Paris (AFP)

We glimpsed metal scintillating blue, we imagined at least a tricolor stamp on a ticket bearing the stamp "Tokyo-2020": it was nothing, and the French will finally returned (almost) empty handed of a disappointing Saturday at the World Championships. 'rowing.

The biggest frustration has no doubt hit Laura Tarantola (25) and Claire Bové (21), in the women's lightweight final.

The young prodigies of French rowing saw their medal hopes dwindle over the course of the race, cracking in the final after a very (too?) Fast start, to finally finish 5th, to nearly 8 sec of the untouchable champions New Zealand, followed by the Netherlands and the United Kingdom on the podium.

"We have no reget to have," nevertheless timed Bové, refusing the excuse of a very annoying wind that delayed a quarter of an hour the start of the race. "I loved what we did, we pushed to the end, well, clean, with envy, we have to work, but we had a full race," she concluded.

Best tricolor boat of the season, whether in competition (2nd at the European Championships behind the Belarussians, 4th in the World Cup stage in Poznan) or training in handicap tests, the female pair has from now on looking towards Japan, since its presence in the final was synonymous with qualification for the Olympics 2020.

It was also the case of Theophile and Valentin Onfroy, 27 and 26, who missed their start and finished the final of a two-seater finals won by another sibling, Croats Martin and Valent Sinkovic, in front of the neo boats -Zelands and Australians.

"We would have liked to be a little better, but we managed a good championship, responded Valentin, the younger brother We did not arrive here in the best conditions at the end of a complicated international season, but we never released.

- Long boats will have to wait -

For long boats engaged in the B finals of the day, Tokyo is still far away.

If the four ladies (Violaine Aernoudts, Margaux Bailleul, Julie Voirin, Anne-Sophie Marzin), last 16 sec of the Americans and 11 sec of the Italian, has never glimpsed the hope of an Olympic qualification promised to both first places, the 4 men without cox (Edouard Jonville, Julien Montet, Benoît Demey, Benoit Brunet) can feed more regrets.

Placed second behind the future Dutch winners during half of the race, the French boat suffered the impressive comeback of the Swiss, who took the second ticket for Tokyo and left the French 3rd 5 seconds behind them.

The final regatta in Lucerne, from 17 to 19 May 2020, will be the last chance for these two boats to hang the Paris-Tokyo plane ticket two months later.

In this day a little sad, the French delegation was still entitled to two beautiful smiles, those of Perle Bouge and Christophe Lavigne, bronze medalists in two pairs of mixed para-rowing.

© 2019 AFP