Paris 2024 Olympics: “Burn-out”, “body that says stop”… how Elodie Clouvel, medalist in Rio, rebuilt herself for Paris

L'ex-Catalane Elodie Clouvel débarque pleine d'une énergie nouvelle et espère créer la surprise pour se glisser à nouveau sur le podium. MAXPPP – Julien Mattia/Le Pictorium

Back from a huge slump, the 2016 Olympic vice-champion, who was a member of Perpignan for a long time, wants first of all to savour the fact of being there for the modern pentathlon event, which begins this Thursday, August 8.

She had burst onto the screen and touched the hearts of the French during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Champion of perfection with a haughty bearing and a model's body, Elodie Clouvel had become a queen adorned with silver. Almost an incongruity in this discipline of military tradition that is the modern pentathlon, combining fencing, swimming, horse riding, pistol shooting and running.

The native of the Loire could have sunk into a destiny of swimmer marrying her mermaid curves, a trajectory of a successful torpedo in the style of Laure Manaudou, under the orders of Philippe Lucas. But the alchemy didn't work in this marriage of water and fire with the long-haired and outspoken coach. For over 15 years, she has imposed these Herculean tasks on herself with ups and downs that nearly plunged her into abysses from which one does not return.

“I didn't feel like training anymore”

The term burnout is taboo in this environment where the quest for performance does not tolerate any admission of weakness. Mowed down by this sudden illness after the Tokyo Games where she finished 6th, she recounts, with a slight crack in her voice, how “after 15 years at Insep, my body and my brain said stop, the desire to train abandoned me.”

Behind the smokescreen of this self-combustion, the need to take control of her destiny, “a thirst for freedom, to rediscover the pleasure of effort and to be my own boss."

"I've come back from so far"

To break the routine and be able to "reinvent yourself", Elodie set up her own structure with her partner Valentin Belaud, double world champion of the discipline but who was not selected in the French selection. A disappointment that she turned into a strength: “We are there for each other and he was the best sparring partner, he was fully there for me and I am grateful to him. I cried when I left him to come to the village."

Pentathlon, user guide

Another Frenchman, Valentin Prades (4th in Rio), at 31, has ambitions in this pentathlon with a revisited format.

The endless assignments for the five disciplines are over. This Thursday will be devoted to the fencing ranking events but from Friday, in the prestigious setting of Versailles, men and women will take turns for 90-minute semi-final assignments. who will combine the five disciplines (riding, fencing, swimming, running and shooting combined in the “laser run”).

The best nine will compete in the final in the same format, at 5:30 p.m. Saturday for the men, Sunday (11 a.m.) for the women.

The 2016 Olympic vice-champion approaches her 4th Olympics with "great pride and the desire to savor every moment because perhaps it will be&nbsp ;the der and I come back from so far."

"I hope it all comes together"

Like all French athletes, she intends to draw extra soul from the support of the public. "There are 36 girls at the start this Thursday and you will have to be strong to enter the 9 finalists. I hope I've done enough competitions to sort myself out, that everything will come together."

To rise from the ashes on the steps of a podium. The story would rekindle the French embers, which are dying out a little in this second week. We rarely pick up the pieces of the past, but Elodie is part of a strategy for the future, or even the aftermath. The Last, really ? As long as her body, soothed by this new rhythm and techniques like Yoga, wants to follow, she won't rule anything out: “When we see that Teddy Riner is continuing, we say why not…"

Mounting a academy

She has already thought about what comes next: “Set up a training academy and consider an experience in the artistic world”, cinema, fashion, which she has already infiltrated for a few shootings, “also set up things around well-being”.

This thirst for happiness that shines in Elodie's eyes.

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