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Marie-José Pérec

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Marie-José Pérec
Pérec at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016
Personal information
Born (1968-05-09) 9 May 1968 (age 56)[1]
Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe[1]
Years active1984–2004
Height5 ft 10+1⁄2 in (179 cm)[1][2]
Weight132 lb (60 kg)[2]
Sport
SportAthletics
Medal record
Women's athletics
Representing  France
Olympic Games
Gold medal – first place 1992 Barcelona 400 m
Gold medal – first place 1996 Atlanta 200 m
Gold medal – first place 1996 Atlanta 400 m
World Championships
Gold medal – first place 1991 Tokyo 400 m
Gold medal – first place 1995 Gothenburg 400 m
European Championships
Gold medal – first place 1994 Helsinki 400 m
Gold medal – first place 1994 Helsinki 4 × 400 m relay
Bronze medal – third place 1990 Split 400 m
Updated on 23 May 2015

Marie-José Pérec (born 9 May 1968) is a retired French track and field sprinter who specialised in the 200 and 400 metres and is a three-time Olympic gold medalist.[3]

Athletics career

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Pérec first represented France in the 200 metres event at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul,[4] reaching the quarter-finals.[5] She won the 400 metres world title at the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo[6] and repeated the feat at the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg.[7] She won her first Olympic gold medal in the 400 metres event at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.[2][4]

She entered the 200 metres and 400 metres events at the 1996 Atlanta Games and won both,[2] achieving the second-ever Olympic 200 metres/400 metres gold medal double, after Valerie Brisco-Hooks in Los Angeles 1984. Pérec won the 400 metres title in an Olympic record time of 48.25 seconds, which ranked her as the third-fastest woman of all time. It took another 23 years, until 2019, before Salwa Eid Naser surpassed her mark to push Pérec to number 4 of all time.

In addition to her Olympic and World titles, Pérec won the 400 metres title and was part of the gold medal-winning 4 × 400 metres relay team at the 1994 European Championships in Helsinki.[8] The two 1996 Olympic golds were Pérec's last international titles. In 1997, she shifted to the 200 metres but withdrew at the semi-finals stage in the World Championships that year after sustaining a thigh muscle injury while warming up.[5][9] She was diagnosed with glandular fever in March 1998, and the long recovery forced her to take time out from competitions until the following year.[5][9]

On 8 July 2000, having not run a 400 metres race since 1996, Pérec began her Olympic title defence by finishing third in Nice (at the Nikaia meeting of the 2000 IAAF Grand Prix), behind eventual Olympic silver and bronze medalists Lorraine Graham and Katharine Merry.[10] This was the last significant race Pérec took part in. On 22 September 2000, she pulled out of the 200 metres and 400 metres events of the 2000 Sydney Games, several days before they were due to start. Pérec claimed that she had been threatened and insulted several times since arriving in Australia and that the local press, who were supporting Australian athlete Cathy Freeman, had been trying to sabotage her chances of winning 400 metres gold.[11][12]

Pérec trained in Los Angeles with the HSI track team and is listed as a legend on the team's page.[13] She officially retired from competitive athletics in June 2004 at the age of 36.[8][14]

Life after retirement from athletics

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Pérec enrolled in the top French business school ESSEC and graduated in 2007 with a Master's in Sports Management.[14]

She is a member of the 'Champions for Peace' club,[15] a group of more than 70 famous elite athletes committed to promoting peace in the world through sports, created by Peace and Sport, a Monaco-based international organisation.[16]

On 21 October 2012, Pérec was elected president of the Ligue Régionale d'Athlétisme de la Guadeloupe, the governing body for athletics in Guadeloupe.[17]

Pérec participated in the French reality music competition Mask Singer as the Red Panther, performing Stromae's "Papaoutai" and Angèle's "Balance ton quoi" before being eliminated in the first episode.[18]

On 26 July 2024, Pérec and judoka Teddy Riner lit the Olympic cauldron at the 2024 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in Paris.[19]

Family

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Pérec's partner is French freestyle skier Sébastien Foucras. They have one child, a son named Nolan, born on 30 March 2010.[20]

Awards

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Pérec was chosen as the French Champion of Champions in 1992 and 1996 by the French sports daily L'Équipe.

On 9 October 2013, Pérec was awarded the Officier de la Légion d'honneur by French President François Hollande in the Élysée Palace. Just before presenting the insignia to Pérec during the award ceremony, Hollande described her as "one of the most brilliant athletes in the history of French athletics". Pérec had received the Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 1996.[21]

On 16 November 2013, Pérec was inducted into the IAAF Hall of Fame.

Personal bests

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Event Time (seconds) Wind (m/s) Date Venue All-time ranking
100 m 10.96 +1.2 27 July 1991 Dijon, France 43rd (15th)
200 m 21.99 (FR) +1.1 2 July 1993 Villeneuve-d'Ascq, France 21st (9th)
400 m 48.25 (FR), (OR) 29 July 1996 Atlanta, Georgia 4th (3rd)
400 m hurdles 53.21 (FR) 16 August 1995 Zürich, Switzerland 20th (6th)
  • Rankings outside the brackets are world rankings
  • Rankings inside the brackets are European
  • FR = French record
  • OR = Olympic record

References

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  1. ^ a b c "Marie-José Pérec". britannica.com. Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 30 July 2023. Retrieved 23 May 2015.
  2. ^ a b c d "Marie-José Pérec". sports-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 9 August 2011. Retrieved 23 May 2015.
  3. ^ "Marie-José Pérec | Profile | World Athletics". WorldAthletics.org. Retrieved 5 August 2024.
  4. ^ a b "Marie-Jose Perec". Olympics.com. Archived from the original on 29 July 2024. Retrieved 4 August 2024.
  5. ^ a b c "Perec – a fascinating athletic goddess". WorldAthletics.org. 13 June 2004. Archived from the original on 24 November 2020. Retrieved 4 August 2024.
  6. ^ "World Athletics Championships, Tokyo (Olympic Stadium) 1991, 400 Metres Women Final Results". WorldAthletics.org. Archived from the original on 26 October 2021. Retrieved 4 August 2024.
  7. ^ "World Athletics Championships, Göteborg (Ullevi Stadium) 1995, 400 Metres Women Final Results". WorldAthletics.org. Archived from the original on 13 August 2023. Retrieved 4 August 2024.
  8. ^ a b "Perec announces retirement". WorldAthletics.org. 8 June 2004. Archived from the original on 5 August 2024. Retrieved 5 August 2024.
  9. ^ a b "Triple Olympic champion Perec back from the brink". WorldAthletics.org. 24 June 1999. Archived from the original on 14 April 2024. Retrieved 5 August 2024.
  10. ^ Knight, Tom (10 July 2000). "Athletics: Merry steals the Perec show". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 3 August 2024. Retrieved 3 August 2024.
  11. ^ Magnay, Jacquelin (6 December 2002). "Marie-Jose Perec on track". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 25 July 2021.
  12. ^ "Perec out of Olympics". BBC Sport. 22 September 2000. Archived from the original on 23 December 2002.
  13. ^ "HSI Legends". HSInternational. Archived from the original on 29 June 2015.
  14. ^ a b "Perec transmet le témoin" [Perec passes the baton]. Le Parisien. 28 December 2009. Archived from the original on 29 November 2021.
  15. ^ "Jonah Lomu, Marie-José Pérec, Sebastien Loeb and Hicham El Guerrouj: sporting legends committed to peace". Around the Rings. 2 December 2010. Archived from the original on 28 September 2011.
  16. ^ "Marie-José Pérec". Peace and Sport. Archived from the original on 21 February 2024. Retrieved 3 August 2024.
  17. ^ Cairo, Elodie (23 October 2012). "Le nouveau Comité Directeur de la LRAG" [The new LRAG Steering Committee]. Ligue Régionale d'Athlétisme de la Guadeloupe (in French). Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 23 October 2012.
  18. ^ Guerrin, Stéphanie (9 November 2019). "Marie-José Pérec dans «Mask Singer» : «Mon fils m'a reconnue tout de suite»" [Marie-José Pérec in "Mask Singer": "My son recognized me right away"]. Le Parisien. Archived from the original on 6 April 2020. Retrieved 3 August 2024.
  19. ^ Bushnell, Henry (26 July 2024). "Paris Opening Ceremony: Marie-José Pérec and Teddy Riner light the Olympic cauldron". Yahoo Sports!. Archived from the original on 29 July 2024.
  20. ^ Bouheddi, Ouiza (9 May 2024). "Marie-José Pérec : qui est Sébastien Foucras, son compagnon et père de son fils Nolan ?" [Marie-José Pérec: who is Sébastien Foucras, her partner and father of her son Nolan?]. Gala (in French). Archived from the original on 24 May 2024.
  21. ^ "Pérec et Arron décorées de la Légion d'honneur" [Pérec and Arron decorated with the Legion of Honor]. L'Équipe. AFP. 9 October 2013. Archived from the original on 20 May 2022.
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Awards and achievements
Preceded by Women's Track & Field ESPY Award
1997 		Succeeded by
Sporting positions
Preceded by Women's 200 m Best Year Performance
alongside Nigeria Mary Onyali
1996 		Succeeded by
Olympic Games
Preceded by Flagbearer for  France
Atlanta 1996 		Succeeded by
Preceded by
China Dinigeer Yilamujiang and Zhao Jiawen
 Final Olympic torchbearer
Paris 2024 along Teddy Riner 		Succeeded by
TBA 2026
Preceded by Final Summer Olympic torchbearer
Paris 2024 along Teddy Riner 		Succeeded by
TBA 2028
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