By Guillaume K. | Sports journalist
<a href="https://www.archysport.com/2022/02/judo-french-team/” title=”Judo – French team”>Shirine Boukli is one of the many French people who left the Paris Olympic Games with at least one medal around their neck. Two months later, she returned to the organization and the madness that reigned behind the scenes for the medalists.
At each Olympics, the French delegation can count on sports which very rarely disappoint. These medal-producing disciplines are often collective, like the basketball selections, which have just had two consecutive podiums in Tokyo and then in Paris. We can also mention volleyball and handball, two sure values.
At the individual level, judo is the sport that immediately comes to mind when we talk about French excellence. How could it be otherwise with a leader like Teddy Riner who has been in his category for over a decade? 11 times world champion and 5 times Olympic champion, he is perhaps our greatest legend in all disciplines.
Shirine Boukli’s crazy evening after her medal
The Paris Games were obviously a wonderful showcase for judo, with an Arena Champ de Mars in turmoil and a team final against Japan which will go down in history. Even if she did not fight, Shirine Boukli was entitled to her gold medal, in addition to the bronze won in less than 48 kilos. For Sports in Franceshe returned to the Olympic madness.
When you win a medal you’re a little overwhelmed. When I came out of the bronze medal fight I didn’t want to go directly in front of the media. But they take your hand and tell you what you have to do, you don’t understand anything, you lose track of time. You don’t even have time to take a shower. Everything comes together directly. I stayed a little with my family and the public, but it’s too bad.
The other moment where you can enjoy it is the podium, you do another lap of honor, you take photos with the French, I tried to live the moment as much as possible, but after that it’s gone again, we take control, you have to do interviews again, you have to go through doping control, then you have to go to Club France… And that too was really a jungle.
You don’t know what you’re doing on stage, you just see that people are happy so you imagine that you’re doing something good. I found the whole process to be extremely long, but the time on the Club France stage was fine. You say hello to people, at one point you don’t know what to do anymore but people continue to enjoy it. In reality it’s okay.
Obviously for the Olympic medalists, it was the race. As soon as the place on the podium was secured, it was already time to go in front of the media, prepare for the presentation of the charm, and then head to the frenzied Club France.
