At valiant heart nothing impossible. Motto of Jacques Cœur in the 15th century, this proverb suits to delight, nowadays, many French sportsmen and women who aspire to qualify for the Olympic Games in Paris. The absolute dream. Including for Rosy Oktavia Pancasari, a small piece of young woman of 1.56m who is now ranked 104th in the world, two months after reaching the best ranking of her career (94th). A ranking that makes her the third best French player behind Xuefei Qi (54th) and Léonice Huet (59th). Knowing that France, as the organizing country, is certain to have a place in women’s singles, a second can be attributed to it if it manages to place two representatives in the world Top 16. Which, for once, is well and truly impossible.
For Rosy Oktavia Pancasari, the objective could therefore be the following: to be the best Frenchwoman in the standings when the Federation will have to decide. Which fits with his personal goals: to reach the World Top 50 by the end of the year. If she succeeded, knowing that the unfortunate Xuefei Qi drags various glitches on the physical level – which caused her withdrawal from the World Championships which will be held from August 21 to 27 in Copenhagen – and that Léonice Huet has reached a ceiling in terms of results , everything would then become possible concerning her. Provided that said Federation also decides to consider it better, which does not seem to be the case at the moment. “For me, it’s not easy financially,” she explains. “I have no help from the Federation because I am not on their list, in their criteria. I would have to be in the top 60 to be part of it automatically. But somewhere, it’s normal because I didn’t follow the path of a young French player within a hope center and arriving from another country, it would have been strange for me to take the place of someone ‘one like that.’
Indeed, as her name may suggest, Rosy Oktavia Pancasari was not born in France, but in Indonesia. And she only arrived in our sweet country in 2013. “In 2012, I was in the Czech Republic with my older sister, who was also a professional mixed doubles player,” she recalls. “She then told me that a club in France, in Chambly, was looking for a replacement player. I thought, why not? Even if at the beginning, to be honest, I also went there in tourist mode because it was my dream to visit Europe, and in particular France. I arrived there in 2013 and then I never left. A story ultimately close to that of the former Chinese Xuefei Qi, who came from China to Brittany to compete in the Interclubs with Rostrenen in 2014 and who stayed there. The difference being that the latter made this choice also out of love, while Rosy Oktavia Pancasari, she opted for… freedom. “I like to be free and in Indonesia, you can’t express yourself as you want, even more when you’re a woman,” she says. “Life in France is better than in Indonesia. For example in the field of health, it is day and night between these two countries. I don’t go back there often to see my family, but here I’m going to take an intensive course, which I’ve never done, and play two tournaments (the Indonesia Challenge and the Indonesia Masters, a Super 100).»
Even if, since she moved to France, life has not always been easy for this young woman, now 28 years old. Especially in sport. Suffering from hallux valgus, an outward deviation of the big toe which poisoned her life and prevented her from expressing herself 100%, Rosy Oktavia Pancasari, who had just sailed from Chambly to Strasbourg via Mulhouse where she was a student in social economy, took the decision to have surgery at the end of 2018. Which, according to the prognosis of the medical profession, should have ruled her out for six months. Except that in reality, the player would find herself deprived of a shuttlecock and racket for two years – from the end of 2018 to the end of 2020 – due to three operations, which did not allow her to fully play her card to try to qualify for the Tokyo Games. The vagaries of life about which she retains no bitterness, quite the contrary: “If I had stayed to live in Indonesia, I would never have taken the risk of having surgery and today, I will still be dragging my suffering.”
This recognition for France materializes in June 2021 by obtaining French nationality. “When I play an Indonesian, it still gives me a little something but less and less because I really consider myself to be French,” she says. “I can’t forget my past, my culture, but France has given me such a great life opportunity. From now on, I have a whole team that supports me in my objective, from my trainer with whom I set my program to my sponsors (Capital Santé, Babolat, Gestion
A structure which is based on a very fragile financial balance, but which allows him for the moment to stop giving badminton lessons for… 30 euros per hour. “From now on, between now and the 2024 Games, I have to be focused on my objective. It’s going to be complicated but I don’t want to regret anything.” And there is no need to ask her why the French Federation, while she has accompanied and embraced Xuefei Qi’s project, leaves her to fend for herself in her corner. “I don’t want to try to argue, or to understand why. I just want to keep improving and try to do better every day. I want to show that I am capable of going higher. I left my country – where badminton is the number one sport – at the age of 17 and if more than ten years later I can experience the Olympics in my adopted country, it would be incredible. A dream.” Impossible ? Maybe not…
