It was an evening in August 2017 at the Olympic Stadium in London. Two tricks signed by a man who we knew was full of enthusiasm and who suddenly became a magician in one fell swoop. 150 meters from the finish, even though he was not in the form of his life, he had taken to his heels, taking care in passing to disconnect his brain, then the drunkenness. No one saw him again.
Pierre-Ambroise Bosse was 25 years old, an age chosen to surprise everyone and win international gold in the 800 meters. 25 years old, the Holy Grail then decline, inexorably between struggles and injuries of all kinds. And now retirement, six years later.
He would have liked to continue until the Paris Games, to dream of an Olympic medal at home, at home, for his mother’s eyes. Only, his legs are no longer capable of it. Bosse decided to formalize his professional retirement this Tuesday in the newspaper The Team. A decision that his body had been telling him to make for months but which he rejected in assumed denial. “I wanted to go to the Games but I know my body won’t let me. (…) There is nothing more to do unless I graft a titanium tendon (laughs). »
“I no longer enjoy athletics. There is something unhealthy in this tendon, it is no longer in the game,” adds PAB in the daily. This tendon is the one located at the insertion of his right hamstring muscle. The discomfort or the pain, it depends, he managed to deal with for many years – since 2014, he specifies, in the interview. But these last seasons were too heavy. After an operation in December 2022, the Nantes resident relapsed last May during training in Bergerac (Dordogne). The tile too many.
Legendary dialogues with Nelson Monfort
Fourth in the 2016 Games, third in the 2012 and 2018 European Championships, Pierre-Ambroise Bosse leaves behind more than just a prize list and a French record (1′42′’53). His chat and his responses on TV to Nelson Monfort’s microphone attracted more than one person. The darling of French athletics, he made the rounds with his dedications to his cat Rab’s, who has become an internet star.
Debonair and atypical, he was also in his relationship to athletics, let’s say detached. Not really focused on “marginal gains”, he embraces his taste for partying, his love of beer and pétanque. “I think that if I hadn’t lived the way I did during my first years, I would never have had the titles that I had. And when I wanted to be more serious, my body was already tired. »
After his 2017 world title, he was involved in a fight leaving a nightclub in Gironde. An incident for which he was fined 1000 euros and the other protagonist was sentenced to eight months in prison.
“I have always had too much madness”
“I will never say that this title was a trap, it is the most beautiful thing that happened to me even if it also led to things, including this attack that I no longer want to talk about. Some are champions in life like (Renaud) Lavillenie, (Teddy) Riner, (Léon) Marchand, they are made to shine, they have the stuff in them. Me, I have always had too much madness to be super serious in sport, estimates PAB in L’Équipe. My personality is incompatible with high-level sport. I always knew it. »
With the high level behind him, he now sees himself bouncing back into recycling and waste sorting with his friend and ex-athlete Bryan Cantero. A man with whom he had already tried to launch a dating application. An athlete apart, until the end.
