Who are the rowers Hugo Boucheron and Matthieu Androdias? | EUROtoday
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LOne is instinctive, even unpredictable, the opposite is sort of rigorous, not very human-oriented. Well, that was earlier than. “By going towards each other, we ended up erasing our respective excesses,” explains Matthieu Androdias, a 34-year-old from La Rochelle. “Yes, we have very different personalities, but that's what makes us strong,” provides his companion, Hugo Boucheron, 31, from Lyon. Two European titles, two world titles, one Olympic title… Given their report in double sculls (a ship with two rowers every holding two oars), one could be tempted to consider them.
When they joined forces in 2015, on the request of the French Rowing Federation, Matthieu, a civil engineer, was scared. “I don't know if my meeting with Hugo is a good memory! At the time, I swore by individual projects, and I also had a lot of preconceived ideas about him,” says the athlete. When they needed to crew us up, I advised myself that it wasn't going to work. I lastly determined to push my curiosity and take a couple of strokes of the oars with him. And it was an apparent indisputable fact that I nonetheless can't clarify. It simply related.”
At Tokyo 2021, a “destabilizing” victory
Today, the two rowers share an indestructible and “brotherly” bond, explains Hugo, a former rowing coach who joined the Champions army in 2018. Perhaps because failure has been part of their process of evolution and success. Back injury, toxoplasmosis during the qualifications for the Tokyo Olympic Games, Covid-19… The duo has always known how to bounce back. “That's our power,” says Hugo. “After every difficult interval, there was a flip,” adds Matthieu. Their victory in Tokyo in 2021 is certainly their best proof of this.
READ ALSO Confidences from Jean Patry, reigning Olympic volleyball championMoreover, both men have a special memory of it. “When you cross the end line, you don't know but in case you're going to complete first or second. In any case, what feels greatest is that it stops. The effort was notorious and we're burning inside,” recalls Matthieu. Becoming Olympic champion was a moment we had always fantasized about. We thought we would put on a show, etc., but in the end, we had a “modest” victory. When the medals were awarded, we simply exchanged a few glances, because in the end, at that moment, there wasn't much to say. We know what we've been through and we know what had to be done.” Hugo, for his half, remembers a sense of incomprehension: “We had just achieved what we had been trying to achieve for twenty years. And it was quite destabilizing to have done it. At the time, there was a huge emotion, because we were thinking about the people we really love and the path we have traveled.”
Last May and June, the duo twice completed fifthe on the World Cup II in Lucerne (Switzerland) and on the World Cup III in Poznan (Poland). It stays to be seen whether or not these failures will serve them – as soon as once more – as a springboard for his or her subsequent occasion, the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. That is all we want for these two golden rowers.
Discover the portrait of Hugo Boucheron and Matthieu Androdias within the video above.
https://www.lepoint.fr/sport/jo-de-paris-2024-qui-sont-les-rameurs-hugo-boucheron-et-matthieu-androdias-15-07-2024-2565555_26.php