Injured for almost a year, he has not yet played with his new team. He hopes to finally be able to reclaim the lawns in 2025.
It is a long crossing of the desert which must, shortly, end. Absent from the field for almost a year, Bastien Guillemin hopes, in the coming weeks, to put on his crampons again, become a full-fledged rugby player again and, finally, take his first steps with his new team. “Today I feel really goodhe assures. I have all the problems behind me, so I can apply for next Friday and the Angoulême reception. I hope, moreover, to play quickly, because in a week, it will be eleven months since I last played and the time is starting to be very long.”
It was in the winter of 2024, a year ago, that Bastien Guillemin decided to join Olympic Biarritz. “In my room, I had three club flags: Biarritz, Perpignan and Toulouse, he rewinds. When I was little, I was a fan of the BO, I remember their epics in the European Cup. When Jean-Baptiste (Aldigé, Editor’s note) called me, I didn’t hesitate, and now, when I meet guys like Imanol Harinordoquy or Dimitri Yachvili after the matches in Biarritz make me so happy.” It was on the Sapiac lawn, on February 9, during the Béziers reception, that for him, the troubles began. Bastien Guillemin (26 years old at the time) injured his left knee. The verdict is clear: rupture of the cruciate ligaments, season over. “I returned to the field after seven and a half or eight months, but then I had inflammation at the place where the samples had taken place to treat my ligament, behind the kneehe recalls. So I had to stop the activity for a month and a half. However, the scans or MRIs carried out revealed nothing, but I could not speed up. So I was forced to take forced rest.”
It drove me crazy to be in the stands
It’s while playing golf “to clear your head” and by taking refuge with his family and his son, who recently celebrated his second birthday, the winger got through these complicated weeks. “My loved ones allowed me to ignore rugby, to tell me that there was more to life than that, but hey… Everything came back very quickly, because I went to the stadium on weekends, I watched the matches and it drove me crazy to be in the stands”he confides.
Especially since in Biarritz, Guillemin, on the one hand, had to be patient with the injury and, on the other, integrate into a team without being able to play. It’s never easy. “This cruciate ligament was the first injury of my entire life and so I wasn’t very comfortablehe continues. I tried to be at the stadium as many times as possible, I watched the training. Afterwards, it must be said that in Biarritz, everyone integrated me well. The leaders took charge and everything went well for me.”
During this long period, he found his reconversion
Despite this long period spent away from the field, Bastien Guillemin assures that he has, to date, no apprehension about the idea of returning to competition. His motivation, on the other hand, is only increased tenfold and the three-quarter wing even, during his injury, found his professional reconversion. “Laterhe explains, I want to be a physical trainer for injured players. Basically, I did Staps without knowing what to do. Physical trainer, I liked it, but nothing more. There, while being injured, I dealt with great people and I stuck with it, whether at the CERS or at the club. Finally, I know what I will do at the end of my career! “It’s the only positive thing I’ve gotten out of this injury, along with being able to spend time with my loved ones and being able to see the little one grow.” So you can always find a little positive in the middle of a complicated period…
