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France Enjoys First Ever Team Final at Gymnastics Worlds
France earned its first ever world team final at the World Gymnastics Championships on Monday with a steady sixth-position performance at the qualifying competition.
France scored a total of 218.593 points after Belarus, United States, South Korea, Romania and Ukraine by its young gymnasts, without the Olympic, World and European medalists Benjamin Varonian, Eric Poujade and Dmitry Karbanenko.
Marc Touchai, national coach for men's team, said:"Our team went through the competition with some small mistakes, which they usually don't do at home. They are young and don't have much experience but they did very well."
"We've put our stake down to young gymnasts with potential and this competition proved we were right," Touchai said.
France, who ranked 11th two years ago in Tianjin, China and 12th in Lausanne in 1997, enjoyed its breakthrough by qualifying the team final for the first time and refused to set any goals but to enjoy the competition.
"This is our first time, therefore, we don't have anything to loss. We can only win. We shall enter the final without complexes,"Marc said.
"Whatever place would make us happy as we are at the moment of time," he added.
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