(Sainte-Luce-sur-Mer) Every weekday morning, after her boyfriend leaves for work, Maude Charron returns to the “office”, set up in the garage, on the other side of the kitchen door.
In a way, she’s teleworking. Her tools are just different: a squat rack, barbells, weight plates, resistance bands, a few wooden boxes, a bench press tucked away in a corner, etc.
A large air bike collects dust near the garage door. ” You want it ? », asks the weightlifter. It belongs to her boyfriend, a primary school principal, who has clearly given up on using it.
An erasable board hangs on one wall: “80 days,” it reads, at the time of our visit, next to the hand-drawn Olympic rings. “Better be safe than sorry,” it says underneath.
The day before, this warning took on its full meaning when the athlete felt inflammation in a tendon in her right knee, an injury that she has been carrying since the fall of 2022. 15 weeks before her competition at the Paris Games, the caution is required; she has to remind herself sometimes.
The Olympic weightlifting champion had arranged to meet us at 10 a.m. for her morning training session. So we had left the day before to make the trip from Montreal to Rimouski. After a five-and-a-half-hour drive, we only had about fifteen minutes left to reach Sainte-Luce-sur-Mer, the last village in the Lower St. Lawrence before Sainte-Flavie, the gateway to the Gaspé Peninsula.
The weather is cool at the beginning of May. People are preparing the terrace of the L’Anse aux Coques café bistro in anticipation of the summer rush. The church dominates the windswept cove. The cemetery is just behind, facing the sea.
Maude Charron lives a little further away, rue des Coquillages, next to a large daycare. Little ones are returning from a session of cycling around the roundabout at the end of the street. In the window, a white dog, called Tokyo, is stimulated by the arrival of visitors.
From inside, the weightlifter, in training gear, opens the garage door. We praise the splendors of his part of the country. “Now you understand why I continue to train at home,” she replies. Peace in the pot! » It means “peace of mind”, she will clarify later.
Few of the media representatives she received in her cocoon. He had to insist a little with his agent. After her gold medal in Tokyo, a few journalists wanted to visit her father’s garage where she had trained due to the pandemic. The house had already been sold. All that remains is the large rock planted in the river, which she had in her sights when she lifted her loads. At the Olympics, she swore to her father that she had seen the same rock…
Maude Charron fitted out her new garage herself, using plywood panels to level the floor. The place is cramped, but everything she needs is there. The walls are covered with the flags of countries that his sport has taken him to visit (Peru, Turkmenistan, Poland, etc.). His accreditations pile up on the banister. The jacket she wore for the podium ceremony in Tokyo hangs at the top of the squat cage.
The 31-year-old athlete hesitated before embarking on another Olympic cycle, however short it was (three years due to the Games being postponed to 2021). After gymnastics, circus and CrossFit, weightlifting is the fourth sport she practices at high intensity. Professionally, she completed her training at the Nicolet National Police Academy.
His category (64 kg) also disappeared from the Olympic program. To continue to perform well, she had to move up to 59 kg and undergo weight loss before each competition, something she had never experienced.
She also had to find a new coach. Her previous one, Jean-Patrick Millette, clearly no longer suited her aspirations, the only subject she refuses to talk about.
A note stuck on a garage wall is there to remind him: “Your priority is to have fun. That was your goal in doing another Olympic cycle. Do not forget it ! »
It’s signed “Krikri”, the nickname of her ex-teammate Kristel Ngarlem, with whom she made a sort of pact before committing to Paris.
In a sport like weightlifting, where the body is pushed to its maximum in almost every workout, pleasure is a very relative concept. When we visited, Maude Charron was beginning a week of volume, which in her case was equivalent to a total of 278 movements with the bar.
First exercise after a warm-up: four sets of four times two cleans, with a pause an inch from the ground and another at the knees, which makes the movement much more taxing. Expected load for the fourth set: 105 kg, 25 kg less than her competition record, achieved a month earlier at a World Cup in Thailand, where she confirmed her place in Paris by winning bronze.
After lifting 105 kg in the first series, the athlete is satisfied with 100 kg for the following ones. “Better be safe…”
The effort and concentration required to lift the dumbbell is impressive. You have to hear it forced to understand. As she stands up with the bar on her shoulders, she emits a moan that seems to come from her bowels. “Bang, bang! », says the dumbbell, bouncing on the wooden plate.
“I hate that complex,” she admits, catching her breath between sets. “But I do it precisely because I’m not good at picking up speed past my knees. The second I wait is to strengthen myself in these positions. Next time, when it’s heavier, I will feel powerful and strong. »
The quality of execution is a priority. How does she get there with a new trainer, the American Spencer Arnold, based in Atlanta, 2,500 km from Sainte-Luce? She films herself and sends the videos to him using an app called CoachNow. Arnold responds by commenting on the movements, sometimes over slow motion. He uses a green marker to illustrate his teachings and describe the position he wants his student to adopt.
Charron turns on his phone to give an example. “You have to produce a lot of force in a very short time and the body positions itself like that to achieve it,” explains the coach. That puts you at a great disadvantage. The way you pull your shoulders is exactly what we want to fight, because it puts you in that position, with your shoulders behind the bar. »
The example is clear; even I understand. However, Maude Charron agrees that this is not the ideal setting for a coach-athlete bond, especially for a contender for an Olympic podium. For her, this long-distance relationship was take it or leave it.
This conviction of making the right choice does not prevent questioning. “For me, it takes my boyfriend, my dogs, a body of water, it doesn’t matter which one. But there is always this fear, this hypothesis where I wonder if I would have had better results by going to live there. »
She spent two weeks in Atlanta in January and is currently there for another trip. Otherwise, she sees her coach in a few camps.
Every week, they meet virtually to discuss training and preparation. David Ogle, another Vancouver-based coach, joins the conversation. It is he who will manage Charron in Tokyo since Arnold is not eligible. The regulations of the Canadian federation are clear: a coach of the national team must be a citizen or permanent resident of Canada.
On to the second exercise: a pull-up with a pause in extension. Four sets of 2 x 3. This time, she tackles the maximum predicted by her coach, 122 kg (269 lb), more than double her own weight.
I pretend to lift the bar to make her smile. “My boyfriend always does the same thing when he comes back from work: no matter how high I am, he does a deadlift with it. I tell him: you’re going to hurt your back! »
Injury prevention and general fitness are the main goals of the last part of her morning workout. It consists of a series of four exercises that she must repeat five times… as quickly as possible.
She does not hide the fact that this twenty-minute torture is not an easy task. With a thought for his executioner in Atlanta.
“I think I’m the only one he makes do this.” » Oh yes, and why? “Because I’m stupid enough to do it!” The others would all skip it. Excuse my language. »
Confirmed, she did it (and no, she’s not stupid).
After an hour and a half, Maude Charron unfastens her Velcro belt one last time and removes her flat-soled shoes. His shift is over. Three times a week, she does another session at the end of the afternoon.
“Friday evening is the biggest training, the longest and the one that requires the most energy. My boyfriend comes back from work and is starting his weekend. Me, I’m in the gym pushing and suffering. Saturday is slower, but it’s the time when you would like to do something else. But hey, it’s another day of work. »
If she is going through a period of doubt, she can leaf through an album of photos and words of encouragement given to her by her mother upon her return from the Tokyo Olympics. Fun fact: there is a booklet on the Montreal Olympic Stadium dating from 1976. His paternal grandfather, a handyman, worked there during construction.
Near the dry erase board, another note contains a phrase that inspires him: “You don’t have to beat them, they have to beat you. » She took it from the famous biography of Andre Agassi (Open), in which he talks about how much he hated tennis.
Photographer Olivier Jean, who had been complaining all day that I was in his frame, then asked the best question: do you hate weightlifting?
“Sometimes, yes,” she answers candidly.
The trips, the conferences at schools, the feeling of accomplishment after each training are all elements that fuel his fire. That and his immense competitive temperament.
“Everything is a competition! I found a sport that I’m good at, but it’s not my passion. This is why I sometimes say that I would do something else. Now I see it more as a job. I get up in the morning and go to work. Like everyone, there are mornings when I don’t want to go home. »
Even in Sainte-Luce-sur-Mer.
