End clap for the European Athletics Championships, Sunday August 21 in Munich. On the occasion of this last day, the French team won two new medals: a silver for the men’s 4X100 relay and a bronze for Yann Schrub in the 10,000 meters.
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If the overall record of France’s European Championships in Munich – all disciplines combined – is very encouraging for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, French athletics is struggling: the Blues only bring back nine medals.
Lavillenie, Mayer, Bigot… the absence of the leaders
In Bavaria, the France team could not count on its leaders. From the first test of his decathlon, world champion Kevin Mayer, injured in the thigh, was forced to give up. If others were able to compete, they missed the podium: Renaud Lavillenie, ex-world record holder and 2012 Olympic pole vault champion, and Quentin Bigot, hammer throw champion, both came 7th. Alone Pascal Martinot-Lagarde, second in the 110 meter hurdles, and Wilfried Happio, specialist in the 400 meter hurdles, responded by collecting a silver medal.
With only one medal, the backwardness of women’s athletics
French women’s athletics is still suffering. The half-melter Rénelle Lamote is the only one to have won a silver medal, in the 800 meters. After Amsterdam in 2016 and Berlin in 2018, this is the third silver medal in a row for the Frenchwoman at the European Outdoor Athletics Championships. Hope of the competition, the French hammer throw record holder Alexandra Tavernier settled for 11th place in the final.
No title for the French
The Blues leave Bavaria without the slightest title, a first for 40 years. Nothing to alarm Romain Barras, the high performance director of the French Athletics Federation: “Indeed, we can regret not having a gold medal. Nevertheless, I am proud of the athletes, I am proud of the French team and the face it was able to show during these championships. really a lot of hope for the future.”
“We may have lacked a bit of success to turn silver into gold, turn the small fourth place into a bronze medal.”
Romain Barras, high level managerat franceinfo
The vast majority of medals collected in Munich by the French were in disciplines where the European level is much lower than the world level. Not very reassuring, two years from the Paris Olympics.