at the Stade Français, Amandine Buchard aims for the Olympic double – Libération

At the Los Angeles Olympic Games, we could well not only follow her on the tatami mats, but also on the lawn, an oval ball in her arms. To carry out this somewhat crazy sporting challenge, judoka Amandine Buchard, recent bronze medalist in Paris in the under 52 kg category, announced in a press conference on Tuesday October 15 that she was joining Stade Français, to train there both in judo and rugby sevens. After leaving his previous club this summer, PSG, with whom his project was not compatible.

“Rugby saved my Olympiad”

Born in 1995 in Noisy-le-Sec, in Seine-Saint-Denis, she has been doing judo almost forever. But rugby also arrived quite early in her life, when she was in college, she said last month in an interview with Olympic noon : “I was already doing judo at that time but I was a shrimp. My father advised me to play rugby, which could be a very good addition to my physical health.” After four years of rugby, when switching to the high level of judo, the athlete had to hang up the ball, “to his greatest regret”, to concentrate on this one sport.

In her discipline of choice, the judoka then climbed the ranks and had a string of successes – she was a six-time world medalist and is a double European champion – until her breakup. Like the American gymnast Simone Biles, Amandine Buchard is one of the rare high-level athletes to speak out about her mental health, weakened in the run-up to the Paris Olympics by too intensive preparation, a “overwork” : “It was no longer a passion but a job where I had an obligation to perform well. I was rejected, I could no longer put on the kimono or go to training. she said again to Olympic noon. Hence the desire to find a refuge in this sport that she loved as a teenager. A sport to be practiced for sport’s sake, not for competition: “It gave me joy again. Rugby saved my Olympiad. But the competitor in her finally took over, and here she is off for four years of double Olympic preparation – and not the least, if she then wants to join the French women’s rugby sevens team. “She will be able to share her experience of the highest competitions and show that you can be good at several sports at the same time,” welcomed the general director of Stade Français, Matthieu Tanret, quoted by the 1ère.

Gentle beginnings in Noisy-le-Grand

To follow Amandine Buchard’s first steps on the rugby fields, you will first have to look at RC Noisy-le-Grand, a partner team of the Parisian club and which plays in Fédérale 2. Way for her to start a little gently, Stade Français not expecting her to perform immediately. She made her rugby debut there on October 6, playing her first match against Vincennes (lost 32-8 by Noisy-le-Grand). A «double licence» will also allow her to play with the Stade Français women’s team, the Pink Rockets, recently relegated to Elite 2, the second national level. She should “start soon”, said the club, training with this team which includes two players from the French rugby sevens team who participated in the Paris Games, Anne-Cécile Ciofani and Camille Grassineau. We will therefore have to wait a bit to see what a judoka tackle looks like.