MarieJosé Pérec to compete in
Salamanca
9 July 1998 – Paris - French double Olympic champion Marie-José Pérec, who won the
200m and the 400m at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, will return to the track in Salamanca,
Spain on 16 July.
Pérec is to compete in the 400m in Salamanca, announced Raymond Lorre, director of the
IAAF Golden League meeting in Paris after a press conference today with the French sprint
star.
Pérec said she would compete in the minor race before probably accepting the invitation
of Raymond Lorre to run in Paris meeting on 21 July. Her main goal is the IAAF World
Championships in Seville and the Frenchwoman said she will run five or six races before
that in a bid to be ready. "If I feel good, I'll go. I like making trouble."
"I've crossed the desert," she said of the viral mononucleosis that hit her in
1997, some time after pulling out of the Athens World Championships with a leg muscle
injury.
"For three months, I slept only three or four hours a night because of the corticoid
treatment," Pérec, who put on 20 kilograms during her illness, said. "Every
day, I felt like throwing it all away. It was terrible. I couldn't stand myself as I
was."
31 year-old Pérec, who had not competed since an injury sustained in the 200m
quarterfinals of the IAAF World Championships in Athletics on 6 August 1997 in Athens,
resumed training in February and has gradually reduced her times over 300 metres from more
than 50 seconds to 36 seconds.
