In the corridors of the Accor Arena in Paris, Mélanie De Jesus Dos Santos jumps for joy in the arms of Lorette Charpy. Sunday September 17, the French gymnast has just won gold on the uneven bars – she will do the double on floor – at the French Open. Unlike her compatriot, Lorette Charpy had no chance of a medal since she started out of competition, that is to say without the possibility of qualifying for the final. But for her too, the weekend had a taste of victory: “It wasn’t a given that I was here just a few months ago”tells the young woman World.
Injured twice in the cruciate ligaments, at only 21 years old, Lorette Charpy is a returnee. In Paris, his move to the uneven bars allowed him to return to competition after a year of absence and to compete in front of his audience for the first time since 2019.
At the world championships, in Antwerp (Belgium), where the French women’s delegation is playing its Olympic team qualification, Monday October 2 at 9:15 p.m., it is aligned with the uneven bars and the beam. “We reduced our program a little to ensure the grade. We don’t want to take the risk of doing a more elaborate movement, even if she does it well in training.”explains Eric Hagard, his coach at the France center in Saint-Etienne, since 2018.
To validate its ticket for Paris 2024, France must finish among the nine best nations in the competition – excluding the United States, United Kingdom and Canada, already qualified after their podium at the 2022 Worlds. The first eight will face each other in the final. On each apparatus – floor, uneven bars, beam and vault – only four of the five gymnasts from each team start and the three best results are counted. The ranking is established by adding these twelve scores.
If Les Bleues qualify, Lorette Charpy will then have to be one of the five selected to represent France next summer since it is the countries, and not the individual gymnasts, who obtain the precious sesame. “All we have to do is hopeconfirms Eric Hagard who wants to be confident. She is a sure bet on uneven bars, which is the average apparatus for the French team. »
“Few people saw her return”
The Stéphanoise has already touched the Olympic Games with her fingertips, in 2021. But four months before flying to Tokyo, she was injured in training, and had to give up this long-awaited meeting. “It was very difficult to accept, remembers the person concerned. The fact that the next Games are in Paris helped me to continue. I still had this fire in me and I didn’t want to give up, I would have had a lot of regrets. » Left-handed and affected in the left knee, the Frenchwoman must relearn the squatting pivots on beam, with her right leg, and modify the construction of her movements.
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