Top 14: former sprinter with a dented life, Madosh Tambwe, the Bordeaux-Bègles winger, made an impression

Two races. Two jewels. Two tries. The first after a supersonic punch followed by a giant slalom. The second, after a straight ride which gave victory to his club Bordeaux-Bègles two minutes from the end on Sunday evening at the Gerland stadium in Lyon in the Top 14 dam. Madosh Tambwe sprang twice. The LOU came out defeated and knocked out (32-25), letting their opponent slip away in the semi-finals in San Sebastian in Spain, where they will face the European champion Rochelais next Saturday (5 p.m.).

And to think that the Bordeaux winger, who arrived from South Africa at the start of the season, should not have been on the pitch… Romain Buros’ injury package opened the way for him, plunging a man of 26 years old whose career and originality contrast with the robotization of bodies and minds in an increasingly codified professional rugby. Madosh Tambwe is a sprinter who had too much rage in him to remain glued to synthetic tracks under the orders and judgments of a stopwatch. He lowered his times to 10′’50 in the 100m and 22′’ in the 200m but he had to flee from other demons. Born in Kinshasa to a Congolese father and a South African mother, he grew up in a difficult district of Johannesburg, Yeoville, and practiced athletics with his older brother, pushed by a mother who then saw a way to shield his sons from bad company. He was twelve years old when she died giving birth to twins, only one of whom survived.

Tobacco, alcohol, drugs…

“It’s the darkest experience of my life,” said Madosh Tambwe in an interview with the newspaper l’Equipe. I stopped the sport for two years. I have been lost. I didn’t hang out with the right guys. “Tobacco, alcohol, drugs… The teenager goes adrift before his brother convinces him to try rugby. This is the trigger, during a competition between high schools. There followed a meteoric rise and passages through the franchises of the Lions (Johannesburg), the Sharks (Durban) then the Bulls (Pretoria). “He was still linked with the Bulls when we wanted to recruit him, explained Christophe Urios, the manager of UBB at the time. When we were given the financial deal to release him from his contract, we couldn’t and we didn’t want to line up. He told us : I’ll take part of my own contract. He paid a big part of the deal that there was between the two clubs. He absolutely wanted to come to UBB. I call it class. »

This is Madosh Tambwe, adept at meditation and mental imagery, tuning into very specific Hertzian frequencies to find calm before a meeting, engaging in a lot of introspection work, to the point of adding individual sessions and very personal to collective training. A hyperactive of 1.86 m for 92 kg taking tablets to sleep. A fine cook gobbling up burgers and ice cream on game nights. A stateless person who had to renounce his Congolese nationality before obtaining South African naturalization. A man curious about everything, tracking down novelty in all his actions. A joker that has become Bordeaux’s major asset.