a French affair of couples and triathlon

This is the story of a ménage à quatre, in all Paralympic honor, heartbeats and breaths mixed together. Monday 2 September, triathlete Thibaut Rigaudeau and his guide Cyril Viennot will set off from the floating pontoon at the foot of the Alexandre-III bridge in the PTVI (visually impaired) category for 750 m of crawl, 20 km of cycling and 5 km of running. Five minutes later, Thibaut Rigaudeau’s partner, Héloïse Courvoisier, will also dive into the Seine, guided by… Anne Henriet, Cyril Viennot’s wife.

Initially, before the heart ties, only the male pair was “tied” in the literal sense, attached by an 80-centimeter elastic band for swimming and connected at the waist by a 50-centimeter cord for running. After a long career as a triathlete, Cyril Viennot, long-distance world champion in 2015, decided to extend the adventure as a duo, encouraged by the French Triathlon Federation. In the summer of 2019, he became Thibaut Rigaudeau’s guide. The former player of the French blind football team – he suffers from a genetic disease, retinitis pigmentosa – has just switched to triathlon after a torn cruciate ligament.

“Our partnership goes a little beyond sport because he knows my whole family, I know his whole family. We’ve already been on vacation together so we know each other very well.”said Cyril Viennot, Monday August 26 at Club France, during the para triathlon press briefing on the sidelines of the Paralympic Games.

“They got caught up in the game”

Then comes the Covid-19 pandemic. After the lockdown, when Héloïse Courvoisier joins her partner on a training course in the Jura, where the Viennot-Henriet family is based, the two athletic couples become friends. Thibaut Rigaudeau already has his own little idea in mind. In July 2020, his dear and tender Héloïse Courvoisier, herself born with retinoblastoma (cancer of the retina), unwraps a tandem bicycle as a birthday present.

The 27-year-old, who has practiced rowing at a high level, is trying it out with Anne Henriet (43), a former triathlete. “They got into it. Three weeks later, they decided to do the French championships together.”, traces Thibaut Rigaudeau. “At the beginning, there was no ambition, it was a challenge, adds Cyril Viennot, who has become the coach of the female pair. And since Anne had a good level in triathlon, it was logical that she guide Héloïse because we often met outside of triathlon. And then, it happened very, very quickly for them and we were soon together during the selections for the French team. When the duos are not in training, they prepare separately. In Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine) for the Courvoisier-Rigaudeau couple, in Dole (Jura) for the Henriet-Viennot.

Who says para triathlon to the power of four, says daily millimeter-perfect organization, second nature when you are a triathlete. “Cyril and Anne have two children [de 13 et 9 ans]so to keep them, we went on a staggered internship this year, explains Thibaut Rigaudeau, who will celebrate his 34th birthday on September 4. We were trying to juggle everyone’s lives a little bit, it was quite stimulating for everyone because we continued to progress both of us and all four of us.”

A fairly technical Parisian route

Playing games at home with four people, “It’s very special, but more the race [du 2 septembre] approach, the less we think about it because we are more and more focused on performance”, adds Cyril Viennot. At the last Games, in Tokyo in 2021, the duo finished just off the podium and have been firmly established in the world Top 3 for three years. Their titles of vice-world champions in 2022 and 2023 “authorize” to dream of a medal, even if their category is very competitive. “It’s played out to a few seconds, adds the 42-year-old guide. So we know that if we miss a transition, for example, we can lose a place very quickly.”

Their companions, however, have less pressure for their Paralympic baptism. Sixth in the European Championships in Madrid in 2023, Héloïse Courvoisier and Anne Henriet are, of course, outsiders, but the Parisian course, quite technical with its formidable cobblestones, could well reshuffle the cards.

The ideal scenario would be “To all have a medal, that’s for sure. After that it won’t be easy. And then, selfishly, I prefer that they are the ones who miss out than us!”laughs Cyril Viennot. The two women have not said their last word. In a setting as imperial as it is romantic, beware of the backlash.