Olympic Games: athletics, swimming, football, the French disappointments in Tokyo
The French Renaud Lavillenie and André-Pierre Gignac at the Tokyo Olympics.
RFI editing.
© REUTERS - KAI PFAFFENBACH - HANNAH MCKAY
Text by: Tom Rossi Follow
7 mins
Three years before the Olympic Games in Paris, the France team has not reached its goal of winning forty medals in Tokyo.
What she had managed to do in Rio in 2016 and Beijing in 2008. The Blues return from Japan with 33 awards, including 10 in gold thanks in large part to team sports, judo and fencing.
What to hide, a little, the disappointment of other disciplines.
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If France finishes eighth in the medal table of the Tokyo Olympics, it can boast of not entering the top 10 of another ranking.
The parody of the “almost-medals” created by the French Federation of Lose, humorous website and Twitter page.
Twelve times fourth at these Games, France ranks 12th in this table, far behind the United States, which logically dominates both rankings.
Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games 🇯🇵 🏆 TABLE OF PRESQU'MEDALS.
THE FINAL CLASSIFICATION.
End of cruel Olympics from cruel homes.
The 🇫🇷 falls to 12th place (🇭🇺 11th and 🇮🇹 10th).
The United States, Russia (Or ROC if you will) and Japan podium.
Big British tumble to please us a little.
pic.twitter.com/KHDPzPttEh
- Fédé 🇫🇷 de la Lose (@FFLose) August 8, 2021
French athletics in the doldrums
But that does not mean that France has not experienced a number of disappointments.
Athletics is the perfect
illustration of this with only one medal: the silver one of the world record decathlete, Kevin Mayer, handicapped by back pain, and who aimed for gold.
Far from the six podiums at the Rio Games five years ago, the decline is spectacular.
We have to go back to Sydney 2000 (no podium) to find such a bad overall result.
And only 8 out of 65 athletes reached the final in their discipline.
Among them, the ambitious Alexandra Tavernier (4th) and Quentin Bigot (5th) with the hammer, who fed well the table of “almost-medals”, like Pascal Martinot-Lagarde, 5th in the final of the 110 meters hurdles in which also took part Aurel Manga, 8th.
France's Aurel Manga and Pascal Martinot-Lagarde in the 110-meter hurdles final at the Tokyo Olympics on August 5.
REUTERS - DYLAN MARTINEZ
There was also the sadness to see walker
Yohann Diniz
doing “
the
extra run
” at age 43, and former pole vault world record holder
Renaud Lavillenie
cannot speak because of two sore ankles.
The double Olympic medalist took 8th place.
But the most worrying in the perspective of the Paris Olympics is that no hope has arisen except Gabriel Tual (23), the seventh surprise in the 800 meters, the only one to have broken his personal best in Tokyo.
French swimming awaits 2024
The results and the situation are almost identical in swimming.
Only Florent Manaudou, who returned for the Games after stopping his career for a handball parenthesis, managed to return to Paris with a silver medal in the 50-meter freestyle.
He became the first French swimmer to medal in three different editions of the Olympics.
French swimmer Florent Manaudou at the Tokyo Olympics on August 1.
REUTERS - CLODAGH KILCOYNE
Without Manaudou, French swimming would have sadly equaled the zero point of the Atlanta Games 25 years ago.
It imitates the record of Sydney 2000, then swept away by the performances of two very talented generations: six medals in Athens in 2004, as many in Beijing in 2008, and seven in London in 2012, including four titles.
Today, tricolor swimming is in a generational hollow, but the next generation could assert itself in three years in Paris.
We think of Maxime Grousset (22 years old, 4th in the 100 meters freestyle), Léon Marchand (19 years old, 6th in the 400 meters medley) or even Marie Wattel (24 years old, 6th in the 100 meters butterfly), able to get her head out. some water.
Football, the shame of these Olympics
We weren't expecting much.
We are still disappointed.
The French men's team failed to get out of the hens for their return to the Games, 25 years after Atlanta.
The gang in Gignac and Thauvin exploded with a
rout against the Japanese
to close this sad chapter.
French footballer André-Pierre Gignac, eliminated from the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games. REUTERS - HANNAH MCKAY
Cycling and horse riding have known much better
Like a BMX final in which three Frenchmen took part, without obtaining a medal, tricolor cycling disappointed in Japan, with no reward on the road, in mountain biking and therefore in BMX.
With two bronze medals on the track, the record is slightly better than in Rio (1) but far from the six medals, including two gold, at the Beijing Games in 2008.
The record is also not good in riding.
The French team could only take bronze in the team eventing when they shone in Rio with three medals, two of which were gold.
Even greater disappointment in boxing with no podium, but a lot of anger from the French towards the judges.
Samir Aït Saïd in the rings final at the Tokyo Olympics on August 2.
REUTERS - LISI NIESNER
Finally, we will not forget the tears of the gymnast and flag bearer Samir Aït Saïd who was seriously injured in 2016. Hit in the biceps this time, the Frenchman took fourth place in the rings.
Annoyed after his performance, Samir Aït Saïd then made an appointment in 2024, in Paris.
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