Who can sit at the table of the best French cyclists in the BMX category? Apparently no one. Romain Mathieu became world champion in the discipline on Sunday and was accompanied on the podium by two other Frenchmen, Arthur Pilard and Joris Daudet, world champion in 2011 and 2016. The appointment is made just one year before the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
“I’m not sure I realize. We push each other, we motivate each other and this is the result. It makes us better year after year. It’s a good omen before the Olympics next year in Paris, ”reacted the pilot from Sarrians, in Vaucluse.
This is the first time that the Blues have managed to place three men on the podium of the World Championships. Proof of an incredible density in the discipline, there were five in total in the final, out of eight riders, with also Jérémy Rencurel who finished fifth and Léo Garoyan, seventh.
The failure of the Tokyo Olympics seems a long way off
One year before the Paris Olympics, this hat-trick erases the disillusionment of the Tokyo Games from which the Blues had returned empty-handed, but also of the 2022 European Championships where they had already been five in the final out of eight pilots, for zero medals at the end, ranking from places 4 to 8.
On Sunday, the French were still eight in the quarter-finals, where Sylvain André, crowned in 2018, fell, six in the semi-finals and five in the final. Among the women, Camille Maire did not go beyond the quarter-final stage. But Tessa Martinez was crowned in the hopes where Mateo Colsenet took the silver in the men.