Until the Paris Games, AFP follows the course of the one who trains on the Olympic water level in Marseille.

In this second episode, she recounts the recent European championships, the technical developments of a still young sport and the difficulty of reconciling sport and studies.

"We had a big block of competition at the start of the year, with two Olympic weeks in Palma and Hyères, then the European Championships, which were quite intense. We were 95 girls, with four rounds a day on average It was cooler than the Olympic weeks in windy conditions, but there were really a lot of us and at a very high level.

The results were not incredible, 25th in Palma, 16th in Hyères and 37th out of 95 at the European Championships.

It's not a bad result, but it's still not in my performance goals.

I don't put any pressure on myself because I know I've done good things, especially in slalom.

But I had a catastrophic day and it often does.

I almost always have a day where I crack because of fatigue.

If I manage to erase that, I can enter the +20+.

What is still lacking is experience of regattas and a bit of endurance.

I need to encounter situations that will prevent me from repeating the same mistakes.

But the work I did on the speed and the physique really made me feel better on the first few days.

Over the two Olympic weeks, I felt that I was much faster than before, but I couldn't find that at the European championships.

It was on a lake, in fresh water, different conditions... I didn't feel fast."

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Turn in flight

"There is a gap that is starting to form between the Top 10 and the rest of the fleet. But things are going very quickly and there is nothing to prevent someone from the Top 30 from joining the Top 10 very quickly. We are in something that is not fixed and it is a medium that is only evolving.

In a year or two, everyone will do it or else it will be prohibitive.

Then we will have to see in racing conditions, with swells etc.

It won't happen all the time, but not long ago we thought it was impossible.

I haven't passed it yet, but we're getting closer to it little by little.

It's something that we incorporated into our training sessions."

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Project and pressure

"Reconciling sport and studies is sometimes a little hard. There, I validated my first semester and if I manage to validate my first year of master's, it will be very positive. But a week of exams is a week when I'm not training. During the Olympic week in Hyères, for example, I had to revise. It's something to manage on top of that, I'm not 100% on the board.

Ambre Papazian is one of the French hopes for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games Nicolas TUCAT AFP/Archives

But I also tell myself that if I only had the board, it could be too much pressure on a single project.

In this situation, maybe my last perfs would have devastated me.

Maybe I'm taking longer to move forward, but I'm moving forward.

And when I have the click, it will be something else.

Interview by Stanislas TOUCHOT

© 2022 AFP