A reference work. Where human and sporting odysseys follow each other with clairvoyance. Summer Olympics: All French medalists from 1896 to the present day (1), this is the title of the work by Stéphane Gachet from Nantes, published at the end of 2023. At 52 years old, this manager of sports events in the metropolis of Nantes took almost 20 years to complete this book and draw up a list – “exhaustive to date” – 1,266 French medalists. Among these crowned athletes, several have a strong link with our departments of Var and Alpes-Maritimes. Overview of the most unique stories with an insatiable enthusiast.
What is the genesis of this book?
In 2005, I found by chance that Jean Gachet, one of my namesakes, appears in the Olympic list and won a silver medal in boxing at the Antwerp Olympic Games in 1920. This appeals to me and arouses my curiosity. But I was confronted with the lack of information about it. This pushed me to do research on him because I found it unfair and abnormal that he could be forgotten. It took me a little time, but I managed to write his little biography and I said to myself that we had to do this work of remembrance for all the French Olympic medalists. I then put my finger on a gear where the work to be done was titanic. This is why it took me twenty years to complete this project.
How did you find this number of 1,266 French medalists since 1896?
I spent a lot of time on it. But what was tedious was making the list of all these medalists reliable. To arrive at this count, it was necessary to compare several sometimes contradictory official sources. Which is quite surprising. Take for example the French medalists in 1900. Well! the International Olympic Committee announces 114 medalists for France, the CNOSF declares 103 or even the newspaper The Team there are 112. Which is also the case in 1924, 1928, 1932… where the information differs. I therefore compared these databases with two main sources: the official competition reports from the Games concerned as well as press articles from the time. To date, this is an exhaustive work since no one else has stated another figure. On the other hand, I am absolutely certain that there are still a few unidentified medalists missing. Probably less than ten. This research required a lot of effort but it also brought me a lot of satisfaction and pleasure. Including announcing to certain descendants that their great-great-grandfather had been an Olympic medalist. Which turns out to be completely crazy!
In your book, you list 26 Var and Riviera athletes born in our departments. Which story struck you the most?
Without hesitating too much, I chose that of Camille Muffat. Firstly because his destiny is extraordinary with an absolutely tragic ending. But I remember this incredible athlete in particular for two reasons. The first is that extremely few French women have obtained three medals at the Olympic Games, which she achieved in 2012. The others are very, very big names in French sport: Laura Flessel (fencing, 5)Jeannie Longo (cycling, 4)Laure Manaudou (swimming, 3)Suzanne Lenglen (tennis, 3)Marie-José Pérec (athletics, 3)…And she is probably one of the least known French athletes to have achieved this feat. The second reason remains sadder, but touched me a lot. Of the 1266, there are 188 women and Camille Muffat is the youngest of all to have died, at 25 years old. And all sexes combined, she is the third youngest while the two other athletes were medalists in 1900. A time when life expectancy was not the same as today. Another comparison: the second youngest French medalist to have died is the famous sailor Virginie Hériot, who won gold in 1928. She died in 1932 at the age of 39, a difference of 14 years from the age of death by Camille Muffat… This is also why we must not forget to celebrate his memory.
Other medalists have a strong link with our region like Herman Berger, former mayor of Saint-Raphaël from 1914 to 1921 who died in 1924 in Nice…
He has a fairly astonishing career path and, at the same time, not so much considering the 130 years of the Olympics. Becoming mayor after being an Olympic medalist (gold in fencing, team epee, in 1908) is not trivial, but it is not a unique case. A number of great sportsmen went on to enter politics. I am thinking of the best known who have notably been Ministers of Sports: Roxana Maracineanu, David Douillet, Laura Flessel, Guy Drut… We can clearly see the links that there can be between the two different areas. For a fencer of this era, his career remains quite classic. He came from a family belonging to a privileged social background – his father was a member of parliament for Paris – and, like many well-born boys during this period, he practiced sport at a young age: fencing, gymnastics, horse riding, cycling… This former political science student, living in Paris, then became a lawyer before participating in the 1900 and 1908 Olympic Games. I think that after that, he chose to spend a gentler life near the Mediterranean. We find him as mayor of Saint-Raphaël between 1914 and 1921. At that time, he lived at the Villa Eliane in the Anthéor district. Thanks to his influence, the 1921 Tour de France took place in Saint-Raphaël. That same year, he agreed to collaborate on the journal The Var and the Corniche d’Or illustrated For “leave aside questions of politics and people and defend the little-known beauties and riches of our incomparable department”. He died in Nice in 1924, but the sources differ, one mentioning a sudden death and the other a long illness.
The oldest French medalist still alive is Charles Coste (100 years old), a cyclist born in Ollioules. What do you think?
He’s a good runner, gold medalist (team pursuit in 1948), but he did not mark the history of the Games with his performances. Rightly so, he stands out today because he is the dean. I wrote this book so that these athletes, like him, do not fall into anonymity. I also launched an appeal to the Olympic committee on social networks to be associated with the youngest of our medalists in order to designate them as the last bearers of the flame.
Do you have any other anecdotes related to our departments?
Yes, I am thinking of Pierre Gervais. A painter who lived in Menton and Nice and was a sailing medalist in 1900 (gold and bronze). I had difficulty identifying him, but above all I discovered that he was not alone on his boat. He was sailing with two women. They remain, to this day, unknown. Which would make them the first female medalists in the history of the Games. Information that I continue to dig into…
1. Published at the end of November 2023 by Talent éditions, 632 pages, 26.90 e. Stéphane Gachet had already written three other books related to sport: The Dictionary of French Olympic medalists (2011), Birth of sports in Morbihan (2016) and Alice Milliat – The twenty years who founded women’s sport (2019).
Ali-Khan and Warden, two strangers in the heart of Azur
Among the 1,266 mini-biographies present in the book there are unique stories hidden. Like those of the athlete Émile Ali-Khan or the tennis player Archibald Warden. Two French medalists, who have a link with the Côte d’Azur, without holding a French passport. “A certain number of foreigners – I identify around thirty – have won a medal for our countryunderlines Stéphane Gachet. Which would no longer be possible today. But, until 1920, you could bring titles to France as a foreigner as long as you were licensed in a French club.”
This is why Musood Ali-Khan, alias Émile, born in Battle (England), son of an Indian national and a French woman, gave silver to France in 1920 in the 4x100m. He started athletics in Nice at the Masséna high school before moving to clubs like Villefranche, Cannes and Stade français. Ditto for the Scotsman Archibald Warden, in bronze in 1900 (mixed doubles). This doctor who arrived in France in 1899 was licensed in Paris, but lived in Cannes at the beginning of the 20th century.e century before dying there in 1943.
