Less present on the podiums than the French women’s team, the boys continue to gain experience, before the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Colossal track record, at least as big as his stature. Teddy Riner should bow out at the end of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The Guadeloupe giant (2.04 m and 150 kg) will seek a third individual Olympic title to close a career of more than 15 years of domination, with in particular eleven world titles at stake. The figurehead of French judo will leave a void, which will have to be filled.
During the last twenty years, in addition to Riner, most of the international medals gleaned by French judo have been for women. Gévrise Emane, Lucie Décosse and more recently Clarisse Agbegnenou or the Gardoise Shirine Boukli. A density of champions which is renewed with the young Romane Dicko (23 years old), Marie-Eve Gahié (23 years old), without forgetting the Montpellier Blandine Pont (24 years old).
This Monday, at the end of the morning, in the Halle Jacques-Shaw du Creps in Montpellier, the volleyball players of the Pole France gave way to the tatami mats, and to more than fifty judokas in blue and white judogis. “It’s the first summer camp we’ve done with the new staff and they organized it well,” admits Walide Khyar, still out of breath after an intense series of randori (training fights). Like some of his training partners, the bronze medalist of the last Worlds (-66 kg) is preparing for the Budapest Masters.
The Masters then the European Championships
“It’s a competition that brings together the 36 best in the world by category, explains Alexis Mathieu, 10th in the world at – 90 kg. We consider it the toughest competition on the circuit, and I’m going there to re-confirm and seek my place for the future. ”
From August 4 to 6, they will be, with Khyar and Mathieu, “a dozen” to go and rub shoulders with the world’s elite of sport founded by Jigoro Kano at the end of the 19th century, specifies Baptiste Leroy. The new manager of the French men’s team can count on a substantial herd of top-level athletes: “The very young generation will surely not be ready for Paris 2024, but rather for 2028. What is good with them is that they are still ahead, and that gives us very good sparring. We are lucky in France to be able to do national training courses with people of international level, while other countries have to travel…”
At work to prepare for the Masters, military world championships, Games of La Francophonie and even Universidade, the France group met in Montpellier, more than three months from the European championships, another fine deadline which will take place in the Hérault capital (November 3-5, 2023).
“At least one medalist per category, for Paris 2024”
“The setting here in Montpellier is great! At Creps, the agents bend over backwards to ensure that we are in good conditions, notes Leroy. The European championships are a good deadline, we will be able to observe the athletes with the media, the pressure around them… But it’s still a championship where there isn’t the whole Asian continent…”
Behind those who have already tasted an individual international medal like Walide Khyar or Luka Mkheidze, the others have long teeth.
“In each category, we try to have at least one medalist for Paris 2024”, announces the boss of the Blues.
The categories – 60 kg, – 66 kg and – 90 kg are currently the most supplied with “three boys among the 15 best in the world”. A rich choice and an emulation for the moment, certainly a headache when making a selection for the Olympics, in a year, proof that the next generation is knocking on the door.
2023-07-25 04:56:02
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