No hope for Pérec in Paris
400m Olympic and world champion Marie José Pérec is no longer expected to be fit in time for next August’s world championships in Paris according to the president of the French athletics federation. “We’ve given up hope,” he told us Wednesday at the unveiling of Eurosport’s TV coverage for Paris and the Olympics.
Pérec, who has not run competitively since before the Sydney Olympics in 2000, has seen her comeback thwarted by a recurring pinched sciatic nerve.
A former world champion, the Frenchwoman won gold in both the 200m and 400m at the 1996 Games in Atlanta, had been training in the United States.
Despite the continued absence of the reclusive Pérec, French sources nonetheless tell Eurosportnews that they firmly believe that her comeback is for real and that Pérec has realistic hopes of finding her form for next year’s Olympics.