2023-08-28 10:51:20
One year from the first Paralympic Games organized on French soil since their creation in 1960, the government is thinking big. He cherishes the hope of a resounding entry of France into the top 5 in the medal standings. At the Tokyo Games in 2021, despite a total of 54 charms, including only 11 in gold, the Blues had been relegated to 14th in the world in a competition outrageously dominated by the Chinese ogre (207 medals, including 96 in gold).
«This objective has been repeated regularly by the Minister of Sports Amélie Oudéa-Castéra. As an organizing nation, we agree with this with pleasure, but the march remains high”, notes Jean Minier, the sports director of the Paralympic Committee.
By placing its athletes in the face of this immense challenge, France is playing double or nothing. «We do not measure the effect that these Games can produce at home. This can just as well swing in our favor if the stadiums are full, as it can awaken the emotional fragility of athletes in certain categories”, he tempers.
The general level rises
The modest harvest of French medals at the World Para-Athletics Championships, which took place in Paris from July 8 to 17, accredits this fear. In front of 100,000 spectators at the Charléty stadium, the France team, cheerfully rejuvenated – with 14 newcomers – won only four bronze medals and fell short of the podium eleven times.
The coming year will not be too much to refine the physical and mental preparation of this group, which has shown great promise. A rise in power is all the more necessary as «the level continues to progress in all categories and all disciplines, as evidenced by the records that have continued to fall”, observes Guy Ontanon, the manager of the French disabled athletics team.
“Beautiful surprises” in perspective
In Paris, 36 world records were smashed during the competition. In this context of very strong competition, the Paralympic Committee would content itself with gleaning 20 gold medals, twice as many as in Tokyo. This reasonably achievable horizon would mark, in his eyes, “the continuity of French progress, which has doubled the number of medals won between the Games in Rio in 2016 and those in Tokyo in 2021”.
All eyes are on the new headliners, who have emerged in the wake of badminton player Lucas Mazur, triathlete Alexis Hanquinquant or cyclists Dorian Foulon and Alexandre Léauté, all sacred in Tokyo. «In Paris, we will have some nice surprises in sports shooting, in table tennis, perhaps in wheelchair rugby. Swimming could do as well as cycling, which had made an extraordinary raid in 2021”, says the sports director of the Paralympic Committee.
Performances that boost the morale of the Blues
In the light of his dazzling triple victory (in the 100m, 400m and 200m medley) at the World Para-Swimming Championships, which took place in Manchester at the beginning of August, Alex Portal, only 21, ticks all the boxes to become the darling of the French public. «He is capable of achieving the feat of winning three or four titles in Paris,” predicts Jean Minier. Also crowned in Manchester in the 50m butterfly, the Reunionese swimmer Laurent Chardard, amputated of a leg and an arm following a shark attack, is programmed to reach the heights.
Absent in Tokyo, Jules Ribstein, «the scarecrow of its category in para-triathlon”, dreams of covering the French delegation in gold, while the para-judo team will want to prove that it is part of the world elite, after a lackluster 2021 Games. No para-judoka – not even flag bearer Sandrine Martinet, Paralympic champion in 2016 – had managed to climb on the first step of the podium.
The coronations obtained by Cyril Jonard and Hélios Latchoumanaya at the last World Championships in Baku in November 2022, then by Prescillia Lézé and the same Hélios Latchoumanaya at the European Championships in Rotterdam in mid-August, boosted the morale of the Blues.
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