French sports clubs and federations are being urged to be ready for a wave of interest likely to follow the 2024 Paris Olympics after a spectacular first week of success for French athletes.
France clocked up 12 gold, 14 silver and 18 bronze medals by Sunday evening, to lie third behind the United States and China.
In the first eight days of competition, home athletes won more than the 33 medals from entire 16 days of the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
Politicians and sports administrators say they are confident French athletes can finish among the top five in the medals table and inspire new generations of athletes.
"This is the thrust of plans by the National Olympic Committee and all the federations," said Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra.
"They have been organised to be able to absorb the flow of new members in the wake of the Games."
Since 2017 and the success of the bid to bring the Olympics to Paris, former handball coach Claude Onesta has, as high performance manager, been remodelling the country's sporting strategy.
The plan tasks coaches at sports clubs to spot talent and bring them to the attention to federations. Budding champions are then pointed towards the country's top trainers.
Surge of medals
The Olympic gold rush started on 27 July when rugby star Antoine Dupont inspired the men's sevens team in a 28-7 annihilation of the defending champions Fiji at the Stade de France in front of 70,000 fervent fans that included French president Emmanuel Macron.
Macron's presence at the jumping team event at the Chateau de Versailles on Friday failed to rouse the nation's top horse riders, who finished in the bronze medal position.
But Macron was in the house to witness Teddy Riner's victory in the +100kg men's judo at the Champ de Mars Arena and Léon Marchand's fourth gold in the swimming pool at Paris La Défense Arena.
He then headed over to see Joris Daudet, Sylvain André and Romain Mahieu add to the ecstasy with a sweep of the medals – the first time French athletes had achieved such a feat in 100 years.
Macron took to social media to hail the exploit.
"It's brilliant for a halfway point in the Games," said David Lappartient, boss of France's national Olympic Committee.
"We have Games which are enthusing people and an event that is getting people behind the France team.
"The organisation has been great and, just as importantly, the team has performed."
Last September, leaders of the French athletics federation met Castéra-Oudéa to discuss the debacle at the 2023 world championships in Budapest where France claimed one medal – silver in the men's 4x400m relay.
The coming days – as athletics takes centre stage at the 2024 Olympics in Paris – will bear witness to the effectiveness of that powwow.
Early results from the track and field suggest little progress. No French athletes made it to the finals over the weekend of the men's or women's 100m.
Results
For the 2024 Olympics, Onesta says 85 athletes have been identified as potential medal winners.
Just over 40 have competed and have brought in 37 medals. The rest will participate in their disciplines over the next seven days.
"French sport always has had quality athletes," said Onesta. "But the athletes sometimes have trouble converting their results in competitions around the world into Olympic results.
"We realised in Tokyo that the conversion rate for the French potential medallists was around 50 percent whereas our closest rivals had conversion rates of between 70 and 80 percent.
"In Paris, the French conversion rate has been around 84 percent, which is exceptional."
With another 40 or so potential medallists and the same conversion rate, France could well harvest more than 70 medals.
Onesta added that "the French president says he wants us to be in the top five in the medals table and to be able to stay there for the long term.
"So this isn't only about doing well in Paris, it's about establishing ourselves in a new way at the very highest level so that the results we're seeing now aren't just a flash in the pan but repeated in the future."
