Twenty years later! The French wheelchair basketball team has not participated in the Paralympic Games since Athens 2004, where it finished second to last. Suffice it to say that the Bleses are eagerly awaiting their first match against Canada on Friday 30 August at the Bercy Arena.
But for the French, who have almost disappeared from the international radar since the 2010 World Cup and a silver medal, it was necessary to seek qualification. While team sports teams from the host country usually automatically qualify for the Games, this was not the case for the 2024 edition.
The International Wheelchair Basketball Federation and the Paralympic Committee changed the rules and decided to reduce the number of qualified teams from twelve to eight. Objective: to make a competition “high intensity” and matches “at the highest level”, As Jérôme Rosenstiehl, the person in charge of organising the basketball and wheelchair basketball tournaments during the Games, explained at the end of April.
It was a tough pill to swallow for players and staff. “Nothing was guaranteed”recalls Francis Dandine, accompanying the Blues’ performance. “At first it was a hard blow. We took it as an injustice and then as a strength.recalls Stéphane Binot, sports director of French indoor basketball. We had to fight to qualify. »
The French national team had to go through a Paralympic qualifying tournament in April, aptly named “Last chance for Paris”. Four matches, four victories, the para-basketball players won this tournament without a doubt. This success allowed them to join the top 8 in the world alongside Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, Great Britain, the USA, Spain and Australia.
Strict framework
In exchange for these new rules, the team was able to choose its group for the first matches in Paris. The ‘Bleus’ will avoid the American team, Olympic champion in Tokyo in 2021 and world champion in 2022, and will play their first three matches against Canada (three Paralympic gold medalists), Germany and then Great Britain (European champion in 2023).
To support this journey, the team was able to benefit from additional budgets to train and compete in various tournaments. “We had a number of training sessions and matches with other teams that we had never had before in such a short period of time”explains Stéphane Binot.
You have 53.14% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
