The Review and Results
Text : Olivier Remy // Photos : Amandine Lauriol
While the French para team won three beautiful medals on Thursday, the Paris-Levallois Grand Prix ends this Sunday without a medal for the valid French team. A real disappointment of which Patrick Rosso, the national technical director, is not hiding, but restating the context and the challenges ahead.
" We have to be clear: we completely miss our Grand Prix at home and that is not a pleasure. The results are not good at all, especially since we have not been successful either in the last tournaments, with the effect that we did not approach this event in full confidence. Maybe we should have two medals tonight, three in the best case. In 2022 and 2023, there were never more than three medals on this event, which is, it should be remembered, above a world championship level with the thirty-two best in each category. But we didn't manage to get where we had to. We have a team in part in the process, some on the return. Our lead, Althéa Laurin, is stopped, Magda wasn't at her best, with a lack of landmarks, we saw Souleyman (Alaphilippe) Go get a podium... There are still good things. Mah (Fofana), it's very positive: it's barely coming, it's her first season, her game against the Chinese – which wins in the final – is tough, and she made two quarter finals on the last two Grand Prix. Manissa (Lakehal-Rollings) Also: you feel that there is something to go for with her. When these athletes engage, there are not many who resist them. On the other hand, experienced athletes have not really been up to it. »
"Combating »
Pressure because it was in Paris? "Perhaps. But my vision of things is that we had everything to gain, nothing to lose. We'll have to debrief with lucidity, cold, this Monday, because we can't go on like this with several consecutive failures. There is a new staff, reorganized early in the summer, who must find their marks and recreate dialogue, communication, agree on the lines of work. But each athlete must also be autonomous: we are alone on the battlefield. We can't get crutches everywhere, want everything to be perfect all the time, aligned, whether it's physical preparation, technique, session just before the competition... Athletes must take the responsibility to engage stronger. On the event, every time we had to go get the little point that was rocking the game, we didn't go, and it turned on the other side. These are small details that make us lose the knife matches instead of winning them. We do a combat sport and if we don't fight, we lose. There's talent, there's potential on this team. I'm not worried about the next one, but we're gonna have to change the way we approach the competition. I also want to say that there is worse than defeat. I think strongly of Theo (Lucien), Knee wound tonight. Let us be united, determined, able to meet the demands of the very high level. »
Results
-49 kg: 1. Jingyue MA (CHN) - 2. Hyang-gi KIM (KOR) - 3. Chieh-ling WANG (TPE) - 3. Kamilah SALIM (HUN)
-57 kg: 1. Maria Clara PACHECO (BRA) - 2. Fadia KHIRFAN (JOR) - 3. Mariya SEVOSTYANOVA (KAZ) - 3. Faith DILLON (USA)
-67 kg: 1. Viviana MARTON (HUN) - 2. Ruth GBAGBI (CIV) - 3.
+67 kg: 1. Lauren WILLIAMS (GBR) - 2. Lei XU (CHN) - 3. Anastasia KOSMYCHEVA (RUS) - 3. Luana MARTON (HUN)
-58 kg: 1. Abolfazl ZANDI (IRI) - 2. Tae-joon PARK (KOR) - 3.
-68 kg: 1. Jinho MUN (KOR) - 2. Najmiddin KOSIMKHOJIEV (UZB) - 3. Jun Jang (KOR) - 3. Zaid KAREEM (JOR)
-80 kg: 1. Henrique Brands RODRIGUES FERNANDES (BRA) - 2. Jasurbek JAYSUNOV (UZB) - 3. Victor RODRIGUES (USA) - 3. Haitam ZARHOUTI (MAR)
+80 kg: 1. Arian Salimi (IRI) - 2. Caden CUNNINGHAM (GBR) - 3. Seif EISSA (EGY) - 3. Motaz FAOUI (TUN)