LTheir sports and goals differ, but not their concern, with a lifestyle based on physical activity and a schedule scheduled for months. Three top-level French athletes tell each week World their confinement: the judokate Madeleine Malonga, the cyclist Romain Bardet and the rugby player Antoine Dupont. Fourth episode of their notebook, to be followed until the lifting of this health measure against the epidemic due to the coronavirus.
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Romain Bardet: "I find it hard to believe that the whole peloton can start again in 2021"
ROMAIN BARDET, 29 YEARS OLD, RUNNER OF THE AG2R LA MONDIALE TEAM, FINISHED TWICE ON THE PODIUM OF THE TOUR DE FRANCE.
It is hard to see the end! Thanks to the caregivers, we managed to avoid total submersion, but we feel that confinement, so costly in terms of public liberties, will not be enough. Morale remains good thanks to our privileged location, but we need to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We are at a crucial point.
I am in daily contact with my trainer, Jean-Baptiste Quiclet, by email or by phone. We have two collective outings per week, which allow us to get away from it all. With other riders of the team, I will participate in the virtual Tour de Suisse next week (with eighteen other teams, from April 22 to 26), live on Swiss television: a palliative which will allow us to offer a little visibility to our sponsors during this period of blackout.
In this moment when we are not overwhelmed, it is the least of things for our sponsors. In France, we are lucky to have solid partners, who do not disengage at the first difficulty (AG2R La Mondiale rehired last year until 2023). Abroad, I see some teams that are falling apart, whose sponsors are withdrawing or who no longer pay their riders or the staff. Their protection system is nonexistent.
When you are a runner resident in France, of course the charges are important because the wages are; but we realize that in a crisis the system keeps us afloat. It's the system I grew up in that makes me proud to be French. It does not collapse at the first rout.
The team put us on short-time working in April. We received an email to let us know. It doesn't really change anything for us, the team will compensate our salary 100%. For the time being, there has been no discussion of a possible drop in wages; but it’s because everyone has in mind the prospect of the Tour de France and that the essential can be saved.
The future is a subject of discussion between runners. What will the peloton look like in 2021? I find it hard to believe that everyone can leave, especially big international teams whose sponsors are at the end of their contracts. If these companies had a difficult year, it is the first budgets that will jump. And since there will be no team creation … In a normal year, the economic climate is already complicated, so in times of crisis, there is something to worry about.
This will be particularly penalizing for young people arriving and runners at the end of the contract who are almost 35 years old. They will be the first to jump, and this is particularly unfair, as riders will be set aside without being able to calibrate on the road.
Madeleine Malonga: "Bug, I'm not going to do anything today! "
MADELEINE MALONGA, 26 YEARS OLD, IS A WORLD JUDO CHAMPION IN THE 78 KG CATEGORY.
This last week has been tough, especially from Monday to Wednesday. There was a loss of motivation: "Thumbs up, I'm not going to do anything today!" " It’s rare for me to be in a bad mood, and there I have thirty minutes when I wake up when I’m a bit flat The weekend was better because I feel less guilty: I always tell myself that it is less serious not to be active.
Under these conditions, even watching a television program like "Koh-Lanta" becomes a little pleasure. To break the routine, I started to follow the daily sports lessons given by one of my club colleagues on Instagram.
Right now, I realize that I spend so much in normal times. I'm in need of judo. So, I watched the videos of the fights of my last three competitions: the Tournament (city international) from Paris, my failed master in China and my resumption in Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates). I watched my attitude, the way I knock down my opponents. On my fight lost in Qingdao, in the first round against the South Korean Yoon, I realized that I had been too passive, not aggressive enough nor fast enough. We feel the fatigue of the last competition of the year.
I try to follow the news but I must say that it stresses me out. I do not want to take my head on things that have not yet been said or to elaborate ten thousand hypotheses for nothing.
Regarding the rest, I am not yet thinking of deconfinement. At the end of each day, we've never been so close to the end. It’s a phrase I repeat to myself all the time: whether it’s in competition, training or internship. We must remain positive and combative.
Antoine Dupont: "I saw the final of the last championship again"
ANTOINE DUPONT, 23 YEARS OLD, HALF OF THE BLUE MÉLÉE, IS FRANCE'S RUGBY CHAMPION IN TITLE WITH THE STADIUM TOULOUSAIN.
Now is the time for reruns. On TV, I saw the best moments from last year's finale. That of my first title of champion of France, a feeling of absolute happiness.
Normally, when I finish playing a game, I review my actions the same evening or the next day, to better analyze them. But that final, I did not remember having seen it until then. Slips on your stomach in the locker room of the Stade de France, or a ride in Toulouse in a mini-train for tourists, yes, I remember!
I also saw on the Internet a Toulouse-Agen from 2003, the semi-final of the championship. I like watching these old games. Another rugby: the defenses were much less organized, much less structured than now. The scrums, in three seconds, were already dangerously coming back against each other.
Earlier this month, the club also sent us more recent videos. Extracts from Ulster matches, station by station, to save time in the event of a resumption of the European Cup.
We still don't know if competitions will resume and, if so, when. An ideal solution, which satisfies everyone, there is none …
Otherwise, since the last time, I finished Jean-Paul Dubois' book ((Not all men inhabit the world in the same way, Olivier editions, 2019). The author being a fan of rugby, he gave two characters names of players. In the narrator’s building, a man is called Kieran Read, and an Aldegheri also makes a brief appearance.
I, who am not necessarily a regular reader, I found the story catchy, it reads quite easily and, I don't know if I have to say it, it ends rather sadly.
The next book? I'm going to try to tackle another gift received at Christmas: a book on the work of American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. I’ve already watched a documentary about him, so it got me started. When Yoann Maestri still had his painting gallery in Toulouse, I had already visited it for exhibitions too, that amused me.
I would have continued to read Rafael Nadal's autobiography, for his high-level mental approach, but I left it to Marcoussis when I left the XV of France, after my shoulder injury, in the month Of March.
