One year before the Paris Olympics, the French athletics team is showing up in large numbers at the Budapest World Championships which open on Saturday. With slim hopes of medals but a desire to raise the tone after several failed competitions. Stunning view of the Hungarian Parliament, its soaring arcades and majestic dome. Smiles were in order Thursday evening at the French Institute in Budapest, HQ of the Blues for the nine days of competition.
Raise your head before the Paris Games
Even if, for four years, the tiny number of international podiums (three at the 2019 Worlds, one at the 2021 Olympics and the 2022 Worlds, nine at Euro 2022), and even more gold medals (only one with Mayer at the Worlds 2022), has permanently degraded the place of France in the world hierarchy. And the trend will probably not be reversed on the banks of the Danube.
Aware of this established weakness, one year before the Olympic high mass in Paris, the French management hopes all the same to raise their heads by seeing athletes shine at their best level – even at a distance from the podiums -, which has not always been the case in past years.
What will successful Worlds be measured against? “Let the athletes at least do their best performance of the season, even their personal best, or improve their place in the world rankings”, fixed the Director of High Performance at the French Athletics Federation (FFA) Romain Barras , at the helm since early 2022.
Kevin Mayer, main chance of podium
“When you put on the France team jersey, you have a superhero cape on your shoulders, you must have the ambition to transcend yourself. It’s not magic, you have to succeed in creating it, in mobilize it, but it must galvanize”, he insists. “All our athletes do not come to seek a medal, but on the other hand, all must transcend themselves, give the best of themselves”, insists the 2010 European champion of the decathlon.
The taulier Kevin Mayer, crowned decathlon world champion last summer in Eugene (Oregon, United States) for the second time, is the main chance of a podium. But the world record holder warned that he would take “no risk” one year from the 2024 Olympics. Behind him, few individuals are emerging at the top level in the world. Among those who can play the role of outsiders, the hurdlers Sasha Zhoya, Just Kwaou-Mathey, Wilhem Belocian (110m hurdles) and Wilfried Happio, vice-champion of Europe in the 400m hurdles, and the 800m runners ( Gabriel Tual, Benjamin Robert, Rénelle Lamote).
“French athletics is denser”
The French team relies above all on the strength of the collective and the relays, worked on in depth during dedicated gatherings, to shine in Budapest, then in Paris. “If we manage to take a medal here, it would open all the doors for us for next year”, considers the four-time French 100m champion Mouhamadou Fall. After a tight selection at the Worlds-2022, the FFA has opened the floodgates and is taking 78 athletes (56 individually), i.e. one of the three largest delegations (along with the United States and Germany).
“French athletics is doing better as a whole, it is denser. We have about fifteen athletes who can have the ambition to get into the top 8, we try to think beyond the number of medals, but I expect better than Eugene,” said Barras, without commenting on a quantified objective of medals, as usual.
After having lost en route the multi-medal hurdler Pascal Martinot-Lagarde, preceded by three competitors, and Renaud Lavillenie, injured, the French team is sorely lacking in pillars. The FFA nevertheless strives to create “cohesion, a blue spirit”, between the courses and the gatherings, in particular the last of a few days at Insep before flying to Hungary. In Budapest, it is also after, namely the qualification for the Olympic Games-2024 at home, which is already at stake for the Blues: a place of finalist (top 8), offering priority status according to the defined selection procedures by the FFA, will open the doors of the Stade de France wide.