The three days of competition in Calvados kick off a busy summer of championships, with the Worlds in Eugene (July 15-24) but also the Euro in Munich (August 15-21), an incongruity born the disruption of sports calendars by the coronavirus pandemic.

As tradition now, the French Athletics Federation (FFA) wanted to make its national competition an almost obligatory passage, where its best athletes must prove their worth to hope to cross the Atlantic.

"We have decided to have a fairly strong requirement for selection at the World Championships, with athletes capable of placing themselves in a world top 16", indicated performance director Romain Barras, who has tightened the terms. Selection.

In addition to three "priority" athletes thanks to their results at the Tokyo Olympics (Kevin Mayer, Quentin Bigot, Pascal Martinot-Lagarde), nineteen Blues have so far met the high level of performance required by the champion of Europe 2010 decathlon, promoted in January with the mission of relaunching the French team before the Paris Olympics in 2024.

Young sprinter Cyréna Samba-Mayelas crowned in the 60m at the Indoor Worlds in Belgrade, March 19, 2022 Pedja Milosavljevic AFP / Archives

Lost in advance in Eugene?

The Blues remain in fact on two major catastrophic summer meetings, with two medals at the Doha Worlds in 2019 (silver from Bigot in the hammer, bronze from PML in the 110m hurdles), only one last summer at the Olympics (silver from Mayer in the decathlon), and several extra-sporting affairs (Calvin and Claude-Boxberger in particular) having marked the tricolor athletics where the atmosphere remains tense, under clouds never very far away.

The fastest blue sprinter in 2022, Amaury Golitin, a pillar of the 4x100m relay, has indeed just been provisionally suspended by anti-doping, suspected of having falsified a document justifying a missed doping control.

In the Hélitas stadium, whose small skate-park contributed to the emergence thirteen years ago of star rapper Orelsan, a few rays of sunshine could brighten up the Norman athletic weekend.

The hammer thrower Quentin Bigot presents himself with a new record at more than 80m, a symbolic barrier for his discipline, while an enticing contest is announced over 110m hurdles, between the innkeepers Pascal Martinot-Lagarde and Aurel Manga, and the young generation led by Just Kwaou-Mathey and Sasha Zhoya, without Wilhem Belocian, forfeit.

French athletics prodigy Sasha Zhoya in the 110m hurdles at the Junior Worlds in Nairobi, August 21, 2021 Tony KARUMBA AFP / Archives

The public should also take advantage of the talent of the young indoor world champion in the 60m hurdles Cyréna Samba-Mayela, the great density of the 800m (Benjamin Robert, Gabriel Tual, Pierre-Ambroise Bosse, Rénelle Lamote) and the pole vault , with the rising athlete Thibaut Collet, the eternal Renaud Lavillenie and his brother Valentin.

Main absentee, the decathlon world record holder Kevin Mayer, certain to leave for Eugene, preferred to save himself the trip from Montpellier after having considered taking part in several à la carte events.

"I know how to manage things, I have more and more experience, I don't feel the need to compete to be in good shape on D-Day," he told AFP.

"I'm going to take it slowly, every week a little harder, until Eugene. And I know that with this method, it's going to be fine (...) I listen to myself a lot more, I force myself a lot less to do 36,000 competitions before the championship."

© 2022 AFP