Sportsmen on a wire. Last Saturday, in Saint-Affrique, the prefectural decree authorizing the holding of the Route d'Occitanie fell in the early hours of the morning, just a few hours before the departure of the peloton. Enough to give cold sweats, despite the sweltering enveloping Aveyron, to the organizers of the first cycling event contested on French soil since the deconfinement.
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The day before, the Racing Club de Strasbourg announced the positive Covid-19 test of five footballers in its workforce. In oblivion, the friendly match against Dijon scheduled for Tuesday; as was canceled that of Nantes in Charleroi (Belgium) after five cases detected within the club of Loire-Atlantique. The team of En avant Guingamp (Ligue 2), it is in fourteen after the discovery of so many positive cases at the end of a training course on the Breton coast. "Ç was going ê be as ç everywhere in France throughout the season» , Predicted Xavier Gravelaine. The sporting director of the Costa Rican club does not play the ominous birds. His speech is simply marked with common sense. Because, as with all other activities before it, the resumption of professional sport in France at the time of the coronavirus promises to be bumpy. In the clubs and within the authorities, despite strict protocols and generally well applied, all fear a cascade of positive tests causing the collapse of a barely rebuilt house of cards, the health situation remaining extremely fragile.
Masses without the faithful
So far, everything is going well… or almost. Key events of the summer recovery, the two finals won by PSG (Coupe de France and Coupe de la Ligue) went off without a hitch but in a Stade de France transformed into a boudoir (5,000 people authorized for 81,000 seats), far the electric atmosphere of great evenings. In Sables-d'Olonne, lovers of beautiful hulls had to take out the binoculars to admire the boats that had left for Iceland to validate their qualification for the Vendée Globe without going through the pontoons. The traditional and legendary ascent of the channel by sailors, galvanized by the fervor of the public (1.5 million visitors at the start in 2016) before setting off around the world, will it take place in front of empty docks, the November 8?
Everything is possible in this famous "world after" where the high mass of sport is now celebrated without faithful, at best with a handful of them. Little consolation, Julian Alaphilippe and his Tour de France comrades will, in the heart of September, climb the Planche des Belles Filles or the formidable and unprecedented Loze pass with less risk of being heckled on the roads. crowded by madmen with a grain of madness, which is also the charm of the race. Impossible, however, to ensure compliance with the rules of social distancing and barrier gestures over the 3,470 kilometers of the Grande Boucle.
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The situation remains more controllable in the stadiums. Confirmed by the Minister for Sports, Roxana Maracineanu, the ceiling of 5,000 spectators is the nightmare of club presidents despite possible exemptions to increase the gauges if the health situation allows. Because the shortfall in terms of ticketing revenues, the main source of income for many disciplines (rugby, basketball, handball), threatens economies that are already fragile and strongly shaken by the three months of the spring shutdown. Despite the generous and necessary state subsidies, a second wave of the virus could end up pushing some over the precipice, including strongholds of French sport. The picture, inevitably dark, also applies to the Stakhanovists of tennis and other individual sports in search of the slightest bonus of victory, week after week, to ensure their survival in the shadow of the stars. Less than four years from the Olympics in Paris, the threat is there.
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