Deprived of the Olympic Games due to a calf injury, Frenchman Christophe Lemaitre announced the end of his career on Thursday at the age of 34. The first white sprinter to go under the 10-second mark in the 100m, the athlete from Aix-les-Bains won the bronze medal in the 200m at the Rio Olympics in 2016.
Curtain calls for Christophe Lemaitre. The French sprinter, four-time European champion and Olympic and world bronze medallist in the 200m, but not at international level since 2018, has decided to end his career at the age of 34, caught up by yet another injury, he explained to AFP on Thursday. “The reasons are quite simple: it’s just that I did everything this year to participate in the Paris Games, except that I didn’t succeed, unfortunately. It’s a sign that I’m struggling to get back to the top level and that I have to stop trying to chase performance and now think about running simply for myself,” Lemaitre said, confirming information announced by several media outlets.
“There was yet another calf pain that appeared and that jeopardized all my chances of hoping to qualify,” he said. It was a muscular injury to a calf which made his last hopes disappear – even very slim for one who has not returned to the international level since – of treading the purple track of the Stade de France with athlete’s spikes. at the feet.
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Triple European champion at the age of 20
Before being overtaken by repeated injuries and disappearing from the highest level, Lemaitre wrote one of the most beautiful pages in the history of French sprinting. His career as a European and international multi-medalist was marked by two highlights. The first, in 2010, when he was crowned triple European champion in Barcelona, in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m, at just 20 years old. The second, in 2016, on the Olympic track in Rio, when he emerged to win the bronze medal in the half-lap and accompany the sprint legend, the Jamaican Usain Bolt, on the podium.
Between the two, the Savoyard sprinter also collected a world medal, another bronze in the 200m in 2011, and five European medals, including a second title in the 100m in 2012, plus silver in the 200m and bronze in the 100m. m in 2014. In 2010, by completing his race in 9.98 seconds, Lemaitre became the first white athlete to run the 100 m in less than ten seconds, a claim to fame of which he was never proud.
