30 January 2024
In this podcast, we make real connections. In Monaco, during the SPORTEL Awards, meetings come one after another at a frantic pace. Despite this very athletic rhythm, we took the time for a break. Two microphones, one recorder. High-profile athletes for an interview, a different exchange.
All of them share the common point of having shone on the international stage.
But in fact, we really wanted to take them to another field. We wanted to let them lower their guard a bit, discover strong personalities, even extraordinary ones. To address both their successes and their failures, delve into the secrets of their mindset, understand what drives them...
Everything that could enable us to decode the DNA of champions...
#5
In this episode, we spend time with Gwendal Peizerat, former ice dancer and gold medalist at the 2002 Nagano Olympics with Marina Anissina.
And even before starting, we knew that this podcast would be different from the others.
Because Gwendal likes to do things his own way, with a spontaneity and contagious enthusiasm.
Casually, the one who also won two European championships and a world championship revealed to us that he never really had the fire of a competitor.
And that skating was fun, but he mainly stuck with it because the discipline combined several of his passions: gliding sports, dancing, connecting with the audience, and also music.
You may not know this, but today Gwendal Peizerat is fully dedicated to playing the guitar, posting his songs on social media, and performing concerts.
Having entered his fifties, the Lyon native, who is also a business owner, hates being put in a box. And that’s probably what makes him so free…
#4
In this fourth episode, we welcome Téo Andant. He is 24 years old, born in Nice, living near Menton, and holds a membership with AS Monaco athletics. At the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, he clinched the silver medal alongside his teammates from Team France. This achievement puts him on a good path for the Paris Olympics, where he and his friends dream of shining.
With Téo, we talked about all of that, of course. But we also delved into what goes on in a runner's mind during intense efforts, how to balance between precise preparation and letting go. The 400-meter specialist also explained why this lap around the track, despite causing him pain, holds something special for him.
After this warm-up, Téo Andant talked to us about his mental preparation, about that darned mental block that would derail him in the final stretch. He also shared with us how the desire to create lifelong memories and the longing to share intense emotions with his parents guided his quest for gold...
#3
Today, we are with a truly extraordinary woman. Mélina Robert-Michon is 44 years old and she still competes at the highest level in her discipline, discus throwing.
In Paris, she will experience her seventh Olympic Games. Yes, you heard that right... seventh. Silver medalist in Rio in 2016, the athlete has been on the scene since the Sydney Games in 2000. Incredible.
Often, she was told that throwers of all kinds didn't interest many people. Today, a street and a stadium bear her name. A quite rare honor for living athletes, and even rarer for those who are still active.
In Monaco, Mélina Robert-Michon was the president of the SPORTEL Awards jury, an experience she thoroughly enjoyed. A parenthesis before a season that may lead her to her last Olympic Games.
I say "perhaps" because with this champion, nothing is ever certain. Time passes, of course. But after two breaks to give birth to two little girls, the flame is still there, the physical and mental strength endure. So Mélina continues her journey, postponing the moment when she'll have to think about her second life.
#2
Today, we are with the Antibes gymnast Samir Aït-Saïd, a great specialist in rings and a loyal member of the SPORTEL Awards family.
At 34 years old, Samir has six European medals to his name, including a gold in 2013 and a third-place finish at the 2019 World Championships. It's a remarkable record that he hopes to finally enhance with an Olympic medal this summer in Paris.
Between Samir Aït-Saïd and the Olympics, there's quite a peculiar story, not really amusing at all, to be honest. Because before becoming the flag bearer in Tokyo, alongside judoka Clarisse Agbegnenou, the gymnast entered the memories due to a terrible injury in Rio in 2016.
Four years earlier, his body had already failed him for London. In Tokyo, in 2021, Samir did compete in the final and finished 4th. However, with a torn bicep that slowed him down for a long period afterward.
All these scars, they are part of his journey. They have forged the extraordinary mental strength of a man who never gives up and often comes back even stronger.
#1
In this first episode, we share a moment with Arthur Guérin-Boëri, a native of Nice and a decorated freediver. Eight-time world record holder, five-time World Champion, Arthur is the kind of fellow who can swim 105 meters in length under a layer of ice, without fins and without a wetsuit.
Yes, because as if freediving wasn't demanding enough, our man has the particularity of regularly practicing in very cold water.
Before discovering freediving later in life, as a therapy to escape a gloomy daily routine, Arthur was already captivated by the character of Jacques Maillol in The Big Blue.
As he approaches his forties, he is taking another turn. He is moving away from pure performance to give another meaning to his breathtaking adventures.
Created in 1990 at the initiative of Georges Bertellotti, a Monegasque journalist and passionate athlete and placed under the High Patronage of HSH Prince Albert II and the Patronage of the International Olympic Committee, the SPORTEL Awards are held every year within the framework of the SPORTELMonaco convention. Leader of trade fairs specializing in sports content and technology media rights.