2023-04-17 18:00:23
It is an army unit that has seen its numbers more than double in the run-up to the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games (JOP). The “army of champions” had 88 athletes in its ranks in 2018; they were 206 in 2022. Among them, Warrant Officer Clarisse Agbegnenou, triple Olympic medalist in judo (less than 63 kg), or Private Jimmy Gressier, specialist in endurance races. His mission ? Bring back medals to France… and to the army.
Yasmina Aziez was part of this unit from 2010 to 2020. The taekwondo player was 17 when she signed her high-level sports contract with the army. A source of ” serenity “says the young woman of 32 years, from a family of eleven children and then became “financially independent”. The bronze medalist at the 2009 world championships and semi-finalist at the Olympic Games (OG) in Rio in 2016, in the category of less than 49 kg, did not think of embracing one day a military career. But the sponsor of his years at the highest level has gradually turned into an opportunity for retraining.
Like every soldier, Corporal Aziez benefited from a salary, opportunities for professional development and social security, while being entirely detached to her training. In return, she had to devote about twenty days a year to her employer, by participating in military competitions, regroupings or communication operations. A partnership relationship such as exists in public and private companies, intended to support high-level sport.
“For me, it went beyond a simple agreement or a bank transfershe explains. Athletes and fighters, we respond to the same values of rigor, self-transcendence, camaraderie and resilience. » Over the years, she rubbed shoulders with professional soldiers, who practiced her in shooting and made her discover the life of an operational regiment. “Athletes have reinforced learning depending on their attachment corps: the army, the navy, the air force, or the gendarmeriedevelops Sylvie Anoto, adviser to the National Defense Sports Center (CNSD), in Fontainebleau (Seine-et-Marne). Not everyone wants to stay in the army, that’s not the goal, but they are interested in these apprenticeships. »
“You have to be ready to give up your track record”
In 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Tokyo Olympics are postponed for a year. Yasmina Aziez, she has a meniscal prosthesis, which forces her to retire from sport: “It happened very quickly, I hadn’t really had time to plan what would happen next. I felt good in the army, so I asked to stay. » She then left to train in Nîmes, at 503e train regiment. Life there is harsh, the rations tasteless, the sleep limited. Living conditions far removed from his former daily life, punctuated by training and physiotherapy sessions. “You have to be ready to let go of your record and become a soldier like any otherrelates the taekwondoist now in the technical direction of sports at the CNSD. We were 77 at the beginning, and 25 at the end of the training. It was hard, I lost 6 kilos, but I was able to rely on my high level experience to surpass myself. »
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