France’s Richard Gasquet. AFP PHOTO / MIGUEL MEDINA
“It was not a sound, it was really a blast.”
As Richard Gasquet watched France take on Germany in a football match inside Stade de France, a disaster happened outside the walls of the stadium.
A disaster that not only shook Paris, but a catastrophe that shocked the world.
The attacks killed at least 129 people in the city with members of Islamic State of Syria tagged as the suspects.
“The match had started. We heard two explosions. I had even before heard some unbelievable sounds in les Parcs au Princes but this was obviously something else,” Gasquet told L’Equipe. “It was not a sound, it was really a blast. I was in a box suite, so there was [a] television and we could see what was happening in other parts of Paris.”
Gasquet, the World No. 9, said an evacuation was ordered after the third explosion, a moment he described as “very memorable images.”
“I went to the parking lot. We stayed a long time before leaving.”