Sport, Robert Pirès practices it and still sees it today as a "drug", as an inseparable presence.
We asked the former international footballer, retired since 2015, about his relationship to the effort at a time when Servane Heudiard, an amateur practitioner, portrayed in a book released in recent days how much this addiction has made him losing control of his social life and his health.
This addiction has a name, "bigorexia".
A neologism that designates the stage where addiction to jogging, cycling or any discipline can lead to dangerous behavior and to lock oneself in a bubble.
But should “bigorexics” all expect this kind of abuse?
That's the whole point.
Like Bixente Lizarazu, Robert Pirès, consultant on M 6 since July 2020 for the matches of the France team - he will comment on the meeting in Bosnia and Herzegovina on Wednesday - assumes his visceral need to exercise in high doses but ensures to show good meaning.
You stopped your career in March 2015 in the Goa club in India.
You were then the last 1998 world champion in practice.
What relationship do you have with sports activity?
ROBERT PIRES.
For me, it is essential.
I need it.
I need to run, to sweat.
I have had this in me since I started football at 7 years old.
Do you still need one dose of sport a day today?
We will say that on Saturday and Sunday, I calm down.
It is dedicated to the family and my loved ones.
But after several days without sport, I do not feel well yes.
It's like a drug.
I have the impression that I have an obligation.
In Ibiza (Spain) where I live, I admit that I can do more sports and not play too much football.
There is already padel tennis, which takes me two to three hours a day, every other day.
Otherwise, I alternate with the racing bike, mountain bike, I play footy volleyball on the beach.
I'm lucky to be able to do that, even in January-February, I know.
There is a term, bigorexia, to qualify this addiction to sport and the physical and psychological risks associated with addictive behavior ...
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I didn't know that word.
Afterwards, you have to know how to set limits, this must not become an imperative either.
There is also privacy to be preserved.
Sport is secondary.
You have to ask my wife, but I don't think I'm to the point of being irritable and unpleasant if I don't sweat.
I will tend to ask him every morning what I'm going to do today, while knowing how to reason with myself.
Likewise, if it's raining hard, I won't take the risk of going out on my bike.
Is a top athlete necessarily addicted to sport?
It depends on the desire, the motivation.
But it is true that many find it difficult to quit.
Some do, it is respectful.
But I need it to feel good.
I don't think we realize how extremely hard the post-career switch is.
It's brutal.
There are lots of emotions that suddenly stop and I still miss them.
Those moments in the locker room, winning, losing, being surrounded by an audience ... Only the pros know this feeling.
I pushed back the date of retirement as late as possible.
I went to the end of the end in India.
But at some point, with age and the young people arriving, the end was inescapable.