Day something in Paris, and depending on how late the hour is getting when it eventually ends, Quels Jeux! is just wrapping up, or already on repeat, in our hotel lobby next to Gare de Lyon.
Quels Jeux! (What Games!) is the nightly highlight show on France 2, the national station. All their medal winners from the day are invited into the studio to marvel in their moment in the company of some French sporting legends, one of whom has been Marie-José Pérec.
Pérec was also the first modern icon of women’s sport in France, not just in athletics, winning an Olympic 400m gold medal in Barcelona in 1992, then the 200m-400m double in Atlanta in 1996. Her 400m winning time there of 48.25 seconds still stands as the Olympic record. No European woman has run faster since.
You don’t need to know what they’re talking about on Quels Jeux! to understand Pérec is revered in France. Everyone still looks at her in awe. Which is also why last Friday week, seemingly an age ago already, she was chosen to light the Olympic cauldron along with Teddy Riner, who also won three gold medals for France in judo.
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Pérec dominated 400m running for almost a decade before her career abruptly ended around the time of the Sydney Olympics in 2000. She didn’t officially retire until 2004, at age 36, and at times her career was often burdened by unrealistic expectations and pressure to always be at her absolute best.
Watching Pérec on Quels Jeux! also got me thinking about some parallels with Rhasidat Adeleke. At 21, Adeleke has qualified for her first Olympic 400m final, in her first Olympics, also becoming the first Irish woman to make an Olympic sprint final. No matter what happens in tonight’s medal showdown, she’s already gone where no Irish woman has gone before.
Pérec was 20 when she qualified for her first Olympics in Seoul in 1988, and after just about getting out of her heat, ended up ranked 32nd of the 32 quarter-finalists in the 400m. She was still another eight years off the peak of her sprinting powers.
Pérec was born in Basse-Terre, one of the six main islands that make up Guadeloupe, the French territory in the eastern Caribbean. She moved to Paris with her mother at 16, just the two of them, and her exceptional athletic talent was spotted at school, where coaches practically forced Pérec to become a sprinter.
Just three years after Seoul she won the World Championships 400m; her athletic success, along with her supermodel frame catapulted her into major stardom in France. The French media followed her every move, even when Pérec tried to escape them to visit her grandmother back in Guadeloupe.
By the time of the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, the nation expected Pérec to triumph. She didn’t disappoint, winning in 48.83 seconds – the first sub-49 since 1988, and in advance of defending Olympic champion Olha Bryzhina from the former USSR, by this time representing Ukraine.
At the post-race press conference, Pérec was asked if she could some day break the world record of 47.60, set by Marita Koch in 1985.
“I think the world record is the race I ran today,” Pérec said. “I don’t think anyone has run under 49 seconds until now. To run this race today I didn’t need any biological preparation.”
After that performance, Pérec become such a popular celebrity in France she was unable to concentrate on her training and was forced to the leave the country. She moved to Los Angeles, training under UCLA sprint coach John Smith, and also working as a model.
In the run up to the Atlanta in 1996, much of the hype was around their home favourite Michael Johnson, and whether he could pull off a 200m-400m double. At the US Olympic committee’s request, the schedule was slightly altered to make this a little more feasible.
The same changes were made in the women’s 200m-400m schedule, and shortly after that Pérec announced she’d entered the 200m as well. The 400m was first, her main rival now being Cathy Freeman from Australia, and Pérec needed to raise her game again, beating Koch’s Olympic record with her time of 48.25 seconds.
With that Pérec also became the first athlete in Olympic history to defend a 400m title. Then in the 200m, just 15 minutes before Johnson completed his double, Pérec stole his thunder. Coming off the bend she was only fifth but passed Merlene Ottey from Jamaica 15 metres from the finish. Pérec would describe that as “my most perfect race”.
At that stage of her career, at age 28, Pérec had nothing more to prove, and yet that same expectation and pressure to deliver was slow to recede and took a toll. Between injury and illness, she hardly raced at all in the four years before Sydney 2000. This time Freeman, on her home stage (and who also lit the cauldron in that opening ceremony) was the one facing the expectation of the nation.
When Pérec arrived in Sydney, she was hounded by the French and Australian press, hardly leaving her hotel suite. Two days before her 400m heat, she fled Sydney, claiming she’d been threatened at her hotel room. Freeman won the gold medal in 49.11
Freeman was 27 at the time and also competing in her third Olympics. Another reminder, if necessary, that for Adeleke, her Olympic journey is only beginning. And she’s still a long way off the peak of her sprinting powers.
