She returns from Tokyo with two Olympic medals.
The fencer, Manon Brunet, bronze medalist in saber and silver in team saber, was able to share her happiness with the crowd that came to applaud the Olympic champions at the Trocadéro, in Paris, on Monday.
What happens when you find your audience after an unprecedented Olympic Games, behind closed doors and in the Tokyo bubble?
MANON BRUNET.
The Tokyo vacuum has been beneficial in a way.
For example, when competing to get messages across on the track or for concentration.
But finding his audience is pure happiness, it's a lot of emotion, joy, it's true that I realize when I arrived here.
When I see all these people, I tell myself that I didn't fight just for myself, that I did that for them too.
In Paris for the next Games, there will be a lot of noise, I hope it will boost hearts and transcend us.
Read also "They were magnificent": the Trocadéro celebrates to welcome the French heroes of Tokyo
When you received your medals, individually and in teams, you could not share it with the public at the time.
What did you do to compensate for this?
I called my boyfriend (
Editor's note: the swordsman
Boladé Apithy
returned to France the day before his silver medal
) and my parents.
They experience it from afar, but very close at the same time.
Even if they weren't there, what happened in Tokyo was the Holy Grail for them.
Have the messages received on social networks replaced the absent audience for this edition?
A little, somewhere.
I had a lot of messages, I didn't even have time to reply to everyone.
There are even people who congratulated us by describing our touches, our tactics during the tests.
I was very surprised, it proves that we are followed, even from a distance, and that encourages.
Have you counted the number of autographs you signed today?
No idea but I didn't sign enough, we didn't have enough time. It's a shame because we don't often sign so many autographs for so many people, some of whom got up very early to look at us. If I meet them again in the future, I will be happy to sign them and I want to say thank you to them for coming here.
