D-200 JO PARIS 2024. Our regionals who will win gold: Lakrar, Porte, Le Goff or Touré… team sports are aiming for the Grand Slam

Valentin Porte, Maëlle Lakrar, Nicolas Le Goff, Migna Touré: the region will be magnificently represented this summer in all the French teams. Maxppp

The team sports Blues returned from Tokyo with six medals including three titles. During the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, they want to do better.

Before planning ahead, you should take a second look in the rearview mirror. During the last Olympic Games, in 2021 in Tokyo, France's team sports swept away everything in its path.

Gold for volleyball players, handball players; money for basketball players and girls in rugby 7; bronze for the female basketball players: never has a nation carried out such a raid. Not even the United States or great Russia.

How to do better ? This is the 80,000-potato question (the bonus reserved for Olympic champions) that all analysts are now asking.

Mbappé, Wembanyama and the others…

Several factual elements encourage a certain optimism. Firstly, the Blues will not have to chase qualification between now and July. It is the privilege of the organizing country, all its teams are invited to the Olympic feast. Everyone will therefore be able to prepare with a light mind.

Second, the “home advantage” will be crucial. Whether they are footballers, rugby players or handball players, the Tricolores will play at home in front of tens of thousands of supporters. This does not ensure success – we saw it during the last Rugby World Cup – but it can help in difficult times.

Tertio, France's team sports will present what is best today on all fields around the world: Kylian Mbappé, Victor Wembanyama, Antoine Dupont, Marine Johannès, Pauletta Foppa, Cécile Ciofani , Dika Mem, Antoine Brizard…With all these aliens, she can dream of a grand slam.

Dupont, gondola head

Football will have Kylian Mbappé, basketball Victor Wembanyama, handball Nikola Karabatic and rugby Antoine Dupont. All team sports will have their miracle for the Paris Olympic Games this summer.

The Toulouse player's performances will necessarily be monitored, he who is a specialist in rugby union and who will have to get used to the requirements of VII.

The specifics of “Seven” require explosiveness, endurance, to excel in duels and to have optimal recovery capacity. Few doubts about the ability of the best player in the world 2021 and 2022 to meet these criteria.

3×3 basketball: vengeful teams

At the foot of the podium during the Tokyo Olympic Games, the French teams will want something other than a fourth place counting on the support of the French public to get on the box.

The French women with Laetitia Guapo showed the way in 2022 by becoming world champions then losing in the final in 2023 against the USA. Suffice to say that they will be among the favorites to win gold in 2024.

As for the Blues, third in 2022 and beaten in the quarters in 2023 by the USA during the Worlds, they will have to raise their level of play.

Cazaute, Lakrar, Porte and the others

Salvation will also go to all the others selected, including many athletes from the region. For some, like Narbonnaise Héléna Cazaute, captain of the French volleyball team, or Montpellier Maëlle Lakrar, pillar of the French football team, it will be a first, the culmination of a life as an athlete, of years of investment and sometimes sacrifices.

For others, it will be an opportunity to double down, to add a title to an already XXL track record. Valentin Porte, the right back of Montpellier Handball, already has two Olympic medals, gold in Tokyo and silver in Rio (2016). Nicolas Le Goff, giant of MHSC Volleyball, was also crowned in Japan. We remember their reunion at Club France to celebrate. The third half is also a French specialty.

Wait until the end to find out

Héléna Cazaute has already planned to climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower on foot, with the medal around her neck, if successful this summer: "Because the Olympic Games, it’s a dream, something extraordinary. I can't wait to be there."

If most of the events will begin even before the opening ceremony – on July 24 for football and rugby sevens in particular – we will have to wait until the last weekend of the Olympics to measure the extent of the French performance. The women's basketball final will be the last on the Paris 2024 program, on Sunday 11 at 3:30 p.m. History is in the making.