Water skiing: “The Pope, I didn't even know what to call him! “, Patrice Martin looks back on his XXL awards, 20 years after his retirement

Twelve world champion titles, 34 times European champion, holder of 26 world records… Patrice Martin's track record in water skiing is dizzying. Twenty years after the end of his sporting career, the 57-year-old from Nantes looks back on those years that shaped the man he is today.

You stopped your career in 2001, at the age of 37, after 25 years of water skiing. We often speak of retirement as the "little death" of the athlete. How did you experience this pivotal moment?

After ten years of career, I would have imagined stopping and building my family life. I often said, around 30, that I wanted to go as far as possible, without overdoing the year. But often, we realize that it is the year too many when we have done it. That's why this end-of-career choice is difficult to make. What triggered this idea in me was that I had a few years with injuries starting in 1998. In 2000, I told myself that I could not stop with an injury. I then prepared for my outing. At the start of the 2001 season, I knew I was going to quit, with the aim of regaining the world record. Nobody expected it. This little death of the athlete, I limited it because I prepared it.

What were your plans then?

In the months that followed, life was no longer the same. There were plenty of them, but not everything was successful. All my experience has allowed me to be president of the French Federation of Water Skiing and Wakeboarding (FFSNW), administrator of the French National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF), member of the National Sports Agency… Yet, I was convinced that I would never join the federation.

In 2008, when you stopped competing, you seriously injured your arm during a gathering of former champions. Tell us about this moment.

It was seven years into my career and they still nearly cut off my arm. When three months later, you start recovery and you don't move… I got depressed. There, you say to yourself, you have to have the desire. I have a chance, it is that I am left-handed. You have to see the glass half full.

Do you think it is still possible for an athlete to complete a course like yours?

Today, Martin Fourcade has 13 world championship titles. It's a nice longevity.

Let's go back to the beginning of your career when you were nicknamed The Little Prince. What was on his mind 40 years ago this Little Prince?

As a child, he wanted to be a baker. Around the age of 12, he wanted to be an airline pilot. I loved this idea of ​​being able to take people to the other side of the world. At school, I was a bit rambunctious, always full of energy. I didn't necessarily listen to everything, but I recorded a lot of things. I had this taste for fairly specific things and that's perhaps why I got along very well with my maths teacher, with whom I kept in touch today.

Your father followed you throughout your sports career. Do you realize that you were a special case?

Even today, I think I'm the only example of a top athlete who started his career with his father and ended up with him. There were ups and downs, of course.

Does this still seem possible to you today?

But anything is possible! Today, there are young people who are beginning to be good, and the family locks them up, very often to protect them. But I don't think anyone other than my father could have given me the ingredients for me to be so successful. Now, there are deviations, there have been and there always will be. At one point, it's hard to say, but I gained a coach and maybe lost part of the father. Because a coach sometimes has to be tough, and that's not necessarily what you expect from a father with his child. Other coaches can make promises to you but then they let you down. Your family never lets you down.

You often talk about your meeting with Pope John Paul II. Why is this non-sporting memory so important in your career?

Because if I hadn't played sports, I would never have experienced this. You are 15 and you meet the Pope. We are in 1979, there is still the Eastern bloc, the pope comes from Poland, he was elected a year ago… He represented an opening to the world. The first time I see him is before a competition in Italy. We are 300 people, they push me in front and I shake his hand! Someone asks me, "But why didn't you kiss the papal ring?" But I didn't know, I was a kid! The Pope, I didn't even know what to call him! (laughs). The next day, as his car passes, he decides to stop to say hello while I was jogging. I was amazed when he started talking to me in French.

Sport has allowed you to experience some crazy things. You also made the cover of a video game in 1987 “The Gods of the Sea”…

It's a bit as if I had made the jacket of Fifa! But back then, there was no social media. I even made a record! I also helped design a boat, which didn't work. I also contributed to imagining the first simulators with pulsed water. But it is true that the video game at the time, it was the very beginnings. It was not badly sold, it was on Astrad, Thomson and Attari.

Did you play there?

Ah yes, but I was useless! (laughs). I believe I still have a few copies, but I no longer have the console.

From now on, you also work for Synergie, as public relations manager. Are you a man in a hurry?

I've always had the habit of traveling, of always being on the move. I thought that at the end of my sports career I would be cooler. And then, the natural comes back at a gallop. Now, my sport is to run between two appointments! (laughs) But I already had this multitasking side when I was young. My father made me do a lot of sports.

Which ?

I played football until I was a cadet at FC Nantes, downhill skiing, judo, basketball and a little boxing. My father made me do all this, thinking that they are complementary sports. Coco Suaudeau trained me when I was in minimal, and Raynald Denoueix the year before. Basketball brought me relaxation, boxing was for resistance. And judo was for learning how to fall. My father had this overall vision. At some point, the champion is the one who has the little something extra. And that, you bring it from external disciplines.

Do you still practice water skiing today?

Very little. Because there is a big personal frustration when I ski, because I'm downright pathetic compared to what I was doing, and that annoys me. And the next day, it reminds me that I'm not the same old anymore, I hurt all over!