Emmanuel, how did you react to the news of the death of Jacques Secrétin?
Emmanuel Lebesson:
I heard the news very early this morning when I arrived at the room.
With Jacques, we shared the fact of being European champion 40 years apart.
It brought us closer together.
But beyond myself, I prefer to talk about him, the legend he represented.
He is the one who won the first big titles in our sport in France.
He was a huge champion.
When we talk about table tennis in France, everyone talks about Jacques Secrétin.
He embodied the sport like no other.
He was known even to people who had never played table tennis.
Me, when I say that I play table tennis, there is always someone who says to me: "there is not a known player named Secrétin?"
For us and for table tennis as a whole this is a huge loss.
It is a great man who has passed away.
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Do you have any memories of his shows when you were a child?
Yes of course.
He was an incredibly passionate person.
Until the last moment of his life he was still playing because he was still fired.
I remember his shows with Patrick Renversé and Vincent Purkart.
I believe even people who were not familiar with table tennis at all went to see this show at the time and they came out saying that the sport was great.
Jacques had given our discipline a super playful and funny image.
I first got to know him through that before then discovering the formidable competitor he was.
I watched a lot of his games when I was young, although unfortunately I was not born when he got his big titles.
"Jacques Secrétin embodied table tennis like no other"
Did he inspire you as well?
He must have inspired many people, including me as a player afterwards.
He was a lover of table tennis in the most noble and magnificent sense of the term.
He gave so much of his time to the sport.
He didn't count his hours, he had this wonderful sense of contact with his fans and with people in general.
He was crazy about the sport actually.
I think table tennis was like a drug to him.
It was all that Jacques.
We are all very sad to know that he will not be with us anymore.
He still liked to go to the Insep room whenever he had the chance and it was always a pleasure to see him.
This is a huge loss for the entire table tennis family.
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