IThere is no age limit for sprinting. Sprinting, yes, this traumatic discipline for the muscles and joints, this heresy for aging bodies. At 82, Micheline Bailly doesn’t care. Her friends from the hiking club keep telling her that it’s ” madness “ at her age, and her husband, Christian, two years her junior, recommend that she ” be careful “she trains diligently, twice a week, on the track at the Gérard-Saint d’Argentan stadium (Orne).
At the beginning of March, in Lyon, the licensee of the athletics section of Bayard Argentan – a former patronage created at the beginning of the 20the century – became French champion in the 60 meters indoor in the 80-85 year old category, with a time of 12 seconds and 90 hundredths, a new national record. Micheline Bailly is also the reigning French champion and French record holder for the 50 meters and 100 meters in her age group.
Twice a mother, five times grandmother and three times great-grandmother, the tartan’s ancestor was not always a sprinter. “I started running late, at 55she says. Office colleagues went jogging every Friday lunchtime. By insisting, they convinced me to accompany them. » Micheline Bailly worked at the time as an insurance manager at the Europcar head office in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (Yvelines). Pneumonia had weakened her shortly before. “At the beginning, I had difficulty doing more than 300 meters, she remembers. I stopped in front of a tree that I took as a landmark. The following week, I stopped at the next tree, and so on. I ended up getting a taste for it. » Cross-country races and even a marathon will follow, at age 64 (ran in five hours and nineteen minutes).
It was when she moved to Normandy, upon retirement, that she turned to short distances, on the advice of a trainer from Bayard Argentan who had seen her gallop alone on the track. Stimulated by the prospect of competing again, Micheline did not have to be asked to do so. “I like to know what level I am at, to measure myself against others,” she confides.
The problem is that Micheline is almost alone in her category. Since her competitive debut in 2019, she has only encountered… one opponent of her age. “A lady who is not in great shape. The last time we faced each other, a month ago, she walked more than she ran. I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again.”she laments.
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