Lucas Dussoulier speaks of a “ space shooting “That's what it took for Worthy De Jong and the Dutch to win, not the Moon, but the gold medal in the 3×3 tournament. At the expense of the French who nevertheless had a hand on the gold medal several times.
When Franck Seguela, with a tap-in 30 seconds from the end, gave his team a two-point lead (16-14). Or when, after that devil Worthy De Jong found a way to equalize to send the two teams into overtime, Timothé Vergiat gave the Blues a one-point lead again (17-16).
The same Frenchman found himself having to contest the mad Dutchman's final shot. A ” perfect defense, Tim couldn't have done better “, judges Lucas Dussoulier. The kind of shot, backwards and very complicated, which allows the attack to beat the defense. The adage, taken up by Karim Souchu, is well-known. “ He's already fired shots at us like that, we've already fired shots at him too. “, the coach puts it into perspective.
Cruel and beautiful
And that's how the fabulous adventure of the Blues ended, torn between the pride of having won an improbable silver medal. And the disappointment of having come so close to the most beautiful Olympic metal.
” That’s the drama of 3×3. Sometimes you hate it, sometimes you love it. Tonight, we hated it a little at first, but we loved it so much in other sequences, in other matches. “, says Timothé Vergiat, ” physically and mentally cooked “, like the others. ” It's 3×3, it's the sport we know well, which is cruel, but which can also be magnificent. “, adds Jules Rambaut.
Even if the coin didn't land on the right side this time, the Blues won't forget the happy endings that littered their path up to this grand finale at Place de la Concorde. We won some crazy matches “, says Timothé Vergiat, recalling the starting point of this adventure: Hungary and its Olympic qualifying tournament two months ago.
No, we must not forget that Mongolia found itself with a bundle of toes in Paris: with two and a half minutes to go, the Mongols had only two points left to score to qualify (15-19). But the disaster that was looming did not happen. Les Bleus won by the skin of their teeth after a decisive shot from Timothé Vergiat (21-20). On the right side of history this time.
Move mountains
The emotions were still running high for the French once they arrived in Paris. A two-point victory against Poland to start, another one-point victory against Lithuania… We love that, those emotions. It's a bit sadistic to say that, but that's a bit why we play too, for those emotions, in both directions. “, continues Timothé Vergiat according to whom his team returns from ” far far away “.
Because the good start of the French team was quickly erased by the four consecutive defeats that followed. To the point that the last group match against China was a decisive match. France went through. And ” There we started to offer really good things ” according to Jules Rambaut. And how: victories against the big names in the discipline, the Serbs, then the Latvians.
” We beat the best teams in the world, some we hadn't beaten in ten years. We were good at the right time. When we lost some silly games, or on buzzer beaters, we stuck together. I've said it from the beginning, this was the group that was going to win. […] And to do it here, at Place de la Concorde, we have moved mountains here. It is symbolic. “, describes Karim Souchu.
” Nobody expected us to be here honestly, you first I think “, Lucas Dussoulier continued, addressing journalists. We maximized our chances of getting a result, we are not here by chance. It is the result of a lot of work with 3×3 Paris and the Federation, self-denial, beautiful moments but also terrible moments. “, continues Jules Rambaut, concluding: ” It's still a very nice medal around the neck. »
Interview by Dimitri Kucharczyk in Paris.
