The World Indoor Athletics Championships began on Friday March 18 in Belgrade. This Sunday, we will have to follow the Isère pole vaulter Thibaut Collet very closely. It must be said that the athlete is in his element. He comes from a family of pole vaulters. His father, Philippe Collet, among others, knows this environment well. He himself finished fifth at the 1988 Seoul Olympics in the pole vault.
Beginnings with football
Thibaut Collet was born in 1999 in La Tronche, near Grenoble. He is a member of the Entente Athlétique Grenoble 38. But despite what one might imagine, the sportsman first started with football for eight years. Athletics arrived at the age of 12 and the pole vault specialization at 17. He felt he needed individual activity. “I really needed a sport where when it works, it’s thanks to us, and when it doesn’t work, it’s because of us, he says. I really wanted a sport where you can only blame yourself and not the team..”
To train him, who else but his father Philippe? Even if having his father as a coach is sometimes a bit special. “It is both easier and at the same time more difficult, because there is the notion of father and coach who is, in the end, the same person, explains the sportsman. _There are bound to be times when there is friction because we mix the father and the coach_. So there are complicated sides, but otherwise it’s an advantage because he, all the mistakes he may have made during his career, it allows us not to make them again and to get straight to the point.“
An international ambition
The next objective for Thibaut Collet is to perform well during these world championships in Belgrade. “I will try to finish in the top 8 to be a world finalist, he hopes. For my first selection in the France team, it would be very good. After the goals, there are Olympiads, there are 2024 and 2028.“At 22, he has another goal in mind: to get closer to the 6-meter mark, to feel a little more in the big leagues.
Thibaut Collet is in good shape, he recently broke his personal best, jumping to 5m81 and beating French indoor champion last February. A performance of which he is proud, even if, he knows, it is not enough. “5m81, today is really the world of adults, because I am 22 years old and it is true that it is a very good performance, tells the Isère. But to enter the world of “very good”… With 5m81, we don’t do much in terms of results on the international level.“He believes that this good result is a great entry point and the start of a great career.”Of course it’s weird because it allows you to really be part of the hard core of the best pole vaulters in the world. But that is not enough, insists Thibaut Collet. It is, of course, good, but I know that the competition is at the international level, that’s where everything is played. I’m happy to be French champion, I’m happy to have done 5m81, but I want to do more, I want to achieve results at international level, so I’m not satisfied with that.“
Sport and a job at the SNCF
There is sport, most of the time, but also work at the station. Thomas Collet is part of the “SNCF Athletes” system which allows top athletes to have working time arrangements within the SNCF. “I joined the SNCF in October and since then I have had great peace of mind for everyday life.he explains. It also allows me, sometimes, to come back to reality by going to work at the station about once or twice a month. In reality, it allows me to have an escape from sport and it is sure that it is a real comfort, it feels good because it brings us back down to earth. In addition, it also allows us to prepare a little for the future.”