What event will you be following most closely during this year’s Summer Olympics in Brazil?
On August 14th, 2016, when night falls on the Olympic stadium, when the finalists of the 100 meter dash enter the arena, we will witness the epilogue of an unusual battle between two of the greatest athletes of all time. For a few seconds, the whole world will stop, fascinated, to watch the outcome of this decade-spanning battle. It is a duel fought at a distance, as only one protagonist will be on the track. The other will be in the stands, an observer, or maybe even far from the stadium, shielding himself from the crowd’s gaze to avoid questions, the humiliation of having to answer them in case of defeat. What kind of battle is this? Who are the adversaries? I’m talking about the decade-spanning battle between Frederick Carlton Lewis, now 55 years old, and Usain Bolt, 30 years old. Because these two are not just fighting for victory, one tenth of a second faster or slower, they are fighting, they have always fought, for the legend. If Bolt wins, he will be the Olympic champion of the 100 meter dash for the third consecutive time, a feat no one before him has ever accomplished. Three Olympics, three gold medals in the most glorious discipline. The perfect symbol of a champion. The ultimate dream that Carl Lewis wasn’t able to accomplish, despite his long career. Which means that if Bolt wins, he will be guaranteed a definitive place in the pantheon of sports.
And don’t think it a personal fantasy to pit them against each other. They themselves have done it, constantly, over the past few years. Especially Lewis. Multiplying the jabs at and reservations about his rival’s qualities. And this is probably what makes the duel at a distance so delicious. Because aside from pure talent and the will to endure, these two giants have nothing in common. Who will win on August 14th? The perfect man who watched his races and saw himself surrounded by cheaters, but never by equals? Or the smiling assassin from Jamaica, who openly displays his pleasure and is so good at sharing it with the crowd? That is the magic of the 100 meter dash. Its devastating dramaturgy.
What sport has the most interesting literary tradition in your home country?
It’s difficult to name a great French contemporary novel about sports! Meanwhile, the battle of the 20th century between Ali and Foreman, as described by Norman Mailer, is inscribed in popular memory. Everywhere in the world, the story of the crazy love between Edith Piaf and boxer Marcel Cerdan would have made a great novel! Where is this great French sports novel? Les Forcats de la route (Slaves of the Road), a chronicle of the Tour de France written with panache by the great Albert Londres between the World Wars, was for a long time the model of sports literature in France. And in the hands of the subtle Antoine Blondin, cycling is still the main source of material for the sports novel, over the course of his reporting published in the national sports paper, L’Equipe. But of tragedy, of picaresque comedy, nothing. Sports literature is regarded with a certain contempt in France, like in no other country I’ve been able to visit. But maybe this is only the reflection of a more general state of mind. Who boos at the national team after the first defeat? The French. Who tells his son that sports aren’t a career? The Frenchman. I experienced this throughout my childhood, when playing sports was considered a waste of time. True, sociologists claim that Nazism plays a big role in the French’s defiance of sports. They claim that Hitler’s regime and his cult of the body accelerated the separation of body from spirit in post-war French society, in education as well as culture. It’s an interesting theory. But it’s a dramatization. Starting in school, sports in France are still considered “superfluous.” While in most European countries, sports claim their own place. Perhaps sports confront the damaging characteristic of the French, their individualism, their difficulty accepting common rules. The French only like sports when they win, which is to say they don’t get it. Only then do we want to read them and find in their sports subject some quality. It’s a shame. There is so much to understand in sports. The cohesion necessary in a collective, the benefit of encountering other cultures, the necessity of passing the ball beyond skin color. A whole journey and experience that French society has so much trouble with, and which, as time rolls on, they cruelly miss.
Which of your country’s athletes would make the most compelling hero/ine of a novel or subject of a biography?
Tony Parker’s journey fascinates me. The adventure novel of his globe-trotting existence. His capacity to adapt, across borders and cultures. There’s no need to explain to an American the breadth of his career, since he was so successful in the NBA he became one of the best players in history. But it’s his journey as a man that seems to me a source of inexhaustible inspiration. A boy who was as comfortable on a court in a Parisian “banlieue” with boys from the neighborhood as he is under the glorious arena lights, as a star. A man able to live in a gorgeous villa, collecting cars at dizzying prices, but whose gaze, at 33, is still that of a kid when he enters the court, always just as excited to play. Listen to an interview with Parker after a game, the key to his incredible life path is his lucidity, his simplicity. If he played badly, he says it, if he made a decisive shot seconds before the end, he’ll content himself with a malicious smile. The kid in Parker is never far off, nor are his family, his friends, his human qualities. Perhaps one of the most beautiful moments of his career, I want to say one of the most moving, was the last European championship that took place in France. All the elements were in place to pay tribute to him, and during the tournament he didn’t play up to his level. Tired, a little injured, maybe even disturbed by the high stakes, he understood he wasn’t in shape, when he so wanted to be! But far from discrediting him, this moment only emphasizes his legendary mentality, his determination to help his teammates, to take on his responsibilities in the game. He pushed himself to the very end, clenched his teeth, was the embodiment of the sport. Beyond defeats or victories. Beyond glory, money, the clichés of success. The image of total commitment. Of the most precious thing an athlete has. His integrity as a man and as a champion.
Which Olympic sport is most like your experience of writing?
Boxing! Like Ali’s famous proclamation: “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee!” An insolent dance, provocative, that ends with a left hook. Boxing, because a novel is a battle. Because words sometimes really hurt. Because in the ring, there’s nowhere to hide. Are the rounds not chapters of a story, told with its punches, its wounds, whose ending is uncertain? Boxing, because you can only shine after thousands of hours of training, in the shadows of an anonymous room. And also, maybe especially, because boxers are often tender, capable of embracing their adversaries, after having dented them, messed them up, brothers in arms more than enemies. Finally, boxing, because as Clint Eastwood said in Million Dollar Baby, boxing is a matter of pride. This is what I feel profoundly about writing. In the face of approaching death, it is an imperial necessity to say what we want to say, to show the world some of our own footwork, of our style, before we leave. The vestiges of a battle against an opponent who dodges us and who we must push in order to confront, to surrender, ourselves.
Alain Gillot is an admired journalist, a screenwriter, and a comic book author. The Penalty Area is his debut novel.
