Matthieu Pavon Shares One-Word Advice With French Pair Ahead Of Women's Olympic Event

French male pair Victor Perez and Matthieu Pavon proved that how well someone deals with the pressure of a home Olympic Games can have a significant effect on their prospects for the week.

Perez seemed to embrace the passionate home crowd at Le Golf National and thrived upon the energy - ultimately finishing just a single stroke outside of the medals thanks to a sublime round of 63 on Sunday.

Meanwhile, it later emerged that Pavon struggled with nerves early in the week and ended up finishing dead last among the 58 players who completed four rounds.

Ahead of the women's Olympic golf event at Paris 2024, which starts on Wednesday, the home duo of Celine Boutier and Perrine Delacour spoke about how they plan to cope with the significant degree of expectation from their own supporters - especially Boutier, who is the World No.7.

Explaining how they had both ventured out onto L'Albatros course to soak up the atmosphere during the latter stages of the men's tournament, Boutier said the huge crowds made it tough to see what was going on in the fairway.

Boutier said: "I was actually going on the first tee to be able to sing "La Marseillaise" because I wanted to sing it on the first tee and then nobody institutionally sung it on the first tee. I was a bit disappointed.

"But it was super cool -- actually, I didn't even see anything because there was too many people. It was better when I watched it on TV like on the screen.

"It was really cool to be able to see it and experience it. I think they told us we have to expect a lot -- the next few days. We definitely didn't hear that in Evian."

30,000 tickets were made available every day at Le Golf National, and should they sell out - or even come close - it is likely to be the biggest crowd many of the 60-woman field has ever performed in front of.

Delacour - who landed her first Ladies European Tour title earlier this season - went on to reveal that she picked the brains of the disappointed Pavon to see if she could understand how to cope with the huge crowds and passionate support.

She said: "We had the men's before and that was good, and yesterday I spent some time with Matthieu asking a couple questions like how he felt on the first tee to kind of have a couple tips and get ready for Wednesday."

Asked what advice he shared, Delacour replied with just one word: "Breathe."

She continued: "He actually struggled the first tee last Thursday. He was emotionally like super high, which is normal. You don't expect to have that on the first tee.

"He did say during the end of the week, he was so emotional on Thursday that he struggled during the week. That for myself personally helped me. Like, okay, I need to put some rest early in the week to be able to carry it for four days in a row."

As with the men's event, the women will compete in four days of individual stroke play at Le Golf National as there is no cut.

Delacour will hit the opening tee shot of the Paris 2024 women's Olympic golf tournament at 9am local time (3am ET/8am BST) on Wednesday while Boutier's first-round tee time is 11:55am local time (5:55am ET/10:55am BST).