8 Olympic medals in one day, a first since 1996

French athletes shone on Monday in what will remain one of the best days in the history of French sport.

[RECTIFICATIF] In a previous version of this article, Franceinfo announced that France had won 8 Olympic medals in one day for the first time in 100 years. It turns out that the last record dates back to the Atlanta Games in 1996, with 9 medals in one day. We apologize to our readers for this error.

Eight medals in eight hours. We knew that the French athletes were particularly motivated by the idea of ​​participating in these Olympic Games on home soil. After two successful first days of competition (eight medals), they simply doubled their total. Unheard of for the Blues at the Olympic Games since July 27, 1996 at the Atlanta Games.

The French riders opened the show early in the afternoon by winning silver in the team eventing competition. Victor Koretzky then tasted the same metal in mountain biking, followed by the men’s archery team at 5:30 p.m. Everything then accelerated, with two new Olympic medals, bronze for Sarah-Léonie Cysique first, then silver for the surprising Joan-Benjamin Gaba. Between the two, a coronation, that of Nicolas Gestin in canoe-kayak (C1), tipped the day into the irrational. Finally, there was the climax with the French-French final between the sabre fencers Manon Apithy-Brunet and Sarah Balzer, won by the former. They therefore added a gold medal and a silver medal to the well-filled basket of the French delegation.

At the end of the fifth day of competition, France is second in the medal standings, behind Japan, even though it has a higher overall medal total, 16, compared to Japan’s 12. On the other hand, the host country only has five Olympic titles, compared to six for the Japanese delegation.