This zany photo consecrates a major event in French sports and signs the legend of a unique team, that of the Barjots, the aptly named, known for their extravagance off the field and their mad rage on it.
The Volle, Mahé, Richardson, Lathoud, Quintin... won a bronze medal at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, the first step in the rise of French handball. The following year, they managed to win silver at the World Cup. Two years later, in Iceland, they became the first French team to win a world title, after a final against Croatia (23-19) on May 21, 1995. This team was torn apart and then reconciled, and confronted its coach, Daniel Costantini, who cleverly managed the impossible. The party that followed the victory was a reflection of this baroque, crazy and brilliant team.
The flight from Reykjavik to Paris was animated. Then the team landed at the headquarters of the CNOSF (French National Olympic and Sports Committee), which had undertaken to build a wall bearing the handprints of French champions. The Barjots preferred to leave the mark of their head there, like here Bruno Martini, Christian Gaudin and Stéphane Stoecklin, author of a sick final, with eight goals scored. They then went to walk their madness in the premises of L'Équipe. Some of them continued for a long time in the third half... This excess certainly cost Atlanta the Olympic title the following year. Philippe Gardent, replacement pivot in 1995, said of this epic: "We stretched the word fraternity in all directions."The human adventure of this iconoclastic band and its way of winning without taking itself seriously have left their mark. This fraternal madness is sometimes missing in today's formatted sports.
