Paris 2024 Olympics: “Shock”, “Worries during warm-up”… “a major disruption” may have affected French gymnasts

Les Bleues sont passées à côté. MAXPPP – Jean-Marc LOOS

The French gymnasts failed to qualify in most of the finals during the qualifications on Sunday, starting with their leader Mélanie de Jesus do Santos.

With one last group left to perform on Sunday evening, the Bleues already know that they will not play the team event, where they won bronze at the 2023 World Championships, since they are provisionally in 9th place (158.797 points) and only the top eight nations will advance to the final.

As for the individual apparatus finals, only Marine Boyer can hang on to a slim hope on the beam. She occupies the 8th and last place (13,766) of the qualifiers before the last group passes. At the beginning of the evening, the management indicated that she was consulting a doctor without giving more details.

For her part, Mélanie de Jesus dos Santos also has a slim chance of staying in the competition. She is provisionally 28th (51.499) in the all-around competition but with the rule of two gymnasts per nation qualifying for the final, she theoretically moves up to 24th position for 24 places available.

Cold shower for De Jesus dos Santos

It’s a cold shower for De Jesus dos Santos, who left to train two years ago in the United States alongside American star Simone Biles to prepare for these Games at the house.

The 24-year-old Frenchwoman, crowned at the European Championships on the beam (2021), in the all-around (2019) and twice on floor (2019, 2018), burst into tears at the end of their group's appearances in the Arena Bercy which shouted its support for the Tricolores.

The French women Mélanie De Jesus dos Santos, Marine Boyer, Coline Devillard, Ming Gherardi van Eijken and Morgane Osyssek made many errors during qualifying during which they appeared stressed.

"Worst case scenario"

National technical director Kevin Rabaud then spoke of “a nightmarish competition” and “the worst-case scenario”. He mentions “a strong disturbance” just before arriving on the plateau, without elaborating, and which can explain according to him in part “the form of stupor” and “of absence” of the French athletes.

“We looked at each other, it was quite special, there was our body and there was us”, said Devillard, who had great hopes in jumping, where she has not did not do better than a provisional 11th place on the apparatus (13.650), behind the youngest of the Blues, Gherardi van Eijken (13.783).

Morgane Osyssek, provisional 13th on the beam (13.533) pleaded a small "lack of stress and energy".

"We had some problems on the warm-up lap, we had trouble getting into it. It was much more complicated than expected, I don't know what made us not be able to handle it. […] I was stressed but maybe not stressed enough", continued the gymnast, "extremely disappointed" for whom it was "not at all as I had imagined".