“The body couldn’t keep up”, Christophe Lemaitre announces his retirement

At 34, Christophe Lemaitre, Olympic bronze medalist in 2016 in the 200m in Rio, Brazil, is ending his career, he announced on Thursday, June 27 on the website of L’Équipe. He will therefore not participate in the Paris Olympics. He will have been the first white sprinter under 10 seconds in the 100m.

“At the start of the season, I told myself that everything would depend on this year, on how I would feel, on how I would progress.”he says. “I saw that I was still capable of doing good quality training, but the results were not following. I had this calf injury, it destroyed the last hopes I had. The body does not “I couldn’t keep up, even if I did things well. That’s why I decided to stop. I’m going to do athletics for fun, I’m not going to bother doing high level anymore.”he confided to the sports daily.

Christophe Lemaitre does not want to become a coach for the moment and will focus on preparing a sports coaching diploma, reports L’Équipe. Along with Renaud Lavillenie, Lemaitre was the French star of the early 2010s, from his 100m – 200m – 4x100m triple at the European Championships in Barcelona (at the age of 20!) to his bronze medal at the Rio Games in 2016.