The French Athletics Federation has unveiled a first list of selected for the world championships in Budapest, concerning the walking events and the marathon.
They are five to have already validated their ticket for Budapest! The Hungarian capital will host the world athletics championships from August 19-27 and the French Federation has revealed the names of the top five qualifiers, who will compete in the walking and marathon events. Indeed, for these very specific events, the qualification period was spread over a year and a half, from December 2021 to May 2023. The best known name on this list is that of Morhad Amdouni (35 years old at the end of June), the European champion in the 10,000m and bronze medalist in the 5,000m in 2018. This year, it is on the marathon that he will line up, after having beaten the French record in discipline l last year (2h05’22).
The minima were set at 2h09’40 and Nicholas Navarro (32 years old, 2h06’44 last February) and Hassan Chahdi (34 years old, 2h08’11 in February 2022) will accompany her to Budapest on the marathon, an event where France has never won a medal since the creation of the Worlds in 1983. In women, France had won bronze in 1987 thanks to Jocelyne Villeton, and this year, no Blue will be at the start, because Mekdes Woldu, who had achieved a time of 2h26’34 last April, and therefore the minima (set at 2h28), preferred to concentrate on the track this summer. The Eritrean athlete naturalized French in 2021, however, already has her ticket for the Paris Olympics marathon.
Quinion 14th in the last Worlds
Regarding the walking events, Aurelien Quinion (30 years old) and Kevin Campion (35 years old) will be aligned over 35km. The minima were set at 2h29’40 and Quinion clocked 2h28’46 at the last Eugene Worlds, where he took fourteenth place by beating the French record, while Campion clocked 2h29’31 in October 2022 for his great debut in this event. For the other walking event, the 20km, the qualification period has been set from January 31, 2022 to July 30, 2023, as for the other disciplines. Remember that last summer in Eugene, France won only one medal at the Mondiax, that of Kevin Mayer in gold in the decathlon.
