From our special correspondent in Tokyo,
To freak out, we could tell you that it’s a job. That a first medal can be smelled, it can be sniffed, it can be guessed, and that after all we are paid for it. The truth ? We went where the organizers of these pandemic Games wanted to send us. Banco the caravan, thanks to Luka Meikheidze. And what a medal, by the way. Of those that we dream of every day to tell to close the valves of the stupid and wicked nationalisms that France can sometimes produce.
The history of the tricolor judoka, therefore. Born in Georgia, whom his parents fled during the Second South Ossetian War to reach Poland, where they were refused political asylum. The following ? A smuggler who ransoms the fortune of a life, cross roads, and an arrival in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges (Val-de-Marne), with a letter translated by “great people” in Poland saying roughly: ” My name is Luka, I am 12 years old and I want to do judo at your place ”.
“I will learn this medal by heart”
The boy is 25, today, and he kept this letter preciously: “This day, it represents years of work, all these things that I lived in my life, these sacrifices which pay, even if all the world makes sacrifices ”. He stares at his bronze metal with enamored eyes: “I still cannot realize what I have done. It impresses me so much this medal, I think I will spend a lot of time looking at it to learn it by heart, limit ”. His parents, regularized but not yet naturalized, will wait a little longer for his phone call: “I have to calm down before calling them, I’m a little lost there, I think”.
It is true that we thought we lost it a short time after this dantesque semi-final lost after five minutes to defend as we hold each breath when the breath runs out. Salvation came from friends, who could be heard for a thousand despite the empty room. “Grit your teeth, attack, get on it”. Shirine Boukli, beaten in opening, Alex Clerget, the big mate, Orlando Cazorla, the sparring, all three gave their vocal cords at the Japanese science museum, perched a few meters from the legendary Budokan in Tokyo. “We all went to see him in the warm-up room, one by one, to re-mobilize him. Sometimes we had the feeling that he was going to crack but we pushed behind him to the end ”.
“Everyone cried”
In the third shido (penalty) addressed to Kim during the fight for bronze, it is the explosion in the stands and in the head of Mkheidze, who struggles to hold back tears. “It’s a crazy thing, we do not realize, like him I think, continues Orlando, who spent his preparation with him. Everyone cried, the girls cried, I think I cried. He’s such a nice boy, I’m too happy for him ”. The first warm-up, before a resounding revenge against the Spanish European champion Garrigos, smelled like the sun of Austerlitz: “He has been doing well since the start of preparation, already in the acclimatization course. Before Garrigos, I told him “do it, go get her”. It’s incredible what happens to him ”.
In impeccably ironed suit, his trainer Daniel Fernandez, who nevertheless gave of himself on the edge of the tatami mat, has modest happiness. “It’s an extraordinary day for Luka who comes to reward his daily commitment. The history of judoka is beautiful and the history of man is beautiful. He deserves everything that happens to him. It was an unforgettable day for him for his family for his relatives, just for that I am happy for him ». More than us? Impossible.