Tokyo (AFP)

He missed Adrien Bart 1 / 10th of a second to get on the podium in the 1000m single-seater canoe event at the Tokyo Olympics on Saturday, a fourth place all the more angry than the one who beat him for the medal bronze is, according to him, "someone not very respectable".

"It sucks that (Tarnovschi) is there, that he's so strong, we don't know much about this guy and at the same time I don't want to know anything about him": half an hour after his final, Returning from doping control, Bart was still very disappointed, he who, for more than 900 m, held the first and only medal of the French canoe team in a row in Tokyo.

The title went to the Brazilian Isaquias Queiroz, Olympic vice-champion in Rio, ahead of the Chinese Liu Hao.

The Moldovan of Ukrainian origin Serghei Tarnovschi, 24, finished third, as in 2016 in Rio where he was immediately deprived of his medal after a positive doping control.

The Brazilian and the Chinese then came to a press conference, but the Moldovan's chair remained empty.

"We did not find the Moldova team," explained the moderator of this press conference first.

A spokesperson for the International Canoe Federation then clarified that there had been "a misunderstanding" with the Moldovan team who thought that the mixed zone, an area where athletes express themselves to the press just after the race, acted as a press conference.

- "I gave everything" -

Winner with authority of his semi-final a little earlier, Bart could harbor real hopes before the final and real regrets after, but still wanted to retain a "great day": "I gave everything, put everything in place, I am fourth, it is my level today, there are guys that I beat and that I would never have thought of beating ".

"We are in an outdoor sport, there is wind. And there are opponents, these are criteria that we cannot manage, now we have to fight, we have to go into combat", again explained the céiste du Pas-de-Calais.

Frenchman Adrien Bart at the end of the semi-final of the row canoe of the Tokyo Games, August 7, 2021 Luis ACOSTA AFP

Among the opponents was Tarnovschi, deprived of his bronze medal in Rio two days after the podium and suspended for four years in February 2017 for a positive anti-doping test out of competition in July 2016, just before the Rio Olympics.

- "Four difficult years" -

"I realize my result again in Rio and I am showing that winning bronze again five years later is not a problem for me," the Moldovan told AFP.

His four-year suspension was "four difficult years during which I could not train."

“Today I didn't paddle thinking about my medal, but thinking about my finish,” he added Tarnovschi.

Regarding the course of the one who deprives him of the podium, Bart adds that "these are not things that I like, this is not how I see sport. Even if he could have made a mistake, I'm sorry, I have a vigilance which is super high ".

"If you're pro, you have to be vigilant about everything you ingest. He wasn't vigilant or else he cheated, so he's not very professional and not very respectable," he said. he asserted.

Adrien Bart competing at the Rio Games, August 16, 2016 Jeff PACHOUD AFP / Archives

At 29, Bart wants to plan for the end of the year, especially the World Championships before thinking of the Olympics-2024 in Paris: "We're going to put things back on track. If we go back for three years, we have to start again on solid foundations, because without that we will not go very far, "he warned.

© 2021 AFP