Winner of the 3000m steeplechase, disqualified and finally crowned, a roller coaster ride for Alice Finot at the European Championships in Rome.
It was the emotional elevator for Alice Finot and the French athletics team on Sunday evening at the European Championships in Rome: winner of the 3,000 meter steeplechase after a perfectly managed race, the Frenchwoman was first disqualified, then finally reclassified.
France therefore concluded the third day of the European Championships with four additional medals: the gold of Finot but also the title of Gabriel Tual in the 800 m and the bronze medals of Ilionis Guillaume in the triple jump and Agathe Guillemot over 1500 m. All in just over half an hour in the Roman Olympic stadium. Al
ice Finot had time to celebrate her victory on the track at length with her loved ones who came to encourage her by the dozens, and to move into the mixed zone, when the European Athletics Federation updated her results, thus disqualifying the long-distance runner 33 years old.
Two contested supports
The reason ? Two supports placed on the interior white line at the crossing of a river and therefore a protest from the German Federation, whose athlete Gesa Felicitas Krause had finished second. The French Athletics Federation (FFA) protested in turn and after endless back and forth, Alice Finot definitively regained her title, as the FFA announced at 12:20 a.m., more than two hours after the race.
A disqualification would have been a huge cold shower for the long-distance runner who has made meteoric progress since she started athletics late in life. Based in Galicia, she was logically the favorite on Sunday evening in Rome after her fifth place in the world in Budapest in the summer of 2023 and wanted to win “gold or nothing” in Rome.
Tactical race
In a tactical race, she took the lead 400 meters from the finish and showed her speed at the end of the race. Crossing the line in 9 min 16 sec 22, she beat the German Krause and the Briton Elizabeth Bird. A good omen less than two months before the Paris Games. “I gain enormous confidence in my tactics, in my positioning and in my finish”reacted Alice Finot after her race, not yet aware that her title was threatened.
“I’m not 200% as I want to be at the Olympics but I feel that I have validated what I came to look for.” Finot obtained his first international medal in the winter of 2021, European indoor silver over 3,000 m. For her first Worlds in the summer of 2022, she fell in the river before getting up to finish tenth.
The total confusion regarding his performance on Sunday almost made people forget an evening like the French athletics team had not experienced for a long time. A few minutes after Finot’s victory, Gabriel Tual won gold in the 800 meters (1 min 44 sec 87).
In the last 150 meters I was flying, it’s incredible, it’s magical
“I managed the race properly by really focusing on myself, and it was crazy. In the last 150 meters, I was flying, it’s incredible, it’s magical”reacted the 26-year-old half-distance runner, Olympic finalist in 2021 and world finalist in 2022 on the double lap.
Objective Paris
“It’s crazy but we must not forget that the objective is Paris. We must not stay perched at the top too much”, he immediately added. Almost at the same time, Ilionis Guillaume, fourth throughout the triple jump competition, released a last great attempt measured at 14.43 m, a personal best which allows him to climb on the third step of the podium, his first international medal at seniors at 26.
And to end the evening with a bang, Breton Agathe Guillemot, 24, won bronze in the 1500 m (4 min 05 sec 69). Fourth with 150 m to go, she showed her panache to take the podium. After Samba-Mayela’s gold on Saturday over hurdles and the silver of heptathlete Auriana Lazraq-Khlass, the French team has six medals (3 in gold, 1 in silver, 2 in bronze) after three days of competition out of six.
