Twenty years after their last participation, the Blues of wheelchair basketball missed their return but were amazed

The French wheelchair basketball team was beaten 83-68 by Canada in its first match at Bercy, twenty years after its last participation in the Paralympic Games, in Athens in 2004.

The sixth man answered the call, but it wasn’t enough. In front of a nearly full Bercy arena (around 14,000 spectators), the French wheelchair basketball team was perhaps carried away by the emotion of making its return to the Paralympic Games in front of such a crowd, Friday August 30 against Canada (83-68 defeat). Despite the score, the Blues savored this first match in twenty years on the Paralympic stage.

“We’ve really worked hard in recent years, and we wondered if the French team had a future.”remembers Audrey Cayol, captain of the Blues and the only player already present in 2004 in Athens. Since these Games, the Tricolores have won a vice-world champion title in 2010 but then failed to qualify for London 2012. “Afterwards, it was a descent into hell, it was up and down.”explains the captain.

“We had a huge team in the 1980s until 2000”recalls Sébastien Evanno, former Bleu and franceinfo consultant: sport. The French team has indeed a Paralympic title in 1984 and three bronze medals in 1976, 1988 and 1992, but then “The level has stagnated while the competing teams have gained momentum and become more professional. Places at the Games are very expensive, so it took a rebuild with many different staffs to succeed in qualifying for Paris”continues Sébastien Evanno.

And even when they thought they had qualified, the Blues took a blow to the head. The fault of a decision by the International Paralympic Committee to reduce the number of teams taking part in the competition in Paris from twelve to eight. “We learned not even a year before the start of the Games that the host country was no longer automatically qualified and that it was necessary to go through a qualifying tournament with big teamsexplains Audrey Cayol. It was a shock, we thought it was a joke, we asked the federation to see if we couldn’t get around it, but we went with it. We qualified and it’s up to us to show that it wasn’t a fluke, we’re out for revenge to show that this is our place.”

Against Canada at Bercy on Friday night, the Blues even had the psychological upper hand against a team beaten during the qualifying tournament. But facing an attendance never seen before in wheelchair basketball, 12,276 spectators according to official figures, more than against the quarter-final of the Olympic Games France-Canada, they did not succeed in their entry into the competition. While they led 41-39 at half-time, they collapsed in the last two quarters before losing by fifteen points (83-68). “In terms of emotions, it was quite huge, but I think we were tense, uptight, and that let us down on shots that were too short. We need to relax. We clearly lack experience, we’re trying to relax, visualize.”analyzes Nicolas Jouanserre, 38 points all by himself, and who says he sometimes jumped when the public celebrated his baskets.

For their coach Franck Bornerand, “The disappointment is all the greater to lose in this room”. Everyone still enjoys an extraordinary atmosphere, especially during the Marseillaiseand with a blue stand from which emanated the large cardboard heads of the players, like during the Olympic Games. “The public responded, it was so moving”says Sofyane Mehiaoui, who had trouble finding her loved ones in the stands. “But now it’s good, we’ve seen Bercy, we’ve seen the atmosphere, we’ve been hit hard, and we have to let loose.”says Nicolas Jouanserre.

Les Bleus play again on Saturday against Germany (9:30 p.m.) and Monday against Great Britain (6:15 p.m.). They are assured, like all the teams, of playing in the quarter-finals since the group stage only serves as a classification phase to determine the opponents in the final phase, but they would have to win at least one match to theoretically avoid the American ogre.