A personal and inspirational story

I want to share with you an event that is part of history now : for sure, this event influenced my own life 30 years later.

It happened in France, it was in 1944 and the Germans occupied the country.
This event took place at Orleans; a river, la Loire, crosses the city.
A railway bridge crossed the river and was the unique way trains could bring what the German troops needed : it was a strategic point.
In 1944 the US Air Force bombed the bridge and a few weeks later the American troops with General Patton freed the city from the enemy.

The bridge was in pieces and big blocks laid in the river.

The next winter, when the river flooded a lot of water, the big blocks of the former bridge made a big whitewater rapid.

It was the opportunity for my uncle and other teenagers to start canoeing.
After a few years, my uncle became an expert of the paddle, controlling his canoe everywhere in the waves and currents of the rapid.
He became World Champion, traveled in the United States and won 3 times the famous Arkansas River race (26 miles) in kayak. It was in the Fifties.

Roger Paris and Claude neveu training for the World Championship in 1955

I discovered this story many years later, as a teenager, looking at old pictures and newspaper articles in my grandfather home office.

Since a kid, outdoors activities and sports have been part of a lifestyle. I started kayaking at 8.

Having a World Champion in my family became a source of inspiration.

I started to train seriously at 14. My goal was to be a champion in my sport.
Years and years of training are necessary. Hard training sessions day after day, week after week, in all kind of weather (I remember many times kayaking in winter when snowing, the water icing on the kayak and on the paddle).

During hard training sessions I remember visualizing myself in competition, performing at the best level, feeling very strong and, at the end, stepping up on the podium.
I visualized myself with such emotion it gave me more motivation to keep going and more focus towards my goals. In my mind these goals were already a reality. These visualizations gave me the determination to train very hard and reach the elite level.

Without a doubt my uncle played a strong role model : his success gave me a powerful energy to set up goals and reach them, for my own success.

Focusing with a high level of emotion along with visualization push into action, day after day, months after months.
Focus yourself on what you want, visualize yourself with already having what you want, feel it, focus on these emotions. This is powerful, I know it.

Me, in downriver at the European Championship in 1982