This puts the organizers of the Miss France competition in an embarrassment: all the candidates got this question wrong on the general knowledge test. And the reason is even more embarrassing…
For this new year and new organization, the Miss France competition had everything to prove. And already, it’s fishing. After the departure of Sylvie Tellier, it was Cindy Fabre, elected Miss France in 2005, who took over the national direction of the competition. It is she, as well as Frédéric Gilbert, appointed to the general management of the company, who created the new general knowledge test, notes Le Figaro TV.
First objective of this revisited event: to repair the errors of the past. In 2023, the average grade was historically low. It was therefore necessary to review the copy. Goodbye to multiple choice questions. For the current affairs, logic and mathematics categories, the 30 contenders had free rein to try to find the answers. And for math and logic, they only had 30 seconds to answer each question.
Also in the test, questions of history and current affairs, in particular on the 2024 Olympic Games which took place in Paris this summer. And it was one of the latter that caused the problem. It happens that a question is difficult and has a very low average. But that no contender for the crown can find the answer? In multiple choice questions, this is statistically very unlikely, if not impossible. Enough to annoy the organization.
One of the multiple choice questions focused on Marie-José Pérec, the athlete who lit the Olympic cauldron on the evening of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. Here it is: “This athlete left her mark on the history of French sport because…”. And the four propositions:
- She has held the Olympic record in the women’s 400 meters since 1996.
- She is the first woman to become Olympic champion in the 400 meters.
- She was the youngest medalist in Olympic history.
- She is the only French female athlete to be a triple Olympic champion.
Yes, as you can imagine… None of these answers are correct! But she was the one supposed to be right? The last one. And she was indeed the only athlete to obtain three Olympic titles… for a time. Marie-José Pérec won three gold medals, one in 1992 in Barcelona over 400 meters then two in 1996 in Atlanta over 200 and 400 meters. But she is no longer the only one. Cyclist Félicia Ballanger also won three Olympic titles: she was gold medalist in sprint in 1996 in Atlanta then in 2000 in Sydney, and won gold in the 500 meters in Australia. Marie-José Pérec was only the only one to have achieved three medals for four years. So all four answers were wrong.