A Grand Finale for the French Women's Handball Team

The «Battantes» have secured a tenth and final gold medal for the French delegation, which is set to leave Tokyo with a total of 33 medals across all categories. This total falls short of Rio 2016 (42 medals, including ten gold) and London 2012 (34 medals, including eleven gold) but exceeds Beijing 2008 (41 medals but only seven gold), depending on whether one focuses on the most valuable metal or the total number of medals.

An Exceptional Year for French Team Sports

After The Gold of the Handball Players and volleyball players, the basketball players' money and The women's basketball team's bronze medal, the "Battantes" are proof of another exceptional year for French team sports. «They [the boys] »They put a little pressure on us, and we're not used to that, since we play before them in competition during the season, so this time […], we responded the way we needed to,", Allison Pineau continued.

Defense was once again the key to this victory, with Cléopatre Darleux’s spectacular performance in goal in the second half. «We said we were going to close up shop, and we did […] I think people took this final in stride—it was a bit different from usual,», Pineau sums it up.

If we add to that the silver medal won by the women’s rugby sevens team and the semifinal appearance in the women’s 3×3 basketball tournament—a new sport that has been directly transplanted from playgrounds and street basketball into the Olympic arena—the overall picture for mixed-gender sports is even more encouraging.

Only the French soccer team, which was competing in its first Games since 1996, fell short, being eliminated in the group stage. But head coach Sylvain Ripoll had a very difficult time putting together his roster, hampered by the refusal of many professional clubs to release players for an event that is not protected by the FIFA calendar