Beijing 2022: “We are a little afraid of going by the wayside”: winter sportsmen fear being subjected to the shadow of Par – franceinfo

Can one Olympiad hide another? With the approach of the start of the Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games (from February 4 to 20, 2022), the event hardly arouses the interest of the crowds in France. Even though the Winter Olympics have just celebrated their D-100 Wednesday, October 27, without fanfare and still in health uncertainty, the D-1000 of Paris 2024, Saturday, October 30, however, monopolizes him, all the light.

Claude Onesta himself had made this observation during the presentation day of the France team, October 4, in Romilly-sur-Seine. “I would first like to start by apologizing. Last night (Sunday October 3) at 11 p.m., I received a little annoyed message from a former ski champion, who said to me: ‘We’re starting to get a little tired of hearing about Tokyo, Paris and having the impression that ‘we [les sportifs d’hiver] does not weigh much in the middle ‘. I am fully aware that it can be painful ”, had wanted to mention the manager of high performance at the National Sports Agency (in the 53rd minute of the video in link).

If everyone agrees that the speech is more focused on Paris than on Beijing, Claude Onesta wanted to reassure the French athletes who will fly to China. “This pressure from Paris 2024 must not erase the work they do every day and the ambition that is theirs. Feel that the country will, perhaps, arrive a little late to your support, but it will be there. And we’ll all be there. We are mobilized and we are trying to do everything we can to be useful to you. ”

Would Paris therefore overshadow Beijing? In any case, this is the feeling of many French athletes and leaders. “Talking a lot about Paris is like forgetting the Winter Games. For us winter sports athletes, this is bound to be frustrating. Why would we be forgotten under the pretext that France is organizing the next Games, when we are just as important? It is frustrating and it does not value our everyday work ”, regrets the reigning Olympic champion in mogul skiing, Perrine Laffont.

A frustration shared by Gabriella Papadakis, quadruple world champion and Olympic vice-champion in ice dance with her partner Guillaume Cizeron. “When we arrived in Romilly-sur-Seine, we made jokes between athletes saying: ‘Damn, we have become summer sports, we did not know!’ We were gathered to promote the Winter Games, and yet the main topic was not Beijing 2022 but Paris 2024. We were surprised but it was also funny ”, smiles the ice dancer and great French hope to afford the Olympic title in Beijing.

“It’s a little frustrating, she confides. We know that the Winter Games are smaller than the Summer Games, at least in France. But the fact of hosting the Olympics in Paris in 2024 means that we are talking about it a lot more. We are therefore a little afraid of going by the wayside, especially since the Tokyo page has just closed. “

The one-year postponement of the Tokyo Games, which ended on August 8, just six months before the Winter Games, did not help put Beijing in the spotlight. On the contrary. “The fact that the Tokyo Games have been postponed, for us it was not positive. In principle, when the Summer Games end, the partners have a year to relaunch themselves on the Winter Games, for a while. that they did not have this time “, Perrine Laffont still regrets.

However, this approximation of the calendar could have been beneficial to the Winter Games, in order to ride the wave of Tokyo. “We must succeed in capitalizing on this view that the French brought to sport during the Tokyo Games, and to maintain it until the Winter Games”, underlines Marie-Amélie le Fur, president of the French Paralympic and Sports Committee and silver medalist in the long jump in Tokyo. “Our role is to focus on the Beijing Games, to allow the athletes to perform and to give them the capacity to shine. It is important so that these athletes are visible, supported, and encouraged, because they achieved extraordinary performances, they transmitted to us emotions and made us dream. The general public needs to know them even more ”, she continues.

Essential media exposure for athletes, as Gabriella Papadakis confirms. “For an athlete, the Games are once in a lifetime moments. It is an opportunity to make oneself known to the public and to prepare for some an after career. We hope to be as visible as the athletes of the Summer Games. in order to have the same opportunities. ”

If Paris monopolizes lights and discourse, it is in particular because France had been waiting for almost a century to host the Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games. The last ones organized in France date back to 1924. And for the first time in its history, Paris will also host the Paralympic Games.

So many elements that make the symbolism even stronger. “It is so exceptional to host the Olympic Games in France. They say that it has been 100 years since we have hosted the Games, but that is not true. We must not forget the Albertville Games in 1992 ”, would like to remind Nathalie Péchalat, president of the French Ice Sports Federation and head of mission of the France team for the Beijing 2022 Olympic Games. “And it’s so huge that the negative side of it is that the Winter Games are falling a bit into the shadows”, she slices.

However, Marie-Amélie le Fur, president of the French Paralympic and Sports Committee wants to believe in the legacy of Paris 2024 for all athletes, summer and winter. “Winter athletes are an integral part of the legacy we want to leave after the Paris Games.” A vision shared by Nathalie Péchalat. “Once Beijing has passed, be careful to keep this blue spirit for Paris and Cortina. Because we must not forget that in Paris 2024, there will be winter athletes in preparation for Milan Cortina in 2026. We are still talking about men-women, Olympic-Paralympic, but there is also summer-winter. ”