Close-up on a prodigy of French basketball, Dominique Malonga. The player from ASVEL (near Lyon) is the youngest of the Bleues, but with enormous potential and her 1.98m quickly invites comparison with the most famous giant of the men’s team, Victor Wembanyama.
There is reason to be as enthusiastic as her teammates when Dominique Malonga slams a dunk in training. Very few players master this spectacular move which consists of smashing the ball into the circle. Like this action, the “pivot” of barely 18 years old approaches this immense meeting with ambition and without any complexes. I can do the Olympics at home, it happens once in a lifetime or maybe never. So, I’m really going to take this opportunity and give everything to achieve this dream, age is just a number “.
We don’t talk about age either to the coach, Jean-Aimé Toupane: ” Age is no longer a criterion, I have the same demands with her as with the others. “And this 1.98 meter giant has a lot to give to this French team.” I just play, and I take what is to be taken and I give what I have to give. “. A player“ who has a very unique profile, very athletic, who moves well on the field, we saw the season she had “, adds his trainer.
The tallest, but youngest of her team
” This year she showed some great things. » which earned him the trophy for best hope of the French championship and which did not escape the leader of the Bleues, Marine Fauthoux: “ No one doubted that she was capable of this kind of performance and we are very happy to have her with us in the French team. “.
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Dominique Malonga is both the youngest and the tallest of this team, like a certain Victor Wembanyama among the boys. So inevitably, the comparison between the two gifted players comes up more and more: ” It’s already a lot of pride, a lot of honor to be compared to him. Now, I’m Dominique Malonga on the field and I play like Dominique Malonga. I was 12-13 years old and he had just started high school, and we met in a playground by chance, remembers the basketball player. We made a basketball like this… Totally by chance ! »
” You could say I was born on the ground. »
Anything but a coincidence, however, Dominique Malonga’s attraction to basketball from a very young age in Yaoundé. Both his parents played at a high level. His mother, Agathe Nindjem-Yolemp, wore the Cameroon jersey: ” My mother, for the record, played with me until I was five months old in her belly. You could say that I was born on the field. I was born in Cameroon and I grew up there. I came to France when I was 10 years old, that’s where I took my first steps on the field too, I learned to play basketball there, in the academy that my mother founded. I intend to give back everything that Cameroon has given me. In any case, it occupies a large place “.
It is therefore with a lioness mentality that the young prodigy approaches these Olympic Games, like her best memory of the event in 2021: “ I think of Nico Batum’s counter who gave it his all until the last moment, until the last second, because it’s never wasted. It’s a memory that marked me “.
Marked Nicolas Batum’s block in the semi-final in Tokyo, undoubtedly the most legendary play in the history of French basketball before, perhaps one day, a dunk by Dominique Malonga.
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