He manages to run the 100 meters in less than 10 seconds, yet the young Frenchman lacks funding to participate in the Paris Olympic Games in 2024. Sprinter Meba-Mickael Zeze launches an online kitty
“I’ve been tired of knocking on doors for three years and nothing has happened. I’m killing myself with high goals and what I’m touching is ridiculous. One year from the Games I can’t move forward”, notes, bitter, Meba-Mickael Zeze, with AFP.
In 2022, the 28-year-old sprinter had the best season of his life, including a crazy day in July at La Chaux-de-Fonds (Switzerland), a miracle sprint track, breaking the ten-second barrier over 100m ( 9.99) and twenty seconds over 200 m (19.97). An extremely rare feat for a Habs, not seen since the good years of Christophe Lemaitre.
Also a pillar of the 4x100m relay, Zeze reached the world final with his teammates in July in Eugene (Oregon) then won European silver in August in Munich (Germany).
An unstable situation
To earn a living, he works part-time as a community manager for the sports marketing company Adjan, and has the telecom company Resadia as a sponsor. Without a main home, he navigates between his training in Antony, in the Paris suburbs, where his club in Mandelieu-la-Napoule, near Cannes, finances his nights, and his new partner’s apartment in the South where he can accommodate shared custody of her five-year-old son.
“It’s not ideal”, breathes Mickael who regrets not receiving any direct aid from the French Athletics Federation (FFA). The institution replies that he receives at least a few thousand euros a year, in addition to bonuses to reward his investment in the relay.
Online kitty
Insufficient for an athlete who needs “25,000 euros per year” until the Paris Games and has just launched an online kitty to save a career “in danger”. The tense situation of Zeze illustrates the “commando” strategy of France and the National Sports Agency (ANS), high-level fundraiser, to shine at the Olympics: bet a lot on a small number of potential medalists (less than ten in Athletics).
With failed individual European Championships (eliminated in the 100 and 200 m semi-finals), Zeze seems very far from the solo podium at the Paris Olympics, and therefore from the lists which allow substantial aid, in the process of being decided. at the end of the year.
“We are ready to help Zeze, for a CIP (Professional Integration Contract) for example”, assures AFP Patrick Ranvier. The athletics DTN, which has taken over a rocking boat for a year, wants to recall the figures: the FFA in 2022 devoted 2.5 million euros in aid to athletes (direct or via employment contracts) and funded for 900,000 euros in internships.
“End of laxity”
To shine in the medium term, Ranvier claims to have initiated a “cultural revolution” to bring together athletes who are now scattered, create “emulation” and put an end to a certain “laxity”.
In hollow, Zeze would be better helped if he joined a federal structure, instead of trusting his young trainer Elliot Draper. The athlete, however, claims to have been refused Insep (National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance) in Paris in 2021. But as nothing is ever simple in the small environment of the tricolor tartan, Zeze wanted to be coached by Guy Ontanon, ex-federal star coach who fell into disgrace, now out of frame. And he did not want to join Dimitri Demonière, official technician of Insep, cold with the torchbearers of the 4×100 m, which he directed until a post-Tokyo Games mutiny in 2021. In the meantime, at eighteen months of the Games, you can always run in France — in less than ten seconds — after the aids.