Stéphan Buckland: the new race… still

From the adrenaline of the slopes to business creation, the icon of Mauritian athletics confides. A sensitive portrait of his reconstruction, the influence of his mother and his new life at a hundred miles an hour.

There is a dense, almost palpable energy in Stéphan Buckland. An intensity inherited from the slopes, intact, but displaced. As if he had never really stopped running, only changed terrain.

Today, he says it simply: “I live life at a hundred miles an hour. » No longer to break records, but to build, to create. Another form of momentum. Another way of experiencing movement.

He was, however, one of those who are acclaimed. Of those that a country looks at and carries. At the 2003 Indian Ocean Islands Games, he became more than a sprinter: a point of convergence. A collective screening. “All the Mauritian people were behind me,” he says. In his voice, there remains not only victory, but an almost physical sensation, that of a suspended moment where each stride seemed to carry an entire island.

But to understand this trajectory, we have to go back. In childhood. To a house. To a family of three children. And above all to one presence: his mother. Omnipresent, protective, demanding. “Our pillar,” he still says today. A woman who took care of everything, who tirelessly encouraged, who repeated to move forward, to believe in yourself, to never give up.

For him, these words did not remain abstract injunctions. They are inscribed in the body, in the effort, in the repetition. Very early on, sport became essential. Athletics becomes a language. A space to channel, structure, understand. He runs with determination, sometimes with rage, but always with this discipline inherited from childhood. The gesture becomes clearer. The mind is formed. He progresses, establishes himself, wears the colors of Mauritius on international stages (Olympic Games, World Championships, Commonwealth Games). And yet, despite the intensity of these moments, it is towards his country that the strongest emotion returns.

Then, without warning, the trajectory changes. Not an injury. Not a defeat. An absence: the death of his mother. The shock is profound, irreversible. Everything is reconfigured: the sport, the meaning, the engine. “After he died, I didn’t want to run anymore,” he confides. As if the flame had gone out with it. She wasn't just supportive. She was the very meaning of the effort, the invisible destination of each victory.

It is an interior collapse, followed by a slow movement. But staying still is impossible for him. “I’m not someone who stays still. » So he moves forward. Otherwise. He explores, tries, seeks himself. Pre-production, restoration, different projects. Multiple experiences, sometimes unstable, often demanding. He takes risks, falls, gets up again. Nothing is linear. Everything is movement.

In this moment of recomposition, a woman. His wife, Joëlle. D