Stuttgart (Germany) (AFP)
Samir Aït Saïd won the bronze medal on the rings, as well as his Olympic qualification, at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships on Saturday in Stuttgart (Germany), nine months before the 2020 Olympics.
This world medal, the first of his career, at the age of 29, comes three years after his shock injury at the 2016 Olympic Games, a double fracture of the tibia fibula of the left leg at the reception of a jump, which had broken his Olympic ambitions. .
Until then, the gymnast Antibes, crowned European Champion in the rings in 2013 and mounted on five other continental podiums (also in the jump and team), had rallied five previous world finals on his favorite apparatus, to no avail.
Last of the eight finalists to pass Saturday night, he scored 14.800. Only Turkey's Ibrahim Colak (14.933) and Italy's Marco Lodadio (14.900) did better.
All three get their sesame for the Olympics 2020 at the same time. Three were available for gymnasts whose country was not already team qualified, which is precisely the case for every athlete on this podium.
It's also the first world podium for French gymnastics in five years. The last one was in 2014, with Cyril Tommasone in pommelled bronze.
Tommasone placed sixth (14.833) in the pommel final a little earlier. A place that was enough to formalize his qualification for Tokyo.
A third Frenchman, Loris Frasca, already had his Olympic ticket in his pocket since the qualifiers of the open competition earlier this week.
© 2019 AFP