Jani Barré finished her 10th in London on Sundaye wheelchair marathon in a record time of 4:19:21.
Those who follow athletics at all will frown at the beginning of this text, since the Swiss Catherine Debrunner completed the distance in 1 h 34 min 16 s at the Berlin marathon in 2023.
This is because Barré does not use a three-wheeled “racing” chair. She uses her everyday wheelchair, with four wheels, a bit like the ones you find at the entrance to the emergency room.
“I already tried for two years, for fun, and I didn’t get excited,” said the 44-year-old athlete from Saint-Hyacinthe. I found it complicated to train with it. It is a chair that takes up a lot of space and is difficult to transport. I’m alone, I don’t have a coach with me.
“I sit in my chair every day. Moving that big bike, I found it complicated. […] I had no interest [à aller plus loin]. I wasn’t happy to roll with that,” she added.
She admits it straight away: she complicates her life by running around with her standard chair.
A competition chair is a Formula 1 car. I drive a Camry. At 10 km/h, my front wheels shake, like a grocery cart!
Jani Barre
Flashback: Barré has been confined to her chair since her childhood due to osteogenesis imperfecta, or brittle bone disease. Until a treatment was found to improve the density of her bones, she suffered 157 fractures to her arms, legs and even her neck.
His last fracture was more than 20 years ago. But the treatments were not enough: she had to increase her physical mass, in order to give herself a better chance of “not breaking”.
It is this passion for training, but above all for surpassing oneself, which first leads her towards boxing, a natural thing when you know her father, Bernard Barré, who has been immersed in this sport for more than 40 years and who is now today vice-president, recruitment and development, of the Yvon Michel Group.
“He was pretty nervous at first! He said to me: “Don’t hit too hard, Jani!” At the same time, he and my mother never held me back, never told me that I couldn’t do this or that. […] It took a good two years before I developed my muscles,” says the woman who has fought three official fights in a wheelchair so far.
Simply ride
By her own admission, what she likes to do most is ride. Just not on three wheels. So she trained in her chair and decided to register for the 2018 Montreal marathon, her first.
“But as I don’t have a three-wheeled chair, I go with the mass of runners,” she notes. And I’m overtaking a gang! But it’s not supposed: runners are supposed to go faster than me. When I pass men with muscular thighs, I find it very funny! »
This first marathon – completed in 4:12:29, his best time ever – gave him the desire to continue. She then set herself the goal of completing 10 marathons in 10 different cities. Las Vegas, Ottawa, Havana, Miami, Los Angeles, Honolulu, Paris and New York will follow.
PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, THE PRESS
Jani Barre
For London, she wanted to mark the occasion and contacted Guinness Records. The process is tedious: the people at Guinness want to see Barré’s chair and ask her for several photos, which she sends to them. Once the chair was approved, they awaited it with one last surprise.
“That’s when they tell me: ‘A Guinness record is exceptional; you will have to achieve an exceptional time”. »
This time? Guinness puts it at 4 hours 30 minutes.
“I wondered why they were asking me for this time. I wondered if they had searched my Facebook page to find my times. My father told me: ‘They don’t ask you that for nothing. I’m going to find out why.” »
He found: In 1983, Denise Smith, a British Paralympic athlete, completed the London Marathon in a standard wheelchair in 4 hours 29 minutes. This time has never been entered in the Guinness World Records Guide, but the organization was clearly inspired by it to require 4 hours 30 minutes in Barré.
“I then found myself faced with a real challenge: of my nine marathons, only three were run in this weather,” explained Barré, who admitted to having been very nervous, to the point of crying in her hotel room last night. day before departure.
“Inspire people”
From the moment she wakes up until the end of the race, she will repeat a mantra to herself: it’s a challenge, you have to have fun.
She also sets a goal: 4 h 25 min. She then decides to open the machine in her first hour of racing, to help herself.
“In 60 minutes, I usually ride 10 km. Sunday, I had 11 km covered after 60 minutes. This extra kilometer represents 6 minutes: exactly what I subtracted from my goal of 4 hours 25 minutes,” emphasizes the woman who has been earning her living as a speaker for nine years now.
After crossing the finish line – while waiting for her partner, Manon Pilon, who finished an hour later – she was able to reflect on her feat.
I was thinking of Mme Smith. I had just beaten a triple Paralympian: I thought I was hot !
Jani Barre
His time in London is the second best of his lifetime.
“The year 2024 is a big year for me. A 10e marathon, a Guinness record and on September 8, I will have been sober for 10 years,” she confided.
“What I want to do is inspire people until I die. If I was able to go through all that – it was hell when I was young – and I come back with a Guinness record, there are plenty of people who are capable of achieving plenty of things. You have to have will, perseverance and you have to work hard,” concluded Barré.