Never two without three. France obtains its third gold medal at the Track Cycling World Championships, ahead of the British and the Belgians. A seventh medal in all that makes the runners smile, less than two years from the fateful date of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
Benjamin Thomas and Donavan Grondin brought France its third gold medal in the Track Cycling World Championships by winning the American race on Sunday in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines. The two Frenchmen beat the British and Belgian pairs by a comfortable margin in this long race of 200 laps, or 50 kilometers interspersed with 20 sprints.
Good results at the dawn of the 2024 Olympics
With this third coronation and this seventh medal, France is already assured of obtaining its best result in the Worlds since 2017. A good omen less than two years from the Paris 2024 Olympics which will take place on the same track. In the American, Olympic discipline, France had been world champion for the last time in 2017 with already Benjamin Thomas, then associated with Morgan Kneisky.
Late at the start of the race, Thomas, silver medalist on Saturday in the omnium, and Grondin took the lead in the eighth sprint. They then did the perfect race to establish their domination, even taking a lead under the feverish “allez les Bleus” of the Saint-Quentin velodrome.
Well ahead, they were able to afford the luxury of starting to raise their arms on the last lap, in an atmosphere of fire. Mathilde Gros had brought the first gold medal to France on Friday in the speed test. On Saturday, another sprinter, Marie-Divine Kouamé won the 500m.