Saint-Étienne (AFP)
After a poor start to the season, Jimmy Vicaut finally reassured himself by achieving his best time of the year (10 sec 02, wind +1.4 m / s) in the 100m series of the French Athletics Championships , Friday at Saint-Etienne.
The co-recordman of Europe (9 sec 86) was in the blur after exits very far from his standing and waited in vain to be able to release the horses. The mission was perfectly fulfilled from its first appearance on the Henri-Lux stadium track.
Vicaut has logically flown over the straight but he has mostly signed a time much more worthy of his status, achieving the "level of performance required" by the French Athletics Federation to be selectable for the Doha Worlds (27 September - 6 October ). Enough to erase his past performances (best time in 10 sec 07, June 3 in Prague) and boost his morale to two months of the big appointment of the year. And with the semi-finals and final scheduled for Saturday, perhaps the best is yet to come for the 27-year-old sprinter.
"For the moment everything is fine, it's my best + perf +, I have not done this for a while so I'm happy, it was only the series, tomorrow, with the fight it will be much better. I wanted to get rid of the minima, it's done, I liked the way I'm running, tomorrow I'll be on the attack, I hope the clock will come down even if the temperature drops, but there will be more + fight +, it will be better, "he said.
Vicaut could have been exempted from the playoffs but he preferred to start the competition on Friday to get into "Qatar mode", where he will also have to go on two races to reach a possible final.
-Qualification without clutter for Bosse and Bigot-
These championships are therefore a sort of foretaste of the Worlds for some headliners of tricolor athletics, as confirmed a little later Pierre-Ambroise Bosse, quietly qualified for the final of the 800 m, scheduled Saturday . The world champion, who was only competing in his second race of the season, won his heat in 1:47:45.
Exhausted by the strong heat that prevailed on Saint-Etienne until the end of the afternoon, "PAB" estimated to have felt "better sensations than Monaco" for his return (1: 45.43, July 12) and wish to make this weekend a kind of rehearsal for the World Championships.
"I did a pretty big session before coming, today I simulated the semifinal, and tomorrow it will be a final.The idea is to win, that's all," said the French, already insured of the trip to Qatar as title holder.
Hammer thrower Quentin Bigot, 4th of the London Worlds in 2017, had also made the choice to go through qualifying. He logically passed the obstacle without trouble with a throw at 71.42 m.
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