Kumamoto (Japan) (AFP)

Olivier Krumbholz had given them the opportunity to stall, in case some would have felt the need to blow at six months of the Tokyo Olympics, but the Blue have all responded to the World Handball Championship starting Saturday in Japan.

To tell the truth, most of them did not even ask themselves whether or not to be in Kumamoto, in the south of the archipelago, where the European and world champions will play their first match on Saturday against Korea. from South.

"It did not cross my mind, I'm happy and lucky to be in the French team, I did not even have a hundredth of a second of reflection, I'm more at the end of my career than at the beginning and I always want to bring what it takes for this team to win, "said back Alexandra Lacrabère, 32 years old and international since 2006.

For goalkeeper Amandine Leynaud, another pillar of the group that has been competing with the Blues for more than a decade, "the choice was quite simple". "Olivier pushed us to think about it a little bit but it was pretty fast in my head.It's a real choice to be there, a real desire simply.We take a lot of pleasure to meet again."

So of course there is "fatigue, the Champions League, the championship," says Beatrice Edwige, who debuted this season in the best club in Europe, in Györ, Hungary, alongside Leynaud, but " finally we are all always there and that's what makes us strong. " "I'm 31 years old and I take everything I can take, it did not touch me not to participate in this competition".

- "Nature hates emptiness" -

And then, as Camille Ayglon says, "nature hates emptiness" and when you leave your post you are never sure to find it again given the wealth of French handball. "If I had not come to take my place, there are certainly other players who would have done it and done well I do not see why I could have returned to the Olympics in six months by saying + thank you for have done the acting, but now this one is for me! "

The only ones absent at the World Cup are therefore by the force of things: the captain Siraba Dembélé and the keeper Cleopatra Darleux because of pregnancy, the other guard Laura Glauser on injury.

"Making the impasse was not an option for me," said Ayglon, summarizing the mood of all her teammates. "By the way I would have found it a bit presumptuous to say: + me this Mondial it does not interest me too much.I'll see you in six months in Tokyo!", Says the player from Nantes, who is doing her last international season at 34 years old.

"Beyond the results, there is a human adventure, a group in which we live well and with whom we are happy to share moments.We have built it for years and we would not have had these results without this little extra, "she says.

© 2019 AFP