the essential
Lot-et-Garonnais officiates at the whistle this Friday, June 28, during the decisive clash between Haut-Garonnais and Girondins.
“Was I scared at the time? No more than that, I think… I was 15 years old, I was carefree and at first, I didn’t realize the seriousness of the injury. On the other hand, my parents had a series of sleepless nights.” The words of Ludovic Cayre, in the columns of Midi-Olympic. The Lot-et-Garonnais to evoke one of its most painful memories. Of his sporting career but also of his life as a man.
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At 35 years old, the Top 14 final between Stade Toulousain and Union Bordeaux-Bègles, which he manages this Friday, June 28 in the evening, has, for him, a little taste of revenge.
Flashback 20 years. As a teenager, Ludovic Cayre was passionate about rugby. He played regularly, during the weekends, with his friends near his home, in Duras, in Lot-et-Garonne. “I suffered a serious neck injury following a tackle: I had placed my head on the wrong side, at the moment of impact” he rewinds.
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“After the shock, I was operated on at the Pellegrin hospital in Bordeaux. […] Behind that, the convalescence lasted almost a year. The cervicals had moved several millimeters compared to the norm tolerated by a human body. So I almost got out of the wheelchair. What I remember are the surgeons around me who touched my arms and hands every five minutes to find out if I had not lost sensitivity…”
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A trauma which guided him, in the months that followed, towards refereeing: “I come from a very rugby family: my sister played it and my parents are crazy about this sport… Once the convalescence is over , so I asked myself how to stay in this environment? I was too young to play? I then turned to refereeing.
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Ludovic Cayre was then 17 years old. He then climbed all the ranks until his first Pro D2 match (Perpignan – Mont-de-Marsan) in 2015, then the plunge into the deep end of the Top 14 (Montpellier-Oyonnax) in 2017.
