“If I didn’t stop, I was heading towards burnout”
: judoka Amandine Buchard, Olympic vice-champion in Tokyo in 2021, skipped the Paris tournament to avoid
“completely destroying herself
»
six months before the Paris Games, she confides in an interview with AFP and Ouest-France.
Initially registered for the Paris Grand Slam (February 2-4), Amandine Buchard finally gave up this prestigious competition - dress rehearsal before the Olympics - because the 28-year-old Frenchwoman
“needed to take a break from the world of judo”
.
After a
“very intense”
year 2023 , with her bronze medals at the Worlds and gold at the Masters and at the European Championships in her -52 kg category, she explains,
“I told myself that it I shouldn't explode too close to the Games
.
“There, I cut it, I went abroad, and when I came back in January I realized that it was still too early for me to wear a kimono again, I had no desire to, it was almost forcing me
,” she explains in an interview given Tuesday during an international internship at the Paris Dojo.
Because of his track record, Buchard is a great hope for a medal this summer:
“I get people used to being a sure thing, people always expect me to have a medal.
There are a lot of requests, a lot of pressure in relation to the 2024 Olympics, it was all together, there was an overflow.
I was falling into burnout.”
“I take off my shell when I get home”
“You know, the Paris-2024 objective started very early, upon returning from Tokyo
,” she recalls.
“We went to the Élysée, the president gave us our medals and basically told us, 'That's what you did in Japan, but we want more in Paris
. '”
“Having the chance to compete in the Games in Paris is an incredible opportunity, and to be selected in a world where the competition is also enormous, but it’s a funnel
,” she says.
For the woman who lost her father and whose mother had cut ties because of her homosexuality, judo is everything:
“That’s all I have, in fact, it’s my daily life, my friends, my family.”
So, skipping the Paris Grand Slam was not easy:
“It’s daring, but I think it was necessary,” she said.
Everyone manages their career differently, and I perform well when I feel good in my head.”
“I can be physically weakened, but if in my head I am armored, it can do it and I can beat anyone. What I’m looking for is to be psychologically a war machine!”
, explains Buchard, who surrounds himself in particular with a psychologist and a mental trainer.
She assures that in the staff of the Bleues,
“no one was incomprehensible”
even if
“many did not realize”
of his mental state.
“I take off my shell when I go home, I didn't show anything, I had won the Masters, the European Championships.
They said to themselves: 'Yeah, there are plenty of people who would like to be in your place,' and I told them that with a medal, happiness was sometimes fleeting.
At the time you are happy, but afterward it becomes normal again and you find yourself facing your daily life, your doubts
,” she admits.
“The Olympics at all costs”
Buchard did not want to
“relive”
her 2016 experience:
“I already wanted to make the Olympics at all costs and I left my mental and physical health there
,” she recalls.
Before the Rio Games, Buchard competed in -48 kg.
A category which forced her to go through a series of diets, a
“torture”
which plunged her into depression.
The athlete then renounces the Games and moves up to -52 kg.
“I didn't want to reach a stage where I no longer wanted to put on a kimono (...) that would have been a point of no return, it could have destroyed me entirely
,” she continues.
“So I distanced myself.
Routine kills.
I've been training for years in the same place, with the same people, the same pressure.
There, by changing my daily life, it was a way of breathing new life into my sport.”
The native of Noisy-le-Sec, in Seine-Saint-Denis, has resumed training and hopes to resume randori, training fights,
“within two weeks”
before her next competition scheduled for early March in Tashkent, in Uzbekistan.
In this final stretch, the one who could still find the Japanese Olympic champion Uta Abe reassuring in the final:
“Over the years, I have always performed well, the years go by and I am still here.
This is partly explained by all these moments, they were necessary to make the Amandine of today.