His passion: being familiar with the abysses. On Tuesday, freediver Alice Modolo, 39, will take on a major challenge. Dive 40 meters into the depths of the Mediterranean to fetch the Olympic flame. She will also be the first to carry the flame in the Alpes-Maritimes department, before passing the baton to starred chef Jacques Chibois. Career as a dentist, seasickness and Beyoncé… Here are three anecdotes to know about this sportswoman, world vice-champion in the discipline.
A career as a dentist
Diving ? This isn’t really what Alice Modolo dreamed of. The young woman was to take over her parents’ dental practice in the Massif Central. But the grace of apnea decided otherwise. The revelation came to her at age 23 in a swimming pool, while she observed freedivers training in the neighboring line. “They moved freely and very gracefully. I was completely captivated,” she says.
After maintaining her activity as a dentist for a while, even specializing in pediatric dentistry, she put aside the drills and casters in 2019 to devote herself entirely to her new passion.
Despite limited physical and especially pulmonary capacities compared to the leaders of the discipline, she very quickly proved gifted, in particular thanks to her studies and medical research which had allowed her to work on breathing and pain management. : “I bet everything on it. And it worked. »
Sea sickness
Having evolved far from the beaches and the water, the sportswoman suffered for a long time from… seasickness. This was still the case when she decided in 2013 to leave her native Auvergne to settle on the Côte d’Azur, as close as possible to the sea depths.
A collaboration with Queen B
Do you remember the music video for “Runnin’” from Naughty Boy? The one in which a couple ran into the abyssal depths without losing breath (yes, they held their breath), searching for each other in weightlessness before coming together and embracing each other gracefully. The swimmer/dancer, you guessed it, is Alice Modolo. The diver was called in 2015 by director Charlie Robins to shoot this clip with freediver Guillaume Néry. The images also convinced Beyoncé to put her voice there. A great success since the video now has more than 450 million views on YouTube.