MaintenanceI would not have arrived there if… “Le Monde” questions a personality on a decisive moment in his life. The canoe-kayak champion, triple Olympic gold medal, returns to the face-to-face meeting between him and his elder Patrice, his “model”, for a place at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
Tony Estanguet, 43, is president of the Organizing Committee for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. A former single-seater canoe slalom champion, he is the only Frenchman to have won three gold medals at three different Olympic Games.
I wouldn’t have gotten there if …
If I hadn’t eliminated my big brother to qualify for my first Olympics. This strong, intense and unbelievably hard moment shaped the rest of my career and my life. If I am today president of the Organizing Committee of the Games, it is because there was this very powerful click where I stopped being the one who has to do what others do, the same studies. , the same sports, the same interests as my father and my brothers, to become independent and autonomous. My fate had to pass through this madness to beat my model.
How did you find yourself competing against each other?
My brother Patrice is five years older than me. We evolved in a tight-knit family cocoon, we did everything together, he was my reference. I always wanted to be like him, to follow him, to copy him, to play the same games as him. Canoeing is a family affair. Patrice was a medalist in this discipline at the Atlanta Olympic Games in 1996, it was he who opened up the field of possibilities to me. We trained together all the time. I thought : “Big boy, now it’s your turn to try to qualify.” “ When I learn, in 1999, that finally there is only one place for the Sydney Olympics the following year, and that I will be competing with him, something extreme happens of a psychological and personal point of view. I had to go beyond my limits, put my modesty and my feelings aside. I had to take responsibility for no longer being the youngest in the family, to be able to aim big too, and to win. Even if it meant eliminating my own brother.
How did this fratricidal competition unfold?
When we learned that there was only one seat, my brother came to me and said: “It will be very hard what we are going to live. We will have to manage it well so that our relationship as brothers does not deteriorate. I suggest that our paths separate. From now on and for the next year, we no longer train together. It’s every man for himself and the best wins. “ It was ultra-violent instantly. I was 21, it added gravity and tension for the upcoming deadlines. This year has been particularly difficult. Going to the highest level had been my goal for three years, but I never anticipated that it would come at the expense of my brother. But he made the right decision.
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