September 22, 2010 - 2:20pm
From Sart-Eustache, Belgium
The French Women's National Team is currently ranked eighth in the world. But they're aiming for better.
The last time the French medalled at the Women's World Championships, it was 1953, when France took the bronze. But having captured the European Championship in 2009 in Latvia, dethroning traditional European powers Russia, the Czech Republic and Spain (see Full Court's report, Eurobasket 2009: Vive La France!), Les Bleues, the French National Team, have their eyes on the medal stand at the upcoming FIBA World Basketball Championship for Women, set to tip off in Brno and Ostrava, Czech Republic, on Friday, September 24. To that end, the team set up a rigorous preparation campaign beginning last March, featuring 13 scrimmage games against opponents from every continent but Oceania.
A strong preliminary group of 21 players was selected by new French coach Pierre Vincent over the summer and kicked off their training with a trip to lAlpe dHuez, a place usually better known for its spectacular Tour de France mountain cycling stage arrivals than as a basketball camp resort. Despite strange situations in the beginning of the French squads training camp in the Alps, les Bleues had a very serious preparation and actually never seemed so strong before. All prospective members of the French team participated in the training camp with the exception of 23-year-old center Sandrine Gruda of the WNBA's Connecticut Sun, who was expected to join the group once her WNBA season was over.
Never had the French looked so strong as when they headed into this year's run-up to the World Championships on a program that took the team through the regions of Normandie (Mondeville), le Nord (Villeneuve dAscq) and Picardie (Amiens and Beauvais), all of which welcomed les Bleues for their pre-championship tournament training. On paper at least, none of the opponents lined up for the exhibition tour, with the possible exception of Brazil, seemed any real match for France, or to be more precise the French National Team of 2009 that won the Eurobasket championship title.
Alas, that's when the woes of attrition began to set in.