(ATR) French National Olympic and Sport Committee president Denis Masseglia tells Around the Rings he expects his athletes to claim more gold medals in London than they did in Beijing.
The former French rowing champion told ATR last week at CNOSF headquarters in Paris that Team France’s goals for the 2012 Games are "to win more gold medals" and "to make a bigger achievement in women’s sports".
French athletes brought home 41 medals from Beijing and tied with Germany for sixth in the overall medals tally, their lowest ranking in four Olympics.
Masseglia admitted France’s seven gold medals simply were not enough.
"We think that our performance in Beijing was very good indeed, but we were not satisfied with winning only seven gold medals," he said.
"We are expecting to claim more gold medals from the London Games, but it won’t be easy because the total number of gold medals is fixed."
He revealed that Team France will send between 330 and 340 athletes to participate in 15 events this summer.
Masseglia also said he expects Team France to score breakthroughs in sports other than the traditional strong suits of fencing and cycling.
"Our swimming team showed their improvement at the world championships last year where they won nine medals, including two gold. We have very high expectations for them," he told ATR.
"Meanwhile, we also have some chances to win gold at both mountain biking and BMX."
Masseglia said he believes Team France will have another advantage with the Games in London as compared to Beijing.
"London is very close to Paris, so the whole country pays lots of attentionto the Games," he said.
"I think our team will have a great result because we do not need to adjust to time differences like we faced in Beijing."
Masseglia denied that the current European debt crisis had negatively affected athlete preparations for London 2012 but admitted the situation would likely impact Team France ahead of Rio 2016.
"Funding is not the issue for preparing for the 2012 Games, but we are concerned that it will be decreased for the upcoming four years leading up to the Rio Games," he said.
"We are thinking about reducing the funding on some non-Olympic sports in the future."
With reporting in Paris by Tencent's Norman Li
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