You have to imagine what it means for a top athlete to prepare for the Olympic Games. There is obviously the physical commitment, the exhaustion, the sacrifices and the concessions to a normal life. And then, there is this mental load, the weight of the event and the story which imperceptibly weighs heavier and heavier as the weeks go by.
In 1980, I was 24 years old and I will never forget that endless spring, the long hours of training, the growing frustration, the unbearable wait. I have already won the French saber championships three times and I still don’t know if I will be able to participate in my first Games. Not because of my performances, even if at the time I was not among the top of the world class. But because geopolitics and war have once again invited themselves to the Games.
In December 1979, the USSR invaded Afghanistan and in retaliation, a large part of the Western clan, led by the United States followed by West Germany, decided to boycott the Moscow Games. One voice still apart, France hesitates. And President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing is procrastinating. The weeks drag on, unbearable. As are the training sessions without knowing if I will finally be able to fly to the Soviet capital. Within the French Fencing Federation, the air is unbreathable, two camps are opposing each other and the technical director brushes aside my concerns and my anguish. To a journalist who asked me about this ludicrous situation, I retorted, annoyed, that we cannot play with 4 years of an athlete’s life. A declaration which earned me a summons to the Elysée where an advisor to Giscard sternly explained to me that I had nothing to say, whatever the president’s decision. Barely a month before the start of the competitions, the Elysée finally decides: France will participate in the Moscow Games.
Of all the Olympics I have participated in, they will be by far the saddest. A low, gray sky, athletes parked in an austere Olympic village where all contact with the population and young people was prohibited. These Games will reflect the decline of the Soviet regime. We did not march. As at every Olympics, French fencing shone in the competitions but during the medal ceremonies, the French flag was never raised; the Marseillaise never sung. And I, for my first Games, I didn’t win any titles.
* Jean-François Lamour is a double Olympic saber champion (1984 and 1988) and standard bearer of the French delegation in 1992. He was also Minister of Sports from 2002 to 2007?