Coline Devillard gave an interview to L’Equipe where she talked about coming back to the European Championships and trying to win again.
Translation by @FBatwoman
Devillard emerged as a big vault medal contender in 2017, when she won the vault title at the European Championships. n December fo 2018, Devillard had to change coaches, as her Chinese coaches Jian Fu Ma and Hong Wang went back home and she’s started training with Australian Martine George. In 2018, a mistake in the vault final prevented her from medalling and she finished sixth:
“I couldn’t care less about second or third place, what I wanted was to win.”
She then experienced an injury that left her out of the World Championships. In Szczecin, she did two clean vaults on Saturday but placed second, losing to Maria Paseka in difficulty:
“I dreamt of this medal, I knew I could do something. I succeeded
on both of my vaults. One could always do better, but I’ve come back, and I’ve repeated a medal.”
She understood that she would need more difficulty to surpass Paseka but was still a bit upset that a less clean vault won in the final:
“I’m disappointed. Her second vault was magnificent, nothing to say [about it], but the first left something to be desired. Given that her start value was mega high, with two-tenths more than mine, she was automatically the favorite. And she did her job. But I am also going to augment my difficulty value next year, and we’ll see who will win.”
Photo: E. Mikhaylova, Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation
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Good on her for not thashing the judges for rewarding this mess of a Cheng vault with a 8.5 execution. Had they done their jobs, she would have won.
Devillard has the mindset of a winner, focussing on her job only in order to win. Good for her!