Paris (AFP)

"This is one of the biggest challenges we have to face," said Earvin Ngapeth, the star of the French volleyball players who are leaving from Friday in Poland, two-time world champion, for the tournament. Olympic qualification.

The Blues will start with Slovenia on Friday (20:30), before attacking hosts Saturday (15:00), then Tunisians, recent champions of Africa, Sunday (12:00), for a single ticket.

Q: How do you feel on the eve of this first big summer event?

A: "We are ready, the team is going to Poland with confidence, and during the season I spoke with the coach and told him that I needed rest and that I wanted to It was hard when I started again, because after a month and a half of a break, it's not easy, I've been sorry, but I'm fine today. "

Q: Looking for the Olympic ticket to Poland, the double world champion, is this the biggest challenge this team had to face?

A: "This is one of the biggest challenges we have to face, it's a chance we have, there will be a second if we can not do it. 'can not do it, it will not be necessary for us to have the euro behind, which is very very important for us, sportingly or in the media, something that we will not have the right to miss. beautiful summer coming, maybe the most important summer of our career in France, for some. "

Q: For Rio-2016, the Olympic qualification was played six weeks before the Games. There it will be a year or six months before ...

A: "It changes everything, in 2016, we were physically prepared for the TQO that we had in Japan in June, we arrived in Rio, we were a little exploded on the ground, dead. : at the level of preparation, of the head, of the mind. "

Q: Poland will play with his naturalized Cuban, Wilfredo Leon, considered one of the best players in the world ...

A: "It's going to change their game system." Then, do not make a fixation on Leon, there are people around, they are two-time world champions without him, so it's not just him. It will be necessary to go there to make them thwart, that one is serene without forgetting that there is a big piece before with Slovenia, vice-champion of Europe in 2015, with exactly the same In the heads, we are ready, we are not afraid and it is the most important. "

Q: You will play in front of 15,000 people in Gdansk. Do you expect a hostile atmosphere, as in Bulgaria in 2012 (TQO lost) or in 2015 (Euro won)?

A: "The Polish public is not hostile like in Bulgaria, people go to see a show and applaud the actions of everyone, they are connoisseurs, and the Polish public loves us a lot, it will be nice. we are not afraid and on the contrary, we love to play in Poland.These are full rooms, a great show, very well organized. "

Interview at a press point

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