“I might have preferred to go out with an extinguished torch. I have the feeling of having lived a ruined adventure”, confides Martin to 20 minutes. The 30-year-old Swiss cheese maker was forced to abandon “Koh-Lanta, the sacred fire” on medical decision, as seen by the faithful of the show in the episode broadcast Tuesday on TF1.
During the comfort test contested on the sixteenth day, he was injured: “It was a good sprain with tearing of the ligament”, he specifies. “My ankle turned but I didn’t let go of my team because I dreamed of making this comfort, of leaving the camp…” And indeed, despite the pain, the 30-year-old contributed to the victory of his tribe, the Paniman, who turn yellow.
Between his injury and the announcement of his departure, Martin saw the doctor “very regularly”. “He asked me to do exercises, bend down and get up. I couldn’t,” he says.
Arrived on the next test, disputed individually to try to win the talisman, Denis Brogniart tells him that he cannot take part. “At that time, I knew that my adventure was threatened, remembers the candidate. I knew how long it took to recover from a sprain. »
“I gave myself 200%”
His fears are confirmed just before the immunity test. “I was asked to put myself on the far left, I told myself that it was not a good sign. I learned that I had to leave the game when Denis announced it to everyone, not before, ”underlines the Swiss.
For the adventurer, who had shown himself to be particularly successful in the events since day one, setting off in these conditions was “enormously complicated”. “When we are going to do “Koh-Lanta”, it never occurs to us that we can go out on injury. We know it can happen, but we can’t imagine it, he says. My adventure was launched, I gave myself 200%. I don’t know if I would have been able to go to the posts – I might have been less good at strategy – but I still had a lot to prove and do. I would have loved to arrive at the reunification for the individual events. »
Several months after filming, Martin, recently dad, keeps a taste of “unfinished”. Before hanging up with 20 minutes, he slips: “If the production contacts me again to redo a season, I say yes, I leave, it is obvious! »