French diver on botched dive: ‘A little bit of blood but that is OK’

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A French Olympic diver has responded to the ‘ridiculous’ tumble he took off a diving board through the inauguration ceremony Thursday for a brand new Olympic aquatic centre in Paris.

“I fell in entrance of the president,” Alexis Jandard stated in French in a video shared with Britain’s Sky Information, referring to French President Emmanuel Macron, who was attending the ceremony. “I fell in entrance of the entire of France.”

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Regardless of the tumble, the 26-year-old gave the impression to be in good spirits. “I’m talking as a result of, with what occurred, I believe you need a bit debrief,” he stated. “So I’m going to clarify what occurred this morning.”

He continued: “To begin with, I wish to reassure everybody, every part in positive. I didn’t damage myself. There was a bit little bit of blood however that’s OK. That gained’t cease me from going to observe this afternoon.”

To BFMTV, Jandard stated, “The autumn was ridiculous… it’s a part of the sport. If I have a look at the autumn it’s humorous.

“It’s one thing that occurs to us in diving — not repeatedly but it surely’s not shocking. It occurs in coaching generally, in competitors. However there it was in entrance of the president through the inauguration of the pool. I informed myself it was the worst second!”

Jandard represented France on the 2020 Summer time Olympics in Tokyo (held in 2021), the place he competed within the males’s three-metre springboard occasion. He additionally participated within the World Aquatics Championships in 2015 and 2019, and he gained a bronze medal within the males’s 10-metre platform occasion on the European Video games in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 2015.

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Within the video, Jandard might be seen slipping whereas getting ready to dive, then bouncing on his again and buttocks earlier than slipping off the board and within the water under.

Jandard informed French sports activities information channel RMC Sport: “I’ve damaged boards earlier than, however the board had by no means damaged me earlier than. Now it has. I might have most well-liked this ceremony to have gone nicely from begin to end. There was that little hitch. If it made individuals smile a bit, a lot the higher.”

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