Paris (AFP)
While being cautious, around thirty athletes, negative for the coronavirus, were able to find Insep and group training on Monday. But like the judokas, who cannot yet touch and therefore fight, the complete return to sport is still far away.
"We left nutrition a bit" during confinement, laughs Axel Clerget, between two training sessions + cardio +. Not yet on the tatami mat but in full sun, on the synthetic soccer field, the judoka (-90kg) is one of the thirty lucky to return "home", to Insep, at the gates of Paris.
Far from the anthill that it can be at times, the High Performance Institute comes back to life. With parsimony. Judokas, table tennis players, wrestlers or weightlifters ... they are thirty to have resumed Monday and will be approximately double Tuesday. Estimating, beyond, how many athletes will be able to return, remains impossible.
One thing is certain, "we cannot reintegrate everyone in a block, we would be mad if we did that," said Ghani Yalouz, director of Insep, who said that "the choice of athletes (from back to Insep, editor's note), it is the priority of (each) federation and the ANS (National Sports Agency), who decide who will have priority ".
- Emptying, masks and signs -
The Bois du Vincennes Institute, where around 800 athletes train in normal times, took advantage of the confinement to renovate certain facilities, drain the swimming pool (which is usually done in August) and adapt to the new sanitary.
Signs to separate the direction of circulation have been glued to the floor and wipes and bottles of hydroalcoholic gel are available, for example to disinfect the weightlifting bar.
If they do not have a mask during the effort, the athletes wear it to regroup or greet the Minister of Sports, Roxana Maracineanu, "happy to inaugurate the reopening of Insep".
"By limiting the number to ten and respecting the distance measures and barrier gestures, today all sports can resume," applauds the minister.
A practice that "will evolve with the evolution of the epidemic curve and of regulation," adds Roxana Maracineanu, who is now aiming for the next stage of deconfinement, on June 2, "to try to advance as best as possible. will be possible to authorize the resumption more in contact, more closely. "
- Objective Tokyo -
Because everyone is impatient to find the real practice. For judo, which presented the largest delegation on this recovery day, despite the absence of multi-medalists Teddy Riner, back next Monday, and Clarisse Agbegnenou, who had confined herself to Reunion, it will be necessary to wait before finding contact with the opponent.
After having passed a battery of medical tests, including the one at Covid-19, which is now compulsory, an appointment was made on Monday in the sun, ideal for losing the few extra pounds of confinement.
On the athletics track, the women of the France team shout to talk to each other, ten meters behind requires. On the football field, jump rope, dumbbells and other weight training exercises: the men are busy, each in their own square, to apply the instructions.
And if there is no competition in sight before the fall, the motivation is intact on the horizon: "There is only one date in mind at the moment: July 2021", when will have finally the Tokyo Olympics, explains Axel Clerget, who qualified, at 33, for his first Games.
"The Olympics is the only thing I have in mind, it's the only thing we can be sure of - and again there is a little doubt". The recovery, while being cautious.
© 2020 AFP