After all the gnashing of les dents and tearing out of les cheveux, the French synchronized swimming team finished exactly where it was supposed to in Olympic competition: fifth, equal to its current world ranking.
This was the squad that, bowing to government decree less than two months ago, was forced to scrap a routine set to the soundtrack from the Holocaust drama “Schindler’s List.” The team’s black-clad, goose-stepping entrance prompted a passionate outcry in a country that is (a) still smarting from the divisions of World War II and (b) not numbed by years of “Hogan’s Heroes” reruns.
Coach Odile Petit was pleased with her team’s performance given the circumstances, but still defends the routine’s original concept.
“We understood (the ban) in the sense that it could have backfired on the French delegation, but we never intended to have a number that was controversial,” Petit said. “I think we stumbled into a bad political context.
“We are an artistic sport, a creative sport. We can’t limit our subjects to non-serious ones.”
Also as expected, the first-ever synchro team gold went to the home team, which received nine out of 10 perfect 10s on the “free,” or optional, routine. The heavily favored United States was first after Tuesday’s technical routine, which counts for 35 percent of the final score. Canada was second and Japan, third.
“So many people love the team competition,” said Nathalie Schneyder, 28, of Walnut Creek, Calif., one of the eight winners. “They fall in love with our spirit. It was a good feeling because we’ve spent so many hours working so hard.”
The U.S., like most teams in the competition, had been practicing its routine since the beginning of the year. The French had only four weeks to retool and upped their training time from five to seven hours daily.
Coach Chris Carver expressed sympathy for the French team’s athletic plight.
“It’s very difficult to make the adjustment they made at the last minute, and I think they did an excellent job,” Carver said.
The censorship brouhaha erupted after the synchronized team won a European Cup competition with the “Schindler’s List” program last spring. Aside from the eye-popping entrance, the routine included balletic movements meant to re-enact Jewish women’s arrival in Nazi concentration camps and their selection and forced march to the gas chambers.
Negative media reviews were followed by a flurry of criticism from political groups. A spokesman for an anti-racism group denounced the routine as “indecent, shocking and misplaced.” Henri Hajdenberg, head of a national coalition of Jewish groups, said it ignored the feelings of concentration camp survivors, their families and Jewish groups.
“This is a theme that cannot be interpreted by beautiful young girls in bathing suits,” he said.
The only public defense came in the form of an indignant letter from the French swimming federation that ran in L’Equipe, a sports newspaper. Unsigned, the letter demanded: “Should we burn Brecht? Should we ban `Schindler’s List’? Should we burn the works of William Styron, like `Sophie’s Choice’?”
In early June, Guy Drut, France’s Minister of Sport, ordered the team to delete any Holocaust references from the program.
“We cannot run the risk of communicating messages that could be wrongly interpreted,” said Drut, 45, a 1976 Olympic gold medalist in the 110-meter hurdles.
France was invaded and occupied by the Nazis from 1940-44. Part of the country was run by a regime that cooperated with the Germans. Although a valiant Resistance movement sheltered Jewish citizens, sabotaged German military facilities and fed the Allies valuable intelligence information, the extent of collaboration is still a sore subject in France two generations later.
French synchro team member Eva Riffet said the routine was meant as a tribute, not a trivialization.
“It was very difficult,” said Riffet, 20, of Paris. “We all were caught by surprise. We had a number that was really unique. But that’s the way it is. It’s sad, but that’s the way it is.”
