in California, a less good Kevin Mayer – Libération

The French world record holder in the decathlon abandoned the competition in San Diego, which he wanted to use as a springboard towards his Olympic qualification. Troubled by pain in his right thigh, Kevin Mayer has until June 30 to validate his ticket for the Paris Olympics.

The Aztec Invitational decathlon in San Diego will resume without Kevin Mayer. Injured, the French world record holder, who came to Californian lands in search of qualifying minimums for the Olympic Games, stuck to a correct 100 m (10″75), a worrying long jump competition (with discomfort felt during the warm-up and only one jump validated, at 7.07m), a shot put certainly invigorating (16.10m), but abandoning before the third attempt at the height – bothered by pain in the right thigh, he did not will not attempt his third attempt at the bar, although accessible at 1m89.

Four events and that was the end of the French “combinard”’s hopes of validating his ticket for the Games, but also of succeeding in completing a decathlon, which has not happened to him since July 2022 and his world gold medal. landed on the same American West Coast, in Eugene. Harassed by injuries, he has since given up at the European Championships in Munich in 2022, at the World Championships in Budapest last summer and gave up at the last moment to tackle the Olympic minimums in Brisbane this winter. He did not consider himself fully recovered and preferred to fine-tune his training in preparation for this American university meeting without much competition and as far away as possible from French media pressure.

At the start of the week in Eugene, the Mayer clan was still welcoming this decision and optimism seemed boundless. Already, the minimums set (8460 points) are not crazy for those who hold the world record (9126 points). Then, the physical problems seemed far away. “The lights are green,” assured Montpellier coach Alexandre Bonacorsi at a press conference. Most of the training was done in Montpellier, we have had several months without brakes since December. We worked on all the tests, we did big work cycles. For the past two weeks, we have been making adjustments and sharpening.”

“Qualification is the smallest of my problems”

And above all, Kevin Mayer was “more serene than in previous years”, according to his coach, a precision far from being anecdotal, as the decathlete is known for his pre-competition torments, which he described thus before being crowned world champion in London in 2017: “I shit myself the fortnight before a decathlon, it’s a form of depression. There is a lot of stress. I always want to stop athletics before a decathlon.”

But we will have to go back, and quickly, because the deadline set for achieving the minimums is June 30. Nothing to panic about, however, assured Mayer in the wake of his failure on Thursday, estimating that his “bill contracture” would be treated “in ten days”: “I am not worried about qualifying [aux Jeux, ndlr]. I can totally see myself in a packed Stade de France on D-Day, don’t worry. Qualification is the smallest of my problems. The day I will be on the track at the Stade de France, I can tell you that it will be a huge pleasure.”