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Tokyo Olympics: "Now, coaches believe in us", confide the French foilists proud to have turned their backs on years of famine

2021-07-29T15:32:58.820Z


Beaten in the final against Russia, Anita Blaze, Astrid Guyart, Pauline Ranvier and Ysaura Thibus brought back to France their first medal


A moment of communion.

An intimate moment on the podium of the Olympic Games.

The four fencers approach, as if to meditate.

What they say to each other, and even what they do not say to each other, is theirs.

They are where they have dreamed of being for years: on the Olympic podium, the first in French women's foil since 1984 and a team bronze medal in Los Angeles.

This time, Anita Blaze, Astrid Guyart, Pauline Ranvier and Ysaura Thibus offered money to their gun.

On Thursday, they would have seen each other a notch higher, where they pass briefly to congratulate their Russian opponents. They arrived in the final carried by the momentum of their incredible comeback in the half against Italy, "the best team on paper" in the eyes of Pauline Ranvier. Led by 11 points, they blew in the bronchi of the Transalpines (45-43) to bring thrill to the breakfast of the French more than 9000 kilometers away. Before failing during a final badly started stage whose trajectory has not deviated this time (34-45).

“We went to get our final, but we missed this final, regrets Anita Blaze.

We're disappointed, that's normal, but we're going to savor our medal.

"Because if it does not have the color that the four athletes aspired to see when they chanted their war cry" Together, always, until the end, ahou ", it has the merit of placing them on the map of the tricolor fencing.

For 37 years, the weapon had become synonymous with famine among girls.

"We are not going to give up"

“When I was juniors, I promised myself that women's foil would no longer be the fifth wheel of the French federation's coach,” says the team's replacement and big sister, Astrid Guyart. There is pride, but I also think of those foil generations passed before us. People didn't totally believe in them. Now coaches choose us and believe in us. "

At 38, the fencer experienced the frustration of London, where her team had missed the opportunity to save the nation by avoiding the fiasco of zero points for French fencing. In 2016, the event was skipped from the Rio program, like the men's team saber. An absence violently felt by these athletes, now already turned towards the Parisian meeting in three years. "We are not going to give up," promises Anita Blaze. And try to get the first hexagonal coronation in the discipline since 1980. It will have lasted too long.

Source: leparis

All sports articles on 2021-07-29

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