With his second individual world champion title on Sunday in Eugene, Oregon, Kevin Mayer saves the French team from an embarrassing zero point, which it has not experienced on the international scene since the 2000 Olympics. , when the Olympic high mass is looming on its land. At the age of 30, he joined the very select club of French athletes who were double world champions individually, alongside the legend Marie-José Pérec, crowned in the 400m in 1991 and 1995, and Eunice Barber, she titled at the heptathlon in 1999 and the long jump in 2003.
The painful memory of some competitions
Certainly, the world record holder (9,126 points in 2018) benefited from favorable circumstances with the abandonment of the reigning Olympic champion, the Canadian Damian Warner, hit in the left thigh in full 400 m at the end of the first day. Halfway through, weighed down by his poor shot put, with a best throw of 14.98m, very far from his record (17.08m), Mayer fell asleep in sixth provisional position for his first decathlon since the Games. from Tokyo a year ago.
Under a blazing sun, he built his rise in the pole vault (5.40 m) and javelin (over 70 m) rankings in particular. At the end of his ten works, he won with a total of 8,816 points ahead of Canadian Pierce Lepage (8,701) and American Zachery Ziemek (8,676). An achievement he welcomed with teary eyes and quivering lips when the Marseillaise was played in his honour.
It is that Mayer kept the memory of several painful decathlons, from zero to length at the 2018 European Championships in Berlin, at the Tokyo Games crossed back blocked last summer, passing by his abandonment at the Worlds-2019 in Doha , tendon (the left then) already recalcitrant. Not to mention that at the start of the year, the Montpellier resident was bothered for many months by his right Achilles tendon “on fire” – which had made him give up the Indoor Worlds in Belgrade in early March -, and n resumed running only two months ago.
2024 in the viewfinder
This return to the highest step of the world podium comes as Mayer decided to take control of his training by separating in the spring from his physical trainer Jérôme Simian. On a daily basis, he is now accompanied only by Alexandre Bonacorsi, his childhood friend, originally responsible for compiling his performance data (sessions, series, intensity of effort, etc.)
“I like this way of working. I loved it during confinement, when I was able to have access to the stadium: that’s where I brought out the best of myself, where I had my best sessions.” Mayer said in June. Alone at the rate of one out of three sessions in each discipline, I will look much further into my entrenchments to find solutions, to progress further, and I like that. When I’m with Alexandre, if things aren’t going well, I rely on him to find solutions and I don’t like that. Alone, it’s really in you mode against yourself.
“When I worked with Bertrand (Valcin, his historic trainer from whom he separated in 2020), I loved being the actor in my programming. The guys around me know that I’m the instigator of my progress,” continued the double world champion.
Does he already have the 2024 Olympics in mind? “I already see myself at the start of the 100m with a full stadium, answered Mayer. That alone gives me chills.”