First failure. This Thursday, the French women’s ice hockey team played the first match in its history at the Winter Olympic Games. A meeting against the Italians, at home, which turned into a fiasco. While they opened the scoring via Gabrielle De Serres in the 10th minute, their advantage only lasted sixty seconds, until Kayla Tutino equalized.
The Transalpines then left nothing to the Bleues, who only shot on goal 15 times during the match. Opposite, Italy tried their luck 46 times, with three other goals to come. The first by Rebecca Roccella in the 2nd period, the last two by Matilde Fantin and Kristin Rovere in the third and last.
“In the middle of the match, we perhaps let ourselves go a little with all the emotions,” regretted Sophie Leclerc. In the third half, we managed to express ourselves a little more, to develop our game. We will have to save these games for tomorrow. » “I don’t think we were surprised by the magnitude of the event but we didn’t manage to impose our game. We played passively, we watched them a little, we were afraid of making mistakes, that’s what we lacked today,” said Estelle Duvin.
Two Games to measure yourself
Despite the defeat, this first match should offer experience and lessons for the Blues. Eliminated from the race for the Beijing 2022 Olympic Games for a small goal during the Olympic qualifying tournament (TQO), the French women had this time obtained their place in the prestigious competition thanks to the exclusion of Russia due to the conflict with Ukraine. An important moment in view of the next home Games in the Alps.
In the continuation of the competition in Milan-Cortina, the French team will face Japan (Friday at 12:10 p.m.), Sweden (Sunday at 4:40 p.m.) and Germany (Monday at 4:30 p.m.). The first three teams in Group B will qualify for the quarter-finals, while the five nations that make up Group A already have their ticket to this final phase.
