2023-11-06 05:32:15
Par Jérémy Nédélec
Published on 6 Nov 23 at 6:32 See my news Follow Le Trégor
” It’s a yes. You have no right to refuse! » When Luc Kerlouët, from Ploubezre, learned, by telephone, that he was going to lead the Olympic torch relay at the Paris 2024 Games, he turned to Brigitte, his wife, a bit like a cyclist asking his leader permission to take the breakaway.
This will only appear once. Luc Kerlouët, 65, has been racing the biggest bike races in Europe for 23 years: seeing him at the Games is a bit of a matter of common sense.
“My life, my passion”
His flame has always been the bicycle; he made it his profession, where he always wore light socks.
I sold racing bikes for 20 years, and there wasn’t a single morning that I woke up and thought “shit, I have to go to work!” “. It was my life, my passion.
Luc Kerlouet.
Bernard Hinault, for the anecdote, passed through the door of the shop in 1988. It was also his hobby, under the colors of the Vélo Club du Trégor.
“You leave, you leave all your problems”
Then he sold the store, and very quickly joined the ASO arrow team, the great machine of the Tour de France, Liège-Bastonne-Liège, or Paris-Roubaix, where the “Hell of the North” always marks.
“I know it by heart, but when I arrive at certain cobbled areas, I tell myself that it’s not possible for the runners to pass there,” admits, admiringly, the Trégorrois scout.
Like the champions who passed through his shop, Luc Kerlouët traveled a lot. Tours of California, Beijing and the Dakar Rally, where he remembers the “crazy storms” in a cargo ship in the Strait of Magellan in Chile, or the charred motorcycles in the middle of the desert to be skinned to put them in the helicopter with the soldiers.
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Unlike the brave men of endless followingnoons, Luc knows how long his Olympic escape will last. Two and a half months, without going home. Not enough to impress him, especially since he can count on his wife.
When you leave, you leave all your problems behind. And when I call in the evening to say where I am, she always tells me everything is fine.
Since this stroke, last January in Paris, she has also told him to calm down his passion. “I was at the hotel when my whole left side was blocked. I went down to reception and told them “Call the fire brigade, I’m going to die”. The firefighters saved my life. Two days later, I had nothing left. I brought them chocolate bars! »
He has had a fresh start and is looking forward to the Games.
Marseille, Brest, Paris
The flame will arrive in Marseille from Greece on May 8, 2024, and will travel up France to Brest, where it will head to the Overseas Territories aboard the Belem, before returning to finish its tour of France in Paris on the 26th. July, for the opening of the Games.
It’s a signage that has nothing to do with that of bike races, there are 3 or 4 km in each town or each site which will host the flame. Between 3 and 5 places per department crossed will be chosen.
No stage of the sacred fire is planned in Côtes-d’Armor, but Luc illustrates locally: “If the flame arrived on the quays in Lannion, direction Place du Center, we would make a light signage to explain where the circuit passes , indicating the relay points […] I should be there two to three days before the flame. I would be able to see if there is a problem along the route: a street that is too steep, a big hole in the road… in which case I take a photo, I send it back and they contact the city services. »
“I am privileged”
Well, fortunately some days, the Trégorrois will be passing the torch. “I am privileged! It’s the image of France that will be shown to the world, a bit like the Tour,” smiles the former amateur cyclist.
In my time, it was the Holy Grail to participate in the Olympics. When Jean Le Vaillant (who had been preselected for the Munich Games in 1972, editor’s note), spoke to me regarding it, it was an absolute dream.
On the flame route, it risks causing severe cycling, since the arrow team will be “a team of cyclists, of friends”, which will include Alain Daniel, known as “The Gaul” for his mustache, driver of the car- broom of the Tour de France for years.
“I hope to be selected to mark the course of the road race. And an additional Tour de France with arrows, that would not have displeased me,” he slips, insatiable, never consumed by a passion which nevertheless devours. All fire all flames.
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