A preparation for the 2024 Olympics upset by a drunken man? This is what happened to the Pôle France d’aviron this weekend. A heavily alcoholic man seriously damaged four boats in Nancy used by French athletes in preparation for the Paris Olympics, we learned Monday from Sébastien Bel, head of the high-level training center in Nancy.
The boats, two of which are completely unusable, were vandalized around 9 a.m. on Sunday morning, Bel said, confirming information from the Lorraine Actu website.
The Pôle France has filed a complaint and is working to find troubleshooting solutions because at least three athletes (Théophile and Valentin Onfroy, 30 and 29 years old respectively, and Emma Cornelis, 23 years old) used these boats to train and try to earn their qualification for the Paris Games. “They train every day and we can’t afford to have blank days,” Sébastien Bel told AFP.
Damage up to 25,000 euros?
Already, a boat stored in the reserve has been put back into service and loans are being organized between rowers. A new boat costs around 16,000 euros. The damage is thus estimated between 20,000 and 25,000 euros.
At the time of the events “everyone was on the water”, said Sébastien Bel, but the hangar doors had remained open, as usual. A boat weighs 14kg and the breaker 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. Warned, the police quickly arrested the man, around the structure.
“The person concerned, 24 years old and with no prior history, was prosecuted by criminal offense order (simplified prosecution allowing the imposition of a fine, community service or a sentence complementary)”, the public prosecutor in Nancy François Capin-Dulhoste told AFP.