Christophe Du Mee - the only Mauritius athlete qualified for Grosseto (© Reynolds Quirin)
18yearold Christophe du Mee whose specialty is the 110m Hurdles will be the only Mauritius athlete to travel to Grosseto for the IAAF World Junior Championships.
Du Mee can be described as a shy, discrete, rather introverted young man. But when we have a closer look at his previous sporting experiences, it is easy to understand why. He used to be a surfer and has probably kept the habits of the surfers: waiting patiently for hours and hours for the good wave to come.
And, once you’ve found it, you have to control the good wave, to tame it, in order to master the perfect pose.
Du Mee has successfully managed to transmit this spirit and culture to the athletics track and those ten 1.06-metre hurdles don’t impress him, rather he dominates them.
Searching for strong sensations, after his surfing career which included a Blue Bay win, Du Mee finally found a sport that suits him: athletics, and more specifically the hurdles.
Du Mee recently clocked 14.60 for a new national junior record. He had secretly prepared for this performance (achieved on 15 May at the Maryse Justin stadium in Réduit), during the Lucozade Sport National Circuit. In fact, he had been preparing since the beginning of the year.
“As I went through the IAAF website, I saw that the World Juniors were taking place this year in Grosseto, Italy. Deep inside me, I thought I was able to meet the standards required. I knew I could reach 14.64 and that became the goal of my season. I told myself I may have a chance to participate in the World Juniors,” he said.
“It is true that I have reached my objective very early in the year. This is why I have to think of higher goals although I need to remain realistic. I would really like to make it to the second round at the World Juniors,” he confided.
After a fourth place at the latest Indian Ocean Island Games, Du Mee is set to take on the World Championships for his age group. With the assistance and support of his Ukrainian coach, Oleksandr Nevskyy, Du Mee is confident greater achievements are still to come.
“He is an exceptional man endowed with a very precise way of training. He gives a lot of importance to little details,” he said about his coach, whose athletics coaching career only started three years ago.
“In 2001 I ended second to last in the inter-collegiate championships and that was the turning point for me. I was shocked by such a bad result.”
Indeed, his pride hurt, Du Mee decided to stop riding the waves and to concentrate exclusively on his athletics career. He is determined he will succeed in athletics. And this is just how his story in athletics has begun.
Reynolds Quirin for the IAAF
