Twenty years later! The French wheelchair basketball team had not participated in the Paralympic Games since Athens in 2004 – where it finished in second-to-last place. Needless to say, the Blues are eagerly awaiting their first match against Canada, on Friday, August 30, on the Arena Bercy court.
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But for the French, who had almost disappeared from the international radar since the 2010 World Championships and a silver medal, it was necessary to go and get qualification. While the team sports teams of the host country are generally automatically qualified for the Games, this was not the case for the 2024 edition.
The International Wheelchair Basketball Federation and the Paralympic Committee have changed the rules and decided to reduce the number of qualified teams from twelve to eight. The aim is to have a competition of “high intensity” and matches “at the highest level”, as explained at the end of April by Jérôme Rosenstiehl, responsible for organising the basketball and wheelchair basketball tournaments during the Games.
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The pill was difficult to swallow for the players and their staff. “Nothing was certain”recalls Francis Dandine, who accompanied the Blues’ performance. “At first it was a hard blow. We took it as an injustice, and then as a strength.remembers Stéphane Binot, sports director of French wheelchair basketball. We had to fight to qualify.”
The French team had to go through a Paralympic qualifying tournament in April, aptly named “Last chance for Paris”. Four games, four victories, the para basketball players won this tournament hands down. This success allowed them to join the world top 8 alongside Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, Great Britain, the United States, Spain and Australia.
Strict framework
In return for these new rules, the team was able to choose its group for the first matches in Paris. Les Bleus will immediately avoid the American team, Olympic champion in Tokyo in 2021 and world champion in 2022, and will play their first three matches against Canada (three Paralympic gold medals), Germany, then Great Britain (European champion 2023).
In support of this journey, the team was able to benefit from additional budgets to train and compete in several tournaments. “We had a number of training sessions and confrontations with other teams that we had never had in such a short time.”explains Stéphane Binot.
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