Paris 2024 Olympics: Sasha Zhoya, a late recovery but unchanged Olympic ambitions

| July 2, 2024 | Sport | No Comments

Paris 2024 Olympics: Sasha Zhoya, a late recovery but unchanged Olympic ambitions

Sasha Zhoya MAXPPP – STADION-ACTU

Sacré champion de France dimanche pour la troisième année consécutive malgré une rentrée tardive, Sasha Zhoya se projette avec confiance vers les JO de Paris 2024, où il entend "tout péter" pour rivaliser avec les meilleurs du monde.

The 110 meter hurdles specialist (22 years old), expected to become a leader in French athletics, had not appeared in competition for four months and an early return to Australia, his second country where he grown up and where he trains in the winter.

So, obviously, a few weeks before the Games in Paris, his return to the high hurdles was impatiently awaited even if his sixth place at the 2023 Worlds made him a priority for Olympic selection whatever happens in Angers.

The young prodigy also had a national title to defend on Sunday. Contract completed in 13''32. A time however not very impressive given the world level at the moment but which Zhoya was not too upset about.

A little scare

"I'm not totally happy, I know there's a better race to come out but, as I didn't have a real race in the series, I ran the final rather like a series,” he explained after his victory, his third in a row at the French Championships.

The hurdler had actually had a big scare earlier in the afternoon. His starting block having slipped at the start, he got up by raising his arm but, seeing that the judges did not whistle a false start, had to work to catch up and qualify in extremis for the finale.

"Waste of running, loss of energy… It’s not cool for athletes,” Zhoya regretted, criticizing the starting blocks used.

Remobilized in the final, he easily retained his title but the time (13.32) only placed him in 38th place in the world this summer, far behind the unbeatable American Grant Holloway, flashed in 12 86 seconds on Thursday, and his compatriots Freddie Crittenden and Daniel Roberts, also under 13 seconds and also on the trip to Paris.

"I see what I'm doing in training and I know that I'm not far from it at all," assured Zhoya. "I have just started my season. They have already run well… The rest is going to be beautiful."

"In the game"

“I think that Ladji's French U23 record (Doucouré, 12''97) will fall this year. I'm going to try to break the French record (12''95) too and if I can do it, that puts me in the game with the Americans,” he added. .

World record holder and world champion in the 110 meter hurdles under 20 years old (12''72 in 2021, over 99 centimeter hurdles compared to 106 for the hopeful and senior categories), champion of ;rsquo;Europe among the under-23s in 2023, 6th in the 2023 Worlds with a record in 13''15… Sasha Zhoya is called upon to become a leader of the French athlete since he chose in 2020 to represent France, his mother's country, to the detriment of Australia.

Before putting on the blue-white-red jersey again, he will put on his spikes again on Sunday at the Paris meeting to bring down the clock and "correct the mistakes I made today& rsquo;today,” he explained on Sunday.

A recovery and late adjustments which he explains by "small glitches" to the Achilles tendon which forced him to "fifty days without putting on spikes" in spring.

"As it’s an Olympic year, I preferred not to take any risks and not start the season earlier than the body wants", a- he explained.

Also read: Athletics: affected by a new injury, sprinter Christophe Lemaître announces his retirement at 34

"There are still a few competitions to do and then it's going to be a blast at the Olympics", he promises. For him, an Olympic final would be "a great dream come true”. "But I'm a competitor, I want to be on the podium with the gold medal."

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