French volleyball players defend their gold title in major triumph – Technologist

And one, and two, and three zero! Is it France ’98 football? No, it’s Paris ’24 volleyball. On Saturday, August 10, the French national team defeated Poland by an uncompromising score (25-19, 25-20, 25-23) to win the Olympic tournament. This followed on from the semi-final win (25-20, 25-21, 25-21) on August 8, against the other big favorite, Italy.

Transformed since the start of the competition into a deafening synthesis of an old-fashioned nightclub and trade fair entertainment, the Arena Paris Sud witnessed a historic moment for French volleyball: By keeping the title they won in 2021 in Tokyo against Russians playing under a neutral banner, captain Benjamin Toniutti and his teammates achieved a back-to-back win, which enabled them to join an exclusive club. Before them, only two men’s giants – the USSR in 1964 and 1968, and the US in 1984 and 1988 – had managed to stay on the top step of the podium.

This feat means that Eric Tanguy, president of the French Volleyball Federation, can safely say that “this team is indisputably the greatest in the history of French volleyball.” As a matter of fact, the old-timers could only manage a quarter-final finish in Seoul in 1988. “It’s revenge for the previous generation, who didn’t win a thing,” said libero Jenia Grebennikov.

An almost monastic life

But also, “about that other time, with [coach] Laurent Tillie, when we were struggling to qualify for the Euro,” before winning it in 2015 and springing a surprise six years later, in Tokyo. “When we arrived, the federation didn’t have any money, we were staying in shitty hotels and I don’t even know how high we were in the world rankings,” said Nicolas Le Goff, the two-meter-tall middle blocker. “It’s much nicer than arriving in a team that’s already at the top of the world rankings and that we have to maintain [at this level].”

Italian coach Andrea Giani’s Les Bleus had agreed that their life in the Olympic village would be almost monastic during the fortnight. The community – “we’re a family, we’re close-knit, we’re brothers,” said opposite spiker Jean Patry – always stayed together so as not to be disturbed by the distractions offered by the capital. “We saw our families once and for an hour,” said Chinenyeze.

So, when they found out they were still Olympic champions, they danced, then relieved themselves of all tension by jumping for joy to the song “Freed From Desire” by the Italian singer Gala. The defeated Polish players looked on enviously from their benches, desperately dreaming of a second Olympic title since the Montreal Games in 1976.

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