Yes, Paris, Monaco and Lyon swooped down on Lille, at the top of the Ligue 1 football standings, on Sunday, beating Saint-Etienne, Bordeaux and Nantes respectively.
Yes, the Parisiennes eliminated the Lyonnaises, reigning European champions since 2016, in the quarter-finals of the Women’s Football Champions League on Sunday.
Yes, French motorcycle rider Fabio Quartararo won a second race in a row at the Portimao circuit on Sunday.
But something else happened this weekend that you might have missed.
The three weekend lessons
- Before the big meeting, calmly you will prepare yourself
A job well done before the big deadlines. The French rugbywomen easily won in Ireland on Saturday in the second match of their group of the Six Nations Tournament (56-15). The XV of France took fifteen minutes to take the measure of his opponents, before then scoring eight tries. After their victory just as clear against the Welsh (53-0), the Blues finished, without much surprise, first in this three-way championship.
They will face, on April 24, the English for the final of a shortened 2021 edition. The challenge will be on a different scale against the team which has achieved the grand slam over the past two years and which Annick Hayraud’s players have not beaten for seven games. The English also warmed up in their group, with two demonstrations against Scotland (52-10) and Italy (67-3).
??? ??? ?????? ???? ?? ??????! Our #XVdeFrance wins a magnificent victory this afternoon in Ireland and def… https://t.co/g6TcqYL3Mm
- On the luck of the champion, you will lean
Seeing the Briton Lewis Hamilton to make a mistake is extremely rare. The seven-time Formula 1 world champion made a mistake on Sunday at the Grand Prix of Emilia-Romagna (Italy), wanting to overtake the Williams of George Russell. The Mercedes driver, eighth after leaving the pits, placed his car on a wet path with his new tires. Suddenly deprived of grip, Sir Lewis continued straight through the gravel, ruining his race at first glance.
Hamilton in the gravel ❗️ The Englishman brakes too late in turn 7. He has to reverse to mark… https://t.co/KFy8gUzv9C
But just seconds after his disappointment, his Finnish teammate, Valtteri Bottas, and the same George Russell collided violently, causing the race to be interrupted for several minutes. Time for the English team to repair Hamilton’s car, which was able to start again in eighth place. The Briton then made talk about the power of his engine and his piloting skills to climb up to second place, behind the Dutchman Max Verstappen. He thus preserves his first place in the drivers’ championship, just one point ahead of his young rival from Red Bull.
Huge crash between Bottas and Russell ❗️ The two pilots clash violently in the starting straight ?… https://t.co/ajA9hKa3Le
- In front of the accomplished fact, your leaders you will place
Internal tensions were the strongest: a few days after the elimination of Bayern Munich from the Champions League by PSG, Bavarian coach Hansi Flick announced that he wanted to leave at the end of the season. He still has two years of contract.
The coach arrived during the 2019-2020 season in a team in crisis, which he had transformed into a war machine: he achieved a historic sextuplet, winning all the trophies possible in 2020, including the Champions League in August . If the current season is less brilliant, the “Rekordmeister” is heading for a new league title.
Behind the scenes, the atmosphere is less festive: the technician is in conflict with the sports director, Hasan Salihamidzic, whose recruitment choices he has publicly criticized. The standoff turned in favor of Salihamidzic, historical figure of the club. The leaders of the Bavarian club also coldly replied to their coach on Sunday. ” “Bayern Munich disapprove of Hansi Flick’s unilateral communication”, they assured in a statement.
Flick should not be without a bench for very long: the German press imagines him taking over from Joachim Löw as coach of the German team after Euro 2021.
The weekend figure
8
Like the number of French medals at the European Judo Championships, which were held from Friday to Sunday in Lisbon (Portugal). The French delegation is doing as well as six months ago, during the previous European Championships in Prague (Czech Republic). But the medals shine less: while France had won five titles in 2020, only Amandine Buchard (less than 52 kg) won gold this time.
As in 2020, the record is more satisfactory on the side of the Blue than the Blues, with six medals. In less than 70 kg, Margaux Pinot scored precious points in the race for qualification for the Olympic Games: in the fight with Marie-Eve Gahié for the only French place for Tokyo, she finished second while her compatriot, n ° 1 in the world, fell in his first fight.
Margaux Pinot on the road to a 3rd consecutive European title? ? Before its final, relive the strong actions of s… https://t.co/vcSPsyMjzY
The weekend image
It is finally Wout Van Aert who wins even if the photo finish does not seem to indicate that the Belgian is in front… https://t.co/Iz0t0gU08E
Even the photo-finish struggled to decide. The sprint duel at the end of the Amstel Gold Race, in the Netherlands, between the Belgian Wout Van Aert and the Briton Tom Pidcock required a long minute of examination and a lot of zooming to finally crown the Belgian of the Jumbo formation. -Visma. The two men attacked 13 kilometers from the finish, along with the German Maximilian Schachmann, who finished third.
The Belgian takes his revenge on the Briton, who had beaten him in a sprint four days earlier on the Flèche Brabançonne. He won his fourth victory of the season after two stages in Tirreno-Adriatico and Gand-Wevelgem. Far from the first places on the Tour of Flanders, he had chosen to align with the first of the Ardennes to compensate the postponement of Paris-Roubaix.
The declaration of the weekend
“Happy to tell you that I will be playing in Geneva and Paris. Until then, I will devote my time to training ”
Hi everyone! Happy to let you know that I will play Geneva?? and Paris ??. Until then I will use the time to train.… Https://t.co/h71yOkQJmq
He’s back on clay. The Swiss Rodger Federer announced on Sunday his participation in the Geneva tournament (from May 17 to 23) and especially at Roland-Garros (from May 30 to June 13). The right-hander with 20 Grand Slam titles, who will celebrate his 40th birthday in August, is taking multiple precautions after a long injury to his right knee, which kept him off the courts for more than a year. Since his first exchanges in competition, at the beginning of March in Doha, he has not played again.
The Swiss have all the same decided to make a small passage on the ocher, a rarity: in six years, he has aligned only once at Roland-Garros, in 2019. The Parisian tournament has, however, less than ‘importance for him that the two other meetings of the summer: the tournament of Wimbledon and the Olympic Games.
