Our special correspondent in China
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From Pyeongchang to Beijing, Tess Ledeux has lived more than a lifetime.
In South Korea, at only 16 years old, the little prodigy of French freestyle skiing had experienced a nightmare.
On – with a 15th place in slopestyle when she could legitimately claim a place on the podium – and off the slopes.
A bitter discovery of the Olympic universe which she remembers perfectly.
"
In Pyeongchang, I didn't feel very well, I wasn't 100%.
I took my head on lots of details, the stress had turned my brain in fact.
But today I learned from all of that and I'm totally different.
Since my arrival in Beijing, I have enjoyed myself and the experience is just incredible.
I feel calmer and stronger to face all this.
In our team, we have fun and I really want to continue in this state of mind.
I want to enjoy my adventure, keep smiling.
Besides, that was my main objective before everything else, be it the result or the medal.
»
A “
positive attitude
” so as not to relive the torments of Pyeongchang.
To forget, too, the personal dramas, like the death of her father a little over a year ago, which could have made her morally plunge again.
But the young teenager has grown well.
Even if doubts will undoubtedly accompany her throughout her career, she has learned to deal with them.
To hunt them, even, if need be.
Thus, she paid the finest possible tribute on the sporting level to her father who died too soon by winning her first two crystal globes, that of the slopestyle and that, even more prestigious, of the general classification "
Park and Pipe
".
All against a backdrop of a pandemic further complicating a tense situation.
"
It's a relief
“, she commented then.
“
It's my first globe and I've been chasing it for four years.
I had never managed to be consistent over an entire season with very highs and very lows, so it's a real satisfaction.
It was the objective of the season.
To be honest, I don't realize what happened because I was somewhere else.
It really is such a special season...
"
Tess Ledeux RAYMOND ROIG / AFP
No doubt the one that will have allowed her, in pain but with a resilience so dear to her cousin Kevin Rolland – whose serious accident on April 30, 2019 had also marked her a lot – to pass a course to become the queen of the air.
A status further strengthened just before the Beijing Games on the side of Aspen, for the last X Games.
For the first time in the history of Big Air (large hill), a young woman managed to take off to complete four and a half laps.
What, in the jargon, is called a "
double Cork 1620
".
A piece of history obviously synonymous with victory during this reference competition in the world of freestyle, which she followed with a double in slopestyle the next day.
Which, again, made her the first among women to achieve such a performance.
For a total of five gold medals at the X Games at just 20 years old.
Great art.
Which should therefore lead, in Beijing, to a first Olympic title in Big Air on Tuesday (final at 10:00 a.m.), before dreaming of a double on February 14 in slopestyle.
A prospect that makes La Plagnarde dream, of course, even if she refuses to put excessive pressure on her shoulders.
“
I try that it affects me as little as possible.
I try to tell myself that the Olympics are a new competition, a blank page where everything remains to be written and that suddenly, what happened before has little impact.
Except that my good start to the season gave me confidence.
But on the day of the Games, I don't think there is really a favorite.
“However, barely arrived in the Chinese capital, Tes Ledeux obviously brought out his “
double Cork 1620
» from the baggage compartment.
With success in listening to it: “
For the moment, I have mastered it rather well.
It reassured me to be able to do it again here from the first training session, especially since it worked the first time.
Before coming here, I had only put it down two or three times.
So I was asking myself questions, wondering if it wasn't too big a risk to try it on the Games.
But there, so far, I'm 100% successful in training, and even if in competition it's different because of the stress, it's nice to have good benchmarks.
»
Read alsoBig Air: with a historic leap, Tess Ledeux wins the Winter X Games
An opinion shared by his coach in the France team, Grégory Guenet: “
This jump was a goal that we had set ourselves and sportingly, it is an additional advantage that we managed to put in place at the right time.
It's good, when things go as planned, it reassures everyone.
Afterwards, inevitably, it marks the competition, especially since she succeeded again in training and some have seen it.
A competition that promises to be royal with in particular the Chinese Eileen Gu, supported by an entire people and presented as the star of these Games at 18 years old.
A rival that does not concern the French, too busy watching over her own well-being rather than parasitizing her mind.
My status will do me no good.
And I still have everything to prove in the world of Games.
Tess Ledeux
Thus, rather than Gu, the freestyler prefers to think back to the opening ceremony, which she experienced with Kevin Rolland: “
To have my cousin in front of me as a standard bearer, it was crazy. He was able to come early to attend all my training. It is very important for me in this health context which means that my loved ones are not there. At least I have my cousin. The X Games proved to me that I was fit and competitive. But anything can happen on the Games and my performance there is no guarantee. There, I really want to concentrate on what I have to do technically. My status will do me no good. And I still have everything to prove in the world of Games.
“
Tess is hypersmiling
,” concludes Guenet. "
With everything she's been through for a year, I find her super, joyful, full of life.
“Everything that she was not in Pyeongchang and that could allow her to win gold.
