France coach Vincent Collet says his team will bring "fire and energy" to the men's Olympic basketball final Saturday as they target a second straight upset of three-time defending champions the United States.
Spearheaded by NBA stars Rudy Gobert and Evan Fournier, the French stunned Gregg Popovich's USA in the opening round of group play at Saitama Super Arena 83-76.
It was the Americans' first defeat at an Olympics since the 2004 Athens Games and while Collet admits the US have upped their game since, he remains confident.
"I think and I hope we will be ready Saturday," he said, after his seventh-ranked team scrapped past a valiant Slovenia 90-89 in a breathless semi-final, where captain Nicolas Batum made a game-saving block at the buzzer.
"I know Team USA is favoured, but I hope we will play against them with the same fire and the same energy.
"We know what they are capable of. We will play this final with a lot of confidence."
The two teams will meet for the eighth time at an Olympics and their third final after London in 1948 and at Sydney 2000, with the US winning on both occasions.
In fact, France's only Olympic win against Team USA was their most recent in Japan, when sensational Boston Celtics shooting guard Fournier scored 28 points. His tournament tally now stands at 96.
He is understandably wary of the US threat, but said anything could happen.
What about French handball gold?
Meanwhile, France is also chasing a third title for handball. Nikola Karabatic, Luc Abalo and Michaël Guigou could enter the Pantheon of French sport against Denmark in the final of the Tokyo Games on Saturday (9pm local time, 2pm French time).
Olympic champions in 2008 and 2012, they could join the small circle of French athletes with three gold medals at the Summer Games. The circle includes Marie-José Perec, Tony Estanguet, Daniel Morelon or Félicia Ballanger, and more recently Teddy Riner.
"We must not let ourselves be overwhelmed by the emotion, or by what is at stake," said Nikola Karabatic, having just qualified for the final where, as in 2016, the Danes were waiting them, having deprived them of an unprecedented golden triple in Rio (28-26)
"We just have to give what we have left so that we have nothing to regret, and give it our all. I'm not sure I'll be able to do it again, but I'm sure I'll be able to do it again and again," he said.
To find a final without Karabatic, you have to go back to Athens in 2004 when Jean-Pierre Raffarin was prime minister and Emmanuel Macron had been out of the Ena for only a few weeks.
Seeing the French handball players on the floor on the day of the final of the Games has almost become one of life's rare certainties.
Paris mayor on tour
As the end of the games approach, Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo plans to take the Olympic flag on a "tour of France" after it is handed to the French Sunday at the closing ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics. The handover marks the handover from Japan to Paris for the 2024 games, she said at a press conference in Tokyo on Saturday.
The flag will be handed over to the mayor of Paris by governor of Tokyo, via the president of the IOC (International Olympic Committee), Thomas Bach.
"We have planned, with Tony, that this flag, once it arrives in Paris, can be hoisted on the city hall in particular but above all that it can also make a tour of France," she said alongside the president of the Paris 2024 Olympic organising committee, Tony Estanguet.
While the mayor of Paris will be in Tokyo's Olympic stadium, with a ten-minute artistic sequence including a piece of music composed by artist Woodkid, festivities will be held at the Trocadero square in the French capital.
Belarusian coaches leave Olympic village
Finally, two Belarusian coaches have been stripped of their Tokyo Olympics accreditations over an alleged attempt to force a sprinter to fly home, an incident that drew international condemnation.
The International Olympic Committee on Friday said it had removed the accreditations of Artur Shimak and Yury Maisevich and they had left the Olympic Village.
The body said this week that it was investigating the pair over their role in the case of Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, who sought protection at a Tokyo airport to avoid being put on a plane home.
She said she feared for her life if forced back to Belarus, which has been wracked by political upheaval and a crackdown on dissent after disputed elections that returned strongman Alexander Lukashenko to power last year.
Tsimanouskaya was among the many Belarusian sports figures who in August 2020 had publicly criticised the violence against protesters at demonstrations that gripped ex-Soviet Belarus after the presidential vote.
But her trouble in Tokyo came after she posted on her Instagram, criticising her coaches for entering her into a race without informing her first.
The IOC said the two coaches "will be offered an opportunity to be heard" but that the measures against them were taken "in the interest of the wellbeing of the athletes" from Belarus who are still in Tokyo.
Tsimanouskaya, 24, arrived in Warsaw on Wednesday after being granted a humanitarian visa, saying she was "happy to be in safety".
