France's Olympic silver lining

While US swimmer Michael Phelps is busy swimming up a storm in the Olympic pool and adding to a haul any Klondike pioneer would have been proud of, spare a thought for the French.

Their gold rush hasn’t even achieved l’escargot pace and far from chest-swellingly listening to the strains of la Marseillaise from atop of the podium, they’ve so far had to settle for silver, silver, silver, tears, long faces, and yet more silver.

As radio and television commentators here in France never cease to point out, the French appear at the moment to be the Olympic champions at being runners up.

“Always the bridesmaid and never the bride” after five days of competition, and seven silvers it’s beginning to irk just more than a little, and national pride seems to have been seriously dented.

Of course that may all change. By the time you’re settling back to read this, the very first golds could have started a-tricklin’ in, and the country may well be back on track to repeat the medal toll of Athens four years ago – 33 in total, including 11 gold.

But so far, it hasn’t been the brightest of starts.

Mind you the French themselves haven’t exactly helped matters as the only thing they’ve been sporting after a second place finish have been collectively long faces. Worse still many have broken down in tears in front of the microphone.

And all because they only finished second.

It’s not so much that the country has turned into a nation of losers – nothing could be further from the truth. It’s just that they seem to be so bad at not winning.

On Monday, former Olympic swimming champion and one-time golden girl of the pool, Laure Manaudou, threatened to hang up her goggles (or whatever swimmers do) after finishing seventh of eight in the final of the 100 metres backstroke.

That followed an earlier disappointing (to say the least) finish in the final of her speciality the 400 metres freestyle, in which she is the world (short course) record holder. She finished plum last.

Disappointment for Manaudou for sure, but at 21 it’s far from being the end of the world surely. She still has more than enough time to get her act together and recover from a year, which has seen her training schedule interrupted by a series of disastrous personal decisions.

All the talk since in the French media has been “Will she, won’t she, should she, shouldn’t she?”

In fencing – normally a sure bet for French gold, Fabrice Jeannet and Corinne Maitrejean both had to “settle” for silver. And both looked disconsolate, inconsolable and tearful in front of the inevitable post mortem interviewer, bemoaning their fate and never once turning round to say that “hey perhaps the opponent was actually better on the day and deserved to win.’

When Lucie Décosse took silver in one of the women’s judo competitions, she remained stoic in “defeat” until she reached the off-camera corridors, where she reportedly broke down crying.

The double Olympic champion and France’s flag bearer at the opening ceremony, Tony Estanguet, didn’t even make it to the finals in canoeing, but his compatriot Fabien Lefèvre did, finishing – you’ve guessed it – second.

While clearly none too pleased, Lefèvre at least had the good grace not to snivel in front of the cameras, leaving it to his wife to bawl her eyes out in front of millions, talking about the disappointment, the hours of training and in “going for gold” how little recompense silver was.

And there probably, you have the crux of the matter. Sports and especially the Olympics, has become much more than a simple competition. It hasn’t been that for a long time now.

There are sponsorship deals, before, during and after a career, and the good old bad old days of amateurism have been replaced by hard nosed professionalism, corporate deals and big money.

That might just be the way it is. But at the same time it’s the individual competitors who to a large extent end up paying one heck of a price.

All that money, effort and time expended in training, mixed with a lethal dose of hype surrounding their chances of winning, and it’s perhaps not surprising many of the French athletes (this time around, although the same story could probably be repeated around the world) feel so deflated.

But in this particular case let’s not forget that it was a Frenchman, Pierre de Coubertin, to whom we all owe thanks for the revival of the modern Olympics as we have come to know them, and indeed he was the very first general secretary of the International Olympic Committee.

It might also help the French in particular to remember that the medal awarded to athletes who “demonstrate the spirit of sportsmanship” during the games also bears his name.

Whatever happened to the spirit of competition, with the glory of representing your country being an end in itself, rather than a failure to live up to inflated expectations?

Whatever happened to that famous Gallic shrug?