"The scar will never heal": for the French who failed at the Paris Games, a delicate reconstruction

Saturday, August 10, 2024. A scream echoes through the corridors of the national velodrome in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (Yvelines). Mathilde Gros has just been eliminated from the individual sprint event. "At that moment, I told myself that it's not possible, that the pain will never go away," recalls the Frenchwoman, who had won the world title in the specialty in 2022. Two days earlier, the track athlete had already failed in the semi-finals of the keirin. As was the case in Tokyo in 2021, she leaves the Olympic Games (Olympics) full of regrets and without a medal. "Something broke inside me, even though I had been dreaming of this competition for years." Understandably, since Paris was officially designated host of the event in September 2017.

In front of their home crowd, the French delegation collected 64 awards—its highest total since the 1900 Olympics. But heartbreak was inevitable, for Mathilde Gros as for so many of her fellow athletes. Many athletes had to deal with unprecedented pressure, then a sudden media silence as the cameras turned to smiles and podiums.

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