It only took one question.
Can you tell us about the day of your Olympic qualification, the first for a Canadian men’s artistic gymnastics team since 2008?
This is the first thing we asked the very voluble Félix Dolci once he was seated in front of us for our interview. The 22-year-old was just waiting for that to launch into the detailed, thrilling and touching account of the day of the 1er October 2023, where the team achieved a historic fourth place in the World Championship qualifiers.
Here it is, in his words.
“When we arrived in Belgium [pour les Championnats du monde]we knew very well why we were there, where we were going. It was a bit of a group mentality: it’s make or break. At that time, it was the last chance to qualify as a team, we had to make a top 12 to have a team at the Olympics.
“At that point, we knew it was very possible, but that there were a lot of teams fighting for that result. That morning of the competition – we were in the first sub-division on the second day – we all woke up extremely early, around 5 or 6 in the morning.”
All the guys, we were ready to go. There was a lot of excitement in the air, let’s not hide it. Every guy who got on the machine, it could completely change the result and it could make us go, or not, to the Olympics.
Felix Dolci
“We had six machines, four guys who had to go everywhere. It could go from all sides, all directions, depending on how the day was going to go. We started with pommel horses. […] Right from the start, if two guys go down, it’s pretty much over. Everyone is stressed. We watch, but everyone does really well. The guys handled the pressure like champions. […]
“It was the high bar which was our penultimate apparatus, where we said to ourselves: OK, guys, if we stick with the apparatus, we’re going to the Olympics, for sure. We were extremely focused, there was a lot of pressure throughout the competition. The guys were so absorbed in the task, the time went by quickly, there was not too much chatter, it was very automatic.
“We had training camps, competitions after competitions in preparation just for that day. We had been thinking about it for two years, day and night. […]
“We know each other very well, we knew that we had been preparing for that morning for so long. On the high bar, we knew we were so close to the goal. All the guys did it, they succeeded in their routine. The high bar is a risky apparatus. If someone misses the bar, everything can go wrong. At that point, we cleared that apparatus, we only had the floor left, one of our strongest apparatuses. […]
We had phenomenal performances. We have never performed so well together, simultaneously, at the right time. We have never done so well. We did not need to be perfect everywhere to qualify, but to be fourth in the world like we did, it was really unexpected.
Felix Dolci
“I was lucky enough to be the last athlete to go to floor. I put the stamp on our ticket to Paris. I absolutely exploded on floor; it sent me to the final. We literally overtook China, which I don’t think has ever been done in history. Certainly, [les Chinois] had a bad competition, but a competition is still a competition. We were fourth in the world.
“It was completely legendary, it was crazy. There are videos all over YouTube. I come down from the big podium on the ground, all the guys run towards me, we all hug each other, we give each other a big hug. Everyone starts screaming. The competition isn’t even over. There are other athletes on other apparatus competing. We’re yelling. There are people crying. Even I had tears. It was so much pressure, it was so difficult. It just released you when you knew you had done it.”
“So many times in the year before, I saw myself at that moment. I said to myself: we’re going to qualify, we’re going to have that feeling. Sometimes you doubt yourself: what do I do if it doesn’t work out? What’s going to happen? We can’t let that happen.
“Words are hard to find to describe the emotions. I have rarely been as emotional as that in competition.”
Read “Félix Dolci: It’s all in the head”