INTERVIEW
Yannick Agnel, former world champion and Olympic swimming has left the pools, he has not abandoned the sporting environment. In the program L'equipped sauvage, he tells how he became sports director of an esport team, a new sport related to the practice of video games in competition.
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"I do not know much about video game technique, my role is rather external, that is to say that I will implement the whole methodology so that the players will gain a few hundredths of reaction time", explains the former two-time world champion in the 200-meter freestyle.
Becoming a coach, Yannick Agnel also does not neglect coaching players, he says he "loved to train" during his swimming years. He tries to help his players "recover a little better than their competitors". "It's part of the physical exercise," he says, adding to ensure the proper "psychological preparation and medical monitoring of its players."
From basins to computer keyboards
This serious follow-up is bearing fruit. "We have some good results," said the 27-year-old coach. "We have a player who was second at the World Cup Fortnite this summer, the most played video in the world.One of the teams of Yannick Agnel was, according to him," third in the championship of France on the League French League of Leagends, the second most played game in the world.
Yannick Agnel has managed to mix his past as a swimming champion and his passion for video games, born several years ago. "When I was practicing six to eight hours a day, when I went home, the only thing I wanted to do was slap myself on the couch, and the only thing that was next to me was the controller, so the link was pretty fast, "recalls Yannick Agnel.
A second life after glory
If he admits that travel and swimming training fail him, Yannick Agnel is said nevertheless satisfied to no longer "enter the water in the middle of winter, at six in the morning". "I have not really experienced the post-career depression of the athlete," he says. "Of course, I wondered what direction I was going to give to my life, and I found the answer quickly because I realized that I had to undertake, have projects, go see people. is true that being a former world champion and Olympic, doors open more easily than for others. "