Although he is the third French swordsman, Alexandre Bardenet was not selected to participate in the Paris Olympic Games this summer. Behind the Tokyo Olympic champion Romain Cannone and Yannick Borel, Luidgi Midelton was chosen to form the French titular trio in epee.
“Paris will only be a dream that I touched with my finger but the ‘commission’ has decided”, regrets the 2022 world team champion. “Every year I tell myself that the season is the hardest ever experienced, however nothing comparable to the year I spent where low blows were the norm,” criticizes the third Frenchman and number 15 in the world rankings.
With Romain Cannone and Yannick Borel, Alexandre Bardenet led a revolt against the former general manager of the weapon Hugues Obry at the start of the school year after a heated debrief of the World Championships in Milan in August. The three shooters left Insep in the fall before eventually obtaining the replacement of Obry, who resigned in February but still supervises the other French shooters.
Tensions remained high and the trio only partially trained at Insep with the federal structure in recent weeks.
“I intend to win it for you”
“You will be in our hearts during this ordeal, I think of you very much! », greeted Romain Cannone on social networks on Thursday. “We did all the team matches to qualify for the Paris Olympic Games. Unfortunately the latter will be done without you… I intend to win it for you with my teammates. »
“The repeated performances of Alexandre Bardenet and his consistency at the highest world level this season but also more generally in the Olympiad did not seem to be enough to convince the commission,” Yannick Borel had observed the day before, still on social networks.
To explain the unanimous decision of the commission to select Midelton among the holders, Fabrice Jeannet, triple Olympic medalist and member of the weapons commission, cited on Wednesday the victory of the Guadeloupean in Vancouver in December, a “ World Cup stage, which was among the events in the selective classification.
