Aurélien Canot, Media365, published on Thursday April 11, 2024 at 2:23 p.m.
Obliged to reach the quarter-finals of the European Championships, this week in Saarbrück (Germany), to get back ahead of Lucas Corvée and Renan Lebar in the race for the ticket for the doubles tournament of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Christo and Toma Junior Popov failed. On Thursday, the two brothers suffered a fatal defeat against the Danes Toft and Söndergaard and only one of them can now claim the last sesame for the singles.
No Olympic tournament for the Popov brothers! Just like the Lebrun brothers in table tennis, the tandem should have been one of the attractions of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games this summer. Instead, not only will Toma Junior Popov and Christo Popov, our two new badminton phenomena, not play the doubles tournament but only one of the two will play the singles, while the other will attend these Parisian Games from his sofa . Three tickets for the Olympics will in fact be awarded, and the first two will go to Lucas Corvée and Ronan Labar. From then on, the count is quickly done: of these three sesames distributed by the French Badminton Federation, only one remains, and it will be played between the two Popov brothers. However, the latter had the cards in hand. On the other hand, they had no right to fail and absolutely had to reach the quarter-finals, this week in Saarbrück (Germany) during the European Championships, so as not to see their last hopes of competing in the Paris Games fly away.
Christo advantage at the moment
Unfortunately for the two brothers, who had regained the advantage in the race for these three tickets at stake after their semi-final in Madrid, they did not go further than the round of 16. Thursday, opposed to the Danes Jesper Toft and Andreas Söndergaard, the two Frenchmen were unable to achieve this victory, synonymous with a ticket for the Olympics. Ranked 41st in the world, Christo Popv and Toma Junior Popov suffered the unnecessary defeat (21-8, 21-13) against the Toft-Söndergaard pair, 44th in the world. And while no one understood the decision of Corvée and Labar (38th in the world), eliminated at the start of Germany, to go and play a tournament in Kazakhstan just before, here are the two great rivals of the Popovs for the Olympic doubles tournament virtually qualified for the Games. The last runner-up will be played between the two Popov brothers. Christo, the youngest of the two (22 years old) and a new French nugget in his sport, is the lucky winner for the moment. However, if Toma Junior reaches the final of these European Championships, it is he who will snatch the ticket. A family affair that the Popovs wanted to avoid at all costs. It missed.
2024-04-11 12:23:00
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