Strasbourg (AFP)
The Tokyo Olympics should no longer be "a goal in its own right" but "integrate into the Paris preparation movement" 2024, says Claude Onesta, the high performance manager at the National Sports Agency (ANS ), in an interview on Wednesday at L'Est Républicain.
The Tokyo Olympics, which were to take place this summer, have been postponed for a year, to the summer of 2021, due to the coronavirus epidemic, an unprecedented decision which has radically changed the preparation of athletes and federations in in view of this deadline.
"Today we have to say that Tokyo is no longer a goal in its own right. I consider that Tokyo has entered the cycle of preparation for the Olympic Games 2024 in Paris," said Claude Onesta.
"In our opinion, this stage in Tokyo, for many athletes, must be a springboard for Paris at all costs," added the former coach of the French handball team. "The message is: we don't prepare Tokyo for everything to stop afterwards. We prepare Tokyo in the Paris preparation movement, which is the maximum objective of French sport."
The head of the very high level at the ANS, created in April 2019 to embody a new model and the ambitions of France at the Paris Olympics, believes that given the deadlines, it would be illusory to start preparing for the Games of 2024 only after Tokyo.
"If we start the Paris project the day after Tokyo-2021, we will lose another year more, and we will really start the action two years from the Games, which is ridiculous. I think we have to we are already very focused on Paris, and Tokyo is becoming a stage in the progression. Everything must be thought of in this way, "underlines Claude Onesta.
This could therefore have consequences for the athletes retained in Tokyo: if the medalists will of course be accompanied, even if they have to stop their careers immediately afterwards, "all the players of level + intermediate +, whom we think they have not no big chances in Tokyo, it will be better that they are younger and on the way to Paris, than people who are in the terminal phase of activity ", he underlined.
© 2020 AFP