After 25 hours, 7 minutes and 9 seconds of racing, Antoine Guillon ended his fourteenth Diagonal of Fools, legendary event of the ultra trail circuit, of which he is a specialist, on Reunion Island, this Friday evening.
No tenth podium, therefore, for the vailhan runner who hoped to get on it at the end of the 160 kilometers and 9,400 meters of vertical drop, but a lot of satisfaction all the same: “I had prepared myself well to achieve a good result, it did not work, but it does not matter, I got other satisfactions (…) This is what is important in the sport, because if you only focus on making the podiums, the risk is to give up racing and tell yourself that it is not your day (…) It is not my like, I prefer to take pleasure in reaching the end, and to please others, because I’m not alone. There is a whole team that follows me, that encourages me. It’s important for everyone “, said the 51-year-old athlete, on France Bleu Hérault.
And among those who surround him and push him, there is in particular Anne, his partner, present on the finish line, to welcome those who logically say “tiredness“, corn “in good condition“and without being”hurts, physically“.
Among his satisfactions, Antoine Guillon is proud to have set up “strategies“which allowed him to”go back up when it was difficult“and while he was doing”very hot“:”I downgraded a bit during the night, about fifteenth, but I held on to go up little by little “, congratulates himself the one who won the 2015 edition.
The event was won by two men, tied: the French Ludovic Pommeret and the Italian Daniel Jung (23h2m21s). Two years later, the pleasure of facing the competitors in this competition is still intact: “It was really very pleasant, because we had been deprived of it last year. So there was an additional desire, shared by the public. This edition was marked by sharing, by the desire to please. Maybe it was less competitive“, explained Antoine Guillon, who will return to metropolitan France on Tuesday, and who is already thinking of align with the 30th edition, next year. Perhaps again in the company of his friend Cédric Chavet, fourth this year, and with whom he defends the colors of Font Romeu Pyrenees 2000.