This is definitely a poor performance so far but the Games are not over yet. I think the question should be why are the French men so much more successful than the women?
A country with a relatively big population with amazing athletes in soccer and basketball, and yet they look on pace to deliver zero medals in the Athletics competition in Paris.
Why is America so bad at (men's) Soccer?
A country with a relatively big population with amazing athletes in track and (men's) basketball, and yet they look on pace to deliver zero medals in the Soccer competition in Paris.
Women are in the final and guaranteed a medal. 50% of total number achieved is bad??
A country with a relatively big population with amazing athletes in soccer and basketball, and yet they look on pace to deliver zero medals in the Athletics competition in Paris.
you are pretty damn rude for a non American.... as only a non American would use the word "Athletics" instead of track and field. Why is Kenya bad at hockey? Why is America bad at table tennis? why are you bad at using your brain to answer simple questions?
A french 5000m runner quote : We have to put things into perspective, it's the most universal sport along with football, competition comes from everywhere. We are also affected by doping. All of this put together makes it difficult to get medals.
I love in France but moved here from another country which is strong in athletics.
French athletes seem allergic to running hard, fast intervals on the track. Instead, they run slow paced intervals with extremely short recoveries (like 15 seconds). Basically, they are always running slow. I have to train on my own, because there's nobody else running standard track workouts. I get lots of concerned looks from coaches when they see me out of breath and tired at the end of sessions. They also spend hours on technique, drills, chatting and explanations, and then hardly do a session afterwards.
A lot of French people also don't build muscle easily.
French here ! Some elements.
1) Totally wrong, the french way of training is the exact opposite of norwegian method, ie stupidly fast VO2 workouts. I remember Jakob talked about Gressier's training (which is representative), saying he was going way too hard (like often 1000m under 2'20).
2) First, we're not good, but not that bad : in European championships in june we were 2nd behind Italy at the medal/placing table. These olympics just aren't going our way in T&F.
3) The real reasons are : - very few public/private investment in track and field (for example, in Paris, there is only TWO 400m tracks, no fake), in my hometown there is none, we always have to share tracks with footballers in the field (almost no tracks without a soccer field in the center),
- the french federation is full of boomers who take every bad decision they can,
- the main reason : no help during college, most of the athletes must do the exact same as other students to graduate, which is really difficult to conciliate with training, recuperation, etc. ; so we have really good results at the european level in U18/U20, but after high school most of talented athletes have to choose between studies and sport unfortunately, and they often choose studies beacause T&F isn't really financially safe for most (not the same in soccer for example)
assault, or have I got that wrong? The ex girlfriend of Jimmy Gressier probably didn't benefit much from the French distance running team all being located at the French national training base, and perhaps different groups which athletes can choose to join and move about us a better approach.
Let's see: Track: Spints: mostly US - West Africa and Carribean. Tough (except 110mh). There is just no room. Distance: Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Maghreb. Very tough. No immigration from these countries in France except Maghreb. And most of the good ones are anyway exploring the trail world which is tougher for East Africans. A little bit of space in the 800 and 1500m (mostly 800m actually). Not counting relays. Field: Not a French tradition (like in Germany or Poland) except for Pole Vault. Complete void in Javelin, Shot Put, Discus, High Jump, Long Jump and Triple Jump. So really it is down to 100mhW and 110mhM, 800m and Pole Vault and a few individual talents here and there. And it does not make a lot of sense to invest in many of them, there are so many sports when you think about it. And look, for instance the 5000m and 10 000m...Gressier is sub 13 and (now) sub 27...That will bring him a grand total of 0 medal at the global level, and it is not even close.