During the first six months of 2024, The world follows French sportsmen and women who will participate in the Olympic Games (from July 26 to August 11) or Paralympic Games (from August 28 to September 8) in Paris. Through reports, portraits and interviews, we tell you how they prepare for this meeting of a lifetime.
As part of this series called “Olympic Design”, you have the opportunity to interact directly with them during a chat organized on Lemonde.fr.
Today we welcome the pivot of the French basketball team, Rudy Gobert. Olympic runner-up in Tokyo, he has been named best defender of the year in the NBA three times – and could be crowned again at the end of the season he is playing with his club in Minnesota. At 31, the one who has already collected five medals with the Blues (silver at the 2021 Olympics and the 2022 European Championship; bronze at the 2019 and 2015 Worlds, and at Euro 2014) is aiming for the supreme coronation at home, alongside Evan Fournier and Victor Wembanyama, in particular. Before that, he aspires to win a first NBA title, at the end of the playoffs (final stages), which begin in mid-April.
To go deeper
- Our “Olympic Purpose” series
“Olympic design”, a sensitive and different look at the preparation of the Games
Portraits
Cyrille Chahboune, former commando amputee of both legs, rebuilt himself through sport
Titouan Castryck, the crack who “revolutionizes” kayaking
The final challenge for sprinter Nantenin Keïta, in search of one last Paralympic podium
Reports
On the Games basin, Titouan Castryck, kayak hopeful, tames the cold and the swirls
The long strides of Nantenin Keïta for the recognition of albinos
Chats
Clarisse Agbégnénou, judo champion: “The Paris 2024 Olympic Games will for sure be my last”
Nantenin Keïta, gold medalist paraathlete in Rio: “My biggest dream would be to come out of the Paris Games without regrets, and to obtain a medal in full stadiums”
Coming up: French team volleyball player Lucille Gicquel, Friday March 22 at 11 a.m.
- Our previous chats on the Paris 2024 Olympic Games
Ticketing, security, people with disabilities… Chat with Marie-Amélie Le Fur, Paralympic champion and president of the French Paralympic and Sports Committee
“The thirty days of competition must be successful, but the thirty years of heritage, that’s what motivates us,” according to Stéphane Troussel, president of the Seine-Saint-Denis department.
“Paris and Ile-de-France have a huge deficit in terms of equipment and places” to practice sport, according to Anne Hidalgo
“We don’t want to imagine the Olympic and Paralympic Games without the Ukrainians,” assures Amélie Oudéa-Castéra