How to become an Olympic athlete for the 2024 Olympics?

Participating in the Olympic Games in one’s own country is the dream of every sportsman. If Paris wins the organization of the edition 2024, you have seven years to try to win your place. Provided you choose the right sport.

All sports - Paris 2024 - Paris 2024, the opportunity or never to become an Olympian?  (R.Martin / Reuters)
Paris 2024, the opportunity or never to become an Olympian? (R.Martin / Reuters)

To make a sport where France does not shine but will be qualified automatically

As in other sports competitions, the host country is automatically qualified in many (but not all) disciplines at the Olympic Games. Thus, if France wins the organization of the competition , the Blues will participate in some events where they are usually not qualified, in relatively confidential sports in the country.

This is the case of field hockey, where France should benefit, as Brazil in 2016, an automatic qualification if it meets certain criteria. France has less than 20,000 licensed players in this sport, has not qualified for the Olympics since 1972 and has only participated in two World Cups in its history. It would be time to put a stick in the hands of your boy or your 13 year old daughter and register in one of nearly 200 French clubs, who already feel an effect JO . With seven years of intense training, he or she may have a chance to participate in the Olympic adventure with the France team in 2024.

Have a gift of nature

For ordinary people, seven years of training, even intensive, is not enough to reach the level of the best athletes in the world in most Olympic disciplines. But as shown by the American journalist David Epstein in the excellent book The Gene of Sport , genetics plays a role, admittedly still poorly understood but real, in sports performance at the highest level. In other words, if you have the right genes, you will need less training than others to achieve the same result.

This explains why an athlete can reach the peaks in a very short time. In 2007 in Osaka, Donald Thomas became world champion of high jump with a little academic leap but formidable effective at 2.35m, only eight months after having started to train in this discipline.

To become helmsman in rowing

At first glance, rowing is not one of the easiest Olympic sports. It is not uncommon for rowers to temporarily lose their eyesight at the end of the race, a reaction of the body to pain, not to mention the back problems that high-level practice entails. However, it is in this discipline that one of your best hopes of participating in the 2024 Games is thanks to the position of helmsman , this person who sits on the stern of the boat and shouts on his teammates for coordinate the pace of rowers in the eight-event.

The only condition? You have to be very light. The helmsman of the reigning Olympic champion, Phelan Hill, weighs 55 kg,

The helmsman, this little guy.  (I. Meijer / The Team)
The helmsman, this little guy. (I. Meijer / The Team)

More than 40 years? Put yourself on horseback or shooting

May the fifties among you not be discouraged. It is not uncommon to see athletes over 50, or even 60, in riding or shooting events . In Rio, the oldest athlete, all sports combined, was Julie Brougham, a New Zealand rider who competed in the individual dressage event at age 62 . In London, the Japanese rider Hiroshi Hoketsu was 71 years old . He came close to breaking the historic Olympic record held by Swedish shooter Oscar Swahn. At the 1920 Games in Antwerp, he was 72 years old and competed in two shooting events, even picking up money from the double-team team deer, which also makes him the oldest medalist in history.

Change of nationality

Finally, there is one last solution: that of changing nationality to have more chances of qualifying for the Olympic Games. An interesting option if you practice a sport much more developed in France than in other countries. This is how the judoka Ketty Mathé, barred in the French team, became Turkish to participate in the Rio Olympics , or that the handball player Bertrand Roiné defended the colors of Qatar. Only drawback: if France organizes the 2024 Olympics, you will not experience the emotion of defending the colors of a host country.

How to play football?

Football is the most played sport in the world and also one of the oldest ball games. It is not very difficult to learn the rules to know how to play football.

Some basic notions about football

Concretely, football is a team sport that opposes two teams of eleven players, each with the objective of putting the round ball (spherical) in the opponent’s goal, without using the arms. In general, the winning team will then be the one who has managed to score the most goal than the other. So, to the question how to play football, the best way to answer it will probably be to fly over the few fundamental principles of football.

How to play football?

As mentioned above, playing football is to put the ball in the opponent’s goal without using either the arms or the hands. Only the goalkeeper will be able to use it, and that only in its surface of repair. To know that if one of the players on his team gives him a foot pass, the goalkeeper will not be able to grab or touch the ball with his hands.

In addition to hand-offs, there are also fouls mainly concerning unsportsmanlike behavior, as well as overly aggressive or dangerous contact between players. To know that a tackle can be authorized, but it is regulated. Thus, a tackle from behind is punished with a red card (expulsion). For faults considered less serious, the penalty ranges from a verbal warning to a yellow card. Note that when a player gets a second yellow card, he will be kicked out of the field. In addition, fouls are also sanctioned by a direct or indirect free kick, or by a penalty kick (if the foul was committed in the penalty area).

Otherwise, to prevent the attackers from waiting for the balls behind the opposing defense, and to encourage them to actually play football, the offside rule has also been put in place. The principle is simple: there must be at least one opposing player (apart from the goalkeeper) between the attacker and the opponent’s goal line, at the moment when the passer carries out his pass. These few rules have been set so that players can play football in a sporty and disciplined way. Indeed, how to play football if there is not a minimum rule to respect? In all, to play football, we must take into account 17 laws of the game, all related to the question how to play football.

In addition, playing football must be a passing game, not the individual (dribbling game). As Michel Platini always says so well, “the ball will always go faster than the player”. And since the match lasts 90 minutes in two halves of 45 minutes, it is therefore important to put in place one or more strategies on how to play football. This is why the teams choose to play football using various techniques (training 4-4-2, 4-3-3, 5-4-1, etc.).