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Here's the true story of the French basketball team practicing with robots
>> NARRATOR : To everyone's surprise, the first season of PB86 at the top French level was a resounding success.
a season capped by its making the playoffs.
The following season is another story entirely. Winter 2010: The players of Poitiers touch bottom.
>> COACH : As the season opened, there were problems galore.
Technical difficulties ensued, and then there were injuries...
Guillaume and Tommy were sidelined.
Along with the staff, we looked into what could be done to render the team more productive.
>> PHYSIOTHERAPIST : The coach alerted us... and tests were devised to check up on the players.
>> NARRATOR : The players are unrecognizable, the medical staff is activated and confronted with diffuse uneasiness.
>> PHYSIOTHERAPIST :No way of knowing why we weren’t shooting straight.
Perhaps a proprioceptor breakdown…
maybe joint or muscle dysfunction.
>> DOCTOR : Other possible causes were dental disease, tendonitis…
>> NARRATOR : The times are dire.
The whole staff is down in the dumps.
>> COACH : Initial results were more than worrisome. at first it was hard to believe
the rest of the season appeared to be jeopardized.
>> NARRATOR : the uneasiness was deep-seated and contagious.
It even contaminated management and the club's partners.
>> PRESIDENT : We got off to a dismal start, With one defeat after another,
the club fears for the future,
our partners shake their heads,
the show on the court was not top-notch,
the spectators were all but put to sleep.
>> NARRATOR : inexplicable unease is everywhere, until a ray of hope comes out of the blue.
it comes from one of the directors, Nicole.
>> PRESIDENT : At a meeting, Nicole mentioned the surprising experience of her nephew.
>> NICOLE : I tell the committee the story of my nephew, my little sister's son.
A hyperactive child from infancy onwards, he would bump into things and leave behind a trail of broken objects.
I would take him on vacation and allow him a breather.
>> NARRATOR : Failing at school, a seeming freak of nature, Régis is a special case.
a prime candidate for the *** prize...
>> NICOLE : the last time around, he spent two weeks at home.
where one day, at the dinner table, he started juggling three tangerines. totally at ease, deft and adroit...
quite astonished, I ask him some questions
and he tells me of his frequent visits to the Futuroscope, particularly an attraction with robots;
dancing with robots by castel wally, or something along those lines
and that's what enhanced his physical dexterity
and led to his juggling those three tangerines
if it helped Régis, why couldn't it help the players?
>> NARRATOR : Alain Baudier, who works as an emergency physician, thought it could.
>> PRESIDENT : at the Poitiers hospital, in my activities as a practitioner, I encounter peculiar cases
for which the therapy would astonish you...
So I was hardly disinclined to give the new protocol a green light
so that we could get started, and let the results speak for themselves.
>> PHYSIOTHERAPIST : From the outset, I refused to take part in a masquerade that makes a mockery of science. No way!
>> PRESIDENT : The technical staff was far from sold on the method.
Many people thought the managers were out of their minds.
>> COACH : The medical staff asked us to follow a protocol with 3 sessions a week,
one on the morning of a home match.
>> ASSISTANT COACH : The players set themselves up... Evan... Pierre Yves... a passing drill
>> NARRATOR : The training consisted in 3 exercises at 3 different paces:
swinging high to low,left to right… It was shock treatment!
It allowed them to develop their spatial orientation,
their balance and poise, their shooting touch…
as they solicited every single muscle.
>> COACH : We were surprised,
since it allowed us to get the players back on track.
>> NARRATOR : And it works! The change is radical,
the players unrecognizable,
and the results follow suit.
>> COACH : And then we confronted Chalon, the one of the top three teams, and we beat them,
the victory validated the work we’d done,
and we wished to carry on with the Futuroscope.
>> ICE SKATE CHAMPION : When I learned that the basketball players were working with those robots, I wasn’t shocked.
I had already called upon science for my quadruple jump.
When basketball players do likewise,
it’s fine with me.
>> PHYSIOTHERAPIST : When I told Ruddy that these methods were not scientifically acceptable...
but you know, the PB coach...
>> NARRATOR : one good match leads to another, the Poitiers players defy the oddsmakers.
The PB staff transforms the Futuroscope into a training camp
each attraction turns into a new experimental setting
through and self-sacrifice and force of will, the players outdo themselves and excel
>> DOCTOR : We take pride in the initial results...
and now we go on to molecular cuisine!