Paris 2024 Olympic Games: “It makes me laugh…” When Bernard Laporte jokes about the gold medals won by France

Invited to react in the columns of Midi Olympique on the success of the XV of France against New Zealand, Bernard Laporte launched into a daring comparison while the exploit of the Blues in Saint-Denis on Saturday evening aroused a certain enthusiasm and a wave of positive comments despite an unsuccessful performance. “It's like the Olympic Games. In France we are happy when we win sixteen gold medals when all the other organizing countries usually win thirty. It makes me laugh,” the man who was secretary of the Olympic Games told the biweekly. State responsible for Sports from 2007 to 2009.

Not really known for his ability to mince his words, the man who is currently director of Rugby in Montpellier is nevertheless not far from having come up with something stupid. Because if we go back over the last 40 years, or 10 Olympics, few of the organizing countries have come close to the score he is talking about, except the United States (1984, 1996) and China (2008). , who historically prance at the top of the medal table.

A tackle at Oudéa-Castéra?

Only Japan (556 athletes entered in 2021, 27 gold medals) and Great Britain (541 athletes in 2012, 29 gold medals) actually did better than France this summer (571 athletes), when the Brazil (2016, 7 medals), Greece (2004, 6), Australia (2000, 16), Spain (1992, 13) and South Korea (1988, 12) do not have a better record.

This declaration should undoubtedly be seen as an attack addressed to Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, the former Minister of Sports – she was in office during the competition organized last summer in France – with whom he maintains conflictual relations. She had in fact pushed for him to resign from his post as president of the French Rugby Federation when he found himself entangled in the affairs and sentenced at first instance to two years in prison, suspended and 75,000 euros in fines. fine in a corruption case.