This title was missing. This breath of fresh air was missing, especially after this essential but painful Olympic journey last summer in Tokyo (fourth place after a cruel defeat against China). It is now done and after a title acquired in 2012 at the beginning of the mixed discipline, the girls of the French 3×3 team have finally climbed the highest step in the world, a few minutes after an exceptional bronze medal. for the boys. We debrief you on this crazy end of the day but we prefer to warn, it starts with prose still full of emotion.
To the question “is there a sport capable of offering us so many thrills”, the answer is obviously… yes, many others, there was a trap. But here we are talking about basketball so let’s talk about basketball. And this afternoon in Antwerp, it was indeed eight warriors who lifted our hearts and brought us to tears. Kevin Corre at the microphone, he who had just been in these first international battles ten years ago, and the new generation on the ground. No fuss and no favoritism so we go pell-mell. Marie-Eve Paget, Léo Cavaliere, Hortense Limouzin, Antoine Eito, Myriam Djekounade, Alex Vialaret, Laetitia Guapo and Franck Seguela, eight blues and blues who are not afraid of blues and who had no doubt promised to ignite the place of Antwerp today.
Men to start? Far from being favourites, recently welcoming into the group the native Pau Cavaliere, his size and his aggressiveness, and today parachuted in half against Lithuania, a kind of team made up of four snipers / carpenters. The pitch of the half? The Blues who are racing in the lead, the whole match, but Antoine Eito who hurts his ankle on a bad reception before… coming back to play the end of the match strapped, one day we will have to talk about this kind of courage, this kind of sacrifice for the nation. In the end an EDF a millimeter too short and a cruel defeat, too cruel, for a squad which finds itself amputated in addition by 25% of its team for the small final. The kind of blow to morale that would put a lot of humans on the mat, but that… we’ll talk about it. We will talk about it again because at the same time or almost the girls were wrestling with China, again they, but this time talent and basketball will end up winning against the physical and the Greco-Roman-Chinese struggle. This time that’s it, the girls of France will have their medal, and it will be in gold or silver.
Breathing, or rather remains of gratin dauphinois and we go back.
As expected, the guys present themselves three against four against a Belgium who are rebounded and playing at home, Belgians who also have a fourth Olympic place to clear. As in the half the French take the best start, this time it is Alex Vialaret who passes Stephen Curry for a badminton player, and despite their lack of rotation our Blues hold the shock at the cost of an effort not far from to be inhuman. Not far from being inhuman then simply inhuman, because after a firecracker from Seguela 4 seconds from the end and… the Belgian equalizer almost at the buzzer, this strange match will finally go into extra time. The first team to score two points is the bronze medalist, and quite logically the overtime will last… a thousand years. According to Kevin Corre and my friend Lucas, we’ve never seen that, the organisms are exploded and the skill is less than 60% in shooting, logic, and at the end of the end of the end (of the end), Karim Souchu’s players will go get this huge medal, for Antoine, for France, for Corre, for Bronchard, for Gentil, for Tsagarakis and all the others who have passed through the EDF box before them. A third world medal for the boys of the 3×3 after silver in 2012 and bronze in 2017 but, two years from the Games in Paris, this one is particularly good, and the scenario has everything of a future best -sell.
But what would a cake be without a real cherry placed in the center.
And tonight the cherry will have been feminine, with this victory full of panache and, above all, authority of the Blue. An intense final against Canada by the Plouffe sisters, who – careful analysis – really have a very funny name, a final managed almost from start to finish despite a scare in the third quarter of the match. Big shots from the parking lot to start, amazing defense as always to offset their size deficit, and so this win so… logical, for a team that has won almost everything in its path for years but has often stumbled during these damn international competitions despite two European gold medals. We did it for the guys so let’s do it for the girls, and this victory is therefore also that of Migna Touré, Ana-Maria Filip, Soana Lucet, Caroline Hériaud, Perrine Le Leuch or Alice Nayo, to all the girls that France has loved before.
A grand end to the day and a success celebrated at eight, tears of joy, letting go, and great recognition for a sport that clearly deserves more exposure, as much for the spectacular and intense side it releases as for by the results of our French teams. Can’t wait for 2024, really, and congratulations to the champions, to all our champions, to our eight champions, to our eight medalists. What happiness.
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