with a hammer, Bigot drives a first nail in Montreuil – Libération

Operated on for a herniated disc in January 2023, the Frenchman found the world’s elite in hammer throwing this week at the Montreuil meeting, near Paris. Achieving a performance that bodes well for the start of the season,

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For French hammer thrower Quentin Bigot, competing in European or world championships is great. “It’s always the same set [l’aire de lancer], always the same hammer and always the same adversaries.” Namely golgoths from Central and Eastern Europe, especially Poland, a country where the hammer is king, and whose throwers have nothing to envy of the glory of the sprinters in Jamaica.

So while we’re at it, why not compare the Olympic Games and the Montreuil meeting (Seine-Saint-Denis)? Because on Thursday May 16 in the evening at the Jean-Delbert stadium, it was the world elite that Quentin Bigot faced for his return to competition after having had surgery for a herniated disc in January 2023: the Polish titans were there – Wojciech Nowicki, reigning Olympic champion, Pawel Fajdek, five-time world champion – and all that was missing was the young Canadian Ethan Katzberg, who burst onto the scene last year to win the world title. “I found the same guys I saw two years ago,” confirmed Bigot, reassured, Thursday evening. Nowicki was happy to see me, he came to check on me at the end of the competition and said: “Finally you are back, the first stone has been laid for you.”

This first stone? A throw of 75.42 m which earned the French champion third place behind Nowicki (79.54 m) and Fajdek (75.74 m). Not very close to the Olympic minimums (78.20), far from his record at 80.55 m, but light years away from worrying Messin: “I think I am in the best season of my career, assured us -he in March. I’m coming out of an internship where I broke a lot of records, records that even date back to the summer before the Tokyo Games. It’s ideal.”

The Frenchman indeed achieved a performance that bodes well for the start of the season, consistent with those he achieved at the start of his best summers, when he became 5th at the 2021 Olympics or vice-world champion in 2019. With the added satisfaction of having managed to overcome the physical and mental difficulty linked to almost two years of absence. “At the time of my first test, I was stressed like a cadet,” he laughed once he left the stadium, on his way to the force anti-doping control. The last competition I did was Munich in 2022 and I had finished with my herniated disc, so I had to get rid of all that. Anxiety, bad stress….” It’s done. Make way for the minimums, which he now says he is ready to knock out “tomorrow or in a week”.

Olympic minimums which Mélina Robert-Michon came close to in the discus in Montreuil. Second in the competition won by the Portuguese Liliana Ca (63.67 m), the Frenchwoman improved her best mark of the season with 63.26. Not enough to satisfy the Lyonnaise, still in the running to be the standard bearer of the French Olympic team: “I’m a little frustrated because I had a lot of desire and I hoped to do better, but this It won’t be this time. No stress though, she remains eligible for the ranking.