Halfway through the Paris 2024 Games, France has already racked up its biggest medal haul in over a century. The country is aiming to finish in the top five, but with some of its strongest sports already wrapped up, there are no guarantees its second week will be as glittering as its first.
By the 10th day of competition on Monday, France had amassed 45 medals – more than it collected over the entire Olympics in Tokyo (33), Rio (42), London (35) or Beijing (43).
It hasn't had a higher total since the Paris Games of 1900, when just 24 countries participated and France supplied half of all competitors, helping it to an unmatchable 102 medals.
The country's 12 golds in Paris put it behind China, the United States and Australia – and, with almost a week of competition left, tantalisingly close to the 15 gold medals it brought home from Atlanta in 1996 and hasn't equalled since.
France has set itself the target of finishing these home Olympics, like the Atlanta Games, as one of the top five medal winners – something that will likely require at least 20 golds.
But events have concluded in several disciplines where France's chances were strongest, including indoor swimming, judo and fencing. Between them, the three sports accounted for 24 of the country's total medals and seven of its golds so far.
Poor record on track and field
The second week started poorly for France with disappointment in the mixed team triathlon on Monday, which saw it place fourth despite having two individual medallists on its side.
Angèle Hug later helped by winning silver in the women's kayak cross.
The rest of the week is dominated by athletics, a domain in which France won a lone silver medal at the Tokyo Games.
It has a few hopes this time round, notably in the 3,000m steeplechase, an event in which it has the current European champions in both the women's and men's races, Alice Finot and Alexis Miellet.
Several French women are through to the finals of their events, including Rénelle Lamote in the 800m, Mélina Robert-Michon in the discus, and Marie-Julie Bonnin and Ninon Chapelle in the pole vault.
But most of the country's medal chances now rest on team sports, with French teams through to the knockout stages of the handball, basketball, volleyball and football tournaments.
Track cyclists are hoping to add to the clutch of medals France has already won in BMX, mountain biking and the road race, while the country also some of the world's top fighters in taekwondo.
Meanwhile its boxers are sure to secure medals after both Sofiane Oumiha and Billal Bennama made it into the men's finals of their respective categories. Djamili-Dini Aboudou Moindze is in the semi-finals and guaranteed at least a bronze.
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Spreading the medal chances
France has been honing its sports strategy ever since it won the Olympic bid in 2017, enlisting grassroots clubs to spot fresh talents and match them with the country's top trainers.
While that's typical for host nations, France has cast a wider net than other countries such as the UK, for example, which concentrated on upping its game in a few target sports – swimming, track cycling, athletics – before London 2012.
According to former handball coach Claude Onesta, the man hired as France's high-level performance manager for the Paris Games, 85 athletes have been identified as potential medal winners.
Roughly half of them had competed by Sunday and brought in 37 medals, leaving another 40 or so hopefuls still to try their chance.
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Then there are the wild cards. As those stats suggest, athletes tipped for success sometimes miss out, while medals can come from unexpected quarters.
Before the Games started, sports data specialists at market research firm Nielsen forecast that France would win a record 60 medals overall, 27 of them gold, across 28 different sports.
Some of the athletes they predicted were headed for gold lost out in the first week. But others surprised even the experts – leaving the field open for further upsets in the second half of the Games.
