Summer 1968. France shone in track cycling in Mexico City. Led by Daniel Morelon and Pierre Trentin, the Habs returned from Mexico with 5 medals, including 4 in gold. More than half a century later, the French delegation arrived in Tokyo with more modesty. “Gold is inaccessible in a sprint. Our objective announced for three years is a bronze medal in team sprint », details Christophe Manin, the national technical director (DTN) since 2017 of the French Cycling Federation.
The French racers are less scary since the London 2012 Games, during which they had won only three silver medals against the overpowered British. However, in 2010, the national coach of the time, Florian Rousseau, had sounded the alarm with the federation to rethink a system that he considered to be in decline.
Despite the opening of the Olympic velodrome in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines in 2014, the former head of the sprint pole (from 2005 to 2013) lamented the lack of vision for the federation. “I did not share President David Lappartient’s project and I decided to quit. We thought that having a velodrome would automatically give us results, but there were many other things to anticipate ”, deplores the triple Olympic champion in 1996 and 2000.
The 1990s, the golden age of French trackers
The 1990s were the golden age of the blue track, with 12 Olympic medals – including eight titles – in Atlanta (1996) and Sydney (2000). “There was a whole organization, with two poles in Paris and Hyères made up of renowned coaches [Gérard Quintyn et Daniel Morelon], which reflected high performance on clubs and regions. A competition had even been established to create confrontation at the highest level between the best national sprinters. The level was sometimes higher than a world championship ”, abounds Florian Rousseau, current performance manager at the French athletics federation.
His former “colt”, Grégory Baugé, joined him. “There have been financial and human efforts, but the people are not the right ones. As long as the leaders do not open their eyes, we will continue on this downward path ”, alert the 2012 Olympic individual sprint vice-champion.
Between Rio and Tokyo, the DTN’s budget allocated to performance has nevertheless increased, from 30% to 40%, with the creation of positions, including pairs of coaches or performance analysts.
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