By Yavuz Yavuz
It seemed like alarm bells were tolling for France when the hosts for this year’s Summer Olympic Games began consistently returning poor results from major track and field events. During the last Olympic Games in Tokyo, their only medal had come from Kevin Mayer with a silver in decathlon. World championships did not look that promising either, as in 2022 it was again Kevin Mayer who put France on the medal table with his second decathlon title. And if it was not for the men’s 4x400 relay team that won silver in Budapest a year later, France would be completely absent too.
In 2022, French team won nine medals at the European Championships in Munich, (four silvers and five bronze medals), but failed to stand on top of the podium even once, which was a first in 40 years.
As dark clouds were hovering over French athletics during the past Olympic cycle, 2024 European Championships in Rome offered a silver lining, as the country produced its best medal haul since Zurich 2014 where they had won nine golds and 25 medals overall.
France currently stands at four gold medals and 13 medals in total, with one evening session to go before the event calls curtains. In the meantime, they managed to produce some significant results as well. For instance, alongside the gold-silver double of Alexis Miellet and Djilani Bedrani in the men’s 3000 steeplechase, Alice Finot became the first French athlete to win a European title in the women’s race.
Moreover, Gabriel Tual became the country’s first European titlist in 800 metres as he clocked a 1:44.87 double lap around the track.
A historic result on the field was when Ilinois Guillaume won bronze in triple jump and became the first athlete of the country to stand on a podium of the women’s event.
Meanwhile, when Helene Parisot brought home the first medal in 200 metres since Myriam Soumare a decade ago with a bronze, Agathe Guillemot won France’s first women’s 1500 metres medal since Hind Deiba in 2010.
Hurdling was also another area where the French athletes excelled, as former world indoor champion Cyrena Samba-Mayela became the country’s first European champion in the event since Monique Éwanjé-Épée in 1990. Samba-Mayela also produced a massive championship and national record along the way by clocking 12.31 for the gold medal. In women’s 400m hurdles, Louise Maraval came in second and became the first French athlete to medal in the event in more than four decades, when Chantal Rega won bronze in 1982.
Despite having a European champion in Arlette Ben Hamo in women’s combined events when pentathlon was being contested, the only French heptathlon medallist was Antoinette Nana Djimou, the two-time gold medallist. This changed in Rome as well, with Auriana Lazraq-Khlass winning silver.
All this provides a glimmer of hope for French athletics which was crumbling on the major stage during the past couple of years. Despite the absence of certain big names from the event in the run up to the Olympics the athletes making the best of the chance they get is noteworthy. Although the field will be far more challenging in in Paris, the success of the athletes in Rome seems to be giving the French something to hope for.
