“It’s too painful.” Nearly a month has passed since the cruel defeat (87-98) of the French basketball team, in the final of the Olympic tournament, against the United States and their armada made in NBA, and yet, the healing process is not yet complete. Time has passed, but the wound remains. It will probably heal but will leave the vanquished with an eternal scar. An insurmountable pain. “During my vacation, I thought about it very often, if not every day,” revealed the Blues guard Evan Fournier, special guest on the show Stephen Brunch, this Sunday, on RMC.
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“I was not surprised”
“I’ll never watch the match to be honest,” he admitted without difficulty. “When you lose finals, you don’t want to go back over them. You can definitely learn, but when you lose finals, it’s too painful. The only final I’ve watched again was the one in Tokyo, because I came out of it saying to myself: ‘I don’t see what else we could have done’. You felt like we played the match we needed to. Lack of guts, we come across Kevin Durant who decided not to miss that day. When we lose at the Euro or when we lose there, we weren’t at our best, it’s too hard to watch to be able to make an objective analysis.”
The analysis is all the harder to make since the Blues remained within reach of their opponents until the end, Team USA only owing its salvation to the insolent success of a man in a state of grace: Stephen Curry. The Golden State Warriors sniper fired from all cylinders in the money time with four three-pointers in the last three minutes to disgust the French players, shatter their golden dream, and guarantee them nightmares all summer long.
“Collet? I thanked him for these beautiful years”
This cruel epilogue also resulted in the departure of Vincent Collet, after fifteen years at the helm of Les Bleus, and eight medals won in fourteen major tournaments, including two silver medals at the Olympics. “I wasn’t surprised,” admits Evan Fournier. The reason? “We’re at a special time. We’re starting another Olympiad, there are a lot of new people arriving. Now we have to move forward, the Federation has made its decision. We still don’t know who will take over. I’m waiting a bit like everyone else.”
As a reminder, a surprising clash had broken out in broad daylight through the media between Evan Fournier and his now ex-coach, while the French team found itself with its back to the wall after a poor start to the tournament, before its match against Canada. More than real animosity, Fournier’s exit and the reaction that followed were above all the result of a misunderstanding, and a desire to communicate better by the two men, who have since reconciled. “I sent him a message,” Evan Fournier revealed to us after Collet’s departure. “I thanked him for these great years, these great campaigns that we were able to experience together.”
- RMC Sport
