[The French Revolution] The truth as told by Coach Molin. “China is strong. But can you beat China by copying China?”

Vol. 2

In December 2024, the Lebrun brothers and Coach Molin were in “Ochsenhausen,” Germany. Up to that point, celebrations and WTT events had kept coming, so Coach Molin’s plan was to spend December and January in a proper training camp and really put in the work. That’s why they would not enter any WTT events in January 2025.

Shunsuke TOGAMI, who trained alongside them at the camp, said, “The relationship between the Player and the coach is amazing. And I got insanely inspired.”

The training of Coach Molin and the Lebrun brothers has become a global focal point. Some people say that because they are top-level Players, they can train that way. That is not true. It was because the Lebrun brothers did the training guided by Coach Molin that they became world-class.
＜December 2024＞

Nathanael MOLIN
Born on July 6, 1986, in Dijon, France. He was on France’s cadet and junior national teams, but stepped away from the front line at 22. He had been interested in coaching since around age 17, and coached the Lebrun brothers in childhood. He officially became their full-time coach in 2021, and from the 2023 European Games on, he was appointed head coach of the French national team. At the Paris Olympics, he won a silver medal in the Team Event.

Let the Player play the style they want. Even penhold is fine. I won’t force a shakehand conversion

●—Did everything that changed in your thinking during that one-year break come from someone else’s influence, or did you figure it out yourself?

Nathanael MOLIN　I was thinking it through all by myself. I was alone in Romania, but I was always thinking. How should I solve the problem? France has good Players, and it has big clubs. It has major tournaments too, but the results weren’t there. It had been nearly 15 years since Gacian (former world champion and Olympic silver medalist) was gone.

　After I came back in 2014, people may have said until around 2020, “What on earth is he doing?” That’s hardly surprising, because my training methods were so different from everyone else’s. If someone asked me, “Have you ever seen a Player reach the top with this method?” I could only say, “No, I haven’t, because it’s a completely new way of thinking.”

　I started in 2014, and around 2017 the junior group I was coaching began to post results. From then on, many Players and coaches started visiting the club in Metz. The group I was coaching grew to 15 boys and 15 girls.　

　Around that time, Alexis and Felix also started coming to train. Also, our training group would sometimes go to Montpellier to train together. That was because of my connection with Stéphane (the Lebrun brothers’ father).

　Around 2020, Felix was already No. 2 in the U18 world rankings, and Alexis was also posting strong results at the European Championships. And of course, it was the COVID period, so there was plenty of time to think.

　Then, when I met Stéphane, he told me, “Come back to Montpellier. You should be coaching the brothers.” I had been in Metz for seven years, but I officially returned to Montpellier in 2021. We had been talking about my return since 2020, but things were already moving on the Metz project, and there were many Players there, so it wasn’t easy to leave.

●—At what point did you become convinced that the Lebrun brothers could reach the top of the world?

MOLIN　I knew from the very beginning. I knew when Alexis was seven or eight, and Felix was around that same age too. I think I had seen around 1,000 children by then, and Alexis was special. It may not even have been conviction so much as instinct. Even when he was doing things naturally without realizing it himself, I could tell he was different from the other children.

●—Felix is a penhold-style Player, but of course you didn’t have any penhold experience yourself, right?

MOLIN　My idea when I first coached in Montpellier was to let the Player play the way they wanted to play. I don’t force a style change. There just happened to be a Chinese penhold Player at the same club, and Felix chose penhold. I’m not going to change that to shakehand. He wants to play that way, after all.