The aerialist Orlane Kanor has taken flight again. After missing the 2021 Olympics due to injury, the left-back with impressive vertical relaxation and “slightly late maturation” further asserts himself a little more as the main one, and a little alone it must be said, threatens long distance from Les Bleues. Thus, his four goals against Norway (24-23) were essential in the small feat achieved by the French team, which remained on three defeats in competition against the Scandinavians, at the end of the main round. “It was great, I had a lot of fun, had some pretty open shooting situations. I really took responsibility and it made me feel good. The girls also made sure that I could have these solutions. I am well and things are going well,” she rejoiced in front of the press in the corridors of the Spektrum. A success which allowed Olivier Krumbholz’s players to avoid crossing paths with the Dutch in the quarters, for a less steep slope with the Czech Republic, easily dismissed (33-22).
The coach had also praised the performance of his player, increasingly important in his offensive system after a Euro 2022 already on an upward slope: the 26-year-old Guadeloupean is “the arm of the French team”, the only one capable of shoot arrows at nine meters or more, according to Messin. She is also among the best long-distance players in the competition (18 goals out of 29 attempts), posing a constant threat to opposing defenses: when she doesn’t take her chances, she forces them to go up, which can free up space in their back. “I think maybe I’m coming of age. I am calmer, less crazy above all, fairer in my choices,” she comments. Even if his performance in the quarters, a 2 out of 5 shooting, means that everything is not yet perfect, far from it.
Orlane Kanor (1.78 m), called up as a youngster in 2017, “still has a very good margin for improvement”, admits Krumbholz, who also uses her more and more in defense. This progression was abruptly stopped by a rupture of the left Achilles tendon in April 2021, a few months before the Tokyo Olympic Games. An almost blank season later, in the summer of 2022 she left her cocoon in Metz, where she arrived at the age of 18 from Guadeloupe, for Rapid Bucharest. A forced departure – “I would have liked to stay in Metz” – which she took advantage of to “put herself in danger, grow, see another style of play”. However, she took a little time to “mourn (her) training” in Metz under the leadership of Emmanuel Mayonnade: the Romanian club is less structured, the training less thorough. “I wasn’t running enough, there wasn’t enough movement, the tactics weren’t precise enough,” she told AFP.
But when she “agreed” to live a different experience in Bucharest, “a weight lifted, something clicked,” she remembers: “I felt freer.” More important in the team too, essential cog of Rapid Bucharest, involved in the Champions League, to the point of being named captain this season. “It made me gain confidence in myself,” says Kanor, joined this summer in the Romanian club by her twin, left winger Laura, not yet an international. Orlane, for her part, is not “thinking too much” about the Paris Olympics after the fate of her injury in 2021: “I simply hope to be able to pretend to be in the group, to defend my place, to advance calmly without injury.” This is the case for the moment. And the left back is expected at the turning point this Friday (9:00 p.m.) against Sweden, a serious piece on the defensive level that the arm of the former Messina will have the mission of cracking little by little. History for her to experience a third world final after the one won in 2017 and the one lost two years ago. Never two without three, the refrain is known.
