Toulouse. Maïlys Piazzalunga, the Olympic way
At 20, the Toulouse climber aims to compete in the next Olympics, in 2024, in Paris. Portrait of this future champion.
At 20, Maïlys Piazzalunga does not have the same dreams as young people her age. Nor the same daily. Because when you have Olympic dreams, you have to give yourself the means to achieve them. After discovering climbing by chance during a birthday party when she was ten years old, the Toulouse native very quickly took this passion seriously.
So she left her south-west for another south, more to the east this time. It was in Aix-en-Provence that she learned her skills at the Espoir pole, before returning home in 2018. Now with seniors, the young climber shares her days between the climbing walls of Creps, where she benefits from the means made available to high-level athletes like her, and the benches of the university, where she is studying for a degree in biology. But two years from the next Olympics, she confides it bluntly, climbing is her priority and her schedule is arranged in this direction. She trains 25 to 30 hours a week, before competing on weekends in France and Europe.
His main sponsor? His parents
Sacrifices that pay off since last year she took first place in a European Cup stage in Austria. Sacrifices that have a cost, too, in a sport that is not the most publicized. His main sponsors? His parents. So Maïlys had to learn to talk about herself, to develop her social networks to put herself forward and attract partners.
Martin Fourcade, the model
When she talks about her inspirations, she quotes Julia Chanourdie, in particular, the first French representative at the Olympic Games in the discipline, whose style and smile she praises. Above all, it is when she evokes Martin Fourcade that her eyes light up. She talks about the man, the athlete, the model whose books she has read. At twenty, this bouldering specialist has enough time to achieve his Olympic dream. She thinks of 2024, of course, in Paris, but also in Los Angeles in 2028. The future after that? Maïlys doesn’t want to think about it too much. For now, she enjoys this life, this passion that allows her to travel around the world. For the rest she will see later, why not medicine. One thing is certain, climbing is still a part of his life.