TESTIMONY. “I lost myself”: Sarah Steyaert recounts the months of suffering before her medal at the Paris Olympics

Nearly a year after winning the bronze medal in the 49er FX with Charline Picon, the Châtelaillon native reflects on the impact her collaboration with their former coach had. So that her experience can be of use to others.

" I don't want to settle scores. I just want to say that it exists. And that in these cases, we need to speak out. Speak up." Nearly a year after winning the bronze Olympic medal in Marseille with Charline Picon, Sarah Steyaert from Châtelaillon, in a calm but vibrant voice, sheds new light on the months leading up to this achievement, during a seemingly painful interview. A period of personal suffering that she overcame and rarely discussed.

On August 2, 2024, the Charentaises-Maritimes women, both mothers, climbed onto the third step of the podium in the 49er FX, less than four years after discovering this dinghy. Picon, then 39, had already won gold in Rio in 2016 and then silver in Tokyo in 2021 in windsurfing; Steyaert, 37, came from the Laser and had participated in three Olympic Games (Beijing in 2008, London in 2012, and Rio in 2016). Nothing predestined them to a medal in France on a new sport for them? The feat is all the more remarkable. And embellishes a great story that the marriage proposals of their respective spouses upon their return to land magnified.

Sarah Steyaert's smile is then radiant. Far, so far, from March 2023, sixteen months earlier. "I experienced a stressful traumatic shock at the start of the selections in Palma," she says. An episode that followed the crew's non-selection for the July 2023 test event in Marseille and, above all, "visceral, incomprehensible, and powerful tears. Three in the year before the shock." And which find their origin in the complexity of the relationship formed with Polish coach Marcin Czajkowski, dedicated in July 2022 to the "Mama Team" by the French Sailing Federation.

“It was really liberating for me, extremely necessary in my healing journey.”

"He intended to teach me another way of sailing, what I wanted. I thought that if I could add it to my way of thinking, it would really work," confides Sarah Steyaert. "Except that his way of doing things, by systematically pointing out the negative, led to a divergence of thought." The helmswoman from Châtelaillon gently reveals her doubts, the increasingly strong misunderstandings with the technician, her depression, her therapy and the discovery of her hypersensitivity – "not at all a liberation for [her] unlike 90% of the population" –, the impact on her family life.

Finally, there was the traumatic shock of March 2023, followed by a clash three months later during a training camp in Belgium. The point of no return: "I had already ended up having a discussion with the Federation to say that things had gone too far. Now, they set up a week of mediation in July to discuss how things would work. When I brought things up at the World Championship in August, they completely removed the Pole from my field of vision. It was truly liberating for me, extremely necessary in my healing journey. I knew I had made the right decision."

Throughout this ordeal of recalling her memories, Sarah Steyaert makes it clear that she's not about blaming Marcin Czajkowski. Which is why she doesn't go into detail. The challenge for this school teacher, who specializes in mental preparation, is to highlight how freeing up one's voice can be instrumental in the quest for performance. Through her testimony, we understand how taking the risk of disrupting a way of operating in the middle of an Olympics can be beneficial. Especially when, as in the case of the French tandem, the results aren't there.

“It touched the very essence of who I was, it was extremely violent.”

"I lost myself. I'm an artist on the water, he had a theoretical training, in books, very factual." The differences were all the stronger because Sarah Steyaert constantly felt singled out when responsibilities should have been shared. "It touched the very essence of who I was, it was extremely violent. I completely lost the sense of why I was there, of this project, which was to have fun in order to win an Olympic medal. We were light years away from that."

So what should you do? "The first step is to find yourself, work on yourself, not necessarily cut everything off. You have to find a resource person to talk to about your suffering, to understand and find meaning, a personal alignment. It took me time," she emphasizes. "The second is to start talking to the authorities, either your federation or the national technical director, to put words into words (not necessarily strong ones), share your suffering and see the possibilities for change, or not."

An option made even more complicated when the Olympic event is the alpha and omega of her discipline, and when resources are limited. "Now, when it's no longer possible... I've talked about it with other people who have experienced the same things, who went all the way but who, once at the Games, knew it wouldn't work," she insists. "I was lucky to have been in a strong resilience with only one desire: the medal. If I hadn't found who I was, we wouldn't have done anything at the Olympics, that was certain. When I was younger, I don't know if I would have had the strength to say stop."

"I still have after-effects, because you don't come out of a trauma like that unscathed."

However, in Marseille, in 2024, "I was no longer polluted by this situation at all. The bronze medal was 'accepted' (smile), because the journey had been extremely complicated. Obviously I was disappointed that it wasn't gold, but I couldn't be, given my journey," insists Sarah Steyaert. In life, we face difficulties. If they are there, it's because they will serve us. I learned a lot, I managed to add [Marcin Czajkowski's] tactical thinking model to my own, which was beneficial for the Games. I came out of it stronger. I still have after-effects, because you don't come out of a trauma like that unscathed, but I learned a lot. I calmed down a lot." To the point of wanting to testify, so that her experience can be useful to others.