In 1996 Guadeloupe native Marie-José Pérec slipped past her Jamaican competitor in the Olympic 200 meters race to win the gold medal. Three days earlier, she had become the first athlete, male or female, to win consecutive Olympic 400-meter gold medals, making her time the third fastest ever for a woman in Olympic history.
Background
In 1996 Guadeloupe native Marie-José Pérec slipped past her Jamaican competitor in the Olympic 200 meters race to win the gold medal. Three days earlier, she had become the first athlete, male or female, to win consecutive Olympic 400-meter gold medals, making her time the third fastest ever for a woman in Olympic history.
Education
By the age of 13 Pérec was 5'9" tall and was still growing. Notwithstanding the mocking she received at school being called "La canne a sucre" (sugarcane) because of her long, lanky body, she found support from her uncle George, a former basketball player who persuaded her into trying out the sport, and she eventually became the center player of her team. Her coaches noticed the speed and grace with which she moved and invited her to compete in her school's track and field meets. Marie José was skeptical about running and worried about injuries. With her coach standing outside her house and her grandmother coaxing her out of a closet, Pérec did make it to her first race and ran the 200 meters in under 26 sec-onds, impressing visiting coaches from France who immediately signed her on for the French junior national championships in Paris. Thus began her spectacular career.
The following year, having just turned 16, she moved to France to continue her education and to train in track and field. With a full French government scholarship she enrolled in France's national training center for promising athletes and joined the renowned Paris sports club, Stade Français.
Career
By 1987 Marie-José Pérec had lowered her 200-meter running time from 24.52 seconds to 22.72 a world-class time and one that qualified her for the 1988 Seoul Olympics. In her Olympic debut, she advanced to the quarterfinals of the 200 meters. She also ran her first 400-meter event in 51.35 seconds, a French national record for that year. In 1989 she demonstrated her potential when she won the World Cup 400 meters but was disqualified for running outside her line.
In the early 1990s Perec won her first two 400-meter races. Her first was a gold medal at the world championships in Tokyo, and her second was a gold medal at the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics. She became the first Frenchwoman in 24 years to win a gold medal in track and field. That summer, because of her graceful running stride, she earned the title “la Gazelle from an adoring French and Caribbean public. In 1993 Perec, escaping the pressures of her celebrity in France, began to train with new American coach John Smith in California. With Smith s training system she picked up two gold medals at the 1994 European championships and the 400-meter world championship title in August 1995 in Gothenburg, Sweden.
In the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games she was crowned one of the all-time great women's champions after her performance in both the 200-and 400-meter races, where she won two gold medals. She raced against six runners who completed the 400-meter race in 50 seconds or less, itself a record, and set her own Olympic record that day of 48.25 seconds. She had become the first athlete to win consecutive Olympic 400-meter gold medals, and the third-fastest woman in the history of the sport.
Personality
Physical Characteristics:
In the last few years, Perec has been plagued by Epstein Barr syndrome, a vi-rus that causes chronic fatigue. She was forced to drop out of a number of races, and when she arrived in Australia for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, she had not raced in a major 400-meter race since 1996. For reasons that have not been made clear, she did not stay with her French team in the Olympic Village and even refused to train or march with them during the opening ceremonies. On September 20, a few days before she was scheduled to begin her 200 and 400-meter races, she abruptly disappeared from her hotel room and left the country.
Connections
Pérec gave birth to her first child, a son named Nolan, on 30 March 2010. Pérec's partner Sébastien Foucras is the father of the child.