With clenched fists and muscles still tense from the effort, Thomas Bouhail is in communion. With the audience but also with fate, which has sent him directly to the second step of the Olympic podium. And it hardly matters if the supreme title eluded him by a breath. The solid native of the 93rd knows where he comes from and he will certainly never forget that his selection was due to the injury of his buddy Pierre-Yves Béni. Thus, Bouhail was able to turn his fervor into silver. A last-minute call, the crossbow of a career that has since become a model since Sunday.
Six months after the waking dream of Beijing, it was on the pommel horse in Turin that the young 22-year-old champion confirmed his brilliance. With new priorities: “I don’t have pressure, but the medal clearly brings recognition and changes the way other gymnasts look at me. I like this positive stress, it feels good to change ranks.” A new leotard fitting for a favorite.
Flying over the European Championships, which he himself considers as “the highest global level,” he overcame the last questions about him but most importantly, the injury.
The Fear of Pain
A recurrent shoulder pain, which haunts his daily life since his very beginning. The life of a gymnast comes at this price, but Thomas Bouhail is aware: “I had already undergone surgery before Beijing, and after the Games, I felt a slight pain. I then underwent examinations in February and the doctors detected several small things to fix. I decided to go to the European Championships to win and to take care of it afterward.” This “afterward” refers to the World Championships in London next October. At two medals high and one meter sixty-six tall, nothing scares him. Not even the pressure. “The fact that it is the highest global level and that I am considered the best vaulter in the world motivates me to go for a world title.” Thomas Bouhail is wound up like a horse. One does not become the world’s best vaulter by chance.
