Didier Tholot: “It wasn’t my time. The stars of Valais brought me luck” – rts.ch

“I had been feeling tired for a month and a half, two months, but nothing more.“, confides the man who has become a true icon in Valais. “And one morning at training, I had really bad pain. I had the main artery to my heart which was 99.9% blocked. It wasn’t my time. The stars of Valais brought me luck.“

“Even if I won’t change my passion, even if I want to win everything. It made me realize that there are more important things“, testifies the 60-year-old Forézien. “Because everything can stop, while you still have a long way to go with the people you love.“

This event had an impact on the man, but also on the coach. “Maybe it made me better at thinking. I am much more able to delegate today, not wanting to control everything. We’re bound to have difficult times, but do you have to scramble for that? When you let go a little to the right, to the left, it allows you to have a slightly higher vision. Which makes you better in your judgment and you can make, I think, the right decisions.“

The French technician, who last year settled in Valais for the fifth time, is flourishing in the old country. “Here, no one calls me coach. When I meet someone in the street, it’s Didier. That means something. And what struck me the most when I came back was that the people said to me ‘welcome home’“.

This proximity owes nothing to chance. “My values ​​are those of Valais“, he explains. “My dad was an agricultural mechanic. I was brought up with respect for people, the value of work, the fact that if you think you’re someone else, we’ll quickly put you back in place. Something really struck me at the end of last season. This is the phrase that the supporters put at the bottom of the stand, ‘work, work and one day you will be rewarded’. My father always told me that. To see this sentence repeated is the most beautiful recognition.“

RTSsport

Editorial mag “In Slowdown” from Sunday October 13: Jérémie Fazan, Fabienne Vallet, Christophe Cerf