Sport

France finishes 16th at the London Paralympics

By FranceInLondon
10/09/2012

With 45 medals, including 8 GOLD, France finishes 16th at the London Paralympics.
What a disappointment for the France Team! France was aiming for 10th place but finished 16th, four places lower than in Beijing in 2008.

What happened? It all began encouragingly; alas it did not finally live up to expectations.

The Highlights

Swimming:

Charles Rozoy

100 m butterfly - GOLD

Charles Rozoy won gold right at the start of the paralympic games with a dazzling record of 1:01.24 – only 12 seconds slower than legendary Michael Phelps’s world record.

 

 

Elodie Lorendi – Triple strike with a medal of each colour.

100m butterfly – S10 – Bronze

100m Freestyle – S10 – Silver

400m Freestyle – S10 – GOLD

 

 

Athletics:

François-Elie Mandy –

100m –T37 - GOLD

No one expected François-Elie Mandy to do so well but she won gold in the 100m T37 by beating Joanna Nelson from Namibia and Neha Bahi from Tunisia, setting a new European record of 14.08s

 

 

Assia El Hannouni –  She came, she saw, she conquered

200 m – T12 – GOLD

GOLD

 

400 m – T12 - GOLD

The almost-blind athlete is one if the stars of her sport. She won two new gold medals in addition to the 6 gold she won in Beijing 4 years ago and she also made history by setting a new world record by running the 200 m in 24.46s

 

Marie-Amélie Le Fur – What a show!

100m - T44 - GOLD

Long jump 200m – T42-44 - Bronze

200m – T44 - Silver

This 23-year-old student who is not only a runner but also a long jumper achieved gold and silver in the 100m and  200 m respectively and to top it all, she also received a bronze medal in the long jump event.

Marie-Amelie was amputated below the left knee after a scooter accident.

 

Powerlifting

Souhad Ghazouani – - 67.50kg - GOLD

Souhad wins gold and beats the Paralympic record by lifting a staggering 146kg – Seven more kilos than her Chinese counterpart.

 

 

 

 

 

Shooting

– Mixed R3 - 10m Air Rifle Prone SH1 - GOLD

At 28, Cédric, has now achieved his lifetime ambition of winning gold and becoming a paralympic champion and sets a a new world record, beating his British counterpart with by just as 0.3 points.

 

The Disappointments

Athletics

Arnaud Assoumani - Long jump and triple jump

Arnaud was aiming for gold but went away with silver. The Chinese athlete competing against him beat him in both events.

Arnaud Assoumani, who represented France in the F46 long jump at the 2008 Summer Paralympics, winning gold by setting a new world record at the time with a jump of 7.23 metres. This time around, Arnaud only managed his best distance of the season by jumping 7.13 m. He also set a new European record in the triple jump with 14.28m but this was not enough to beat Fuliang Liu, the new world record holder with 15.20m.

Other disappointments:

David Smétananine (50m and 100 m freestyle swimmer) who until this year had been the most successful athlete in the French team

Damien Seguin (Sailing) – The flag bearer who won gold in Athens 8 years ago failed to renew his exploit.

Laurent François (Fencing) – Who had been leading the team and who was targeting gold in the both the individual and team events. Marc-Andre Cratere and Alim Latreche his team mates won silver and bronze in the Men’s sabre - category B and Foil respectively.