Emmanuel Macron recalled this on Monday during his interview with BFM TV 100 days before the start of the Paris Olympic Games: he wants to see France finish in the top 5 nations during these Olympic Games at home. An ambitious goal? Not really, according to a study published Wednesday. Gracenote, a virtual medal table created for the London 2012 Olympic Games, thinks even bigger. And believes that the French, eighth in Tokyo three years ago, could climb onto the podium in the capital.
The Blues would finish third, behind the United States and China, in front of their supporters. France would win 55 medals, including 28 gold, the essential criterion for deciding between nations at the Olympic Games, 19 silver and 8 bronze. This is slightly better than during the last update of the virtual table, carried out at the end of February, where Gracenote awarded 52 medals for 27 titles to the French.
The tricolors would achieve this historic performance, both in terms of number of podiums and gold medals, thanks to a new double for its women's and men's handball teams, the Olympic title of fencer Romain Cannone in the epee, the coronations of Teddy Riner and Clarisse Agbégnénou in judo or thanks to the swimmer Léon Marchand, credited with two gold charms and one in silver. France would also go for gold with mountain biker Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, the women's saber team and boxer Sofiane Oumiha.
All these performances would allow the French to point ahead of the Netherlands, fourth with 18 titles, and Great Britain. The latter would win, as it stands, as many gold medals - 13 - as Australia and Japan but would be ahead of them thanks to a greater number of silver medals.
But how would France achieve such a leap in performance? One, thanks to the boost given to the host country by Gracenote, which noted in London, Rio then Tokyo that the nations hosting the Olympics were performing better than usual. Two, thanks to the very small announced presence of Russian athletes, fifth in Tokyo, and whose performances will not be reflected in the medal table.
But how likely is this scenario? Gracenote defends the reliability of its model, established from the results of athletes in Olympic sports, recalling that it had predicted the three delegations with the most podiums (United States, China, and Russian Olympic Committee) and the top 10 out of order in Tokyo. “Now, we must not forget that it is still sport, and that it is very difficult to predict,” explains the head of analysis, Simon Gleave. There are surprises, and that's good. »