Mathilde Gros world champion in individual sprint, all the faces of a champion – Eurosport FR

The two faces of the same competitor. Mathilde Gros was immensely calm, to defeat all her rivals until the planetary coronation. Then just as poignant in the emotion that she released, at the time of bursting into tears in the arms of her loved ones. Friday in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, the French cyclist became world champion in individual speed. She achieved an intrinsically historic performance, since no tricolor athlete had signed such a feat since Félicia Ballanger in 1999. But this accomplishment takes on even more relief when we look at her journey. The coronation of Mathilde Gros was unlikely there Eight years. Then it seemed written. Then he seemed distant. Because the new sprint queen was first destined for a career in basketball. His first contact with the bicycle? “I hated it,” she laughed at the Olympics.com site last year. But an (a priori) harmless test on an indoor bike revealed the extent of its potential, at 15 years old. Her exceptional predispositions pushed her to drop the orange ball and get into the saddle. Results: a hat-trick at the Junior Worlds, the year of his 18th birthday (2017), and two European titles with “the big ones” in 2018 and 2019 (keirin). Worlds on trackGros’s joy and communion with the public: relive the podium of the Frenchwoman10 HOURS AGODeliverance for Gros, titled in individual sprint after a masterful final “Marked for life” by the failure of TokyoThat’s it for the fairy tale. The result is a growing difficulty in moving from great hope of tricolor track cycling to figurehead of it. Our consultant Arnaud Tournant summarized the situation as follows, hot on the air: “This one, we’ve been waiting for it for a long time. She showed that she was a great lady, the great lady of the French sprint. She is finally where we expect her to be.” A level that she was already familiar with in 2019, bronze medalist at the Worlds, in this same individual speed event. Then there was this period of doubt, culminating in the Olympic Games, which she experienced very badly. Coming out of the quarters in a keirin, beaten in repechage in speed, Mathilde Gros went through the Tokyo Games like a soul in sadness. This snub was very hard to take, as she told DirectVelo, after only a few days to digest: “It’s so painful that I’ll never forget it. I’m scarred for life.” The UCI Track Champions League, at the end of 2021, served as an outlet. With less pressure, she was able to try other things, tactically. But without succeeding, it seems, in totally shedding the weight of the immense disappointment she had experienced during the summer. He needed a relative novelty. In February 2022, Grégory Baugé was appointed sprint coach for the French team. She found in him a new coach, as much as a former friend and a friend whom she says she keeps, despite this hierarchical relationship likely to modify their relationship. This change has completed putting it back on track. You had to see her look, both mischievous and determined, ten days ago during the presentation of the event at the national velodrome, to understand that she had found the flame. The one that allows him to always be intoxicated by confrontation and no longer inhibited by the quest for results. The Mathilde Gros who breaks everything was back. Gros offers the title holder and goes to the final: the decisive round in video “Thank you from the bottom of my heart, to all” “I am the same as when I was 4 years old , that I was starting basketball and that I loved it“, she proudly summed up. It remained to materialize it. During the European Championships in Munich, on a track of 200 meters (and not 250) it had partly regained a good momentum this summer. Silver medalist in individual speed, behind the “boss” Emma Hinze, she had sent positive signals. But on Friday, the development was beyond measure. With proportional joy: “I’m so happy to win in front of my audience, it’s a dream (…) Thank you from the bottom of my heart, everyone, it’s thanks to you that we’re doing all this.””The Being at home helped me a lot,” she insists. As I crossed the line, I screamed with all my might, I think the whole world heard it. It’s an emotion that I never felt in my whole life.” An exhilarating discovery, thanks to this suspended moment: “We don’t realize how powerful it is. It’s a sick thing.” What, probably, to leave a (new) indelible trace, in his life as an athlete. A positive memory, this time. “I think I’m going to dream about it all night long,” prophesied the 23-year-old cyclist, without planning beyond the first moments that she will pass the gold medal around her neck. Mathilde Gros kissed this medal on the podium. As she embraced a goal that has imposed itself on her over the years. But her “ultimate goal” remains the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Having a distant perspective has undoubtedly helped her to put aside the obsession with victory, in favor of the pleasure of the duel. She will have to keep this mantra with which she has returned, to triumph in a year and a half. But until then, the keirin gives him another opportunity to shine, this Sunday. With a new “closed” face, sharp with the radiant one she displayed this evening, when the Marseillaise sounded. The two faces of a champion. The joy of Gros and communion with the public: relive the podium of the FrenchwomanMondiaux sur pisteGros did things big to write history12 HOURS AGOMondiaux sur pisteGros offers the defending champion title and line up in the final: the decisive round on video13 HOURS AGO