Joy, anger, fear, sympathy, disappointment, sadness, relief, respect. The two people from Nice experienced all these emotions in a single day. It was late November, in the streets of Lima. The reason? They were participating in the final of Peking Express. The goal: To be the winners of this incredible adventure and pocket up to €54,000.
Rewind to forty-five days earlier. Ten teams set off from the base of the Corcovado, the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for an exceptional journey. A continent to cross, three countries to traverse, two oceans to connect, thirteen stages to complete to reach the capital of Peru, Lima. One by one, the pairs were eliminated: Guillaume and Karine, Eric and Pierre, Morta and Loulou, Terence and Olivia, Christila and Delphine, Yasmin and Harold, Maïté and Cynthia, then Jean-Pierre and Joël.
Only two couples, each bound by blood, remained on the last day of the race. On one side, Pauline and Aurélie, the sisters from Lille. They reached the finals thanks to a tremendous team spirit, but also by playing tough against their opponents, like in the semifinals when they asked a police officer to detain the people from Nice for ten minutes to make them lose time.
On the other side, Gérard and Cédric, father and son. Endowed with a winning mentality, they also had strong personalities which sometimes led to explosions and severe crises during the adventure.
However, it was the young women who seemed to be most in the moment. From seven in the morning, they were running, while the men took their time. Gérard admits, “We couldn’t get into the final. Subconsciously it seemed like recreation. There were little games, we didn’t realize the level we were at.” After successfully completing the first challenge and winning €4,000, the two from Nice kept facing defeat after defeat, losing time and money as they approached the final stretch.
Midday, frustrated by these repeated failures, the father tried to provoke his son. A dispute erupted: “Cédric was struggling mentally. The anger did us good. If we hadn’t argued, we would never have won, that’s clear. We weren’t in the game. Since I’m a winner, not wanting to give up, and it was a final, I put all my heart into the argument to show him that I cared. And now that we are in the final, we aren’t thinking about the beauty of the scenery, we are thinking about getting to the end.” The young man adds, “The argument wasn’t necessary but it helped to clear the air. Then, two minutes later, we were on the tandem, laughing together. We’re like that; when something is wrong, we say it to burst the abscess. And then we move forward.” Finally, they became more united than ever just a short distance from the final stretch. Cédric even felt happy to leave some confidence to the two young women, which might allow them to move ahead. A point that didn’t fully convince his father but served to re-motivate the two from Nice.
Another game event lifted their spirits. It was the six-minute wait before they could start chasing Pauline and Aurélie. Gérard recalls, “We stood shoulder to shoulder. We thought of nothing. Cédric prayed, I concentrated. Then we went off like a shot at the end of the countdown. It was the final stretch. There was nothing left to do but to dash.” For the son also, it was a significant moment as well as arriving at the penultimate flag: “At that moment, we saw Pauline and Aurélie not far ahead. They started moving then; we thought that not everything was lost, and we could still make it. And then, we stopped a car, a 406, just like in the movie Taxi. We thought it was a sign. The driver sped up, and we thought he was going to help us win like in the movie.”
Once they arrived at the Plaza de Acho, it was time to enter the arena where the final Peking Express flag was located and to beat the drums placed in the center. Gérard remembers, “I hadn’t realized the drumsticks were already on the stage; that’s what explains the pause we saw. I even hesitated to take those from the people playing on the sides. Then Cédric realized that they were on the drums, so we rushed and played for a few seconds.” Then came the big moment, the announcement by Stéphane Rotenberg of the victory: “Gérard, Cédric… you win Peking Express.” And then, it was an explosion of joy. For Gérard, it was clear: “It’s the best memory of the adventure, it will remain all my life. His speech was magnificent. I was holding Cédric by the shoulder and hand, telling him it was not possible that we could lose with such words. Then, once he said that we had won, everything came out, the stress, the fatigue of the adventure. We were ready to start another race.” A joy also shared by Cédric at that moment, who hadn’t paid attention to the speech: “At that instant, the stress of 50 days of racing, of struggles, of 50 days of very tough moments but also of magnificent ones fell away in the space of ten seconds. My father then told me that Stéphane’s speech was fabulous but I didn’t remember it because I was on another planet, in another world. Yesterday, watching the show, I started crying and remembering what he had said.”
Today, he remains very proud of having won with his father: “I’ve recorded all the shows on DVD, and when I have children in about twenty years, huh Emeline (he speaks laughing to his girlfriend who is nearby NDLR), I’ll show them what their grandfather was like at 46 years old. As for me, I hope that at that age, I will be as fit as him. But it’s true that I’m very proud.”
Long moments of happiness now await the family, enriched by an additional €46,000. The two from Nice have planned to go to Thailand this summer, backpacking to show their spouses how it’s done. Cédric specifies, “They say it’s easy, that they can do it calmly. They will see what it truly involves. And then, we’ll bring little gifts like in Peru to give some joy to the people who live there. However, we won’t travel with just one euro a day even if we won’t need much money. As for hitchhiking, maybe, we’ll do it for a day for fun, we’ll see if it’s harder without the cameras.”
They certainly haven’t forgotten the South Americans. A trip is already planned for the summer of 2009 with a visit to the villages they crossed.
We leave the final word to Gérard: “We have lived through fantastic moments, which nobody can take from us. I am very proud to have done this with my son.”
The whole team at Nice-Premium congratulates and rejoices for Gérard and Cédric.
However, the adventure of Peking Express with Nice-Premium is not completely over.
Indeed, you can ask your questions to the two winners at tom.mollaret@laposte.net. The best ones will be selected and posed to Gérard and Cédric.
Do not forget to specify in the subject, question for Gérard and Cédric. You have until Friday, April 18 at 8 pm to ask whatever you want to the two from Nice about the race and its surroundings.
You can relive the adventure by clicking on the links at the bottom of the following article: https://www.nicepremium.fr/article/pekin-express-gerard-et-cedric-sont-les-grands-gagnants.3086.html
