Athletissima: Leroy Burrell’s anecdote at Interdiscount

Make an appointment in a bar, order a beer, evoke Athletissima, and Thierry Reinhard quickly becomes inexhaustible. Everything is not necessarily published, necessarily, but the former transport and hotel manager, as well as a member of the Management Committee of the Lausanne meeting, has it under the hood. He spent 25 years in the organization and it is a delight. Here is one of the three anecdotes that we have selected for you.

“I had just started as a volunteer, in the mid -1990s. A Leroy Burrell is therefore advancing rather at the end of his career, as well as some of his young teammates. We went down from the stadium towards the hotel and one of his colleagues wanted to end up on the way, in an electronic store. We were in an athletissima “brandished” car, so no problem, I stopped in front of Interdiscount, on the sidewalk.

The kid has entered and embarked on a lot of things … I was getting mad and told Burrell that in New York, just on the WE in avenue, there were dozens of this kind stores, but ten times cheaper! He looked at it with a certain tenderness and explained to me that he understood the thing … He told me that he too had known this period: when we are young like that, that we start at the highest level and that we touch the first prize-money in his career, we have the money that burns our fingers. The young person was happy, it was his money!

This driver position is great. We are not allowed to ask athletes for autographs and no one was doing it. But you get so much more… you create a real link with the athlete! Often you are their first contact with Switzerland, on site in Geneva. They remember it and always come to greet you afterwards. The stadium is good, the hotel too, the package is beautiful and for a long time. But the welcome is magnificent and the elders speak to the youngest. It is also a hell of a responsibility! ”