Imagine shooting down rounds of 25 clay targets launched at 120 km/h from two trap houses situated 40 m apart. For skeet specialist Nicolas Le Jeune—our railway security officer at Bordeaux-Saint Jean station—it’s child’s play. In fact, he took up shooting as a boy in Saint-Chéron, south of Paris, where his father Frédéric and sister Marine, three years his senior, hunted and honed their shooting skills. “When I was little, I followed them around and watched,” recalls Nicolas, who couldn’t wait to be old enough to join in. He was 12 when he first took aim, “using a rifle specially adapted for beginners, to ease the recoil.”

Nicolas fired his first cartridges at the shooting club in Auneau, 30 km west of his home town. With the same focus and composure he now applies to his work in railway security, the youngster quickly grew into a talented marksman. He became a registered sport shooter at the clay pigeon shooting club in Bréville-sur-Mer, Normandy, where he encountered France’s top skeet shooter Éric Delaunay at a competition in 2013. “Meeting him was a revelation”, he says. “It set me dreaming about the Olympics and winning medals. Éric didn’t just inspire me; he quickly became my mentor.”

Motivated by his role model, Nicolas turned in solid performances in the youth categories, winning local and regional competitions before becoming French national champion at under-16 and under-20 levels. “We regularly compete against each other, battling for the top French qualifying place at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games”, says Nicolas. Above all, Éric taught Nicolas the secrets of a discipline that he calls “75% mental”. “At international level, everyone is theoretically capable of hitting all 125 targets,” says Nicolas. “It’s when you hit 123 out of 125 and still don’t get through to the finals that you realize how being mentally fresh makes all the difference.”

Headspace and mental fitness are critical. But strong arms are also vital, since shooters must mount their rifle—swing it up to shoulder level—hundreds of times in rapid succession. “In peak training, I can fire up to 1,000 cartridges a day”, says Nicolas. Mounting a 3.4-kg rifle 1,000 times means lifting 3 tonnes in a single training session. “And you have to be lightning quick,” he adds, “because you’ve got just 0.6 seconds to shoot once the skeet is released.” In competition, athletes repeat the mouvement up to 175 times from eight different stations, adding to the challenge.

With a vocational qualification in fitness, Nicolas created his own daily bodybuilding regime to tone his muscles and develop the explosive power needed for clay pigeon shooting. Since joining the Creps high-performance sports centre in Bordeaux in September 2018, he has also been supported by both a national coach and a sports psychologist. “The psychologist has taught me to manage the high-intensity concentration essential to skeet shooting, as well as the transition through cool-downs and post-competition debriefs.” Over the years, he had struggled to fund his career in skeet, but that changed when he arrived at Creps. “Here the federation covers all our training costs—including cartridges, which are very expensive,” he says. With a shooting range just 15 minutes away from his Bordeaux home, Nicolas can now gear his daily routine around his sporting performance.

Thanks to the Creps centre, Nicolas began to move up the ranks in international competitions. Shooting with Lucie Anastassiou in the mixed team events, he won a bronze medal at the 2022 World Championships in Osijek, Croatia, and secured podium finishes at World Cup events in Lonato and Changwon. These results bode well for his medal prospects at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, where mixed team skeet will make its Olympic debut. Nicolas has also scored well in individual competitions, and at one stage in 2022 reached second in the provisional world ranking. He ended the year ranked 11th, an exceptional result for such a young skeet shooter.

For years, Nicolas struggled to land a job that would allow him to pursue his passion. “I don’t make a living as a shooter,” he admits. In 2023, at age 25, he finally struck the right balance between sport and work when he joined the SNCF Athletes Programme and became a railway security guard. “A friend who works at SNCF knew I was having a tough time and told me about the programme,” Nicolas explains. For a former rail commuter, the prospect of a job in security and joining SNCF Group appealed. “In high school, I took a vocational diploma in negotiations and customer relations that included a work placement in Courbevoie,” he recalls. That daily commute took 3 hours 40 minutes: RER Line C to Bibliothèque François-Mitterrand station, then metro line 14 to Paris-St Lazare station, then on to Transilien’s line L—with the same trek home each night in reverse. And some intense memories along the way: “I saw a few people get attacked, and was appalled at some of the anti-social behaviour in stations.” Today those incidents are part of what inspires him to protect rail travellers by applying his composure and stress management skills.

After contacting his sports federation and undergoing a string of interviews, Nicolas completed training in railway security and took up a post at Bordeaux-Saint Jean station. And he loves it. “It feels great to have a job that’s right for me—and to no longer eat, sleep and breathe clay pigeon shooting”, he says. “I’m proud to display a large SNCF logo on my shooting vest at each competition, sporting the colours of SNCF Group and France.” And who knows—that engagement may well carry him to Châteauroux for the Olympic skeet competition at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

2023

2^nd place, mixed team skeet competition, Lonato event (Italy), World Cup

2022

Bronze medallist, mixed team skeet competition, World Championships, Osijek 2022 (Croatia)

2^nd place, men’s skeet, Baku event, World Cup

3^rd place, mixed team skeet competition, Changwon event, World Cup

2018

French national champion (skeet)

2017

French national champion (skeet)