Paris (AFP)
Emmanuel Macron received the Olympic and Paralympic medalists from Tokyo on Monday evening to "celebrate" and "prepare" the Paris 2024 Olympics, the Games "at home" where it will be necessary to "do a lot more" in terms of medals.
In front of more than a hundred medalists, some not being able to be there like the French volleyball players currently playing a round of 16 of the Euro, the President of the Republic reviewed the best moments of the Tokyo Games in front of the eyes of the presidential candidate and PS mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, and of another candidate, the president of the region Valérie Pécresse.
But, he admitted, "the results are not quite what we expected," he said, less than three years before the Paris Games.
The French team has indeed remained in Tokyo below its objectives and standards with 33 medals after 42 in Rio.
"The success of the Games will be the success of our athletes because it works like that", he insisted Monday evening in front of the sportsmen and the leaders of the French sport, before decorating the sportsmen of the Legion of honor or of the national order of merit.
"We have to do a lot more, because these are our Games, at home, we are expected", setting the objective of integrating "the top 5" but without giving any other number.
He promised that the State would not fail to support French athletes, recalling the current philosophy of "concentrating our efforts on disciplines with high potential".
Asked about this goal, including being part of the top five in the world, Claude Onesta, manager of high performance, explained to some journalists that he "used to live with pressure".
Achievable the Top 5?
"It's a challenge, it's the thing you want to go get", launched this former architect of the success of French handball with two titles at the Olympics.
Describing the results of the Tokyo Olympics as "disappointing", he has just given the government a precise assessment and recommendations for the Paris Olympics.
Triple Olympic champion, the judoka Teddy Riner, regular of the place - he comes for the "fourth time" - explained when arriving at the ceremony that it was always a "great honor" and "a great pride".
Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron pose with the French athletes medalists at the Tokyo Games and awarded during a ceremony in Paris, at the Elysee Palace, September 13, 2021 Thibault Camus POOL / AFP
Asked about Emmanuel Macron's promise to make France a "sporting nation" for the Paris 2024 Olympics, the judoka replied: "France is a great sporting nation but to think that we are going to win 90 medals at Paris 2024, no. You have to do a lot more to claim 90 medalists in 3 years.
© 2021 AFP