Créteil (AFP)

Guillaume Gille has been named coach of the France men's handball team, replacing Didier Dinart, who has been ruled out, and will be responsible for qualifying the Blues for the Tokyo Olympics in less than three months, the Federation announced on Tuesday ( FFHB).

Dinart, 43, pays a high price for the poor results of the French at Euro-2020 in Norway, eliminated in the first round and forced to go through a cleaver qualification tournament from April 17 to 19 in Paris-Bercy with Croatia , Portugal and Tunisia to see the JO-2020 this summer (July 24-August 9).

Olympic champion in 2008 and 2012, still in silver at the 2016 Olympics, France has never missed the Olympic Games since its emergence on the international scene in 1992 and the "Bronzés" of Barcelona.

"Given the stakes and the deadline, I decided that the decision to put him on the sidelines should be taken. To make Didier bear responsibility would be unfair. It is shared by everyone, starting with me . This is what I had the opportunity to say to the members of the staff and to the leaders ", affirmed the president of the FFHB Joël Delplanque during a press conference, at the Maison du handball in Créteil.

Since September 2016, Gille, 43, was first co-coach of Dinart, then his assistant. He was in charge of physical preparation and video analysis during the last Euro.

Former half-center, notably of Hamburg and Chambéry, the eldest of the Gille siblings - his two brothers Bertrand and Benjamin were also international - participated in some of the greatest successes of the France team, with the generation of "Costauds" then "Experts". He has thus won all the biggest titles twice: the Olympic Games (2008, 2012), the World Cup (2001, 2009) and the Euro (2006, 2010).

The name of his deputy will be announced in March, the federation said.

Euro-2020, concluded prematurely with two defeats against Portugal (28-25) and Norway (28-26), was a total fiasco for the French team.

The TQO at Paris-Bercy, which issues two tickets to Japan, promises to be complicated, with notably the Croats, vice-champions of Europe on Sunday, and the Portuguese, who have beaten France twice in nine months. The first victory of the Portuguese took place in April 2019 in Guimaraes during the qualifications for Euro-2020.

© 2020 AFP