Europe 1 with AFP 20:20 p.m., March 27, 2023

Four rowing boats for athletes participating in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games were destroyed by a heavily intoxicated man in Nancy on Sunday morning. The damage would be estimated between 20,000 and 25,000 euros. A complaint was filed by the training centre where the boats were moored.

A heavily intoxicated man in Nancy seriously damaged four boats used by French athletes in preparation for the Paris Olympics in 2024, we learned Monday from Sébastien Bel, head of the high-level training center in Nancy. The boats, two of which are totally unusable, were vandalized Sunday morning around 9 am, said the latter, confirming information from the site Lorraine Actu.

The damage is estimated between 20,000 and 25,000 euros. The France Pole has filed a complaint and is working to find troubleshooting solutions because at least three athletes (Théophile and Valentin Onfroy, respectively 30 and 29 years old, and Emma Cornelis, 23 years old) used these boats to train and try to qualify for the Paris Games. "They train every day and we can't afford to have white days," Sebastien Bel told AFP.

Loans between rowers

Already, a boat stored in the reserve has been put back into service and loans are being organized between the rowers. A new boat costs about 16,000 euros. At the time of the facts "everyone was on the water", said Sébastien Bel, but the doors of the hangars had remained open, as usual.

A boat weighs 14 kilos and the thug threw them to the ground while the father of a rower affiliated with the rowing club was able to film the scene with his mobile phone. Notified, the police quickly arrested the man, in the vicinity of the structure. "The person concerned, aged 24 and without background, was the subject of a prosecution by criminal order (simplified prosecution allowing the imposition of a fine, community service or an additional penalty)," said AFP the public prosecutor in Nancy François Capin-Dulhoste.