Tokyo (AFP)

A teenager at the heart of the French team: At the top of her fifteen years, Madeleine Larcheron is the youngest of the 380 French athletes competing in Tokyo.

An extraordinary summer for this sparkling and rather lonely young girl, who excels in skateboarding, the new discipline that has come to rejuvenate the Olympics.

His board, knee pads and helmet are his best allies.

Madeleine Larcheron discovered skateboarding when she was ten;

not so long ago.

Then it all happened, the competitions, the titles, and now the Olympics.

That she has never even watched!

"I am impatient because I am going to discover a lot of things but I do not hurry, I do not put myself under pressure. I am at home, I relax, I take advantage because the weather is nice", slips to the 'AFP la Landaise, a few days away from leaving France to join Japan, where she will launch into the Olympic skatepark on August 4.

Tall (1.70 m) and slender, Madeleine Larcheron does not pretend to be relaxed.

"I see her progress while being always super serene, she has a lot of perspective on things, I find that all this made her grow up very quickly. She has a way of seeing a lot of things that compared to children of her age is very mature. And conversely, she has tendencies of her personality which are hyper childish, it's quite funny ", tells her mother Erika Larcheron, who will be traveling to Tokyo.

- The youngest -

Madeleine Larcheron does not intend to carry on her shoulders the fact of being the youngest Tricolor.

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"The fact of being the youngest doesn't really change me, I'm always with older people, Vincent (Snowy, also selected for the Olympics) is one of my closest acquaintances in skateboarding and he is years old. more than me. She's one of the people I get along with the best, so this feeling of being the youngest I don't really have. They made me grow up very quickly and suddenly I am quickly arrived at their level ", notes the skater with the long brown hair and the face illuminated by freckles.

Jack-of-all-trades, sometimes turbulent, she has tried everything without ever giving up.

Skateboarding is the only practice she has not given up to move on.

His specialty is the park (also called bowl) or the art of throwing very aerial figures in a deep bowl.

With a drawing teacher mother - her father is an ergonomist - she developed a real artistic dimension.

Well in keeping with her times, she asked for a tattoo machine as a Christmas present.

Only girl, greedy for freedom like "a young girl of 15" she says, she is quite lonely.

- Sushi and Ghibli -

"I like being alone. It doesn't bother me, my only company is enough for me" she confides, adding, with a touch of mischief: "I have not reached the point of no return to talk to myself. all alone! But it's true that all alone, I'm fine. "

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For her mother, Madeleine is someone rather easy to get along with. "" She's not a teenager who has been annoyed by having fits, on the other hand since she was very small, she has a good temperament. asserted, and in fact she never changed.

She's not a complicated person, she's funny, she does well at school ".

Addicted to sushi and Studio Ghibli films (famous Japanese animated films), she dreamed of coming to Japan.

She never dreamed of the Games but on the other hand, it's "super cool to go".

The Olympics page turned, she will return home to Labenne to "take advantage of her last three weeks of vacation" before returning to second.

Like an ordinary teenager.

© 2021 AFP