Tokyo (AFP)

Happy and proud to be a medalist, but sad that the color is not the one she had dreamed of: after Amandine Buchard and Sarah-Léonie Cysique, judoka Madeleine Malonga discovered on Thursday the particular flavor of silver medals after her defeat in final of -78 kg against the Japanese Shori Hamada.

"It's an Olympic medal. You have to tell yourself that, it's true. But when you lose, it really pisses off ...", dropped the world No. 1 after her defeat.

"It's not that I don't like to lose, it's that I like to win too much", she also explained six weeks ago in a similar situation, after another lost final, at the World Championships in Budapest.

Whether you like to win too much or hate losing, the result is the same.

The silver medal is the one you get when you finish with a defeat and when you bite into it on the podium, its taste is sometimes a little bland.

"It was only gold that mattered to me", continued Malonga, appeared by turns inconsolable and disappointed in front of the press, like Buchard and Cysique before her, as if the joy of the vice- champions was paralyzed, for a few moments at least, by a little frustration, disappointment or anger.

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But absolute happiness is reserved for gold medalists, like Clarisse Agbégnénou on Tuesday, who said he could finally "appreciate" now the silver medal brought back from Rio in 2016 and which she had since hidden from view.

For Malonga, the frustration is real.

Because she arrived in Tokyo as world No. 1 and her season will therefore be marked by two second places during the major meetings that were the Worlds and especially the Games.

- 2024 target -

She also regretted having fallen into the trap set by Hamada, a remarkable fighter on the ground, who took advantage of the "small mistake" made by the Frenchwoman, in the words of the Bleues coach Larbi Benboudaoud, to punish her for immobilization and a quick ippon.

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"It pained me to see her come out crying. I know she came there for a title. We will enjoy it anyway, even if I admit that ...", ruminated the same Benboudaoud, also affected by the silver medal syndrome.

"We are still happy. We take what there is to take, but it's the third final that we lose. It starts to inflate me. Well, you know what I mean ... It ' are competitors. They do not want to be second or third. When you are a competitor, you want to be champion, to be at the top of the box ", added the one who went through this in 2000 with his vice status - Olympic champion in Sydney.

But unlike him, who did not participate in the following Games, Malonga, Buchard and Cysique keep an Olympic horizon, not so distant, with Paris-2024.

The Olympic title, "it's a dream, which one day becomes a goal and you know you have to be ready that day. So it's hard to lose then. It's frustrating but that will motivate me for Paris-2024 and win this Olympic gold medal ", assured Malonga.

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"I'm going to take a few days of vacation and ease off a bit. But not too long. Anyway, after that I miss it, I don't know what else to do," she smiled.

"So I'm going to start training again and I will try to smash everything in 2024."

To find out what gold tastes like.

© 2021 AFP