2023-11-26 15:00:21
CLARA DUPRE
“The first time my body failed me, I was 200 meters from the finish line of the 3,000 meter steeplechase final of the European Championships. It’s summer 2021. I’m by far the favorite, I’m 19 years old, it’s a guaranteed medal. On race day, I started in the lead, as planned. But when I reached the middle, I no longer had the strength. I can’t outrun the other runners, they start to overtake me. And I slow down, I slow down, until I stop. Just before the last river, I collapse at the edge of the track. I tear up my bib, I have never cried so much. I want to die. I don’t know it yet, but it’s the beginning of a descent into hell.
I started athletics in middle school on the advice of my PE teacher [éducation physique et sportive] which sees me winning all the school cross-country races. In a club in my town of Romans-sur-Isère [Drôme], I like sport as a leisure activity, the friends I make there. Then, pushed by my father, I joined a boarding high school in Grenoble where I could practice athletics during flexible hours. I have my first good results, I finish in the French cadet and junior team, the categories between 15 and 18 years old. But I don’t yet have a very professional approach, despite my status as a high-level athlete on the ministerial lists.
It is by entering the National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance [Insep] after the baccalaureate, the serious things begin. I train in middle distance events, the 1,500 meters and the 3,000 meters steeplechase. Then, the Covid-19 pandemic arrived and I went to confine myself with my coach, his assistant and my training partner, Emma Oudiou, in a chalet in the Alps.
“When I run my best, I’m very bad mentally”
We have between ten and twelve training sessions per week. My coach trains very hard. I say “yes” to everything. I just turned 18, I want to show these professionals that I am strong, resilient. That’s how I am at that moment: I only think about sport, even studies come second. I don’t have the energy for it. The rest of the time I spend sleeping. I’m on a fence all the time, but I don’t want to disappoint.
Emma, on the other hand, completely breaks down and leaves before the end. She goes through the psychiatric hospital. Throughout training, my coach told me: “You can see how Emma is breaking down, she is not made for the high level. You’re different.”
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That summer, I again beat my French junior record. I’m running well, I’ve made a lot of progress. At the start of the school year, Emma left and I have two new training partners, a boy and a girl. This boy makes me subject to moral and sexual harassment for half the year. I still feel like a kid, he’s 23. We begin a consensual relationship even though he is in a relationship with our third training partner. Very quickly, he threatened me: “If you open your mouth, I know everyone here, I will give you your reputation.” I am in a very unhealthy climate of fear all the time.
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