2023-07-06 11:40:31
Qualified for the next World Athletics Championships in August in Budapest, and for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, Senegalese runner Louis François Mendy has boundless ambition. At 24, he dreams of being number one in his discipline in Africa and bringing a second Olympic medal to his country.
Published on: 06/07/2023 – 11:40
3 mn
The euphoria has not yet died down. Nearly a week after his formidable race completed in 13 seconds and 18 hundredths, at the international meeting of Troyes, Louis François Mendy is still on cloud nine.
After breaking the Senegal record in the 110m hurdles, he did it again last Saturday, July 1. The sound of his voice also exudes pride in having brilliantly achieved the minimums to qualify for the World Championships in Budapest (August 19 to 27, 2023) and the Olympic Games in Paris, and the desire to do even better.
“It’s a sick time, even I was surprised “, he says at the microphone of RFI. It gives me a lot of pleasure and a lot of it also makes me want to work even harder to be the first African in 110m hurdles “. With his super time, he indeed achieved the second best African performance of all time behind the South African Antonio Alkana, who had managed a 13’11 in Prague in 2017.
Amadou Dia Ba : « He was missing a lot of things.”
This is also the year when everything really begins for Louis François Mendy. In 2017, the one who trains at the Étoile athlétique club (EAC), based in the popular district of Grand Yoff (Dakar), is introduced to Amadou Dia Bâ, the only Olympic medalist in the history of Senegalese sport ( silver at the Seoul Olympics in the 400m hurdles). ” His trainer Adama Badji brought him to my office saying to me: ”This boy has talent, but I’ve reached my limits’’says Amadou Dia Ba. Louis François was frail, he was talented, but he lacked a lot of things: muscle, speed and technique. ».
However, the 18-year-old had just won the silver medal in the 110m hurdles, beating the Senegalese record in the category, at the African Junior Athletics Championships in Tlemcen. No matter, the serious things were really going to start for the one who integrates the Center for African Development of Athletics (CDAA) directed by Dia Ba, with the support of the Senegalese Federation of Athletics. Supported by confejes and the Senegalese Olympic Committee through scholarships, the Senegalese hurdler progresses, earns “ muscle, speed and technique “. His evolution is materialized by a bronze medal in the 110m hurdles at the 2019 African Games in Rabat.
Go below 13 seconds
If he needed an invitation to be present at the Tokyo Olympics, the current leader of Senegalese athletics owes his future presence in Paris only to himself today. ” This proves that the work begun five years ago is paying offsays Amadou Dia Ba. Today, he is 11th in the world, the goal is for him to be among the eight best in the world, that’s how he can gauge himself against the others. He’s got a future, mentally he’s fresh ».
Since the London Olympics in 2012, no Senegalese runner had managed to achieve the minimum for the Olympics in athletics, but Louis François Mendy does not want to stop on this feat. He aims high, very high: The semi-finals in Budapest and going down one day under 13 seconds “, he lets go. And for Paris? ” The Games mean a lot to me, I will represent my country. The rest, I reserve the surprise for you », Launches the one who trains in France in Épinal at the Athletic Vosges Entente Clubs. His mentor Amadou Dia Ba makes a wish: “Ihope he will be my successor and Olympic medalist for Senegal”.
Statement by Louis François Mendy collected by Victor Missistrano
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