TOBIAS SCHWARZ / AFP
Pierre-Ambroise Bosse after his bronze medal in 2018.
ATHLETICS – A page is turning in the history of French athletics. The 2017 world champion in the 800 meters Pierre-Ambroise Bosse announced this Tuesday, December 26 to the newspaper The Team ending his career just seven months before the Paris Olympics.
Nicknamed “PAB”, the 31-year-old athlete created a surprise at the world championships in London by winning the double lap. But six years later, physical problems and in particular a recurring tendon problem pushed him to give up high-level sport.
“After the operation [en décembre 2022, NDLR]my hamstrings must have been better, it gave me a boost of energy, hope,” explains Pierre-Ambroise Bosse to the sports daily. But in May, he was injured again in training.
“I had the approval of the physiotherapist to use 30 km/h. It’s the first risk we’ve taken since the operation, just to move up a gear (…) and I feel a little something at the end.”, he explains. The pain persists for several days and he has an MRI. “In the process and I am told of a recurrence. At that moment, I took a TGV in the face. »
” It’s finish “
The holder of the French record in the discipline (1’42’53) and double European medalist (bronze), absent from the slopes for several years, faces the facts: “I want to go to the Games but I know my body won’t let me, it’s actually over! »
His coronation in London is both the climax and the beginning of the end for “PAB”. Off the slopes, he made the headlines after a fight in Gironde during which he was injured in the face. He was fined 1,000 euros. As for his last competition, it dates from July 2022 during a meeting where he took 8th place.
By retiring, Pierre-Ambroise Bosse is definitively giving up on his Olympic dream: ” I can not do it anymore. I need to stop lying to myself. » French athletics will have to count on the next generation, including Benjamin Robert and Gabriel Tual, for the Games.
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