La visite de l'Astroballe (en anglais)

Lou and Eva :

 A month ago, on April the 5th,  the  pupils of the sports project lived an unusual day.  We cycled to the Astroballe stadium. We started from our school Louis Leprince Ringuet at 8:30 a.m. Then, we followed the Grand Large to finally get to the Astroballe. We arrived at the Astroballe at 10:00 so we put up our bikes in the VIP lounge near the players' entrance. First, we walked along a corridor with all the won titles and the pictures of all  the different teams on the walls. After that, we came on the court and we saw this huge place with all the five thousand five hundred seats, the big screens in the center and the court where there were already four players. One of the managers, Nordine Ghrib who was waiting for us made us visit the site. We were lucky  to attend the training of the basketball players. It was kind of amazing to watch because it had nothing to do with our training at school. They were fast, their passes were precise and practically none of their shots were missed. After that, we went to a room where the manager talked about basketball. Another manager called Yohann Sangaré, who was a great basketball player before, told us about his career. He explained to us how important it is to learn English and of course to learn as many languages as possible. He said that it was thanks to English that he learnt to improve his playing technique in America. He can also speak Spanish and Italian.


Stanislas :

Yohann SANGARE  delivered an overwhelming speech. He explained his path : young he was living in a poor suburb, his parents were not rich, and he was not very good at school, but he had a motivation, basketball ; he loved that ! He was practicing this sport in a big club in Paris, in Boffémont. Later he went to the Olympic Sannois Saint-gratien were he was recognized as a very good player. One day his trainer said to him « come, there are some detection tests here ! » So he went to the detection tests, he played and someone proposed him to go to the United states of America. He accepted ! Despite he was very young (15 years old!) he accepted to go to the USA without family ; he was very courageous because that was very far from his home. At the beginning that was hard for him, he did not speak English very well and had to do all in English. But, 2 or 3 months later he could speak English like an American, and he didn’t know it but that would be very important for his career.

Arthur Palenchon :

When we watched the training of the players, it was really sporty and energetic. They were extremely tall and deft. They train between four and six days per week and for four or six hours per day.  We had to be silent to respect the players and the staff.
 Maxim :

It was a very exicting moment when we talked with Nordine and Yohann about the administration of ASVEL, Tony Parker’s career, the new plans (ASVEL Arena which will be a new big stadium), the new school for young professionnal basketball players in Confluence.


Arthur Pichat:

Everybody was exhausted when we came back but this trip was a good training and an excellent opportunity to meet with professional basketball players.


Eva :

It was a really good school trip. It was interesting and I learnt a lot of things ! Thanks to Nordine and Yohann for the visit.