Words by Andy McGrath. Photography by James Rhodes and Lea Kurth.
“If I could be any animal, I’d be a cat,” Agathe Guillemot says. “It can be very calm at rest and spend its time sleeping, but when it needs to run, it goes very fast. Plus, it’s independent too, it doesn’t need anyone,” she says, laughing.
Does she ever feel the friction between feline calm and fierceness? “Yes, but at the same time, even if a cat can attack, it’s always sweet and gentle.”
You can see it in her race strategy: Guillemot waits patiently in the pack during the 1,500 meters, scampering past opponents with her fiercely fast finish. Her distinctive athletic celebration even has a feline inspiration: two little fingers held aloft in the air, like a cat’s ears. It’s a pose that’s been showcased several times in 2024, as the 25-year-old French athlete has stepped up a level and shown her pedigree. She won the French title, took European Championship bronze and broke four national records in six months on the way to a dreamed-of Olympic debut.
On home soil in Paris, fans roared her name as she smashed the French record [3:56:69] to make it through to the 1500m final [she came 9th in a stacked field at the finals].
Not bad for an athlete who specialized in heptathlon three years ago before falling in love with middle-distance running.
When she steps on the track, Agathe becomes a different person. “An improved version of my daily self,” she says. “I’m in the moment when I run, putting all my energy into that. Nothing else matters, except going all the way to the line, running fast and being ahead of the others.”
“Nothing else matters, except going all the way to the line…”
Guillemot hails from the town of Pont-l’Abbé in France’s wind-swept, north-west region of Brittany, a rugged area with locals proud of their rich heritage and singular culture.
“At school, we still learn Breton,” she says. “I like being attached to this territory, it’s a part of my story. And my character too: I’m a pure Breton,” she says. That is to say, she possesses a certain relentlessness and goes to her very limits. “Bretons are tenacious and follow things through,” she says.
Competitiveness was instilled in her at an early age. Everything was a race between her and brother Thomas, who is a year older. Who could be first to run to the car? Who could be first onto the beach? She remembers watching the 2008 Olympic athletics, waking up in the early hours to see the 100 meter track stars sprint for gold. Seeing often led to doing: sitting in front of the Roland Garros tennis on TV soon translated to playing a mini-match in the garden.
With her mother a classical dancer and father in the Special Forces of the French Army, the Guillemot family is one of movers and doers. “My parents asked me to pick two sports. It was two minimum, sometimes going up to four or five. A different one every year,” Agathe says.
Winning the kilometer-long children’s Torche race in her home town at the age of eight was a turning point in focusing on just one. “What club do I need to be in to do that every day?” she asked her mom afterwards. “I joined [local] Club Athlétique Bigouden. And since then, I haven’t stopped running,” she says.
As the prodigy racked up wins, she also developed into a fledgling heptathlete and pentathlete. “I loved doing everything and I didn’t want to focus on just one race,” Agathe says. “I was afraid of getting bored. With so many disciplines, I was sure that wouldn’t happen.”
“I loved doing everything and I didn’t want to focus on just one race.”
“I learned things I don’t think I would have picked up if I’d specialized too early in middle-distance, like managing my emotions. If you have a bad performance in heptathlon, you need to go to the next race without dwelling on what happened. That’s helped me a lot, for sure.”
With her progress in the throwing events slowing, she injured her foot during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and could barely run. It led to some deep reflection and when she recovered, she asked her coach if she could try the 1,500 meters.
“I loved doing it. I’d always been a bit afraid of the training, of getting bored, always doing the same thing: running, running, running. But there’s so many ways of running and so many different training sessions that it hasn’t been an issue at all and I’m always enjoying training. I said to myself ‘I could progress well and maybe reach the highest level in middle distance.’”
Agathe only committed purely to the 1,500 meters three years ago. All the while, she has been juggling sport and study, set to earn her diploma in 2025 in civil and urban engineering from INSA Rennes. The school allows her to study at distance and take exams later if needed. “It doesn’t all rest on athletics. I know that I have a brain and I can use it for other things,” she says.
However, a full focus on athletics in a special sporting year has paid off richly. In the space of six months, Agathe beat four French national records: the mile, the indoor and outdoor 1,500 meters and the rarely-attempted 2,000 meters. “The most special was the 1,500 outdoors record at the Paris Diamond League. Because I didn’t just beat it a bit, I smashed it,” she says. “Everyone was on fire, beating their PBs. During the race, I knew I was going to do it because I was following the Wavelights [pacing system] and 300 meters from the end, I passed it … It validates all the work I’ve done and gives me plenty of confidence.” She shattered her PB by four seconds, going under the four-minute mark for the first time in 3:58:05.
Her bronze medal at the European championships in June was “a bit more unexpected” in a final where most rivals had faster PBs. The Breton has quickly discovered she has both the race craft to win medals in slower, tactical finals and the pure, natural ability to clock fast times.
“At the Paris Diamond League, I didn’t just beat it a bit, I smashed it.”
Such performances are the fruits of three years of hard work, helped by her long-time trainer Marc Reuzé. “This year, I’ve had the good fortune to be injury-free and I think that’s really been the difference,” Agathe says. “Since September, I’ve trained as I wanted and have followed the program to the letter.”
A normal training day sees two workouts. That can mean running and speed-work in the morning; evening can be track work, threshold sessions, recovery on a stationary bike or strength exercises in the gym.
Reuzé makes sure his athletes put an onus on sprinting, given the fine margins at the finish in a four-minute race. “I do sessions with sprinters: the French 100m champion [Gémima Joseph] is in my group,” Agathe says. “You can see that at the end of the race, I’m really good and I can make up two or three places. I think that’s down to the work that we’ve done on strides and to be there, muscularly, until the very end.”
Ultimately, a triumphant middle-distance race usually comes down to the legs and head being in harmony. “I work a lot on the changing of rhythm, of pace,” she says. “Nothing is set, keep believing until the finish. In the final straight, I think we’re all as tired as each other, the winner believes a little bit more but also you have to be capable of narrowing gaps and kicking hard.”
Her gains will become more incremental than four-second PBs, but Agathe is ready to see where her journey as a runner takes her, secure that her chosen distance suits her and makes her utterly comfortable in her identity.
“When I run, it’s the moment I feel most myself,” she says. “I think I’m made for it. It allows me to travel and meet many people. I go out, run in the parks, see nature. It’s really a way to live in the outside world and it reconnects me with so many things.”
