Recovering from surgery to repair a fractured tibia, France's Thomas Bouhail did not cross the English Channel to watch his team earn a berth to the Olympic Games at the London Test Event. But he was there in spirit, French veteran Yann Cucherat said after the meet.
"He was with us today," Cucherat told the media. "It's not easy for him today...it's complicated. It's not easy, but he is in good spirits."
Whether Bouhail will ever return in person is harder to know. But the knee injury that has already cost him the 2012 Olympic Games is very serious.
"I hope he comes back with us quickly," Cucherat said. "But it's not easy."
Entertwined with the French men's joy at qualifying to the Olympic Games was a small sense of sorrow that the 2010 World vault champion was unable to compete there with them.
Bouhail, 25, delighted the French by winning a silver medal on vault at the Beijing Olympics. After Benoit Caranobe's surprise bronze in the all-around in Beijing, Bouhail's silver made it a double delight. By 2010, Bouhail had solidified himself as the best vaulter in the world, and proved it by winning the World title on his best event in Rotterdam.
After flooring the field again at the 2011 Europeans (video), Bouhail seemed poised to do it a third time in Tokyo three months ago. During the qualifying round, he was the only gymnast to throw two different 7.0 difficulty vaults (Dragulescu and Tsuk double pike) and stick both cold (video here).
Had that been event finals, Bouhail would have unquestionably taken gold again. But after three sticks in a row (he stuck the Dragulescu again on his first attempt in event finals), the Tsuk double pike overwhelmed him, and he had to take several steps back to keep it on his feet during the actual event final. As a result, he finished outside the medals. Still, he went 3-for-4 sticking uber-difficult vaults at a World Championships. No one else in recent history can boast that.
It was a fluke fall from high bar -- not one of those massively difficult vaults -- during the holiday season that betrayed him. The fall, which broke his tibia and caused damage that will require more medical intervention to fix, made it impossible for him to think about helping France qualify as a team to the Olympics at the Test Event last week.
The French men soldiered on without him, finishing second overall among the eight teams competing for four spots at the Games and assuring that they will send a team to this summer's Olympics. Still, France finished more than seven points behind the British, who gave a hats-off performance in front of the home crowd at the 02 Arena.
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