Tournefeuille (France) (AFP)

"Winning speed": the Frenchman Bassa Mawem has chosen to focus on his specialty, speed, to win his sesame and take part in the escalation at the Tokyo Games in 2020, where the discipline will enter the Olympic program in a particular format.

Twelve Olympic tickets (six men and six women) are in play from Thursday to Sunday in Tournefeuille, in the suburbs of Toulouse, for the 44 climbers participating, playing on the 3 climbing events: the block, the difficulty and the speed .

But at the Olympics, the three events will be one, the combined. Quit to force the climbers, specialized between + + + + difficulties, + + + + + + vitseseux, to revise their work plan.

"It's all the difficulty of the preparation of the Olympics Normally, one trains in his favorite discipline, where you have to make choices, progress elsewhere without losing too much where you are the best", agrees the technical director national, Pierre-Henri Paillasson.

Runner-up in the 2018 world of speed, Bassa Mawem (35) has a personal best at 5 sec 52, 4 / 100th of the world record, and has made his accounts at the same pace.

Combined, they are versatile, like the Czech star Adam Ondra, Slovenian Jernej Kruder, the American Nathaniel Coleman or his compatriot Manu Cornu who, except rough mistake, may be more comfortable, especially in blocks and difficulties.

According to the double winner of the 2018 and 2019 speed world cups, his "only chance" goes through a sprint victory. Especially since there will be, says he "only two + vitesseux +" present in Tournefeuille.

- Join his brother -

"If I do + a speed and 19th elsewhere, it goes, if I'm second, I will have to rely on the other results," the New Caledonian prognosis. The final result is obtained by multiplying the three rankings of each, hence the importance of winning the speed.

He is determined to join his brother, Mickaël (29), who already has his ticket to the Games, after his 7th place in the combined World-2019 in August in Japan. "It would be really great for the family to be there," says Bassa.

The sprinter has enrolled in his program the two additional competitions of blocks and difficulties necessary to qualify for this TQO. Otherwise, he focused on speed, the other two disciplines passing at the end of the session.

"If I had trained on the blocks and the difficulties, I would not have made enough progress to catch up with the best," he says, counting on his climbing skills: eleven years of blocks and difficulties before to move up to speed, at 26, almost without a win.

For Bassa, there is also a "difference in morphology" between the + vitses + and the others. As between his brother (65 kg) and him (78 kg).

"The sprint requires muscular power in the arms and legs, for the other events the power is shared in the arms and the abdominal belt", explains the sprinter who went on a diet, not to lose weight, but to become "drier".

"I like eating, so you see the effort!" he said.

Five Frenchmen - Bassa Mawem but also Manu Cornu, Fanny Gibert, Julia Chanourdie and Anouck Jaubert - participate in TQO de Tournefeuille. After that, there will only be one ticket to be left, one per continental championships. For Europe, it will be in March 2020.

© 2019 AFP