For ninety-eight years that long track speed skating has been on the program of the Winter Games, no French skater has ever hoisted his skates on a podium. In Beijing, in 2022, there was not even a tricolor representative. Managed since its inception by the French Federation of Ice Sports (FFSG), the discipline will try in the future to do better under the aegis of another federation, that of rollerblading and skateboarding. In December 2022, the Ministry of Sports withdrew the delegation to the FFSG, a blow for a federation which had already lost ice hockey in 2006, creator of its own federation.
In France, as in a growing number of countries, the “long track” is intimately linked to rollerblading. In a diagnosis published in May 2022 and consulted by The worldthe National Sports Agency (ANS) recalled that “the majority of athletes who take part in competitions come from the [Fédération française] the roller”.
Fourth at the 2010 Olympics in the 10,000 meters, Alexis Contin is the French skater who has come closest to the Olympic dream. Multi-champion of the world of skating – sport where France is, he recalls, “among the three best nations in the world” –, he pleads for this reorientation:
“Ensuring a real transition of the best skaters [et rolleuses] on the ice, it’s sure to work. Statistically, all the countries that have done so have brought home medals. »
Now a trainer in Berlin, he is developing this “ice-rolling” sector in Germany. The first results were not long in coming: Felix Rijhnen, roller skating champion, has just won his first skating World Cup.
Former coach of Alexis Contin, Alain Nègre personifies the links between the two disciplines. Technical officer at the Federation of roller skating since 2009, he holds the position of performance director and intervened, until December 2022, on behalf of the FFSG during the long track World Cup rounds.
“Put the best skaters on an ice project”
“Until now, the project within the FFSG was to try to support those who are already on the ice and who have had good timeshe explains. Now the project is to put the best skaters on an ice project. A transfer takes about four years. » This year, American roller skater Erin Jackson became Olympic skating champion at the age of 29, having never skated four years before. For Alain Nègre, we must move from an individual approach to a real transfer policy. “It would no longer rely on athletes trying to make this effort on their own”he said.
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