[Editor’s note: Catherine was born and raised in France and currently resides in Denmark.]
I come from a family of eight kids—six boys and two girls. Being the first girl in the family has never been easy! In sport, I found a way of living, a way of surviving with the boys, and a way to find my own path.
My twenty-three-year cycling career has been my “school of life.” Everything I have learned through cycling has helped me with everything else I do.
I am a four-time World Champion in Road Cycling, and I have participated at four Olympics Games. I was seventeen years old at my first Olympic experience—Seoul in 1988! In 1995, I achieved the Track World Hour Record with 47.112 km/hour, beating Jeannie Longo’s six-year standing record of 46.352 km/hour.
I have accumulated four World Championships titles, and been eleven times on a World Championships podium. I won fifteen national titles and achieved over 150 victories, covering 500,000 km on a bike—training, racing and training, again, over and over! Out of all of these experiences, my world hour record is definitely my best-of-the-best memory, and the greatest accomplishment of my career.
On a human and personal level, I have learned so much about myself through my sport. I have built myself through cycling. It is the treasure of my life. And (what goes around, comes around) even through hard moments, I knew that something good was waiting for me around the corner. Even the hard moments have made good memories, because they always taught me something new. In the pain, you reach the excellence!
Of course, not everything is rosy in the picture and problems do exist, such as eating disorders and osteoporosis; but that is material for another article. This one is about my experience of the magic of women’s sport: it brings emotion, gives you shivers, teaches you to recognize your feelings and needs, teaches you who you are—and all this while staying healthy.
Women in sport deserve unique consideration by the sporting world. Living the passion of sport is beauty. Sport is a way of life that will guide us to excel in our daily lives.
