After two and a half years of hard work and an unprecedented volume of arrows shot in training under the orders of the South Korean Oh Seon-tek, the French archers Baptiste Addis, Thomas Chirault and Jean-Charles Valladont won the team silver on Sunday.
The fourth French archery medal at the Olympic Games was won in the most sumptuous setting, the Esplanade des Invalides with the golden dome at the back and the Alexandre-III bridge in the line of sight.
It comes after Sébastien Flute’s gold in Barcelona in 1992, Jean-Charles Valladont’s silver in Rio in 2016 and Virginie Arnold, Sophie Dodemont and Bérengère Schuh’s team bronze in Beijing in 2008.
“It’s joy, there’s not really anything else. There is a little bit of disappointment at not coming back with a gold medal and thinking that I will still come back with a silver medal. I have one or two colleagues at work who called me Poulidor”joked Valladont.
He is the leader of this French men’s team, a clever mix of his experience, he who is in his fourth Olympic Games, the freshness of the very young Baptiste Addis (17 years old) and the calm and serenity of Thomas Chirault.
“We have three different, complementary profiles. Baptiste is sunny, very impulsive and very dynamic. We have wisdom with Jean-Charles and we have Thomas who manages to set the framework and bring rationality to all of that. I try to put it all to music, which is not always easy”slipped the coach of the French men’s team Romain Girouille.
– “Invested 2000%”
Monday, under a blazing sun, they tickled South Korea, the best nation in the discipline which since 2000 has only given up one Olympic team title, in 2012 in London (the gold medal went to ‘Italy).
Tied in the first set (57-57), the South Koreans pulled out all the stops in the second and third, scoring 59 points out of 60 possible to win gold (5-1 victory). “The final was incredible. The Koreans were very, very strong. We make 171 out of 180, they are at their level”underlined Girouille. “We know we can shake them up. We pushed them to their maximum”added the coach.
The scenario to gain the right to play for gold in an arena of 8,000 people, the largest ever offered for an Olympic Games, was stifling in the semi-finals. Facing the Turkey of Mete Gazoz, individual Olympic champion three years ago in Tokyo, the French lost the first and third sets but each time responded to offer themselves a play-off round.
And as the two teams were tied (27-27), it was the arrow closest to Thomas Chirault’s center that allowed them to get the better of the Turks.
This medal is the culmination of a lot of work put in place with the arrival in February 2022 of Oh Seon-tek, whom everyone calls “Mister Oh”which radically changed the way the French worked, doubling the volume of arrows shot per day in training to reach 600 at the heart of winter preparation.
“We worked a lot. We came a long way when Mr. Oh arrived in February 2022. The athletes were 2000% invested in everything they had to do, and to see that it is paying off today, we are really very, very happy.”underlines Girouille.
The turning point for his team, far away at the 2023 Worlds in Berlin, came from the European Championships at the beginning of May in Essen (Germany), where they adorned themselves with gold. They then followed up with a podium at the last World Cup stage in Antalya before the Games, already behind the South Koreans.
