Less than 45 days before the Olympic Games at home, the Blues return from the European Championships, which ended Wednesday in Rome, with 16 medals, including four gold – their best result since Zurich in 2014. Few people would have bet on such success of French athletes, who have struggled to exist on international podiums for several years.
Published on: 06/13/2024 – 09:20
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France managed to climb, Wednesday June 12, to second place in the medal table of the European Athletics Championships, far behind Italy which dominated this competition at home, but ahead of Great Britain, usually better ranked.
At the end of the sixth and final evening of competition in the Roman Olympic stadium, the French team was able to add three additional gems to its Italian harvest: silver for Yann Schrub in the 10,000 m, bronze for Anaïs Bourgoin in the 800 m and silver for the relay runners in the 4×100 m.
In the 10,000 m, Doctor Yann Schrub – he defended his thesis in the spring on iron deficiency anemia in runners – assumed his status as reigning medalist and climbed one step higher than in 2022 on the podium of the European Championships.
At the end of a tactical race that started on a very slow basis and was won by Dominic Lobalu – a South Sudanese refugee authorized to run for Switzerland, where he has lived for several years – in 28 min 00 sec 32, Schrub managed to placed well in the final race and resisted in the final straight to get the silver just ahead of the Spaniard Thierry Ndikumwenayo. Frenchman Jimmy Gressier, also a podium contender in the 10,000m, took 5th place.
💥 Two years after Munich, Yann Schrub is doing it again!
🔝 This second place in the 10,000m adds to an already well-stocked European track record: he won his sixth continental medal (counting those obtained in cross-country), the third individually. Hat !#Roma2024 pic.twitter.com/fQxhYhmelF
— FFAthlétisme (@FFAthletisme) June 12, 2024
“I won a bronze medal two years ago [aux Championnats d’Europe d’athlétisme de Munich, en 2022] when I didn’t know what it was like to get a medal,” Schrub said after the race, his usual blue-white-red rooster hat on his head. “There was a great mood throughout the week with lots of medals [françaises] and I said to myself: ‘If only it was my turn tonight to be able to relive all that’. It feels so good.”
Bourgoin bursts the screen
Yet another surprise of these championships for France, Anaïs Bourgoin snatched bronze in the 800 m, behind the great British favorite Keely Hodgkinson (1:58.65) and the Slovak Gabriela Gajanova (1:58.79).
The 27-year-old half-distance runner honored her first selection for the French senior team in Rome and exploded her personal best in the semi-final by passing under the two-minute barrier for the first time, thus qualifying for Paris 2024.
“I have bronze and the Olympic minimums, I don’t have the words to explain what’s going on in my head,” reacted the Frenchwoman. “I was lucky to be in the hallway next to Keely [Hodgkinson]she left quickly and I followed her.”
To conclude the already successful European Championships for France a few weeks before the Games in Paris, the 4x100m relay runners (Orlann Olière, Gémima Joseph, Hélène Parisot and Sarah Richard) went to collect the 16th medal of the French tour in Rome by winning the money.
The French team concluded the European Championships in second place behind Italy in the medal table and achieved its best international championships since the Zurich Europeans in 2014.
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During the last European Championships in Munich in 2022, the Blues won nine medals, but none of them were gold. And at the World Championships in Budapest last year, only the silver of the torchbearers in the 4x400m saved France from zero points.
With four gold medals in Rome (Cyréna Samba-Mayela in the 100m hurdles, Alice Finot in the 3000m steeplechase, Gabriel Tual in the 800m and Alexis Miellet in the 3000m steeplechase), French athletics is breathing again at less 45 days of the Games, even if the level will be completely different.
