifle title at the 1997 ISSF World Cup final in Lugano, Switzerland.[1]

In early 2000, Bellenoue reached the peak of her shooting career by improving her personal best at 499.6 to claim her second individual gold at the European Championships, and then denied the rest of the field for another World Cup title in Munich, Germany with an outstanding record of 500.3 points.[1][5]

Bellenoue's noteworthy achievements had culminated her in a selection of being one of favorites vying for the Olympic medal in the 10 m air rifle at her succeeding Games in Sydney 2000, but she slumped out of the final round to an eight-way tie for twentieth place with a qualifying score of 391 points.[6][7] Bellenoue also competed in the 50 m rifle 3 positions, where she found some relief from her troubled air rifle feat by shooting a total of 575 (194 in prone, 189 in standing, and 192 in the kneeling series) to finish jointly with Germany's 1996 Olympic silver medalist Petra Horneber and Switzerland's Oriana Scheuss in seventeenth position.[8][9]

At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Bellenoue qualified for her third French team, as a 29-year-old, in rifle shooting.[10] She had registered a minimum qualifying score of 396 to secure an Olympic berth for France from her outside-final finish at the World Championships two years earlier.[1][11] In the 10 m air rifle, held on the first day of the Games, Bellenoue fired a modest 392 out of a possible 400 to force in a massive draw with six others for twenty-second place.[12] Nearly a week later, in the 50 m rifle 3 positions, Bellenoue marked a brilliant 198 in prone, and 188 each in both standing and kneeling series to close her Olympic run out of the final in the sixteenth position with a total of 574 points.[13][14]

Olympic results

Event 1996 2000 2004
50 metre rifle three positions — 17th
575		 16th
574
10 metre air rifle 4th
395+101.6		 20th
391		 22nd
392

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "ISSF Profile – Valérie Bellenoue". ISSF. Retrieved 18 October 2014.
  2. ↑ Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Valérie Bellenoue". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  3. ↑ "Yifu Wangi närvid ütlesid üles" [Wang Yifu conquered his nerves] (in Estonian). Eesti Päevaleht. 21 July 1996. Retrieved 30 August 2015.
  4. ↑ "Atlanta 1996: Shooting – Women's 10m Air Rifle" (PDF). Atlanta 1996. LA84 Foundation. p. 119. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  5. ↑ "Schießen: Schumann mit 28. Weltcup-Sieg" [Shooting: Schumann wins his 28th World Cup title] (in German). Rheinische Post. 10 June 2000. Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  6. ↑ "Sydney 2000: Shooting – Women's 10m Air Rifle" (PDF). Sydney 2000. LA84 Foundation. pp. 78–80. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  7. ↑ "Nancy Johnson wins first gold of Sydney Games". Canoe.ca. 16 September 2000. Archived from the original on 13 July 2015. Retrieved 13 July 2015.
  8. ↑ "Sydney 2000: Shooting – Women's 50m Rifle 3 Positions" (PDF). Sydney 2000. LA84 Foundation. pp. 81–86. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  9. ↑ "Tir à 50m carabine : Valérie Bellenoue éliminée" [50 m rifle shooting: Valérie Bellenoue eliminated] (in French). Sport.fr. 20 September 2000. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  10. ↑ Dubourg, Jeán-Moise (11 August 2004). "Les 310 Français" [The 310 French] (in French). Sport365.fr. Retrieved 31 August 2015.
  11. ↑ "Shooting 2004 Olympic Qualification" (PDF). Majority Sports. p. 10. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 July 2015. Retrieved 21 July 2015.
  12. ↑ "Shooting: Women's 10m Air Rifle Prelims". Athens 2004. BBC Sport. 15 August 2004. Retrieved 31 January 2013.
  13. ↑ "Shooting: Women's 50m Rifle 3 Positions Prelims". Athens 2004. BBC Sport. 15 August 2004. Retrieved 31 January 2013.
  14. ↑ "Carabine: pas de Françaises en finale" [Rifle: No final for the French] (in French). Sport.fr. 20 August 2004. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 31 August 2015.
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