international athletes train in Cognac for their preparations

Athletes from Gambia, Senegal and Comoros train twice a week at the Cognac Athletics Stadium to prepare for the Olympic Games. The Charente department benefits from the Terre de Jeux 2024 label, which allows certain sports equipment to be made available to foreign athletes.

The five Gambian, Senegalese and Comorian athletes set foot on Charente soil for a week, in Cognac. Ibrahim Camara, Gambian record holder in the 100 meters, has already participated in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021. He is preparing for another participation that should not escape him. “We trained in Senegal with other athletes who had already been here in Cognac and their performances improved a lot, I had wanted to come here for a long time, because these are cities that help athletes a lot.”.

Gina Bass is also part of Gambia’s athletics team. For her, it is extra help to come here to prepare for the sport. “Coming to Cognac helps me with my preparations for the Olympic Games, the climate is different, so my goal for the Olympic Games is to be in the final during the last Olympic Games, I was a semi-finalist.”.

Both are accompanied and trained in France by Christophe Belliard, who is also particularly pleased with the Cognac welcome. “The idea is to find some kind of calm. We are among ourselves, calm. Usually we do it a little warmer, but Grand Cognac opened the doors for us, so we said why not.”he explains. “We isolate ourselves from everyday life, we go to the hotel, we train, we eat, we sleep and so on. It’s a routine that allows me to demand more intensity during the sessions. C “It’s one of the strategic points. We refine all the elements so that they are as operational as possible.”

The Cognac athletics stadium benefits from the Terre de Jeux 2024 brand A great way to highlight the region’s sports facilities. “There was a stated desire to be involved in the Olympic Games in Paris 2024. We wanted to apply with our equipment because we believed that the quality of the equipment we had in Grand Cognac made it possible to meet the specifications set by the Olympic Committee. be a training and preparation site for international teams”, says Jérome Sourisseau, president of Grand Cognac. “It arouses interest, curiosity, a few calls and it builds momentum for the upcoming Olympics”.

Three sports facilities in the city will welcome athletes for official preparations thanks to this label obtained by the department. “We were lucky to have selected three sites: the Bernard Bécavin stadium, the Boussac stables and the Veuzelles complex. It is extremely rewarding, it is a reward for my predecessors who launched these sports equipment renovations.”

The training will be open to the public on Friday 26. April.