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THOMAS CAMPOS
Updated
The sports world is mourning the death of Frenchman Roger Lebranchu, one of two Olympians who had been in Nazi concentration camps who were still alive. Lebranchu, who has died at the age of 102, also became the oldest person to carry the Olympic torch in the relay at last year’s Paris Games.
Lebranchu was member of the French coxed eight team that participated in the 1948 London Olympics. It was precisely the French Rowing Federation that announced the sad news.
The former rower was arrested in 1943 while trying to escape to North Africa to join General Charles de Gaulle’s Free French Army. Then He would spend two years in the Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald.
We spent three days without eating or drinking. Without eating it was fine, but without drinking…we had to lick the condensation off the locks of the carriage doors to cool off.
Roger Lebranchu explains his grueling train journey to a concentration camp
“I didn’t want to go to Germany, I wanted to fight them,” he told the newspaper Ouest France in an interview in 2023, in which he recounted the exhausting train journey that took him to Buchenwald: “We spent three days without eating or drinking. Without eating it was fine, but without drinking…we had to lick the condensation off the locks of the carriage doors to cool off.“.
Lebranchu was finally rescued by American troops in April 1945.. When he began to regain his strength after his traumatic experience, he joined the nautical society of the Basse Seine in Courbevoie, on the outskirts of Paris. Just three years later he would be an Olympian.
The French rower continued practicing his sport until he was 79 years old, winning eight world titles in the veteran category. Lebranchu’s death leaves the Israeli marcher Shaul Ladany, 88as the only known surviving Olympian to have survived a World War II concentration camp.
Ladany, a survivor of Bergen-Belsen, also He survived the terrorist attack on the Israeli team at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
200 meters of pure emotion
Lebranchu had made headlines last year for his participation in the Olympic torch relay, an “honor” he took very seriously. In fact, He dedicated himself to training daily for several weeks.
Although he was already walking with considerable difficulty, he grabbed his grandson Antoine so as not to fall, and In his other arm he held a one and a half liter bottle of water to simulate the weight of the torch. that I was going to carry.
Finally, on May 31, 2024, he carried the Olympic torch for about 200 meters. “I trained like for a competition. I didn’t win at the Olympic Games, but tonight I have the gold medal. And When we compete, we go beyond ourselves, we transcend“he explained excitedly.
