Marie-José Pérec

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox sportsperson Marie-José Pérec (Template:IPA; born 9 May 1968)<ref name="reuters" /> is a retired French track and field sprinter who specialised in the 200 and 400 metres and is a three-time Olympic gold medalist.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She was born in the French overseas department of Guadeloupe and moved to Paris when she was 16 years old.<ref name="Olympics.com"/>

Athletics career

Pérec first represented France in the 200 metres event at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul,<ref name="Olympics.com">Template:Cite web</ref> reaching the quarter-finals.<ref name="WorldAthletics20040613">Template:Cite web</ref> She won the 400Template:Nbspmetres world title at the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and repeated the feat at the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She won her first Olympic gold medal in the [[Athletics at the 1992 Summer Olympics – Women's 400 metres|400Template:Nbspmetres event]] at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.<ref name="sports-reference"/><ref name="Olympics.com"/>

She entered the [[Athletics at the 1996 Summer Olympics – Women's 200 metres|200Template:Nbspmetres]] and [[Athletics at the 1996 Summer Olympics – Women's 400 metres|400Template:Nbspmetres]] events at the 1996 Atlanta Games and won both,<ref name="sports-reference"/> achieving the second-ever Olympic 200Template:Nbspmetres/400Template:Nbspmetres gold medal double,<ref name="Olympics.com"/> after Valerie Brisco-Hooks in Los Angeles 1984.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="WorldAthletics20000707">Template:Cite web</ref> Pérec won the 400Template:Nbspmetres title in an Olympic record time of 48.25 seconds,<ref name="reuters">Template:Cite web</ref> which ranked her as the third-fastest woman of all time.<ref name="WorldAthletics20040613"/> It took another 23 years before Salwa Eid Naser, in October 2019, surpassed her mark to demote Pérec to fourth in the list of world's fastest-ever female 400-metre sprinters.<ref name="reuters"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In addition to her Olympic and World titles, Pérec won the 400Template:Nbspmetres title and was part of the gold medal-winning [[4 × 400 metres relay|4Template:Nbsp×Template:Nbsp400Template:Nbspmetres relay]] team at the 1994 European Championships in Helsinki.<ref name="WorldAthletics20040608">Template:Cite web</ref> The two 1996 Olympic golds were Pérec's last international titles. In 1997, she shifted to the 200Template:Nbspmetres but withdrew at the semi-finals stage in the World Championships that year after sustaining a thigh muscle injury while warming up.<ref name="WorldAthletics20040613"/><ref name="WorldAthletics19990805"/> 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.<ref name="WorldAthletics20040613"/><ref name="WorldAthletics19990805">Template:Cite web</ref>

On 8Template:NbspJuly 2000, having not run a 400Template:Nbspmetres 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This was the last significant race Pérec took part in. On 22Template:NbspSeptember 2000, she pulled out of the 200Template:Nbspmetres and 400Template:Nbspmetres 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 400Template:Nbspmetres gold.<ref name="Magnay2002">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Pérec trained in Los Angeles with the HSI track team and is listed as a legend on the team's page.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> She officially retired from competitive athletics in June 2004 at the age of 36.<ref name="WorldAthletics20040608"/><ref name="Le Parisien baton" />

Life after retirement from athletics

Pérec enrolled in the top French business school ESSEC and graduated in 2007 with a Master's in Sports Management.<ref name="Le Parisien baton">Template:Cite news</ref>

She is a member of the 'Champions for Peace' club,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

On 21 October 2012, Pérec was elected president of the Ligue Régionale d'Athlétisme de la Guadeloupe, the governing body for athletics in Guadeloupe.<ref> Template:Cite web </ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

On 26 July 2024, Pérec and judoka Teddy Riner lit the Olympic cauldron at the 2024 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in Paris.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Family

Pérec's partner is French freestyle skier Sébastien Foucras. They have one child, a son named Nolan, born on 30Template:NbspMarch 2010.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Awards

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

On 9 October 2013, she 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". She had received the Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur in 1996.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Pérec was inducted into the IAAF Hall of Fame in November 2013.<ref name="britannica"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Personal bests

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

External links

• Template:World Athletics
• Template:Cite Sports-Reference