This is the story of a champion almost by chance. About an athletics legend who almost missed his destiny. This is the story of Marie-José Pérec, who this Wednesday inaugurates “Le Sacre”, the new podcast from Le Parisien, available on all platforms, after “Code Source”, a daily meeting on current affairs and “Crime Story”, weekly story around major news stories.
The “Coronation”, like this Olympic coronation that 24 athletes will tell us about once a week until Paris 2024. Intimate confidences at the microphone of Anne-Laure Bonnet, journalist specializing in sports within the TF 1 group, BeIN Sports , the Téléfoot and Public Sénat channels. Until July 24, she will host, among others, the swimmer Alain Bernard, the karateka Steven Da Costa, the paratriathlete Alexis Hanquinquant and the judoka Angelo Parisi. Everyone will go back in time, from their beginnings to this Olympic medal that changes everything. This “Rite” therefore, which turned their lives upside down.
PODCAST. The Rite with Marie-José Pérec, the Parisian event podcast
Marie-José Pérec kicks off this Wednesday. She receives Anne-Laure Bonnet at home in her Parisian apartment. The champion looks for her three Olympic medals: “They are stored in a box. But for a long time, they were in a cellar. I’m not very attached to the object. What matters is the memory, the path we travel. » It is precisely this path that the sportswoman begins to tell. From his childhood in Guadeloupe to his first school run at the age of 16.
Triple Olympic champion Marie-José Pérec, in July 2023, in Paris. LP/Olivier Arandel
The kid loved to challenge the boys to a sprint in the playground of her primary school. But this time, it’s a PE teacher that she’s going to scotch, on a 60m course. “She looks at her time and says to herself: there’s a problem,” laughs the person concerned. She said to me: start again. And I don’t want to be noticed, I’m tall for my age, I’m 1.75 m, I almost refuse and she replies: if you don’t I’ll see your grandmother. »
Unthinkable for the teenager who grew up in a family of traders with a “fairly strict” education. She does so. This is where it all begins with a first competition then won hands down before the French School Championships in mainland France at the Charléty stadium.
When “Marie-Jo” almost stopped everything
“Le Sacre” is full of tasty anecdotes told by the champion in a relaxed, friendly and intense conversation. The triple medalist does not shy away from her moments of doubt when she comes to train in mainland France then leaves for Guadeloupe, then returns to Paris before deciding to stop everything at 19. “I’m looking for myself, I don’t really know what I want to do,” she remembers.
Then there is the first victory at the European Indoor Championships over 200m after only three months of real training, the first Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988 where the star Carl Lewis came to sit on his bench. “I didn’t even dare look at him, it intimidated me. And for a moment I look at him sideways and I see… that he has lots of pimples. Oh no ! How stupid are we when we’re 20,” she confides with a burst of laughter.
Marie-José Pérec wins the 400m at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. AFP/Georges Gobet
Then comes this incredible first gold medal over 400m in Barcelona in 1992 told almost second by second from the start to the finish line. Magic of the story and the production of this podcast: “I’m behind the starting blocks. I made an average start, I didn’t come out of the last corner in the lead. I store my breathing and over nine strides I exert a very violent effort. »
First victory, first coronation where we too hold our breath. The podcast ends with another moment of emotion: her double in the 200 and 400 m at the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996. The city of Martin Luther King where Marie-Jo “saw Mohammed Ali light the flame”: “When we fight to show that black people can do great things, we can only succeed in a place like that. »
