Nathan Cregut: Pure example of France’s fighting spirit to claim WBSC Baseball5 World Cup bronze

The big star for France during their bronze medal campaign at the WBSC Baseball5 World Cup Hong Kong 2024 was definitely the 1.95m Omar Diodene but there’s no doubting Nathan Cregut was an able lieutenant.

World No. 4 France were a well-oiled team through the whole week, collecting five wins (four in the Opening Round) on their way to the bronze medal game, although some of the tournament statistics tell a different story.

Surprisingly,the European vice-champions were one of five teams to have conceded more runsthan scored (87-92) – the others being Australia (24-113), Hong Kong, China(55-145), Mexico (58-71), South Africa (61-117) and Tunisia (105-109) - as wellas committing the second-highest number of errors (10) tied with Tunisia withAustralia topping the chart with 13.

But withfleet footed athletes like Cregut and Diodene dominant on defence, the Tricolourstimed their run to perfection and claimed the wins that mattered, including the3-1, 7-2 win over Venezuela in the bronze medal game.

“We are sohappy and excited, it’s a dream to have won because it’s a World Cup, somethingextraordinary, to claim a medal is exceptional,” Cregut told the WBSC. “I don’tthink we were perfect but to arrive on the podium, with the best teams in theworld and to finish third, it’s exceptional what we have achieved.

“Like allthe teams, the objective was to claim a medal no matter what the colour, forsure we wanted to reach the final but it worked out differently. All the samewe achieved our goal of claiming a medal. It’s just as beautiful as the othermedals after everything that happened during the tournament.”

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At 23,
Cregut was the third-oldest in the French side behind Diodene (33) and Flavien Hasslauer(31), but he showed calmness and maturity beyond his years, with expertfielding from left field and brilliant hitting. He has the best batting averagefor the whole tournament with .727 ahead of Tunisia’s Yahya Gara (0.714) and Cuba’sBriandy Molina (.709) as well as Diodene with .698.

On the field he had also developed a strong partnership with 18-year-old Lucas Dedieu before the WBSC Youth Baseball5 World Cup Ankara 2023 star for France was put on the sidelines with a fractured thumb suffered in a defensive play during the important Super Round game against Chinese Taipei.

Cregut, astudent at Nimes Univiersity, took a blow himself during the bronze medal game,falling to the floor after colliding with Venezuela’s Luis Marquez while tryingto reach second base but he showed the determination, which gave France thecharacter to claim a podium finish, only their second in Baseball, Softball andBaseball5 history after France’s silver medal in last year’s WBSC YouthBaseball5 World Cup.

“[Thecollision] was difficult at the time because I couldn’t breath but afterwards Imanaged to get up. Ok, I was winded, but it was impossible to go off so Iclenched my teeth and said to myself this is the last match of the tournament andthen put into everything into it to the end.

“I hope [thiswin] will change people’s perception of Baseball5 across France and show thatit’s a sport like all the others, which creates plenty of emotion, drama and excitementand can be played by anyone.”

In November last year, France made history by becoming the first European nation to sit on top of a WBSC/KONAMI World Ranking after reach No. 1 in the WBSC/KONAMI Baseball5 World Ranking on the back of their silver medal performance at the WBSC Youth Baseball5 World Cup last year in Türkiye. Now with a bronze medal in Hong Kong added to the collection, Baseball5 in France is certainly going places.