French handball team: "The absence of Siraba will make us stronger", assures Amandine Leynaud

Since Monday, his absence has gradually been accepted.

In any case, the players of the France team, meeting in training in Créteil with the staff until next Wednesday, have no real choice: we will have to do without Siraba Dembélé-Pavlovic.

Injured Sunday against CSKA Moscow in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, the indisputable captain suffers from a complete rupture of the right Achilles tendon.

Operated on Wednesday, she will miss her last Olympic Games, and the last blue event of her career.

Amandine Leynaud, who has spent her entire career in blue with her, from the Hopes to the last European Championships, looks back on this twist of fate.

How is this week's internship going?

AMANDINE LEYNAUD.

We were happy to meet again.

It is a pivotal period in the year.

We see the end of the Games arriving very quickly, everything will be linked.

I would like to say that all is well, if it hadn't been for Siraba's terrible injury ...

Under what conditions did you learn it?

I was going to take off from Hungary while watching her match, and saw the action where she got injured.

Seeing her cry at the edge of the field, I immediately understood that it was serious.

How did you feel when you learned it?

It's very sad.

Like all of us, she had a huge desire to go to Japan.

We are both very close, a special bond unites us since the France Espoirs team.

I know how she feels, having experienced a very big injury myself

(Editor's note: rupture of the cruciate ligaments of the knee in 2012).

Can we prevent such an injury and how do we get out of it?

This is of course unpredictable, even if the body sends signals to say to be careful.

Unfortunately, that is part of the life of a top athlete.

Personally, the six months that followed allowed me to regenerate myself, physically and mentally.

I am sure Siraba will learn to rebuild itself to come back even stronger for the next ten years!

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What could be the effects on the France group?

Siraba will be missed, sportingly and humanely.

We have only been together for three days, yet I sincerely believe that cohesion is not affected.

That is to say ?

We are lucky to have a lot of diversity in this group.

We will each take part of their load.

His absence will also give us, somewhere, the strength to look for something even more beautiful.