This is the story of a young girl, named Anne Tran, and her dream of one day competing in the Olympic Games. A dream that passed under his nose in Tokyo, due to a painful stroke of fate. While she seemed on track to be part of the ladies’ doubles party, her partner at the time, Emilie Lefel, suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon at the end of October 2019. A significant injury for a pair who had reached the 18th rank in the world and conquered the title of vice-champion of Europe a year before. A dream that even the health crisis and the postponement of the Games for a year failed to revive, the tandem not performing miracles during the final tournaments to snatch their qualification in extremis.
Like Emilie Lefel who retired in stride, the story could have ended there for Anne Tran. What would have been wrong to know the formidable resilience of this young 27-year-old warrior determined not to miss the Parisian meeting of 2024. At home for her who was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine. With, so to speak, a badminton racket in hand, as a comforter to sleep better. Indeed, with a father who was a coach in this sport and a mother who was vice-president of the badminton section at the Racing Club de France, she could hardly depart from the family tradition and take up table tennis.
“But playing badminton wasn’t an obligation,” she confides to us with a smile that rarely leaves her. “My parents have always been very open about my extracurricular activities. They left me the choice. Afterwards, as my parents were immersed in this sport, inevitably, I was too, especially since I was nurturing a distance competition with a childhood friend. All of this ultimately made this choice obvious. Or let’s say that there was still a good chance that I would practice this discipline.
Thus, from her beginnings at the age of 6 until her 18-19 years, through her integration into Insep in 2013, the young woman, bulimic of shuttlecocks, devours everything: singles, mixed doubles, doubles ladies, anything goes. Until she decided to focus on doubles, especially women’s. “I liked the singles too, and my coaches liked me to do it,” she recalls, “but I always had a preference for this notion of sharing on the pitch that drives the doubles. It’s a much more explosive and fast discipline and I liked that. So very quickly, naturally, I headed for that and as the results followed, I never looked back.” Various adventures then begin for her, whose pleasant character and sense of adaptation allow her to change partners several times without getting lost. With the high point, therefore, this collaboration brutally interrupted with Emilie Lefel in 2021. Starting point, also, of his pair with Margot Lambert (24 years old).
Two young women with very distinct characters. “I’m rather shy and reserved and Anne is more extroverted,” confesses Margot Lambert. “It complements each other well, but it can also create misunderstandings at times.” “Not to get confused requires a lot of work,” analyzes Anne Tran. “There are things that come naturally, but there are also aspects that are worked on because we have two different personalities. You have to know how to say things to each other transparently, but also benevolently. It advances over time. Not everything can be worked and contrived, but neither can everything be natural. It is a balance to be found, which requires small efforts on each side to find a functioning that suits both. A balance that is gradually bearing fruit, as demonstrated by their victory at the Reunion Open, just before competing in the World Championships in Copenhagen (August 21 to 27).
26th in the world, the two French women know that they must continue to climb the hierarchy to validate their presence in Paris. Even if Anne Tran does not lose sight of the essential: “The pressure is there, but it must not paralyze us. We don’t want to go into a tournament telling ourselves that we have to reach the quarter-finals or the last four at all costs. We must also trust the work done over the past two years together. We set ourselves objectives of means, less classification even if we know that this one will also be important. How to manage to progress, to develop our game, to be better in six months than today… These are our objectives. We focus on our development, be it physical, technical or tactical.”
To qualify, to then dream of an Olympic medal, which would be a first in the history of French badminton? “In home games, anything can happen and we have already had very close matches against the world’s Top 5,” says the player of Vietnamese origin. Quickly joined by her partner: “We always dream of a medal, even if the level of the Japanese, Korean or Chinese pairs is incredible. But it happened to us several times to be very close to beating some of them. In Copenhagen, the double hexagonal will have to cross the Hong Kong obstacle made up of Lok Lok Lui and Wing Yung Ng, before challenging the Indonesians Amallia Pratiwi and Febriana Kusuma, 18th in the world. Is exactly the type of adversity that the Blues must overcome to continue to grow.
But everything in its time for Anne Tran who paid, before Tokyo, to know that everything, in sport, remains very fragile. “This episode was tough mentally but it also brought me a lot,” she says. “For the qualification for Paris, I feel much more serene.” As for the rest, this graduate in physiotherapy – after having obtained a scientific baccalaureate with honors ten years ago – assures us that she does not know her. “I have little ideas, but nothing concrete,” she admits. “I will see where my motivation will be. The most important thing will be to listen to me. I have no certainty. And then it was important to my parents that I have a way out when my career is over. Sometimes it was not easy to find a balance between studies and high level sport. It’s never easy to lead two big projects 100% but now that it’s done, I’m very happy and proud to have done it.” All that’s missing is a qualification for Paris 2024, and the (beautiful) circle will be complete.
