They knew they were expected, to finish these Games in style and allow France to hope to beat its medal record, obtained in PyeongChang. They all had the goal of getting on the podium. “It’s going to be complicated to have four medals”, even joked François Place a few days before the event.
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But the plan did not go as planned. The Blues of skicross, this discipline which consists of competing with four on a bumpy track made up of turns and jumps, did not know how to respond to the Beijing Games, Friday February 18, on the sunny slopes of the Genting Snow Park from Zhangjiakou, 2,000 meters above sea level.
bad starts
The best of them, François Place, 32, finished eighth, last in the small final. No other Frenchman reached the semi-finals. First thunderclap of the day, Terence Tchiknavorian, 29 and second in the World Cup standings this season, failed in the first qualifying race (3rd in the round of 16, 18th overall). Just like his teammate Jean-Frédéric Chapuis, 32, gold medalist in Sochi in 2014 (20th). For Bastien Midol, 31 and 3rd in the World Cup, the adventure ended shortly after, in the quarter-finals (11th).
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“There is disappointment, says trainer Thomas Frey. We did not know how to be regular on departures. We had the technical part and the sliding but, to be Olympic champions, we had to make four perfect starts to start in the lead on this track which is not selective. »
“The end of an era”
Despite the general underperformance, the Blues do not seem collapsed. “I still had a good week, I felt good. I was a bit afraid of being taken in by the event, but it was going well on the skis and in the head”, explains Bastien Midol, who discovered the Games after a serious back injury which deprived him of it in Sochi in 2014. “It’s skicross, it’s like that, it smiles on some and not on others”, he adds.
There is still a taste of bitterness, especially in the speech of François Place: “For me and Jean-Frédéric (Chapuis), it was our last Games… Today, there was a very dense level, I think that we were 20 to be able to win the medal. »
“It’s the end of an era, which will lead to a new one”, hopes Thomas Frey. Eight years ago, the Tricolores achieved a historic hat-trick in Sochi, with Jean-Frédéric Chapuis (1st), Arnaud Bovolenta (2nd) and Jonathan Midol (3rd), Bastien’s brother. PyeongChang, in 2018, had been more disappointing, with still two men in the top 10: Arnaud Bovolenta (6th) and François Place (10th). For the French, heading now for the rest of the World Cup, which resumes next week in Russia.
