Athletics (Elite Interclub Finals): Ahetz-Etcheber and Charles, the assets of US Talence and Stade Bordelais

The two Girondins teams will face off against the six other best clubs in France in Franconville this Sunday. They will be able to count on the talent of their juniors Iana Ahetz-Etcheber in combined events and Noah Charles in sprints.

US Talence and Stade Bordelais Athlé are competing in the French Interclub Elite Championships this Sunday in Franconville, with different objectives. Talence will be aiming to stay in the league, while Bordeaux hopes to reach the podium. This competition, which pits the eight best clubs against each other, including CA Montreuil, Entente Franconville, EA Cergy-Pontoise, Athletic Club 92, Haute Bretagne Athlétisme, and Stade Sottevillais, will allow two Girondins hopefuls to compete against the best: Iana Ahetz-Etcheber (Talence) and Noah Charles (Stade Bordelais).

On Sunday, she will be competing for US Talence in the 800m and high jump, with the 4x400m thrown in for good measure. But she could also have run the 100m hurdles. Or the 200m. And for good reason, the 18-year-old athlete is a specialist in combined events, one of the two best juniors, along with Éléna Fournier from Sarthe. In 2024, her first year in this category, she demonstrated her talent by winning the French indoor pentathlon championship, then the heptathlon title in the summer. She particularly made an impression by breaking the 4,000-point mark in the pentathlon (4,037).

"It's quite rare for juniors to break 4,000 points," she says. "Besides, I didn't manage to do it again this year." In the heptathlon, Iana had totaled 5,318 points, the 16th best European U20 performance of the year, the 23rd best in the world, 82 points short of the minimum for the U20 World Championships, this in her first season at this level! She, who won school cross-country races and sprints in the playground, naturally came to athletics and then combined events since she started high school. Apart from the shot put, she excels everywhere, partly thanks to her height (1.78 m): 1.75 m in the high jump, 2'12'' in the 800 and 14'24'' in the 100 hurdles.

This season, she's aiming for the U20 European Championships from August 7 to 10 in Finland. The minimum score, 5,400 points, seems within her reach, but the competition is tough. So she's dreaming of the high-potential minimum score, set at 5,750. It would be a nice highlight of her season, before joining the University of Texas at Austin, which has awarded her a scholarship. Iana has no doubt she'll succeed. "It's the first time I'll be living alone, but I have a taste for adventure and I'm sociable."

Noah Charles, the young sprinter from Stade Bordelais, couldn't find a better role model than Noah Lyles, the 100m winner at the Paris Olympics and 200m world champion in 2019 and 2022. And it's not just a question of his first name: "I like his way of being, his athletic qualities," the young man breathes. Nevertheless, the American with the carefully arranged braids has paved a clear path for him, a supreme goal to achieve.

Of course, the road is still long for the young Bordeaux sprinter, but his times give hope for the best: at just 18 years old, he has just run a 100 meters in 10''84. He also boasts a time of 22''27. It is therefore understandable that Stade Bordelais could line up in the 100m this Sunday in Franconville. Such a time would bring significant points capital to the Stéhélin club.

Noah Charles has always run very fast. At middle school in Saint-André-de-Cubzac, his speed immediately impressed his PE teacher, who was also a coach at the local club. Upon entering high school, he joined Bordeaux Athletics on his coach's advice. "He felt it could only be beneficial for me to train with some of the best French athletes," he explains. "Here, there's competition and a good atmosphere." His progress was immediate. From then on, he set ambitious goals: "I hope to achieve 10.64 seconds this year," he says, with the still-dim dream of competing in the Los Angeles Olympics in the background. "I'm still young, it's hard to look so far ahead," he confides. In the meantime, he's mainly focused on this Sunday's final: "I'm going to give it my all; the club has to at least finish on the podium!"

Interclub Finals : This Sunday, May 18, starting at 10:30 a.m., at the Jean Rolland stadium in Franconville.