Paris (AFP)

Fourcade or Lavillenie? A special committee of French sports, reunited in a hurry, must decide on Wednesday the biathlete and pole vaulter, both interested in a candidacy to the International Olympic Committee (IOC). But the procedure is strongly criticized.

"We are asked to choose between two Olympic champions who have all the legitimacy to enter the IOC One or the other will be harmed.This is an unacceptable process", "it will not improve the image of the French sports movement ", bluntly attack the former Minister of Youth and Sports Guy Drut (1995-1997), which targets without naming the president of the French Olympic Committee (CNOSF) Denis Masseglia.

As a member of the IOC, the Montreal gold medalist in 1976 was among the fifteen nominees who will attempt to take over from Tony Estanguet. Now boss of the Organizing Committee of the Paris Olympics 2024, the triple Olympic champion of canoe will have to leave the place after 8 years to the Athletes Commission of the Olympic instance, during the Tokyo Olympics in the summer of 2020.

For France, the challenge is to keep this post, which entitles the holder to one of the 105 seats currently held by the IOC.

In the meantime, we must decide between two scenarios: either give the green light to the holder of the world record for the pole vault to try his luck from Tokyo, or ask him to make the impasse to push the five-time Olympic champion of biathlon. Because two athletes from the same country can not sit on the Athletes' Commission. To complicate matters, if it were chosen, Fourcade should wait for the Olympics in Beijing 2022 to present itself, the rule that summer athletes are elected at the summer Olympics and those winter at the winter Olympics. At each edition, the ballot is held with participants in the Games.

- "Masquerade" -

"France can afford to spend its turn in 2020, when we have a candidate of quality (Renaud Lavillenie), supported by Sebastian Coe?", The president of the International Federation of Athletics (IAAF), asks André Giraud, the boss of the French athletics federation, member of the jury. "What guarantee do we have that Martin will be elected in 2022? And in this case, why not wait until 2024 and see if (Teddy) Riner or (Tony) Parker are not interested," asks another member of the jury, under cover of 'anonymity.

Denis Masseglia focuses criticism for having poorly prepared the deadline and let the two candidates thrive, while driving for Fourcade, already head of the Athletes' Commission Paris-2024. A thesis he refutes.

"I can not stop anyone from being a candidate, and I learned in mid-July that the deadline for the IOC to submit an application was 9 September," Masseglia told AFP. "From there, it was necessary to organize a procedure, the one that I proposed follows the recommendations of the IOC and I had the agreement of the two candidates", continues the president of the CNOSF.

Who will compose the ad hoc commission? Denis Masseglia and his secretary general, Jean-Michel Brun, the three French members of the IOC (Estanguet, Drut and the president of the international rowing federation Jean-Christophe Rolland), four presidents of sports federations and six representatives of athletes. "A masquerade", denounces again Guy Drut, for which the vote is biased in favor of Fourcade. Answer, in principle, Wednesday at the end of the afternoon, after a debate that is likely to be lively.

© 2019 AFP