Justine Dufour-Lapointe is fine. Just over three months after her disappointment at the Olympics, the 28-year-old skier is thinking about the rest of her career. “I take time for myself, to see what I want to do, how I feel,” she says.
Posted at 2:12 p.m.
The Montrealer was all smiles on Tuesday morning as she arrived at Parc Maisonneuve in Montreal for the big FitSpirit celebration, the first in three years. As sponsor of the program, she came to meet, and above all to encourage, the 2,000 teenage girls who came to try out different sports in a friendly environment.
Our last meeting with the skier dates back to February 6, at the Beijing Olympics. The athlete had just fallen quite violently on the first bump following the landing of his first jump in the final. Even if her fate was sealed, the youngest of the famous siblings had wanted to complete her descent, before bursting into tears in the arms of her sisters. “My heart is in pieces, but I have no regrets,” she told the media at the time.
Three months later, disappointment gave way to acceptance.
“You have to accept, live with it,” she suggests. I don’t want to have a bitter taste about that because the work I put in is the same, no matter what result I had at those Games. That’s what I want to remember. »
My therapy is to talk about it. It’s to talk about it because it happens to everyone to have failures, to fall.
Justine Dufour Lapointe
It is often said that the important thing, after a failure, is to get up again. That’s what Dufour-Lapointe did. After her heartbreaking fall, she finished her journey and greeted Quebecers by addressing the camera, a smile on her face despite everything. She held her head high.
“I am extremely proud of the way [dont j’ai géré] all that,” she says. That’s what upsets me a bit through all of this, is that there is a lot of beauty. I am happy to share it, to give conferences, to talk about it. It feels good. That’s what I realize. The more I talk about it, the better I feel. I don’t need to hide under a rock. I’m not ashamed of what I did. »
“If I can help other people overcome hardships, I’ll at least have done that,” she adds.
In reflection
After the Games, Justine Dufour-Lapointe took part in a final World Cup in Megève, France, where she took 5and rank. Since then, activities have not been lacking. “It didn’t stop,” she says.
In particular, the athlete took a family vacation in the Bahamas. She also passed through the French Alps and Colorado.
“It takes time to come down from the Games,” she said. We think it was just the Games three months ago, but no. For us, it’s been four years. We’ve only been doing this for four years. We only saw that in our soup. Overnight, it’s over. »
Now is the time for reflections. To ask “the big questions”. To decide what will be next. Does she embark on another season and another Olympic cycle, or does she say goodbye to competition? Remember that her sister Maxime retired a few years ago, while Chloé took part in her last Games in February.
“I’m still a bit in that zone, that buffer zone, that gray zone, in which I ask myself questions,” explains Justine Dufour-Lapointe. […] It’s knowing what I want to do with these next few years. These are big decisions and not taken lightly. This is where I am. »
“I’m going to tell you all this one day, when it’s going to be clearer in my head. There, it is not! she concludes with a laugh.