PARIS (AP) — When French gymnast Samir Ait Said broke his left leg at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics after landing a vault, the noise of the bone cracking was revolting.
The sounds that echoed through the Palais Omnisports on Saturday in Paris after Said’s rings routine were far more uplifting, as the partisan crowd erupted in cheers.
Ait Said pumped his fists, celebrating with a big shout after his clean dismount amid buoyant applause. He was in the zone and hardly noticed.
“I was on another planet when I finished my move, I don’t even know whether the crowd shouted,” he said.
Competing at his third Olympic Games, this time at home, the 34-year-old veteran scored 14.966 on his only apparatus during the men’s team qualifying, giving him an excellent chance to secure a spot in the rings final next week.
Ait Said said before the Games he wants a medal in Paris.
“I’ve completed the first stage, I’ve done the job,” he said Saturday. “It’s just one step, the next one will be a bit more difficult.”
Ait Said’s journey has been marred by injuries. Back in 2012, he suffered three fractures to his right tibia after falling on the vault at the European Championship and missed the London Games. Four years later in Rio, he was loaded onto a stretcher with a fractured left tibia and fibula.
He was determined to make a comeback, but a shoulder injury prevented him from competing at the 2018 European championship, though he managed to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics three years later. There, he competed with a damaged left biceps and ended fourth.
Since that latest setback, he has not stopped dreaming about a podium finish at the Paris Olympics, where he is the sole Frenchman competing in artistic gymnastics after the French team failed to qualify.
“One needs to be determined,” he told The Associated Press ahead of the Olympics. “Injury or not.”
Ait Said, a rings bronze medalist in 2019, has earned his individual spot in Paris through the World Cup circuit. After a last-minute change of strategy on Saturday, he said he reproduced the routine that helped him qualify for the Games.
“I was not meant to execute this movement, which is a bit simpler. It was decided two days ago, I can’t tell you more,” he said, adding that he could switch back to his initial plans during next Sunday’s final.
Ait Said, whose ancestors come from Kabylie, a region in northern Algeria, said he will focus now on recovery, something he said he did not do in Tokyo and likely damaged his medal chances.
“I was so obsessed that I forgot to recover,” he said. “Now my two coaches just told me to rest tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Don’t come back to the gym before Tuesday.
“I know I’m capable of winning that medal.”
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