According to Nicolas Batum, not offering basketball a leading room would have an impact on the image of France, while this sport is king especially in the United States. In any case, this is what the captain of the Blues said during an interview with RMC Sport, this Saturday, July 2.
“Team USA, they are the attraction of the Olympic Games, they are the stars, the gods of the Olympics, he says. It’s a fact, it’s not to highlight basketball. And all that can affect the image of my sport and of Paris 2024. Then we’re going to Los Angeles in 2028 (for the Olympics, editor’s note), and I know what we are going to take as French people. I don’t want to be the laughingstock of the world. Because after Paris, it will be top level. »
But more than the place, it is the lack of preparation of the organizers of the 2024 Olympic Games that annoys Batum, who has just extended at the Los Angeles Clippers. « I don’t care if we play in Lille, I already played there at Euro 2015 and it was one of the biggest loves of my career, he explained to RMC Sport. But the problem is bigger than that. We do the Olympics in France, we are an extraordinary European capital… And we ask ourselves this question (to know where the tournament will take place, editor’s note) twenty months before. »
“We’re in Paris, damn it”
“We are in Paris, damn it. We have a great global French team, we have the Games at home, and twenty months before we don’t know where we care about volleyball, where we care about handball, where we care about basketball. That’s what pisses me off…”he continued.
The choice of the basketball site is subject to strong criticism from the players of the France team for several months, a movement initiated by the rear Evan Fournier.
The preliminary phase of the tournament was initially to take place at the Parc des Expositions at Porte de Versailles, in the south of the capital, before the Paris Olympics Organizing Committee preferred to give it up.
Since the outbreak of this controversy, basketball has still not found a base, the latest trend being that the qualifying phases take place in Lille.
