Twice crowned world champion at the 2011 and 2013 Olympic Games, he ranked fourth at the 2012 London Olympics. For Brut, Camille Lacourt talks about the post-competition during this “defeat”, a difficult period for him.
“The burn out, really the violence that I suffered, it was in 2012, after the London Olympics”, declares the ex-swimmer Camille Lacourt. In 2011, the athlete won the title of world champion. In 2012, then in “misfit”, he qualifies in fourth place at the London Olympics with, according to him, a race “not really satisfying”. If the disappointment is present at the time, it is especially the days following the competition that are the most trying for Camille Lacourt.
“We feel alone, even if we are surrounded”
After major international events, athletes can take a vacation, but this period will prove to be above all a test for the former swimmer: “For fifteen days, three weeks, we find ourselves with our pain, our disappointment, almost our humiliation”. This disappointment, Camille Lacourt describes it as “very selfish and lonely” in the face of all the decisions and sacrifices he makes to reach this level. This “failure” then questions everything: “We feel like we wasted our time and a little our life”.
After fifteen days of discomfort, Camille Lacourt decides to close this great void in him. “There is a phrase that I like very much, it is: “The great champions are not those who do not fall but those who get up quickly.“. This period allows him to understand his real vocation for the profession and gives him the desire to resume his activity.
“In fact, the mind is everything”
For Camille Lacourt, an athlete is “a person who has decided to push his limits and I think that a very good athlete is above all a human being who feels good about himself”. And inevitably, well-being comes from good mental health. To maintain it, the ex-champion trained at the Cercle des nageurs de Marseille, one of the first clubs to integrate a mental trainer. That person “gives a lot of exercises in order to have a certain lightness, to always be motivated and to be 100% mentally”. Mental strength is then, according to him, a power that brings an optimization of work and recovery time.
Now a former swimmer since the end of his career at the age of 32, he admits having wanted to stop his activity during his career, due to fatigue and failures: “Every day I wanted to stop everything and it’s normal, it’s human. Afterwards, I always had this little voice inside me that said to me: “I don’t think the road is over.”
Faced with his burnout, he is now learning a lesson: “I am convinced that the only people who have never failed are those who have never undertaken anything. I have a lot of respect for people who fail and who manage to get up behind them”.