Jacques Jefferies

Mental Health is every day, all day @mindsmelt
IBU Sustainability Ambassador 🌍

[Jacques Jefferies @Jacquesjeff_]

Adidas just shared Frances news suits for next year ! Leaking everything before an announcement from the federation is amazing.

New colour, new design. What's everyone thoughts on this 👀
https://t.co/vaWH66CnNc

[Podcast Balles de pioche @ballesdepioche]

🎙️❤️ Un débrief de la saison 2025/2026 qui finit en discussion à bâtons rompus ( "bravo" @biathstats 😂 ) + 2 intervenants au top : @Jacquesjeff_ et @ChronicBiathlon = top épisode ! On en profite pour faire un point sur la saison de Jacques ( merci ) !
➡️ https://t.co/kUAG174mGJ

[Jacques Jefferies @Jacquesjeff_]

I was staring at this data every single day. I had no idea what it was trying to tell me.

Every morning from November to March, I woke up, lay still for three minutes, and measured my resting heart rate. The app is HRV4training , it tracks your physiological stress day by day and helps you understand how recovered your body actually is.

Here is what the graph shows:

November: stable and healthy. A body ready to race.

Late November into December: a rise around the first IBU Cup races in Austria and Italy. Race excitement. Normal.

December 21st: a sharp spike. That was Le Grand-Bornand, my World Cup debut and the illness that followed over Christmas.

January: relatively flat. The German World Cups. Tired, but managing.

February: look at what happens in February.

The bars climb and keep climbing, peaking right around my Olympic training camp and the Games themselves. The highest point on the entire graph. Every morning I was looking at these numbers and telling myself: this is normal, the plan is working, keep going.

I believed it. I had no reason not to.

What the data could not tell me was why.

On the Tuesday after my final race in Oslo, I took a blood test. The result explained everything.

The full deep dive, the season, the graph, and what the blood test revealed, is in my latest newsletter, Running on an Empty Tank.

Link in bio or reply to this and I'll send it to you. Worth the read.

[Jacques Jefferies @Jacquesjeff_]

@FlyingCloud01 I did relapse. That's why it wasn't so bad I wasn't able to compete but it was still limiting my capacities. Didn't destroy me. But in elite sports, this is impossible

[Jacques Jefferies @Jacquesjeff_]

Two days after my final race of the season, I took a blood test. What came back explained everything. 👇

We knew something was wrong. The tiredness all winter that wouldn't lift. Sessions that felt harder than they should. A whole winter of pushing through something we couldn't name.

The result came back positive for Epstein-Barr virus.

The virus that causes glandular fever. The one where the treatment is: stop. Rest. Do not push through it.

I had raced an entire World Cup season with it in my system.
I had competed at the Olympic Games with it in my system.

And I hadn't known.

Today, the full story of this season is live in my newsletter Off The Range, published on Substack.

Running on an Empty Tank: My 2026 Season Recap.

Every race. Every country. Every moment. And what that blood test finally explained.

Link in bio. Go read it. Or reply with your thoughts from this winter and I'll send it to you !

[Jacques Jefferies @Jacquesjeff_]

@brendanolding3 Thanks so much for the support

[Jacques Jefferies @Jacquesjeff_]

@Earnie85 @biathstats Sent you a message

[Jacques Jefferies @Jacquesjeff_]

I found out I was going to the Olympic Games in the back of a car. How did this happen ?

Seven-hour drive home from Ruhpolding, Germany. Exhausted, post World Cup. Half asleep.

My phone lit up. A WhatsApp from the CEO of British Biathlon, Elizabeth Winfield

The IBU had confirmed it. I was on the wildcard list for Milano-Cortina 2026.

I didn't cry. I didn't shout. I just stared at the screen for a while.

Because I knew what it had taken to get there.

The nationality switch. The surgery in May. The races.
The points, one by one.

All of it, for that message.

Tomorrow I'm publishing the full story of this season in my newsletter Off The Range, on Substack.

Running on an Empty Tank: My 2026 Season Recap.

Comment BIATHLON so I can DM you the link. See you tomorrow.

[Jacques Jefferies @Jacquesjeff_]

Today I was meant to be running the Paris Marathon. But I'm still siting on my sofa....why?

42 kilometres through one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I ran it last year. I had my place for this year. I was looking forward to it.

However I'm not on that start line today.

Because this winter took more out of me than I knew at the time. A full World Cup season, an Olympic Games, thousands of kilometres of travel across six countries.

And something I only found out about after my final race that explained why I was so much more exhausted than I should have been.

I'll be watching from the sofa instead. Cheering everyone on. And recovering.

The full story of this winter drops Tuesday in my newsletter Off The Range, published on Substack. If you want to understand why I'm not in Paris today, that's where you'll find the answer.

Send me a message in DM to receive the link !
#parismarathon #newsletter

[Jacques Jefferies @Jacquesjeff_]

@Hansen24_ @ballesdepioche Je crois que c'est surtout moi qui dois répondre aux messages de Balle de pioche. Je suis pas le plus réactif. ehe

[Jacques Jefferies @Jacquesjeff_]

@penaltyloop Have to build the hype a little bit ;)

[Jacques Jefferies @Jacquesjeff_]

My 2025/26 season, but in numbers.

18 races.
7 countries.
1 World Cup debut.
1 Olympic Games debut.
2 relays in British colours.
Top 25 in the IBU Nations Cup standings.
3,000 km on skis.
5,000 rounds fired on the range.
Over 14,000 km travelled across Europe.

And 1 blood test result, taken the Tuesday after my final race, that reframed the entire winter.

The full story drops Tuesday in my newsletter Off The Range, published on Substack.

If you're not subscribed yet, now is a good time.

Photo by Quentin Joly

[Jacques Jefferies @Jacquesjeff_]

The night before my World Cup debut, I found out I had the scariest but most amazing bib number:

Number 1.

First athlete out of the gate. First one on the shooting range. First one the crowd would see.

I was shaking when I wrote about it that night. I couldn't sleep. I didn't know what to do with myself.

The next morning I walked into a stadium of 20,000 people, waved at the crowd, and they waved back.

Then the beep started and off I went.

I shot clean on the first prone. Five out of five. Alone on the range, with every pair of eyes in that stadium watching.

I finished 53rd. Made the pursuit. Had my parents and sisters at the finish line.

I have watched Le Grand-Bornand on TV my entire life.

That day I lived it.

The full story of this season; every race, every country, every moment; is coming Tuesday in my newsletter Off The Range, published on Substack.

Reply with BIATHLON to receive the link.

[Jacques Jefferies @Jacquesjeff_]

@ceskybiatlon Thanks for the flying trip round the course boys ✈️🫣

[Jacques Jefferies @Jacquesjeff_]

It's your women's sprint weather update! You are all going to like this one 😉

[Jacques Jefferies @Jacquesjeff_]

Can you see a Biathlon target? Because I sure couldn't. Just to put into perspective. It's worse when looking down the rifle sights 👀

[Jacques Jefferies @Jacquesjeff_]

Access to the range has just been banned for today at the Biathlon World Cup. This means some athletes will be competing tomorrow without having ever practiced on the range.

This fog is getting hard to manage. Fingers crossed 🤞

[Jacques Jefferies @Jacquesjeff_]

@SingleMaltBiath Also just noticed this was the women's. But the same vibe for the men.

[Jacques Jefferies @Jacquesjeff_]

@SingleMaltBiath It's a hard fight. Our goal is the top 25. It would be really helpful to help plan our year of racing in advance and not always wait for wildcards.

We should make it though. Chinese have stopped racing and I'll do my best to keep Sondre behind me.

[Jacques Jefferies @Jacquesjeff_]

@biathlon23 @penaltyloop Missed out on bib 23 by so little....