Gauthier Delomez (comments collected by Axel May) / Photo credits: Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP
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8:28 a.m., November 4, 2023
Before starting his final season in the French team jersey, French handball legend Nikola Karabatic spoke of his daily emotions, a few months before the Paris Olympic Games. “The pleasure is increased tenfold for me,” he assured before a first friendly match on Saturday evening in Toulouse.
“This season is very, very special,” agrees Nikola Karabatic. The French handball legend spoke before the friendly match between France and Romania, Saturday evening at 5:15 p.m. in Toulouse. The essential number 13 of the Blues is playing his last year as a professional player, and he wants to end his career in apotheosis with the defense of the Olympic title of the French team at home in Paris, in 2024.
“What makes this season really special for me is that it’s my last as a professional handball player. I won’t be on the handball court anymore, I’ll be in the stands watching the matches, so it’s very special “, ponders the one who will be 40 next April, on the eve of the Olympics.
“I try to live every moment as intensely as possible”
After more than 20 years spent in the jersey of the French team, and a multitude of competitions won, including three Olympic gold medals, Nikola Karabatic confides that he “tries to experience every training session, every match, every moment spent with my teammates, with the fans, as intensely as possible and to savor these moments to the fullest because I know that they can end at any moment, whether at the end of the season, I hope, or well an injury, or a Covid…”, a virus which had kept him away from the field in September 2022.
“I get a lot of pleasure from knowing that it’s fleeting and that it’s going to stop, so the pleasure is increased tenfold for me,” concludes the center half, ready to fight one last time on the floor to try to win a fourth Olympic title with the Blues.