Missed out on the Tokyo Olympics, the archer from Nîmes has made Paris 2024 his “final goal”
After the Tokyo Olympics, he took a break. A long break. “I cut completely for two months. It had been ten years since I had stopped shooting for more than two weeks. Physically and psychologically, it did me goodallowed to reset everything.”
Last week, Jean-Charles Valladont was in Nîmes where he trained for a few days with Pierre Plihon, before the two men drove to the Paris region to participate in the French Federation Medalists Evening, at the Château de Vincennes.
Strong questioning
The 32-year-old from Besançon, licensed at the Arc club of Nîmes since 2014lived “difficult Olympics”. Silver medalist in Rio, he was eliminated in the 32nd final in Tokyo after catastrophic qualifying (57th place). “I fell so behind on the first three or four endshe says, that then, I had to take out the oars and row… I was ready but on D-Day, the stress accumulated over the previous months fell on my shoulders and I had a hard time getting into it.”
“The balance sheet is negative” but Jean-Charles Valladont does not make a mountain of it: “It’s the law of sport.” And he recalls that associated with Lisa Barbelin, in the mixed event, he is not “not gone far”the duo being eliminated in the quarter-finals in the shoot-off.
The Nîmes archer therefore turned the page, he rested and he left for a third Olympiad. Heading for Paris 2024, its “end goalhe announces. I’m here today, it will certainly be the last big meeting of my career as a top athlete.”.
To try to finish in style, if possible with a medal, Valladont, after “a strong questioning”decided to “work differently”. Until then, he spent a third of his time at Insep, in Paris, and two thirds at home, in Sologne. “But at homehe acknowledges, I wasn’t diligent enough in training.” He therefore reversed the proportions by returning to Insep “100 %” from Monday to Thursday, continuing his program alone, near Romorantin where he lives, the rest of the week, “a balance that I needed because I did not see myself being at boarding school seven days a week, as if I were 18 years old”. All interspersed with stays in Nîmes for “change routine”.
Psychological work
Now followed and accompanied daily by a physical trainerJean-Charles Valladont, who seeks, among other things, to solidify a fragile right shoulder – “I dismissed her twice” -, has started too “psychological work with different people to learn to put things into perspective, to focus solely on the taste and the pleasure of putting an arrow in the middle of the target, regardless of the shooting range”.
“Jean-Charles has taken things in hand, has reorganized his preparation. I feel he is motivated from home, motivated, free in his head and focused on the Paris 2024 objective”, rejoices Olivier Grillat, his trainer in Nîmes. During an internal tournament recently organized at Insep, he scored 588 points. “For a recovery, it’s interesting”grillat relief.
“Everything is going very well so far”, confirms Jean-Charles Valladont who will return to competition on 8 and 9 January at the Bondy international tournament. It will also align at the Nimes tournament a few days later, with “the desire to win it a third time”. Also on the program for his indoor season, in February 2022, Las Vegas and, if selected, the European Championship in Koper in Slovenia. The reconquest is underway.
