When you left as the last torchbearer, France was third, how did you approach your relay?
Vincent Luis:
When Cassandre (Beaugrand) passed the baton to me, I knew I was about thirty seconds behind Yee (the Briton) but I never thought about securing third place.
What I wanted was to bring home the gold medal for the team so I put the cards I had up my sleeve, it was to do a big swim and a big bike.
I came back to Yee and wanted to attack him directly, it wasn't the best time but I didn't have fifty solutions (...).
I knew I had to go all the way to the end of the bike like that and secure the silver or the bronze.
To discover
The full Olympic program
The Olympic medal table
Individually, is this your most difficult personal relay?
I have a team that is so strong when I am the fourth torchbearer that very often it is a bit of a health walk (...) There we had to play with two opponents in front (the Briton Alex Yee and the American Morgan Pearson , Editor's note), I was not 100%, I'm coming back slowly (after a calf injury in June) for the end of the season. It was hard because I spent twenty minutes practically full, and complicated because it was not necessary to pass in the red zone, with the heat I have to be very careful on efforts like that. I did, I think, the best race I could do. I missed a bit of watts on the bike to really let go of Yee and maybe take five or ten seconds but it'sis like that.
Is this collective medal a revenge after your thirteenth place in individual?
I would have preferred to leave with two medals around my neck for sure, but here I have one. I have never had an Olympic medal so you shouldn't spit on it, it's incredible, it's the first Olympic medal in French triathlon, so I'm very proud of it (...) You have to be satisfied with what we have, we continue to work. My individual medal, I still have three years to progress and try to have it. It will forever remain my childhood dream.
