We wrote, before the Tokyo Olympics, that our athletes have already accomplished something by marking their presence in Tokyo. We have said that given the sloppy preparation and the limited resources allocated, without forgetting of course the painful episode of covid, we cannot be severe with them. And we continue to respect our athletes, especially those who have already won Olympic medals. But that doesn’t also mean accepting and justifying everything. It is not a problem to lose or miss a podium, the level was very high in some cases, but still, when we see big names losing in the first round without providing the minimum effort, without fully playing their chances, we have the right to revolt. Defeats in the first round on large scores, champions unable to play on their value, a series of underperformances for sports which still had better means than others, it was sad.
Certainly we will not offend our elite who work without supervision and without substantial means, but the fact is there: these Olympics were very disappointing for fencing (cascading defeats), judo (off topic), wrestling (some wrestlers did not even stand up to their opponents), for tennis (Ons Jabeur was not the one we know), and to a lesser extent for other sports. We would have liked to see Nihel Cheïkhrouhou, Nihel Landolsi, Inès Boubakri, Fares Ferjani, Marwa Amri, Sarra Besbès do better and defend their chances more. The damage is done. The athletes pay dearly for preparation errors, poor technical management (it is time to put some order in the technical structures of certain federations!) And also this fragile mind and this enormous pressure on the backs of our athletes. The stay in Tokyo was not easy in the head, there was a lot of nuisance around the athletes. Ayoub Hafnaoui and Khélil Jendoubi succeeded because they were “forgotten”. When we “stifled” them, from the people present in Tokyo, one narrowly missed a gold medal, the other failed to qualify for the 800m final. The Cnot, the Ministry of Sports and the federations assume a large part of the responsibility in these series defeats, and in this collapse of several champions!
