The multiple winner on the dirt moguls of the Natural Games competition returns with as much desire as ever.
He is one of the festival’s die-hard fans. It is on the actors’ side that Paul Couderc has become a regular at the Natural Games over the years, despite his growing fame. At 27, the dirt biker is a regular at the top of the competition in his discipline, almost at home.
“I come every time to win, there is a year or two where I missed my run, he tempers after returning from the slopestyle world round in Australia, where he climbed into the Top 7, and before leaving for Austria. It must be six or seven times that I have participated. It’s an event that I like, in a cool way, with much less pressure than in an international competition.”
The now 27-year-old man got into jumping and tricks on a bike very early. “I started as a kid with motorbikes with my father then they signed me up for a more traditional cross-country clubexplains the Figeacois. And that’s where I saw young people five, six years older than me, jumping with their bikes. I tried then my father built moguls for me in the garden, I fell in love with this sport.”
Self-sacrifice and creativity
From now on, he performs backflips, frontflips and other figures like the 360 throughout the biggest international competitions, reaching 5th place in the world last season.
To get there, he had to learn to get up from his falls, as with his 36 attempts before passing the first half gap flair of the history of his discipline, for an exploit filmed in a documentary. “You can’t have a career without injuryhe concedes. The thing is that you have to be very well taken care of and know that the mind plays 80 to 90% of your performance. You have to know how to push aside fear to get laid. Mentality and confidence, I have been working on them for six years with my coach.”
And already thinking about the end? “You can shoot until 34 or 35 but it’s a very demanding and restrictive sport, obviously I think about it more than when I was 18 and now, I understand those who stop”he replies.
And to imagine an end to his career at the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028, with his discipline probably retained as Olympic. But before that, there are the NG, followed by an event that he organizes on his land with his sponsors and the 25 best riders on the planet.
