At the turn of the discussion on the Transat Jacques Vabre, which will start this Sunday from Le Havre, Jean Galfione cannot help but talk about pole vault.
A few months ago, the Olympic champion of Atlanta in 1996 set up a group of about twenty pole vaulters that he coaches in Pont-l'Abbé, in Finistère.
In her phone, a video of Rose, 8, crossing her first bars.
“She dreams of being a dancer at the Opera, but who knows, maybe she will do athletics,” smiles Jean.
For Rose and Marius, their daddy "goes boating".
“They know that I was a pole vaulter, but, for them, it's far away, not really concrete.
Rose explained to me that what our athletics club lacked was a real pole vault trainer!
"With her class, the little girl will follow the exploits of Jean, skipper during the double-handed Transat (associated with Éric Péron, with whom he shares a small sheep farm in Ouessant), aboard his new Class40," Serenis Consulting ”.
“When you have a new boat, you have to be up to the task,” says Jean Galfione, who humbly recounts how, after the Route du rhum 2018, he questioned himself.
Jean Galfione will compete aboard his Class 40, “Serenis Consulting”.
Serenis / Vincent Curutchet
"I was neither the one who had made a great Route du rhum nor the one who drooled over it, but the one who gave up," he points out.
While a storm was raging in the Bay of Biscay, the sailor had preferred to take shelter.
The sporting stakes took off after a week's break, he then chose not to start again, "so that this race does not become a false competition".
The disappointment swallowed, the sailor took stock of skills.
“I could have stayed in my comfort zone, but I had the will to go to the end.
I had entered the world of sailing without training, so I went back to the basics.
John bought a laser and went to practice, like a beginner.
“I reviewed the basics, learned to navigate in difficult conditions.
I was in the second division, my aim is to play in the first division now.
"