“Frankly, it's horrible… Paralyzed by stress, a lump in her stomach during each of her competitions at the time of her splendor (“it was my weak point”)”, Félicia Ballanger did not manage to chase his old demons. Twenty-five years later, it is now for her son, Hervé Salaün, a promising junior of the New Caledonia Committee, that the heart of one of two triple French Olympic champions (with the athlete Marie-Jo Pérec) is 's racing like clockwork. “It’s Laurent Gané (also a former Olympic champion) who trains him all year round and it’s much better that way…” smiles the 53-year-old Vendée woman, who therefore left the South Pacific island ( where she has lived since 2003) and the famous “pebble” to come and encourage her second boy… who is playing here in her garden.
On the wise advice of his parents, the son of Félicia Ballanger (now sports mission manager at the High Commission of the Republic) and Gérard Salaün (former president of the Caledonian Committee with Breton roots) moved to Loudéac last May, in order to continue his running career. To fully live your dream.
Salaün, champion… of Brittany
“After his baccalaureate, he left the Nouméa Hope Center to face stronger competition,” explains the double Olympic speed champion (in Atlanta 1996 and Sydney in 2000), also crowned in the 500 m event. in 2000, incidentally ten-time world champion. Anyone who follows training as a supervisor (at VC Pontivy, in particular) alongside their sporting project trains every day on the wooden track at the Vélodrome de Bretagne. Under the colors of VCP Loudéac, the ultra-marine even won his first three Brittany championship titles last June on the Pordic ring. The slender Hervé Salaün (1.90 m) above all hit harder in September by winning the elite keirin tournament (even though he was only a junior) at the Coupe de France in Lyon.
In Loudéac, the young Salaün (“it’s a more discreet name,” says his mother) runs for a first blue-white-red jersey. Félicia Ballanger's mother's heart has not stopped vibrating…
France
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