There are victories that we celebrate for a lifetime. And then the defeats that we cry about. This terrible fourth place, the worst, which leaves such a bitter taste.
I was 16 years old during the Tokyo Games in 1964 and I still remember the defeat of Michel Jazy – the immense Michel Jazy! – during the final of the premier athletics event, the 1500 meters. How to explain this poor performance, he who was so over the top of the discipline; he who had trained so much; him the best middle-distance runner in the world. He wanted this gold medal so much.
I’m 16 years old and I dream of Michel Jazy this summer while running in my Poitevin countryside. I already practice athletics: I am a cadet and my specialty is the 600 meters. Later in junior, I will compete in the 800 meters. Next to the family house, there is a small hill that I run up and down at least 10 times in a row every day. The image of Jazy in the depths of his eyes. We have television and once a week, during all the preparation for the Games, just before the 8 p.m. news, Jazy runs for France. Live from the Saint-Maur-des-Fossés stadium, he burns his lungs to break a record, pushed to the train by a hare, one of his club mates. He’s sharp. That won’t be enough.
The night before the race, he sleeps little, and on his shoulders weighs the weight of the expectations of an entire nation. It rained that day in Tokyo. Damp heat that sticks. We wake up at night, due to jet lag, to follow the race, our ears glued to the radio. His first lap of the track is fantastic, then things go wrong, the stride is less ample. He draws and collapses in the last lap. A fourth place, terrible. I had tears in my eyes at the time.
Decades later, the medal that he did not get in Tokyo, I will give it to him at Mont-de-Marsan as Prime Minister: it will be the Legion of Honor.