Marie-José Pérec

Marie-José Pérec
Marie-José Pérec, Atlanta 1996
Full name	Marie-José Juliana Pérec
nation	France
birthday	May 9, 1968
place of birth	Basse-Terre
size	180 cm
Weight	60 kg
Career
discipline	sprint
society	Paris Université Club
status	resigned
End of career	2004
Medal table
Olympic games 3 × 0 × 0 × World championships 2 × 0 × 0 × European championships 2 × 0 × 1 ×
Olympic games gold Barcelona 1992 400 m gold Atlanta 1996 200 m gold Atlanta 1996 400 m  World championships gold Tokyo 1991 400 m gold Gothenburg 1995 400 m  European championships bronze Split 1990 400 m gold Helsinki 1994 400 m gold Helsinki 1994 4 × 400 m

Marie-José Juliana Pérec (born May 9, 1968 in Basse-Terre , Guadeloupe ) is a former French athlete who was world class in the 1990s, especially in the long sprint.

Career

Pérec won a total of three gold medals at the Olympic Games: in 1992 in Barcelona over 400 meters and in 1996 in Atlanta over 200 and 400 meters. She was the first athlete to win the 400 meters twice and the second to achieve a double victory. In addition, she won the title of world champion twice ( 1991 in Tokyo and 1995 in Gothenburg ) as well as the European title over 400 meters in Helsinki in 1994 and with the French relay over 4 x 400 meters.

For many years, Pérec was the main competitor of the Deutsche Grit Breuer over 400 meters , which she was able to defeat at major events. After 1996 she was only able to take part in a few competitions due to various injuries and illnesses. For example, she had to cancel her participation in the 1997 and 1999 World Championships.

At the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney her duel over 400 meters against the Australian folk heroine Cathy Freeman should be one of the highlights of the competitions. It did not come to that: The French woman felt harassed and persecuted by the Australian press and therefore left prematurely with her partner at the time, Anthuan Maybank . In 2004 Pérec announced her resignation. In March 2010 she became the mother of a son; Father is the former freestyle skier Sébastien Foucras .

Pérec is 1.80 m tall and weighed 60 kg at competition times. Her coaches included Marita Koch's trainer and husband Wolfgang Meier and the American John Smith , both of whom have been linked to doping .

In 1992 and 1996, Pérec was voted France's Sportswoman of the Year (“ Champion des champions ”) by the sports newspaper L'Équipe . Also in 1996, the Italian sports newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport Pérec voted World Sportswoman of the Year .

In 2013 she was inducted into the IAAF Hall of Fame .

Best times outdoors

• 100 m: 10.96 s, July 27, 1991, Dijon (former French record)
• 200 m: 21.99 s, July 2, 1993, Villeneuve-d'Ascq (French record; August 2009)
• 400 m: 48.25 s, July 29, 1996, Atlanta (Olympic and national record, third place in the all-time world best list; as of August 2009)
• 400 m hurdles: 53.21 s, August 16, 1995, Zurich (French record; August 2009)

Web links

• Marie-José Pérec in the database of World Athletics (English)
• Marie-José Pérec in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Marie-José Pérec: Mysterious Escape of the "Gazelle". In: Spiegel Online . September 21, 2000, accessed February 7, 2014 . 
2. ↑ Lonely and confused. In: Spiegel Online . September 22, 2000, accessed February 7, 2014 . 
3. ^ Marie-José Pérec a donné naissance à son premier enfant. (No longer available online.) In: Le Point . March 30, 2010, archived from the original on February 21, 2014 ; Retrieved February 7, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ Chronicle of an Unusual Relationship. In: Berliner Zeitung . July 21, 2000, accessed February 7, 2014 .