Cycling
Simone Boilard has found the taste of victory
“It’s really nice to raise your arms. I didn’t even remember if I was going to be able…”
Two days later, Simone Boilard was still rejoicing at her first victory since her sensational run as a junior.
At the time, she kept a little embarrassment. As the 21-year-old cyclist points out
itself, the first women’s edition of the Boucles de Seine-et-Marne, a national event disputed last Sunday in the Paris region, it is still not the World Championships.
But after three years marred by injuries, illness and self-doubt, the young athlete from the Quebec City region appreciates better than anyone the value of a victory, however modest it may be.
“I was super happy,” she testified from Lille airport earlier this week. “Despite the terrible conditions – it was raining and cold – I was warm and felt good. »
As in its heyday, Boilard won at the end of a solo breakaway of some 60 km, signing a first success for its new French formation St Michel-Auber93.
I had time to think about how I was going to win. I did 60 km and really savored the moment. Sometimes, when things are not going so well, we say to ourselves: think of a good time. I put this one in my memory.
Simone Boillard
Dominant on the national scene as a teenager, Simone Boilard concluded her junior journey with a bang at the 2018 World Championships in Innsbruck. She won bronze in the road race and finished fifth in the time trial. -show.
Enlisted in the American Twenty20 team, she never hatched among seniors. For a year, she believed she suffered from overtraining and chronic fatigue, which had an impact on her psychological health. It wasn’t until the following year that she realized that iliac artery endofibrosis was slowing her down during exercise. The diagnosis and the operation – December 2, 2020 – were delayed by the pandemic.
” I almost died “
In the spring of 2021, on the advice of her new trainer Pierre Hutsebaut, she settled in the Nice region with her boyfriend, professional cyclist Nickolas Zukowsky.
She was about to get back on her bike when she contracted a urinary tract infection. As she had just been vaccinated against COVID-19, she initially believed in side effects. The infection spread to the kidneys, liver, heart, lungs and blood.
“In extreme pain” for a week, she had to be convinced by Zukowsky to go to the hospital. She was suffering from sepsis, an infection that could have been fatal if she had waited two or three more days, the doctors explained to her. “In fact, I almost died”,
she simply said.
After two more weeks in the hospital, where her mother rushed to her bedside, Boilard came out “not badly damaged”.
At this stage, I was very, very, very discouraged. I didn’t even think about riding a bike anymore. When you go through an ordeal like that, you say to yourself: if I’m in good health, we’ll see.
Simone Boillard
She got back in the saddle in June, inspired by the roads of the Nice region, “a magical place” to ride. Under the colors of the amateur club Macadam’s Cowboys & Girls, she repeated a few competitions in August, September and October. This forward enjoyed running more cautiously and “smartly” in the peloton.
This experience has served her well at the start of the season with St Michel-Auber93, a historic club in France which offers its first women’s team licensed to the International Cycling Union.
Before her victory, the only foreign member of the team competed in five events in Turkey, the Netherlands and Belgium, where she rubbed shoulders with WorldTour level riders for the first time. She finished fifth and best young rider in the Grand Prix Vélo Alanya, in Turkey, on February 19.
Before the Boucles de Seine-et-Marne, his trainer and “guide” Pierre Hutsebaut told him that it was perhaps time to go back on the offensive. What she did after a successful edging by her team.
“This victory will do him a lot of good,” noted Hutsebaut, who wants to improve his top speed, his main weak point, in the coming weeks.
At the time of the interview, Simone Boilard had just returned from two days of reconnaissance on the cobblestone areas of Paris-Roubaix. In all likelihood, the Quebecer will participate in the second edition of the women’s race, on April 16.
“It’s sick! It’s a girl’s dream to be able to do that. It is one of the most legendary classics in cycling. When we drove on the cobblestones the last few days, I pinched myself a little. »
St Michel-Auber93 is also aiming for an invitation to the Tour de France (July 24 to 31), the last teams of which are due to be revealed in mid-April.
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Sophia Jhon is a sports journalist and author. He has worked as a news editor for Sportish and is now a sport columnist for the same publication. Alberta’s professional interests lie largely in sports news, with an emphasis on English football. He has also written articles on other sporting topics.