• The French handball team won its third Olympic title by beating Denmark in the final this Saturday.

  • It had been four years since the Blues had won, an eternity for them.

  • With Guillaume Gille at their head and the old ones again in their place, they have been able to rebuild themselves after falling very low at the beginning of last year.

From our special correspondent in Tokyo,

Four years they hadn't won. And when you are a player of the French hand team, it's a bit like the age of the dogs, you have to multiply by seven to get the real number. So this title of Olympic champion acquired this Saturday against Denmark, the third in their history, really has a special flavor for the Blues. “We have known so many disappointments, breaths Ludovic Fabregas. It was not easy, but we fought all the time, and we managed to move forward to get there. "

Since the 2017 World Cup victorious at home, a lot had happened for these players that we were so used to seeing triumph.

Loose, a traumatic semi-final against Denmark two years later (38-30, a real hand lesson), a cataclysmic Euro 2020 which cost Didier Dinart his place, a fourth place a little heartbreaking there There are still a few months in Egypt, the serious injury of Nikola Karabatic ... In short, this gold medal won under the nose of the team which had stolen its place as a dominant nation (2016 Olympics, 2019 and 2021 Worlds) is infinite sweetness.

Each his role

“I'm emptied, I find it hard to realize what we did, this medal. It's so incredible ”, hardly believe Nikola Karabatic, who has yet seen others. “We're starting from afar,” confirms Kentin Mahé. After Euro 2020, we were at the lowest. We managed to re-mobilize, to work differently, the new staff to evolve, with roles redefined within the group. And above all, everyone accepted theirs, that's what made us strong in this competition. "

Appointed coach in place of the one for whom he was deputy after the European fiasco, Guillaume Gille restored a clear hierarchy between old and new, on the basis of what Claude Onesta had set up at the time. You only have to listen to Luc Abalo to realize the unease that reigned before, and the work to be done for the former center-half. "I told myself that I was going to stop, because I did not feel the team, admits the now triple Olympic champion. I had this impostor syndrome because I played less, felt like I was there just because I had won titles before. "

Little by little, everything was put back into order, until these Games were mastered beyond even expectations, if we understand correctly.

"We dreamed of it but we did not imagine at all that it could happen like that, recognizes Valentin Porte.

We no longer had these benchmarks.

We have to believe that they found them while living in their bubble from mid-June.

“We went on a mission this summer,” assures Luka Karabatic.

And then there are plenty of little girls who have made… Niko's return, the last competition for some, we have come together around this common goal, and the preparation is there for a lot.

It was very intense, very hard.

But we physically dominated this tournament.

Not a coincidence.

It is on this aspect that the biggest campaigns of the Experts were carried out at the turn of the 2010s.

Mammoth tusk and common thread

On Saturday, the Blues defended the iron against Hansen and his gang, used to putting pralines everywhere and blowing up the notice board.

"The mammoth tusk!"

Incredible ”, loose Nedim Remili, still in shock in the mixed zone.

"We got into them, intelligently, and we stifled them little by little," adds Valentin Porte.

The French signature of this tournament, a sign of a rediscovered collective.

“This group has found its way, its mode of operation.

It was both the most important and the most difficult, says Guillaume Gille.

There has always been a need in the French team for this common thread, to find the alchemy to make it work.

Here are the Blues, we hope, left for a round.

Our dossier on the 2021 Olympics

It will be without Guigou and Abalo, but with lots of young people (or not necessarily) knocking on the door.

"I do not know if we left for a reign, but we put the France team in its place by winning this title," said Dicka Mem.

“And we want to stay there, promises Luka Karabatic.

But there will be nothing for nothing, we must be part of the French team project.

"

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