How Florian Rousseau will try to save French athletics in Tokyo

A big name exfiltrated in urgency to play the firemen of service and a triumvirate with the uncertain balance on paper. Summoned to clean up in the kitchens of the federation after a distressing 2019 on all fronts, between serial doping cases, mediocre results at the Worlds (two medals), and ridiculous dismissal of the historic doctor of the Blues for a history of unwelcome and ill-lived love internally, André Giraud, who had probably never seen so many people for the traditional wishes of the French Athletics Federation, announced his emergency plan to save the furniture six months before the Olympic Games from Tokyo.

Learning from Doha

Sympathetic character that André Giraud incidentally. Small gouailleur accent from the South West that smells of the great years of Olympic Biarritz, tasty confidences a little too supported which the profession loves, we had not taken such a step since Jean Gachassin closed shop at the Fédé tennis. As for the new organization presented with great fanfare, on the other hand, there is a certain skepticism. Three men on an equal footing, or rather two men and a woman, Souad Rochdi the DG of the Fédé, Patrice Gergès, the DTN in place… and Florian Rousseau, the Olympic joker, who has come to cut corners on the prerogatives of Mehdi Baala, confined to putting elbow grease in all the teams of France except the most important, that which will be at the Games, if we summarize.

🎙 André Giraud, @PresidentFFA: "To achieve our objectives, we will be able to rely on a united team, both at the level of the national technical management and elected officials and employees. We must all reinvent the federation of tomorrow." pic.twitter.com/c6MnXX9fth

Florian Rousseau, therefore. Triple Olympic track cycling champion, coach of the French team in the discipline, and more recently director of the Mop or the Performance Optimization Mission, a creature of the brand new national sport agency. A guy who knows what he is talking about, even if we still wonder what pushed him to accept this poisoned gift after only a weekend of reflection. “I do not arrive in a completely unknown environment compared to my previous missions. There have been many comments, "you know the context". Yes I know him. The results of Doha or malfunctions in recent times. But I believe in it, I believe in the potential of athletes and the richness of coaches. The athletes had asked for calm and serenity to prepare for the Games, it will be my role to bring this serenity ”.

🎙 @MehdiBaala, director of the France teams: "We will be able to have an even broader vision with the arrival of Florian Rousseau. I believe very much in collective intelligence. We will be able to meet the challenges that lie ahead. "

Rousseau to reassure athletes

Reference to the letter sent in late November by 19 French athletes, including the most illustrious (Mayer, Lavillenie, Martinot-Lagarde), calling for sacred union in the final stretch before Tokyo. The former pistard, who officially takes up his post on February 1, will therefore go to the field to reassure the athletes and help them focus on the moss performance on D-Day. A concrete example?

“There's a lot of talk about humid heat in Tokyo, but Japan isn't just about humid heat. We will be in the middle of cyclones, it's an outdoor sport, there are technical events, my role will be to ask the coaches the question, how do they approach the fact that there can be this damp heat but also that he could fall off the ropes for two days. That is to say postponed events, shifted in time, not optimal conditions for launching, with a soggy plateau ... I do not have the answers but I will get this questioning with the coaches, with the staff, on these things ".

This may speak to Diniz, unable to overcome the heat in Doha, even if the walker took the front by going to inflict torture sessions in a thermal room in Portugal. “Environmental conditions are a factor, but so is the environment. Some may want to touch on the mental side, maybe also the food. I know Japan very well for having spent almost a year there in cumulative stays. These are subjects that coaches have mastered, but I will be there to remind them. I'm here to push the sliders. Detail is important to success, the smallest grain of sand can disturb someone well prepared. The idea is that everyone is at their best level in Tokyo, for those who aim for a medal as for those who will not have one. ”

The new director of high performance already knows that it will be difficult to plan the course set by the president of the Federation, namely between 3 and 5 medals, against six in Rio. All with a number of less dominant athletes than before and a potential Olympic champion who has not finished a decathlon since September 2018, due to cascading physical glitches. The Blues can be in the nails, persuades Patrice Gegès: "We have the athletes to go get the medals provided they do not repeat what happened in Doha. I think everyone understands that you can't do things by halves ”. Criticism which also applies to DTN, guilty of having "projected the athletes a little too early on Tokyo". Of which act.

It had been exactly 3 months and 15 days since I hadn't run.
I refused until I no longer felt any discomfort on my Achilles tendon.
During this interminable period, I tried to come back stronger by focusing on physical preparation. pic.twitter.com/j8F1EZ9wvy

Relieved by Rousseau of part of his charge of "social assistance", to use his words, Patrice Gergès is especially expected on the response to the many doping cases that ravage the bottom and middle bottom since the revelation of the pitiful Calvin affair, an epidemic to make Russia pass for a model of virtue. Cautious about the case of the 10,000m European champion Morhad Hamdouni, accused in an ARD investigation in Germany of trafficking in doping products - "There is no investigation against him to my knowledge", l he former Paralympic champion of the Barcelona Olympics demands the creation of a cell to fight doping to work in closer collaboration with AFLD, the French agency to fight doping. The FFA will share its information, in particular on the places of the internships of each other, now subject to compulsory validation to be accepted and funded by DTN.

Clémence Calvin affair: the file is getting heavier for the marathon runner - Athlé - Doping https://t.co/rJhHj2Jfkm via @lequipe

“The mesh is not complete, I am not the fairy carabosse, but the obligations are asked and expressed to all people. After that, whoever wants to hide, he will play hide and seek and I will not know. We may ban all places in the world, doping will come where the athletes are. " Including up to Font-Romeu, where you enter it seems like in an abandoned mill.

Increased vigilance on internship locations

There remains the prevention tool. After the whistleblower Christophe Bassons, who came to testify to technical executives and young hopefuls of tricolor athletics, it was the repentant Quentin Bigot who offered to share the experience "of an athlete who passed one day on the other side of the force ”with those who are preparing the Paris Games. “Young people need to be better informed. I am dismayed when I see an athlete suspended because he has followed the advice of those around him rather than turning to a doctor. ” Speaking of doctor, the replacement (s) of the late French team doctor Jean-Michel Serra, who is still to be proposed to the steering committee at the end of the week, will not be part of the special anti-doping cell. You can never be too careful, given recent psychodramas.

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• Renaud Lavillenie
• OJ 2020
• Athletics
• Tokyo
• Sport
• Kevin Mayer
• Doha