The Ministry of Sports withdrew, in December 2022, the delegation of “the long track” at the French Ice Sports Federation. Discipline is now attached to the Roller and Skateboard Federation. The FFSG regrets a lack of concertation.
by Anthony Hernandez
For eighty-eight-eight years that long track speed skating appears on the winter games program, no French skater has ever hoisted his skates on a podium. In Beijing, in 2022, there was not even a tricolor representative. Managed since its beginnings by the French Ice Sports Federation (FFSG), the discipline will try in the future to do better under the aegis of another federation, that of rollerblading and skateboarding. In December 2022, the Ministry of Sports withdrew the delegation to the FFSG, a blow for a federation which had already lost ice hockey in 2006, creator of its own federation.
In France, as in a growing number of countries, the “long track” is intimately linked to rollerblading. In a diagnosis published in May 2022 and consulted by MO12345lemonde, the National Sports Agency (Ans) recalled that “the majority of athletes who take part in the competitions come from the [French Federation] of Roller”.
Fourth at the 2010 Olympic Games on the 10,000 meters, Alexis Contin is the French skater who approached the most of the Olympic dream. Multichampion of the world of rollerblading -sport where France is, he recalls, “among the three best world nations” -, it pleads for this reorientation:
“Ensure a real transition from the best rollers [and roller and rollers] on the ice, it is sure that it will work. Statistically, all the countries that did it have brought back medals.”
Now a coach in Berlin, he developed this “Roller-Glace” sector in Germany. The first results were not long in coming: Felix Rijhnen, rollerblading champion, has just won his first skating world cup.
Former coach of Alexis Contin, Alain Nègre personifies the links between the two disciplines. Technical executive at the Roller Federation since 2009, he held the position of performance director and intervened, until December 2022, on behalf of the FFSG during the long -run World Cup heats.
“Put the best on the rollerblading on an ice project”
“Until now, the project within the FFSG was to try to accompany those who are already on the ice and who have done good times, he explains. Now the project is Put the best on the rollerblading on an ice project. A transfer takes about four years. “This year, the American rollerist Erin Jackson became Olympic skating champion at 29 when she had never patinated four years before. For Alain Nègre, you have to go from an individual approach to a real transfer policy. “It would no longer be based on athletes who try to make this effort by themselves,” he said.
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