She had made her maternity project a goal after the Tokyo Games. But after learning that she suffered from endometriosis in May 2023, Charlotte Lembach understood why she was unable to have a child naturally with her partner, as she explains to Marie Claire. That was before the surprise of getting pregnant. “I learned the news right in the qualifying phases. So I knew that I would not go to the Games,” confides the Strasbourg resident who had already spoken about the difficulty for athletes in reconciling family plans and Olympic preparation.
“Olympic gold is going to be my future baby,” smiles Charlotte Lembach, who speaks of this future birth as “[her] miracle, [her] greatest victory.” “The Olympics are slipping away to make way for the most beautiful news of my life,” she adds. The saber will have competed in her last qualifying event in mid-March, knowing that she will not be able to participate in the Games. “I took advantage of this moment before starting my new life,” she remembers.
The Alsatian has allowed the French fencing team to regain saber colors over the last ten years. As a team, Charlotte Lembach won four European medals (three silver and one bronze), four at the world championships including gold in Wuxi in 2018 and a crowning Olympic silver medal in Tokyo three years ago. Individually, she won silver at the European Championships in 2015, then bronze the following year.