Barring an improbable reversal of the situation, Denis Gargaud, 2016 Olympic champion in canoe slalom, will not participate in the 2024 Paris Olympics: “It’s a mistake (…) to step aside so early”, he said. he confided after being deprived of the French team on Wednesday in 2023 by its canoe-kayak federation (FFCK). “I’m not disappointed, I’m not angry, I just don’t understand this decision,” he told AFP.
“It is a mistake for French sport to deviate from the Olympic route so early. I could have put pressure on the other members of the French team” until the 2024 Olympics (July 26-August 11 ), continued the 35-year-old ceist, single-seater canoe world champion in 2011 and European champion in 2021.
Eleven names selected
The FFCK has unveiled the composition of the France 2023 team, comprising eleven names, including three in men’s canoeing (Lucas Roisin, Nicolas Gestin and Jules Bernardet) at the end of “the national identification time organized in Vaires-sur- Marne last week, the final stage of the selection process for the France team”, she explained beforehand in her press release. Gargaud, by his own admission, did not approach these selections “in the best conditions” due to tendonitis in one shoulder.
“If I were a coach, I would not have selected myself first in view of my times, but I would have selected myself second or third (position) in view of my past and present records. I am 4th in the world, that makes more than ten years that I did not come out of the top world level”, he insisted.
“Unavoidable”
“I am unavoidable”, hammered the Marseillais. Gargaud had already been deprived of the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, ousted at the end of the last competition in a traditionally ruthless selection process with only one boat per country and per event. “We are in a very dense category, with five-six boats for only three places”, reminded AFP Rémi Gaspard, performance director of the FFCK. “It’s understandable that Denis doesn’t understand the decision,” he continued. “But it’s an assumed choice, it’s a constructed ‘process’. We took into account a lot of data and elements, in particular the ability to perform in major events”.
The eleven selected should be aligned at the European Games in Krakow, Poland (June 21-July 2), and at the 2023 World Championships in Lee Valley, Great Britain (September 19-24). At the end of the 2023 Worlds and the World Cup final at the 2024 Olympics site in Vaires-sur-Marne (October 5-8), this selection will be reduced to one name per discipline (two in kayak cross).
Even if there is theoretically the possibility that the composition of the French team will be reviewed after the first international competitions of the 2023 season, Gargaud is under no illusions: “I am very pessimistic for the future, but I I have always been professional and I will stay focused,” he insisted. “We have a deep respect for his record and all he has accomplished,” added Rémi Gaspard. It is normal that the name of Denis Gargaud attracts attention, but we have a French team which has a lot of potential”, he concluded.