Marie-Jose Perec specialized in 200m and 400m and she is a three-time Olympic gold medalist. Nicknamed “The Gazelle” on account of her graceful running style, strides and speed around the track, she is one of the greatest female sprinters of modern times produced by France.
She won a clear victory at 400m in the 1991 World Championships and arrived at the Barcelona 1992 Olympics as the favourite in the 400m and she lived up to expectations. Defending champion Olha Bryzhina led the field, but Perec used her long strides to pull away and win.
Perec continued to dominate the 400m throughout the Olympic cycle and at Atlanta 1996, she won another clear victory and became the first runner of either sex to win the 400m twice. Three nights later, she made history again in the 200m, defeating Merlene Ottey of Jamaica to become the second runner to win the 200-400 double.
Birth and Growth
Marie-Jose Perec was born in the West Indian Island of Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe on May 19, 1968. She was introduced to sprinting by her school gym teacher who, the first time she saw her run, was apparently so surprised by her speed over 100m she asked her to do it again because she was convinced her stop-watch had malfunctioned.
Her long legs by the age of 13 and her height of 1.78 meters made Perec ideally suited to 200- and 400-meter running.At 16, in the year 1984, she moved to Paris after a French coach recruited her and this is when her real career began.
Notwithstanding the mocking she received at school being called “La canne a sucre” (sugarcane) because of her long, lanky body, she found support from her uncle George, a former basketball player who persuaded her into trying out the sport.
Marie Jose was skeptical about running and worried about injuries. With her coach standing outside her house and her grandmother coaxing her out of a closet, Perec did make it to her first race and ran the 200m under 26 sec.
Her competitive career got off to an uncertain start when she was disqualified from her first major tournament, the French Inter-School Championships for stepping out of lane. Thereafter, however, her trajectory was inexorably upwards.
By 1987, Perec had lowered her 200m running time from 24.52 sec to 22.72 a world-class time and one that qualified her for the Seoul 1988 Olympics. In her Olympic debut, she advanced to the quarterfinals of the 200m. She also ran her first 400m in 51.35 sec, a French national record for that year.
In 1989, she demonstrated her potential when she won the World Cup 400m but was disqualified for running outside her line.She received a bronze medal for 400m at the 1989 Outdoor European Championships and a gold medal for 200m at the 1990 Indoor European Championships.
1991 was a great year for Perec. Her first was a gold medal at the 1991 World Championships in Tokyo.She ran 11 sec in the 100m and won the 400m event with 50 sec. She proudly defeated Grit Breuer from Germany to win the World Title. These achievements then confirmed her spot in the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.
Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games
She was the 400m champion at the Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games in Spain. In Barcelona, she swept all before her, beating defending champion Olha Bryzhina by two meters to win the gold in 48.83 sec, still improving on her times.
There were a total number of 41 participating athletes, with six qualifying heats at the women’s 400m event at the 1992 Summer Olympics.
The first semi-final was won by Marie-Jose Perec clocking 49.48 and she was followed by Ximena Restrepo of Colombia at 49.76 and Olga Bryzgina of Unified Team at 49.76 whilst the second semi-final was won by Jillian Richardson of Canada at 50.02.
The finals were held on July 25. The standing world and Olympic records prior to the 1992 Summer Olympics were 47.60 sec by Marita Koch in Canberra, Australia on October 6, 1985 and 48.65 by Olgas Bryzgina in Seoul, Korea on September 26, 1988.
The medalists of the 400m: Gold medal - Marie-Jose Perec of France with a time of 48.83; Silver medal - Olga Bryzgina of Unified Team; Bronze medal - Ximena Restrepo of Colombia.
Perec became the first Frenchwoman in 24 years to win a gold medal in track and field. That summer, because of her graceful running stride, she earned the title “la Gazelle” from an adoring French and Caribbean public. This is because she runs very gracefully and had a stride of 2.5 metres.
In 1993, she considered she may switch back to the 200m event even though her coach advised not to.Meanwhile, escaping the pressures of her celebrity in France, she began to train with new American coach John Smith in California. With Smith’s training system she picked up two gold medals in 400m as well as in 4x400m relay at the 1994 European Championships in Helsinki.
In 1995, Perec regained her World Title in 400m and broke the French national record of the 400m hurdles at the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games
In the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games she was crowned one of the all-time great women’s champions after her performance in both the 200-and 400-meter races, where she won two gold medals. She raced against six runners who completed the 400m in 50 seconds less, itself a record, and set her own Olympic record that day of 48.25 sec. She had become the first athlete to win consecutive Olympic 400m gold medals, and the third-fastest woman in the history of the sport.
In the women’s 200 metres event at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, there were a total number of 47 participating athletes, with two rounds (six heats in round 1, four heats in round 2), two semifinals and a final. The standing world and Olympic records prior to the 1996 Summer Olympics belonged to Florence Griffith Joyner of the US at 21.34 achieved on July 16, 1988 and at 21.34 established at Seoul Olympics on September 29, 1988.
Top four from each heat advanced to the finals. The first semi-final was won by Marie-Jose Perec clocking 22.07 whilst Mary Onyali of Nigeria came second with a time of 22.16 and the second semi-final was won by Merlene Ottey of Jamaica clocking 22.08.
There were eight on the track of Centennial Olympic Stadium, on Thursday, August 1, 1996 for the 200m final. Eight women, who turn like lionesses in a cage, waiting for the call of the starter. Among them, there were two favorites. In lane number 5, Merlene Ottey who was accustomed to finals and podiums. So, imagine, at 36, she has nine Olympic charms to her record over 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay, but has never won the Grail, the gold medal.
In 1996, Guadeloupe native Marie-Jose Perec slipped past her Jamaican competitor in the Olympic 200 meters race to win the gold medal in 22.12 sec. The medalists of the 200m: Gold medal - Marie-Jose Perec of France with a time of 22.12; Silver medal – Merlene Ottey of Jamaica at 22.14; Bronze medal – Mary Onyali of Nigeria at 22.38.
Three days earlier, she had become the first athlete, male or female, to win consecutive Olympic 400-meter gold medals, making her time the third fastest ever for a woman in Olympic history. She successfully defended her title, holding off Australia’s Cathy Freeman in a thrilling final to win in 48.25 sec, an Olympic record and the third fastest women’s 400-meters time ever posted.
In the process she became the first athlete, male or female, to retain an Olympic 400-meter title. She thus achieved the second-ever Olympic 200 metres/400 metres gold medal double. The first was achieved by Valerie Brisco-Hooks in Los Angeles in 1984. No other runner in a non-boycotted Olympics had ever before won both 200- and 400-meter titles in the same Games, although America’s Michael Johnson emulated her feat 20 minutes later.
The medalists of the 400m: Gold medal - Marie-Jose Perec of France with a time of 48.25; Silver medal – Cathy Freeman of Australia at 48.63; Bronze medal – Falilat Oqunkova of Nigeria at 49.10.
It took 23 years until 2019 before Salwa Eid Naser, surpassed her mark to push Perec to number 4 of all time in 400m. Perec ran her best in 1996 and the two 1996 Olympic titles were Perec’s last international titles.
Controversies and Illnesses
Despite her enormous success on the track, Perec’s career has been dogged by controversy and illness.She has had a number of highly publicized run-ins with the French athletics authorities, and is renowned for her obsession with privacy. She has been dubbed “the Greta Garbo of athletics.”
Perec had to give up the 1997 World Championships.She was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Epstein-Barr disease in 1998.
In 2000, she caused a scandal by storming out of the Sydney Olympics where her showdown with arch rival Cathy Freeman had been one of the most highly-anticipated races of the Games. Freeman went on to win the title.
On September 22, 2000, she pulled out of the 200m and 400m events of the 2000 Olympics, several days before they were due to begin. Perec claimed that she had been threatened and insulted several times since arriving in Australia and that the Australian press, who were supporting Australian athlete Freeman, had been trying to sabotage her chances of winning the gold in the 400m.
After Perec was unable to compete in the 2000 Olympic Games she was harassed at her hotel outside Olympic Park. So, she then decided to leave the country with Anthuan Maybank her boyfriend (US Olympian). Perec was always concerned about her privacy and was known as “the Greta Garbo of athletics.” On the couple’s stopover to Singapore, they were both still getting followed by journalists.
So, Anthuan Maybank attacked one of these reporters which resulted in a scandal. Since Sydney Perec has not raced competitively. After a planned comeback at the 2003 world championships in Paris was aborted because of injury, she had been tipped to stage a comeback at Athens, only to kill those rumors in an interview with French television in June.
She said media and public harassment, including a face-to-face threat from someone who knocked on her hotel room door, had made it impossible for her to train and run in a fit state of mind in Sydney. On the day she arrived, media chased her through Sydney airport like a fugitive property developer.
“The 400m in Sydney was not a race against Cathy Freeman, it was a race against an entire nation which had its problems,” Perec said later. “I was only prepared for a 400m.” You don’t have to imagine how her desertion went down. It is all there in the thick piles of clippings. It was the worst of Australia in the middle of the best of Australia.
By abandoning ship, Perec made sure of it, and so met the other requirement of her, to get out of the way. It meant she could be safely jeered and mocked all the way back to wherever she came from while Freeman ran in unassailable glory. It is as well that social media was not a thing then.
Notably, one significant figure refused to join the pile-on. “I hope that you guys are treating her nicely and giving her all the respect, she deserves,” said Freeman as the campaign to smoke out Perec proceeded. “I’d like her to be happy and comfortable in my country, I’d like her to be happy and healthy wherever she is.”
She officially retired in 2004, “I have finally decided to hang up my spikes.” Perec said, “I am going to finally discover a real life, an everyday sort of life. I feel euphoric and very excited.”
Perec enrolled in the top French business school ESSEC and graduated in 2007 with a Master’s in Sports Management. She is a member of the ‘Champions for Peace’ club, a group of more than 70 famous elite athletes committed to promoting peace in the world through sports, created by Peace and Sport, a Monaco-based international organization.
Perec gave birth to her first child, a son named Nolan, on March 30, 2010. Perec’s partner Sebastien Foucras is the father of the child.
On October 21, 2012, Perec was elected president of the Ligue Regionale d’Athletisme de la Guadeloupe, the governing body for athletics in Guadeloupe. She participated in the French reality music competition Mask Singer as the Panthere, performing Stromae’s “Papaoutai” and Angele’s “Balance ton quoi” before being eliminated in the first episode.
Awards and Achievements
Her Olympic and World Championship gold medals have brought her fame beyond the running track. She has made the cover of such major fashion magazines as Elle and earned over $1 million a year from her endorsements with sports shoes, soda, and tire companies.
Perec was chosen as the French Champion of Champions in 1992 and 1996 by the French sports daily L’Equipe. On October 9, 2013, Perec was awarded the Officier de la Legion d’honneur by French President François Hollande in the Elysee Palace. Just before presenting the insignia to Perec during the award ceremony, Hollande described her as “one of the most brilliant athletes in the history of French athletics.” Pérec had received the Chevalier de la Legion d’honneur in 1996.
She was awarded Women’s Track & Field ESPY Award in 1997.On November 16, 2013, Perec was inducted into the IAAF Hall of Fame.
Perec may have been a difficult person, to use the usual euphemistic formulation, but that hardly made her unique in the highly-strung world of international sport. She was remote by choice. She said self-containment has been a key to her gold medals in Barcelona and Atlanta, where she was left alone.
Her Personal Best achievements: 100m in 10.96 sec on July 27, 1991 at Dijon, France; 200m in 21.99 sec (French Record) on July 2, 1993 at Villeneuve-d’Ascq, France; 400m in 48.25 (Olympic Record and French Record) on July 29, 1996 at Atlanta, Georgia; 400m hurdles in 53.21 sec (French Record) on August 16, 1995 at Zurich, Switzerland.
Above and beyond, she was a magnificent athlete. Cathy Freeman looked up to her. She says so, “I ran towards her.” In Atlanta, they were first and second in times neither would ever run again. In the athletic sense, it was a far greater 400m than Sydney.
(The author is an Associate Professor, International Scholar, winner of Presidential Awards and multiple National Accolades for Academic pursuits. He possesses a PhD, MPhil and double MSc. His email is [email protected])