Athletics | What still makes “CPT” run?

Charles Philibert-Thiboutot’s absence from the Tokyo Olympics is practically due to a combination of circumstances. At 29 years old, on paper, the 1500m runner should have been at the top of his game in the middle-distance discipline.

Injuries and bad luck – a cramp caused by an opponent, for example – complicated his qualification process in 2021. By one minute to midnight, he had finally recovered for a final attempt to achieve the standard or score points at the Canadian Championships in Montreal. That day, gusts of more than 60 km/h swept across the track at the Claude-Robillard sports complex.

“In the last 300 meters, I literally hit the ground and fought against the wind,” Philibert-Thiboutot recounted three years later. “I felt like it wasn’t going fast, but I never gave up in a race.”

Despite this good will, the clock proved merciless. No Olympics for the Rio semi-finalist.

“For the next month, I lived with a knot in my stomach. I had invested several years and I failed because of something that was out of my control. It was very sad. It was one of the most difficult times of my life. Like the stars had aligned against me. I asked myself: is this a sign that I should stop?”

Bet on him

His coach Félix-Antoine Lapointe and his physiotherapist Marilou Lamy, who had literally got him back on his feet, encouraged him to continue his season. “Enjoy your legs right now,” they encouraged him.

Three weeks later, bang, “CPT” achieved the minimum in a race in California, his best in five years. It didn’t change anything for the Olympics, which had opened two days earlier, but the time automatically qualified him for the 2022 World Championships. Shortly after, he broke his personal best in the mile. Like an encouragement to continue his career.

However, a few months later, Athletics Canada chose to exclude him from its list of athletes who receive funding from Sport Canada. Even though he was first in the country in his distance, his profile did not match that of a future candidate for the top 8 world, judged the federation’s experts.

Despite this snub, the member of the Laval University Rouge et Or club hung on, notably thanks to the support of a few personal sponsors.

In 2022 and 2023, he returned to the World Championships after a seven-year hiatus, reaching the semifinal rounds in Budapest last summer. Over a one-week period in June 2023, he twice improved his 1500m personal best, which had stood for eight years. At the end of the year, he won gold at the Pan American Games in Santiago thanks to a last-minute dive on the line that left him with a broken hand! And he won his bet hands down.

A Netflix story?

Author of the time standard for Paris last year, Charles Philibert-Thiboutot compares his participation in his second Olympic Games to “an act of redemption”.

The 33-year-old athlete has changed his approach to training and competitions.

After “scoring volleys in training every day” in his early twenties, he now chooses the moments to rev the engine.

“On days when I have to run ‘easy,’ I run ‘easy.’ But when it’s time to go out on the track and give it 110%, get out of my way! Even though I’m older, I’m able to get more out of my body. Then you slow down a little bit and trust the process.”

Hockey player Alexander Ovechkin and basketball players LeBron James and Stephen Curry inspire him. Age doesn’t seem to hold them back. “Their stats are about the same as they were eight or nine years ago, but they approach the game differently. Instead of trying to dunk in everyone’s face every day, they know their strengths and know how to play to them. […] I talk to peers who are making the Olympic final. I do the same thing as them – or almost – in training. I don’t have any complexes to have.

To the point where he allows himself to dream of a podium in Paris. “These will be my last Games,” he recalled in December. “If I feel so ready, I’m not going to say: I want a top 5. »

Audacious? Without a shadow of a doubt. Relaunched three weeks before the Olympics, the Canadian vice-champion has not backed down, but has qualified the meaning of his ambition. Physically, he considers himself ready. His Canadian record in the 3000 m set during the Diamond League in Paris on July 7 is an eloquent illustration of this. On a psychological level, however, he has changed his approach.

“It happens, Netflix-style stories, where someone comes out of nowhere and has a big day. I intend to give everything I can to maximize what I can do. I put a lot of pressure on myself this year by saying that these were my last Games. It didn’t work out to my advantage. I don’t want to win less, but I don’t want to make it a matter of life and death. The goal remains the same: to do the best possible. If ‘the best possible’ means a medal, I’ll take it and I still believe in it.”