champions openly talk about their depression

AMAZON PRIME VIDEO – ON DEMAND – DOCUMENTARY

“All this ball, this bomb that you keep inside you, one day it will explode. » Including for him, “the proudest guy in the world”, as Jérémy Florès describes himself. In 2006, at age 18, he became the youngest surfer in history to join the world elite. “I really wanted to get there, to prove that a young man from Reunion Island could compete with the Anglo-Saxons…”

Retired since August 2021, he speaks candidly about his depression, this invisible adversary that he had to fight during his career, just like the swimmer Camille Lacourt, the skier Perrine Laffont, the handball player Valentin Porte and the fencer Ysaora Thibus. Their on-camera testimonies are part of a movement to free up speech among high-level athletes.

Built in three acts – “Born”, “Falling”, “Reborn” – the documentary, put online on Prime Video on October 10, World Mental Health Day, is accompanied by testimonies from parents, spouses or coaches who share the daily lives of the five athletes. Completed by insights from Stéphane Mouchabac, psychiatrist at Saint-Antoine hospital in Paris. The voice-over – recorded by singer Ben Mazué, who also experienced burnout – turns out to be superfluous, as the athletes’ stories are sufficient in themselves.

“The landscape is apocalyptic”

Perrine Laffont talks about“a very heavy weight in the chest” the year following her title in mogul skiing at the 2018 Olympic Games (JO). This gold medal completed her childhood dream, but, at 19, “we had to assume [ce nouveau statut] and I wasn’t prepared for all that.”.

For Camille Lacourt, there was first the failure of the London Olympics in 2012, where the podium in the 100m backstroke slipped away before the eyes of the reigning world champion. In 2017, at the time of his retirement following a second world title, a question brutally assailed him: who am I? “It’s a scary question, because we don’t know. »

Thanks to therapy, Valentin Porte, former captain of the French handball team with whom he won Olympic gold in 2021, found the keys to allow him to manage head-on, “with much more perspective and lightness”, his private life and his professional life. “To reach the very high level, we sometimes have to build solid walls, said the 33-year-old international World. But the day we leave this bunker, the landscape is apocalyptic. »

Symptomatically, the term “depression » is not assumed by everyone in this documentary. Some prefer the euphemism of “depressed”, or even “very difficult moment”. Either way, the superhero myth collapses.