In 2020, Jean-Charles Valladont, silver in Rio, would probably never have seen Tokyo. The tricolor archer, who enters the competition this Friday in the archery qualifications, was no longer in the qualifying target for Japan. “I am blessed with the postponement of the Games, blows the Bisontin. The health crisis allowed me to question myself about what had sinned. I worked a lot mentally, physically, and focused my lifestyle on the essential and fundamental things for me when shooting. I have an Olympic medal, a record that means I have to be confident and know how to put the arrows in the middle. Still, it was going from bad to worse. I arrived being afraid of disappointing those around me, it puffed me up and pulled me negatively. But I got out of this failure. "
Paradoxically, a sentimental rupture before the second confinement (and after seven years of living together), almost did him good.
“At 32, you want to get involved in family life, to have children and there I took this change as an upgrade, he explains.
I said to myself:
you're not going to bother,
there is archery, the Paris Games in 2024
, you focus on that and we'll see later
.
"
The Olympic vice-champion is an atypical.
Who cultivates his balance and his performance in his taste for the soil.
After the Games, he plans to open a private archery school in Sologne, where he has acquired a barn and land.
VIDEO.
Jean-Charles Valladont before the Rio 2016 Games
The Olympic vice-champion is an atypical.
Who cultivates his balance and his performance in his taste for the soil.
After the Games, he plans to open a private archery school in Sologne, where he has acquired a barn and land.
"I would just like to share, not to enter an institution with politics and all," he confides.
I want something family, open to everyone, the amateur as well as the one who prepares the high level.
Focus on my nature side, fishing, hunting and tradition because I am an epicurean.
I like good food, good bottles.
During the school day and at 7 p.m. table d'hôtes with wild boar terrine and homemade sausage.
"
"Obviously you need a certain hygiene of life"
Not necessarily the idea we have of an athlete at a time when everyone is talking about sharpening for the rendezvous of the rings.
“Obviously you have to have a certain hygiene of life and a physical condition but I do not do 100 m, he says.
I don't need to eat salad for lunch and dinner to be efficient.
Enjoying good things, spending a Saturday evening around pork and a good wine is part of what allows me to flourish in the field.
It's important to have fun, especially when we joined the French team at 15 and 17 years later we plan to go to Paris!
That's why I did shooting and not gymnastics, I remain quite firm on these values… ”
Read alsoJO de Tokyo: Games under bell but not sealed
On the Yumenoshima Park facilities, Valladont will therefore have a good appetite. "Money, I have it for life," he sums up. When you compete, it's to do better. I'm missing a step. But the main thing, whatever the result, is that I leave Japan feeling satisfied with myself… ”