Kevin Mayer aims for Los Angeles 2028 and beyond, body permitting

Kevin Mayer has an – optimistic – message to convey. Through two interviews in quick succession, Thursday September 26 (at Figaro then to The Team), the double Olympic silver medalist announces it: we will certainly have to count on him in four years at the next Olympic Games and perhaps even beyond. “ Everyone is talking about the Games [de Los Angeles]but for me it makes sense that I want to do them! In fact I mainly think about one thing: will I be able to make Brisbane [où auront lieu les JO en 2032] ? », assures the 32-year-old French athlete. After all, decathletes are accustomed to obstacle courses.

Forced to give up the Olympic decathlon in Paris, less than twenty-four hours before kick-off on August 2, Kevin Mayer was then insufficiently recovered from a tendon injury in his thigh. After running for months after his qualification, his participation was compromised following a fall in the middle of the 110m hurdles at the Paris meeting, at the beginning of July, on the track at the Charléty stadium. If he had first mentioned a “ significant lesion in the left hamstring », the double silver medalist at the Olympic Games in Rio (2016) and Tokyo (2021) then clarified that he was suffering from a “ 95% torn tendon “.

How did the 2017 and 2022 world champion digest this huge blow, he who dreamed – like many French athletes – of an Olympic title at home? Kevin Mayer tried everything, until the last minute, to participate, knowing his chances were infinitesimal. Efforts which allowed him to quickly “ to mourn ”, without harboring any regrets. “I also accept failure when it happens”he philosophizes. There will remain the frustration of not having been able to experience the support of the French public on the purple tartan of the Stade de France, who still attended the decathlon event in the Dyonisian enclosure.

The 2017 and 2022 world champion preferred to avoid an operation, which would have kept him away from the stadiums for too long for his liking (six months). The athlete who knows his body like the back of his hand will set out to find the origin of his left hip problem – “ who has farted nine times since 2015 » –, the last in his litany of physical glitches. To regain his faculties, the Frenchman is even considering jumping the hurdles “ bad leg “. “ I love making my life complicated because when you succeed, it’s even stronger “, he insists.

Because the objective is to last for the world record holder (established in 2018). “The decathlon is the life I always saw myself having, and I’m having a blast. I don’t see the point in stoppinghe argues. I really want to use my methods to outlast a normal decathlete. » An optimistic approach to say the least for an athlete who has been let down by his body with regularity in recent years, especially since in his sport, among the most demanding, the thirties often sound like the beginning of questioning. Not for Kevin Mayer, who is already dreaming of a fourth title at the next European Indoor Championships, in spring 2025, before looking further afield. Much further. “I don’t know why I have Brisbane [2032] in mind. I may be utopian, I may be too optimistic, but I choose to live my life like this”he concludes.