Six weeks before the European Championships, Camille Muffat left the French team following an incident with Fabrice Pellerin. After a few days of reflection, she decided to end her career at 24 years old.
In fact, as has happened to many sports champions, there comes a moment when everything you once accepted and even appreciated becomes unbearable: It’s like a kind of “burn-out,” and at that moment, it’s the time to stop, turn the page, and change your life.
This is simply what underlies the decision of the Olympic champion, who is no longer the 12-year-old girl who started competing, nor the hopeful teenager, but today, an accomplished woman ready to move on to something else.
Will there be an attempt to create a controversy between her and her coach? It’s the athlete who sets the record straight: “It’s between us, like many other things, good or bad. But I mention it because it’s a trigger,” Muffat clarified in the columns of L’Équipe.
Besides, Rio is still far away, and getting there would have required two years of considerable effort to try to retain the titles won in London, with the competition from new swimmers becoming a concern: “high-level sports life and wanting to be the master of your own life,” as Camille Muffat asserted, “do not mix well, especially with a demanding coach like Fabrice Pellerin.”
This legitimate and understandable choice has many repercussions and impacts the French team on the eve of an international competition, weakens the Olympic Natation Nice, which, thanks to its Olympic champions’ aura, had built a development strategy, the city of Nice, which invested heavily in the future aquatic center of the Plaine du Var and wanted to accompany these investments with figures of great renown.
But who knows, we might one day find Camille Muffat at the heart of managing sports in Nice or the Côte d’Azur, as she has all the qualities to do so.
There remains the last hope of Camille Muffat’s return after a long period of decompression, probably more psychological than physical.
The news of Camille Muffat’s retirement from sports activity could certainly not go unnoticed.
Eric Ciotti, who, as president of the General Council, is also the head of Team 06, which includes athletes from the Alpes-Maritimes participating in the Olympic Games, is not a stranger to supporting Camille Muffat as well as other athletes, wanted to express himself: “I commend an exceptional career and send the young athlete my best wishes for success in her future projects.”
