At 40, Nikola Karabatic will play his sixth and final Games in Paris. The handball player who has won everything with the Blues will end his immense career after this tournament. But there is no question of him thinking about that, a few days before the start of the Olympic Games. The sacred monster has only one goal: a fourth gold medal, just to finish on a high note.
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It seems a long time ago, the time when he discovered the Olympic Games. We are talking about a time that goes back two decades already. Nikola Karabatic, then aged 20, was in the French squad for the Athens Games. Twenty years later, the 1.96m colossus is still there, now bearded, at the dawn of the JO 2024 who will be his last.
This major event is the final stage in the handball player’s career. Last summer, he announced that he would retire after these home Games. The swan song is near, but there is no time for nostalgia or sadness. It was a smiling, jovial and pumped-up Nikola Karabatic who spoke on Monday, July 22, five days before the French men’s team enters the competition.
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“Goodbye” mode inactive
The upcoming retirement of the half-center is not a subject within the tricolor group. The triple best player in the world (2007, 2014, 2016) is going to hang up his hat? No matter, the players of the coach Guillaume Gilles only think about victory, Karabatic first. He does not have time to talk, within the Blues, about his post-career: ” I’m not in “saying goodbye, emotion” mode at all. I want to be on the field with my teammates, fighting and winning matches. Once everything is over and I’m finally retired, I’ll be able to say things. But now, nothing at all. »
The player, who said goodbye to PSG at the end of May, is riding a wave of mixed feelings. Inside him, there is ” lots of joy, serenity and excitement ” and a furious ” want to start ” these home games for which he expects ” something great “. ” I feel the excitement and the buzz building. All year long, everyone I met wished me ‘good luck for the Games, bring us a medal’. “, confides the native of Niš (ex-Yugoslavia, current Serbia), who is not unaware of the inherent pressure. However, in 22 years at the top level, he has largely learned to tame it:
” The good thing about pressure is that once the whistle goes, you forget about it, you play and give it your all on the pitch. We’ll have a whole room behind us to push us, and then I hope a stadium! (laughs) Of course we’ll have pressure and feel it, but once we’re on the pitch, I’m sure it’ll change. »
“ Like a kid »
The 2004 Olympics were unique for Nikola Karabatic, because they were the only ones from which he returned without a medal. From 2006 onwards, under the impetus of this player considered the best in the history of handball, the French team became a winning machine, a nightmare for opponents forced to settle for the few titles abandoned here and there by those nicknamed the “Strongs”, then the “Experts”.
Olympic champion in 2008, 2012 and 2021, Olympic vice-champion in 2016, “Kara” is asking for more. He played little at PSG for his last season, but the devouring ambition persists, embellished with a shot of excitement worthy of a young novice eager to fight: ” I am the happiest member of the team. I know what the Games represent. Every time, it is the same happiness. The more we participate, the more we realize the immensity of this competition and the pride it represents to defend the colors of France at the Olympic Games. I am like a kid. “This big guy, soon to retire, really doesn’t look 40 when he enjoys watching himself.” like a little child who has one last chance to play his sport before stopping “.
Keeping the gold medal and climbing to the top step a fourth time represents ” a very big challenge ” for Nikola Karabatic, who has every confidence in the French team. ” We know we have the capabilities, the team, the talent at all levels. We are well prepared. Now we have to demonstrate on the field “, hammers the dean. Let the future opponents of the Blues be sure, Karabatic is not on a farewell tour. He and his teammates only have gold in mind.
* the Olympic final will be held at the Pierre-Mauroy stadium in Villeneuve-d’Ascq, in the Lille region.