Published15. April 2024, 08:06
Basketball: Gilles Martin and the Swiss team have a heavy heart
This weekend, the Swiss 3×3 selection did not qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. It will have one last chance in mid-May.
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Gilles Martin will not have fond memories of this Hong Kong tournament.
FIBA
“I had a pain in my heart, my stomach. We must continue to live, especially since there are more serious things. But on our small scale, it’s ch…”
Sunday morning, in Hong Kong, Gilles Martin was at the bottom of the tank. The Vaudois and the Swiss 3×3 team were eliminated from the Olympic qualifying tournament, 3rd in their group with 55 units behind Austria (57) and the Netherlands (55). He will have missed a basket to reach the semi-finals of an event which delivered a single ticket – reserved for the winner, Latvia – for the Paris Olympics.
“We don’t overcome such a cruel scenario, we live with it,” Martin confesses. For the next two hours, we each stayed in our rooms, sad, on our phones. Being taken out like this doesn’t reflect our level. If we were short of 15 points, we wouldn’t remake the world, but there…”
Before the return flight, the child from Morges spoke of this escapade as one of the biggest disappointments of his career, with the defeat in the final of his Team Lausanne in Ouchy last summer. “There, it’s a little different,” he adds. I don’t know which team will send Swiss Basket to Hungary but we still have a chance to go to Paris.”
It will be from May 16 to 19, in Debrecen, where sixteen nations will compete for three tickets. “We have to learn lessons,” says Martin. We arrived late in China, without training in the same team with Marco (Lehmann), Westher (Molteni) and Jonathan (Dubas). From this week, the preselected must play and live together. Alchemy is essential.”
Will the federation trust the same group or will it incorporate a Friborg touch (Jonathan Kazadi and/or Natan Jurkovitz) since Olympic will have finished its season? This is the question that will fuel the coming weeks.
2024-04-15 07:13:28
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