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Gicquel-Delrue pair, Alex Lanier emerge France''s first-ever world champions
Gicquel-Delrue pair, Alex Lanier emerge France''s first-ever world champions
New Delhi, The mixed doubles pair of Thom Gicquel and Delphine Delrue, and men's singles player Alex Lanier on Sunday became the first French badminton players to become world champions here.
Thom and Delphine, the world No. 5 French pair, stunned the world No. 1 duo of Feng Yan Zhe and Huang Dong Ping of China in the World Championships mixed doubles final 22-20, 19-21, 21-15 in one hour and 18 minutes to claim the biggest title of their careers.
Moments later, Lanier emerged as the world champion in men's singles, thrashing Japan's Kodai Naraoka 21-11 21-11 in a lop-sided summit clash.
Deep Dive
"It's an amazing moment for us. It was the goal, but to achieve it, it's something else. So we feel really proud and really happy to be on top of the podium today," Delphine said.
Bronze medallists at the last edition, Gicquel and Delrue produced a tactical masterclass, particularly at the net, where they successfully neutralised Huang's influence.
"We were ready to win every match, but we knew that the path is really hard. So we were really focused on the first game, and after that, the next one. We were really focused match by match. But every part of the tournament, we were ready to win, and it's what we did," Gicquel said.
The French duo had shown strong form in the lead-up to the World Championships, finishing runners-up at the All England Championships and reaching the semifinals at the Indonesia and China Super 1000 tournaments earlier this year.
Seventeen years after Pi Hongyan secured France's first World Championships medal with a bronze in women's singles in 2009, the country now saw a pair and a player grab world titles on the same weekend.
Last year, Thom and Delphine had won the bronze medal in Paris.
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