Valentin Belaud, frenzied modern sports pentathlete
Valentin Belaud, double world pentathlon champion.
Photo: Sergei Bobylev / Getty Images
Text by: Farid Achache Follow
6 min
Valentin Belaud has the Tokyo Olympics in his sights.
The two-time modern pentathlon world champion has just joined Team EDF, an additional golden sponsor to train calmly.
Meet.
Publicity
Read more
A lively little guy who would become a double world champion in modern pentathlon.
Right on time for the appointment, Valentin Belaud walks forward masked, black puffer jacket on his shoulders, sits down and prepares to tell the story.
The speech is loaded with voluntarism.
It takes a hell of a lot of it to be successful in modern pentathlon.
Valentin Belaud evokes "
patience
", "
progression
" and "
adaptation
".
In his sport, the three qualities are fundamental, like a nose in the middle of the face.
If he was not aware of it at the age of 8 when he embarked on his "
destiny
", today Valentin Belaud even works with a sports psychologist who helps him in his progress.
“
Mental preparation is the key in all sports.
She has helped me open doors to what I am capable of.
And it will serve me for my life as a man thereafter.
I have made progress thanks to her since Rio
2016,
”he says enthusiastically.
Change activity to avoid boredom
Modern pentathlon remains one of the most fascinating disciplines on the Olympic program with five sports that are completely different from each other.
Fencing, swimming, horseback riding, shooting and running.
And it is impossible to have weak points to hope to dominate.
In the beginning, the modern pentathlon allowed Valentin Belaud to change activity every forty-five minutes to avoid boredom.
From now on, it is an art of living for those who cannot stand still.
“
I did judo, table tennis, rock climbing, running… At one point, my parents asked me to choose because it was not practical to take me to several sports
He recalls with a smile.
And like his brother, he finds himself at the pentathlon club near the Parisian home.
Parents are relieved, they no longer have to run around.
Valentin Belaud won a second modern pentathlon world champion title in Budapest in Hungary in 2019, after that obtained in 2016 in Moscow, obtaining at the same time his place for the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Fan of Alain Bernard
At 28, he joined the 2020 Team EDF promotion - the company has been involved for more than 30 years alongside French sport.
This allows him to calmly continue his preparation for next summer in Japan.
"
EDF
[also a partner of Paris 2024, Editor's note]
came to me during the confinement, and I liked it right away
", explains Valentin Belaud.
The first athlete to show him his Olympic medals is none other than former swimmer Alain Bernard, one of the first athletes to join Team EDF.
“
It was here at Insep
[National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance, Editor's note]
, a week before leaving for Rio.
He is an athlete whom I really like and whose values I share
, ”he marvels.
On the terrace of the cafeteria of the champion factory, Valentin Belaud unrolls anecdotes as one threads pearls.
Valentin Belaud in 2016 during the world championships.
Photo: Getty
Valentin Belaud in his garden at Insep
The Insep is his cocoon, in the middle of the Bois de Vincennes near Paris, where he spends several hours a week in search of the Olympic Grail.
Since 2010, Valentin Belaud has been training relentlessly, between the season of dead leaves and that of flowering trees, without tiring of birdsong.
Impossible to be surprised when he admits that he was sure that this would be his future living environment.
“
With my class, at the age of 11, I visited Insep and I let the teacher know that I would be there later.
Everyone laughed
.
" All is said.
His determination allows him to ride a horse that he discovers twenty minutes with the riding test or to find the strength to run and shoot at the same time in the combined test, or to face 35 opponents in fencing in a sudden death fight where the first touch wins.
A real Stakhanovist course.
With Élodie Clouvel, Olympic vice-champion in Rio, Valentin Belaud forms a very prominent modern couple who dominate the French pentathlon.
They both shoot
“
Up every day
”, to shine in less than a year in Tokyo.
“
We are a simple couple in everyday life with ups and downs.
We train together and when I have trouble getting up, she helps me get out of bed
.
»Smile behind the mask.
Beyond Tokyo, Valentin Belaud would be well put the cover for Paris 2024. Here he gets up and launches into a last anecdote.
“
In Rio, when I made my match against the Brazilian, I had chills.
They hissed at me, he was supported like crazy.
I want to know the same energy around me in Paris.
"
The hour of departure has come.
Valentin Belaud always has a thousand things to do.
He walks away on his bike, dark clouds above his head.
But he knows full well that there are always clearings.
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Sports
France
2020 Olympics
Japan