He obviously did not subscribe to the whole of Emmanuel Macron's speech.
The goalkeeper of the French handball team and PSG Vincent Gérard, gold medalist with his partners at the Tokyo Olympics, responded to the criticisms of the President of the Republic on the French record at these Japanese Games and the tenant's ambitions of the Elysee for the deadline of Paris 2024. The Head of State had announced at the Elysee Palace, in front of the Olympic and Paralympic medalists of the summer, that France was to appear in the Top 5 nations in three years home.
"I do not know if it was the moment to denounce us because there were only medalists in front of him, that is to say that people who had won, estimated Vincent Gérard on the set of BFMTV.
We can set goals, we can advertise targeting 150 medals but the reality is that it does not happen with the snap of the fingers.
It requires efforts from the athletes, detection.
Who says effort, says means.
"
🎙 Vincent Gérard on Paris 2024: "It is not now that we must put the means, it was seven years ago as Teddy Riner said".
The French Olympic champion returns to the goal of medals for the next Games organized in Paris.
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- RMC (@RMCinfo) September 22, 2021
“When I hear that we must put the means, it is not now that we must do it, it was 7 years ago, as Teddy Riner said, he continued.
Those who will be champions in 2024, we already know them.
We can help them, support them, but we are not going to take them out of the basket three years before.
"
Read alsoOJ 2024: 80 medals or a top 5 in three years, can France really believe it?
Before the ceremony at the presidential palace, the judoka had in fact felt that it was already too late to hope to go from 33 medals, ie the hexagonal record of the Tokyo Olympics, to “90” three years later.
The Minister of Sports, Jean-Michel Blanquer, had announced a target of 80 podiums three days earlier.
"Teachers cannot practice their profession in optimal conditions"
Like the decathlete Kevin Mayer in an interview with Le Figaro on Wednesday, the handball player criticized the place allocated to sport in the French school system. “Teachers cannot practice their profession in optimal conditions. What annoyed me was to use the good results of French co-sports to sell a sports policy at school. Clearly, all is not well when you look at the infrastructure, he said. We do not respect the recommendations of the WHO (Editor's note: 7 hours of physical activity per week) in primary, middle and high school. I'm not even talking about universities. "
"My message is not to say that we must create champions at school but that we must not use the results of team sport to say that it is the school that created these champions," he slipped.
This is not the role of the school, nor of the PE teachers who are not necessarily given the means to practice their profession in good conditions.
"
An allusion to the statements of the French basketball player Evan Fournier, who had challenged Jean-Michel Blanquer on Twitter, deploring the lack of sports culture in schools.
The New York Knicks player and the minister have since met to discuss the subject.
