Christophe Lemaitre disappoints but can Renaud Lavillenie deliver?

When  Christophe Lemaitre first burst on to the scene a couple of years ago the French media heralded him - without even the flutter of an eyelid - as "the world's fastest white man" over 100 metres and the "first white man to run under 10 seconds".

Christophe Lemaitre (screenshot TF1 news report)

It was true and he has since run even faster, breaking his own national record a couple more times in the 100 metres (it now stands at 9.92 seconds) and doing the same in the 200 metres at 19.80 seconds.

So far the 22-year-old has picked up four gold and one bronze medal at European Championships and one silver and a bronze at the World Championships in Daegu South Korea in 2011.

Lemaitre arrived in London for the Olympics with high expectations, choosing to miss the 100 metres and instead concentrating on the 200 metres.

As his coach Pierre Carraz told the French sports daily L'Équipe, it was the event in which they both reckoned Lemaitre stood more of a chance of getting a medal.

Not gold - because to all intents and purposes that was (as with the 100 metres) already "reserved" for Jamaica's Usain Bolt - but at worst a bronze and who knew, maybe even a silver.

The 200 metres was also the event in which Lemaitre won bronze at those World Championships last year.

So there were high hopes of a repeat performance.

And therein lay the problem, as far as media expectations in France were concerned.

In the days running up to the heats and the semi-finals Lemaitre's face was plastered all over the sports pages. He had become the great media hope for some sort of glory in an Olympic games which were fast becoming ones reporters in France would probably prefer to forget.

And after he qualified for the finals, he not surprisingly also became the main headline on television and radio news.

"Christophe Lemaitre goes up against Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake," announced, among many others, Julien Arnaud on TF1's Le Journal a couple of hours before the race.

"Does he have a shot at a medal?"



A good question.

On paper he certainly did, and if you had followed all the interviews with those who knew him  there was a belief that a medal was possible, so high were the hopes of those singing his sporting praises.

After his semi-final, while Lemaitre was waiting so see whether he had qualified for Thursday's final as a fastest runner-up, the ever-annoying Nelson Monfort was also trackside thrusting a microphone in his face, and forcing the man with the slightest of lisps and almost childlike voice to relive his semi, predict his chances and answer any other inane question that entered the veteran journalist's head.

As all that was happening, Bolt walked by having just run and won his semi and Monfort directed his microphone towards the Jamaican.

"Usain - hi," shrieked Monfort in his one-tone nasal voice.

"What's does Christophe have to do to beat you in Thursday's final (repeated by Monfort in French of course because viewers are totally unable to understand such a simple question).

Bolt looked at Monfort and then at Lemaitre before saying without the slightest touch of arrogance (this was in his pre-legend days remember)  "He needs to run faster than me."

Sadly he didn't. Nor, as we now know, did he beat Blake for silver and in fact, it was another Jamaican, Warren Weir who took bronze.

Lemaitre, running in lane 2 and therefore having to cope with his weak point of running the bend on the inside lane (er...in a race which is run on the bend) could in fact only manage sixth, in a time that was far slower than his fastest.

"I didn't manage to run the sort of race I wanted," he explained afterwards.

"I'm disappointed but there's perhaps still the chance of a medal in the 4x100 metres relay".

And the French media was disappointed.

Its hero hadn't managed to deliver the expected and desired-for goods.

But hey...it has a new potential target for Friday and this time the chances of a track and field gold medal in the shape of Renaud Lavillenie in the pole vault.

He's one of the favourites for the event having put in some of the best performances this year.

But the French media seems to be a little more circumspect in predicting the outcome...with the wind conditions in the Olympic stadium already being proposed as a potential spoiler to the event.



In other words if it's not the bend (for Lemaitre)  then perhaps it'll be the wind for Lavillenie.

Nelson Monfort - a French "citizen of the world"

So sometimes, as British poet Lord Byron and US writer Mark Twain (among others probably) wrote "Truth" really "is stranger than fiction".

Earlier this week there was a spoof piece here "Incomplete Olympic faction", in which special mention was made to France's most annoying sports journalist Nelson Monfort, and his excrutiating poolside interview with women's relay swimmer Ophélie-Cyrielle Etienne.

Nelson Monfort (screenshot TV interview)

Well (cue Twilight Zone music please) the Wall Street Journal has now published a piece, giving gold in terms of OTT sports broadcasting enthusiasm to none other than...Nelson Monfort.




All right so the author of the WSJ piece got his facts wrong - to fit his theory so it seems: admitting his error of "reporting" that Monfort had been commentating from the Olympic pool and amending the post somewhat (although not sufficiently) to reflect that the squeals and Marseillaise-style references had been coming from Roxana Maracineanu and Alexandre Boyon respectively and not Monfort.

But the gist of the whole piece was how sports journalists from around the world reacted when their athletes won, with the French veteran perhaps being "awarded gold" for his broadcast enthusiasm - read "chauvinism".

Monfort of course claims he's not at all "chauvinistic" but rather a "citizen of the world."

To show that has something of a hollow ring to it, here's a clip from those masters of French satire, Les Guignols de l'info.

It might be a couple of years old, but it mixes Monfort's habit of slipping from French to English with his unbridled and excessive enthusiasm for the country's sporting...um...prowess.

The mark of every "good" sports journalist?

Incomplete Olympic faction - French awarded fairplay and broadcasting excellence gold medals

There have been more gold medals to add to the French haul at the London 2012 Olympics after the  Independent Olympics Observers Committee awarded the country three special awards for fairplay, sportsmanship and broadcasting excellence.

The awards were handed out on Sunday evening at a special gala dinner in the presence of the guest of honour Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM who opened and closed the proceedings with yet another inevitable rendition of "Hey Jude".

Nelson Monfort (screenshot YouTube video)

In the category Best Reporter, the gold went to France 2's omnipresent Nelson Monfort for his excellent interview of the French women's 4 x 200 metres relay swimming team after they had won the bronze medal.

"Delicacy and tact were the trademarks of yet another fine moment in television sports journalism," the Committee noted, praising Monfort for the way in which he had managed to make one of the team, Ophélie-Cyrielle Etienne, feel completely at ease by reminding her that her mother had died recently.

Monfort, renowned for his one-note intonation and simultaneous translations skills when interviewing English-speaking athletes showed particular empathy when it came to questioning Etienne.

"We love your sensitivity," Monfort said. "You have suffered over the past year after a family bereavement. I imagine that's who you would like to dedicate this medal to tonight?"



Monford wasn't the only winner representing France Télévisions on the night though.

The whole organisation was honoured with a gold for the way in which it has so far provided balanced and objective coverage of the London Olympics, regularly interrupting events to inform viewers and commentators that the remainder of a match, bout, heat or whatever would now be continued on one of its other channels - either France 2 or France 3, depending on the schedules.

"Channel hopping has brought a delight and pleasure to millions of viewers in France," the Committee said.

"And it has ensured that no crucial moments have been missed while those at home have scrambled to find the remote control to avoid the closing credits on one channel before being treated to the opening ones on another."

Special mention was made for the way in which the men's doubles final - which featured the French pair of Michael Llodra, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga losing to the American twins Mike and Bob Bryan was shown to the exclusion of the women's singles being played at the same time.

While the odd mention was made of the manner in which Serena Williams was hammering Maria Sharapova in straight sets, the only glimpse of the game French viewers were treated to was that of Williams receiving her medal.

But the night's top award for Best Loser went to French rowers Jérémie Azou and Stany Delayre.

They were competing in the final of the men's lightweight double skulls and had reportedly made an excellent start to the race when it was brought to a halt suddenly because the British duo of Mark Hunter and Zac Purchase had problems with their boat.

Purchase's seat had slipped and as is traditional and part of the rules of rowing, he raised his hand and all the other teams stopped too.

After the restart the British went on to finish second, just behind the Danish pair of Mads Rasmussen and Rasmus Quist, while the French missed out on the podium finishing fourth behind the bronze medallists Storm Uru and Peter Taylor from New Zealand.

And it was then that the French showed their true sporting colours and sense of fair play, blaming the incident on the failure of the British team for "misaligning their boat initially because of the wind" and criticising the jury's decision "for abiding by the rules and interrupting the race."

"The other teams were stronger when the race was restarted," explained Delayre

"It's always frustrating finishing fourth and is perhaps down to us being less experienced than the other teams in appearing in an Olympic final."

Which surely brings us to the time for a song, doesn't it?

Oh, go on then.

You just know you've been itching to hear it.